Taking Radical Responsibility for Your Happiness with Julie Solomon

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ELIZABETH

I'm a Certified Health Coach, longtime blogger, and host of Elizabeth Eats on YouTube. In addition to writing recipes (I love to eat!), I'm a strong believer that life is too short to settle for anything less than living your best life.

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In a world where it’s easy to point fingers and play the blame game, visibility and branding coach, Julie Solomon, challenges us to take radical responsibility for our own happiness.

As the host of The Influencer Podcast, Julie shares her personal experiences and insights, urging listeners to acknowledge the role they play in shaping their reality. In this captivating episode, she guides us through the process of embracing change, navigating breakups, and ultimately, getting the life we truly desire.

Episode Highlights:

  1. Embracing Personal Transformation: Julie shares her own transformative journey, ignited by a $30,000 credit card debt. Rather than succumbing to despair, she used this wake-up call as an opportunity for self-reflection and growth. Discover how she found the courage to do the inner work she had long resisted, paving the way for a life-changing shift.
  2. Finding Blessings in Breakups: Sometimes, the end of a relationship can be a blessing in disguise. Julie opens up about her own divorce, highlighting how it became the catalyst for her personal and emotional liberation. Learn how she embraced the power of self-love and overcame the cycle of shame, empowering listeners to do the same.
  3. Keys to Success: Openness and Curiosity: Julie’s journey is a testament to the power of staying open and staying curious. She shares her remarkable experience of getting her entire house remodeled for free, emphasizing the importance of embracing new opportunities and maintaining a mindset of growth and exploration.
  4. Healing Wounds with Self-Responsibility: Time may not heal all wounds, but personal responsibility can. Julie guides us through the process of taking control of our own healing, reminding us that we hold the power to transform our pain into strength. By embracing personal growth and owning our choices, we can rise above our circumstances and create a fulfilling life.

Don’t miss this thought-provoking episode of The Influencer Podcast, where Julie Solomon imparts invaluable wisdom on taking radical responsibility for your happiness. It’s time to stop making excuses and start playing bigger in order to become the highest version of yourself. Join Julie on this transformative journey, click the link below to listen to the full episode, and embark on the path towards a life you truly deserve.

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Transcript: Episode 05: Taking Radical Responsibility for Your Happiness, Navigating Breakups & Big Changes, and Getting the Life You Want with Julie Solomon

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Elizabeth Rider (00:02):
Welcome to the Elizabeth Rider Show, where we talk about optimizing health, personal evolution, and defining what true wellness means to you. I’m your host, Elizabeth Ryder. I’m a certified health coach, longtime blogger and author of The Health Habit. On this podcast, we dive deep into all things health and wellbeing, from physical and mental health, spirituality, relationships, lifestyle choices, and personal growth. Each week, I bring you inspiring interviews with guests and thought leaders, as well as solo episodes where I share my own experiences and insights. My mission is to give you practical insights, inspiring stories, and transformative tools that can help you unlock your full potential and create a life you truly love. I hope this podcast serves as a valuable resource to develop your sustainable habits, mindful living, and an overall state of health and happiness. Let’s dive in. Hey everyone. Welcome to the Elizabeth Rider Show.
(00:54):
I’m your host, Elizabeth Rider, and today I have one of my dearest friends, an all around amazing human, Julie Solomon with me. Julie is a visibility and branding coach. She’s an influencer, expert host of the Influencer podcast, and I wanted to bring her on. She’s going to be a friend of the pod for a long time. She is someone I go to when I need to check myself, stop making excuses when I wanna play bigger, when I need advice. And we’re here to talk about just that, how to stop making excuses, play bigger, and finally become a higher version of yourself. Jules, thanks for being here.
Julie Solomon (01:31):
Thank you for having me. I feel the same way about you, Liz. It’s like every time when I’m like, you know, sometimes I’ll ask myself, I’m like, what would Liz do in this situation? ?
(01:42):
Love you so much. I’m so happy to be here.
Elizabeth Rider (01:44):
I love you so much. I wanted to have you on because we got, so, I get so many questions in the Q and as that I do about growing a business even from women who not, aren’t necessarily interested in growing a business, but are interested in growing in life. And I wanted to start with this amazing conversation that you and I had, and this is why you’re one of my dearest friends. I wanted to let everybody know. So I was talking, Julie and I met about six years ago. We became pretty instant friends, and we were sitting in a cafe in Nashville. I went to visit her for a few days. We were sitting in a cafe, we ordered biscuits. Julie and I always order everything on the menu. We had like coffee, we had biscuits, we had all of these things. And I had been divorced for about four years, I think.
(02:28):
And I had been dating somebody about six months, and I sat down and I told Julie, I just don’t feel like he’s, you know, being super honest about everything, but I think that he might be. And you know, I think that he might be talking to somebody else and instead of being like, oh no, honey, I’m sure you’re wrong, and, you know, trying to sugarcoat everything. Julie just looked at me and said, well, Liz, what’s your part in this? And I, was like, what? What do you mean my part? What do you mean my part? And that’s what I love about Julie so much. She’s just willing to dive right into you creating your life and not making any excuses for not living the life that you wanna live. So, Jules, can we, can you, do you remember this? Can we walk back to the cafe? Like what in your life made you say to me, like, what’s your part? That was the first thing you said.
Julie Solomon (03:15):
Yeah. You know, and I, I think what made me say that is that, you know, that’s what I always have to say to myself when I’m not getting what I want or when I’m placing blame or I’m making excuses or I’m resisting something. Because even if it’s just 1%, we all have a part to play in the reality of our situations. Now, there’s obviously things in life that can happen to us, you know, that we are not necessarily wanting to be active participants in or that we, you know, never asked for or that we say that we don’t wanna tolerate, but yet we’re still here. So what is our part to play in that? And that’s, that’s a question that I have to ask myself a lot. And it’s a question that, you know, anyone that I love, you know, if they’re going through something like I, I wanna get to, to the core of it, and let’s get to the root of, you know, if, if this is something that you don’t want, then let’s figure out how we can actually change. Because we can’t change other people and we can’t control other people, but we can change ourselves and we can control at least our actions or reactions to things. Yeah. And so that’s, that’s really where it comes
Elizabeth Rider (04:22):
From. Yeah. And it was absolutely the best question to ask me because it, when I sat and thought about it, it was, well, there have been a lot of red flags that I’ve been ignoring willingly because I want something to work out a certain way and I’m trying to force something. So it was absolutely the best question that you could have asked me. So you coach a lot of women, a lot of women have gone through your programs. You do a lot of one-on-one coaching. Let’s start with backing up a little bit about how you got to this point in your life, because I know that you coach really high performing women. Backing it up to what, generally when somebody coaches high performance women, something at some point fell apart in their lives, . So that’s what I wanna know. At what point, you know, I think maybe for you post-college, like what fell apart? What was the first big thing that fell apart that gave you that aha of like, I need to take control of my life in this situation and make some changes?
Julie Solomon (05:14):
Yeah, I mean, well the first thing honestly, that I, I remember falling apart in my life was, was really my parents’ divorce Mm. When I was seven years old. Yeah.
(05:23):
And kind of experiencing that and then how that shaped me moving forward and, and me, you know, taking from that the things that I wanted to bring with me in life and then the things that I didn’t wanna bring with me in life mm-hmm. . And then as I became an adult and had my own experiences, the first thing that fell apart was in my personal life, was in relationships. I had, you know, boyfriends and relationships that fell apart. And then I had a, you know, a marriage, a first marriage that fell apart. And so that was a big rock bottom for me. And then when I, when I hit my early thirties, I had, you know, a business situation that kind of fell apart for a little bit. But I’ll kind of stop us there cuz there’s, there’s a lot, a lot to that.
Elizabeth Rider (06:05):
Yeah. I mean that’s, it’s so true. Then, your parents divorced. I mean, you were seven, so you probably didn’t have the high performance coach mentality at that time yet. But thinking about like, moving forward through your own divorce, I think a lot of people don’t know. When I, I recently did an Instagram q and a and there were so many women of asking me, how do you move on after divorce? What mentality should I have after divorce? Like, how do I, you know, put life into perspective or how do I get through this? And I think a lot of, you know, people look at someone like you, you’ve are now very happily married. You have two beautiful children, you have this phenomenal career. You have your book so many things and people I don’t think know that you’ve gone through something like a divorce and like, what was that period of l time like for you and what did you have to get real about?
Julie Solomon (06:50):
Yeah. So you’re right Liz. I mean, it’s, unless you’ve read my book, you probably don’t. Or you’ve been following me from a lo for a long time. You probably don’t know I was ever married before my marriage to, to John. Because it’s not really part of the brand story that I have shared. And the reason why I wanted to put it in the book is cuz it’s still such a monumental story. And, and at the time, the way that I saw the world, and I will say, you know, my divorce happened when I was 27 years old. I married a guy that had been my college sweetheart mm-hmm. , and we were together for a very long time, but married for a very short time. And you know, now I’ve had, I’ve had over a decade of, you know, being able to look back at this.
(07:37):
And I just you know, and I and Liz, you’re probably gonna laugh and we, we’ve had this conversation, so I know that you’re gonna relate, but as, as hard and painful as that divorce was, it was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. Yeah. And for anyone that’s listening right now that may be in it, right? Like you’re in the muck and it’s like you can’t even see the other side. Maybe you’re someone who wanted the, the divorce or maybe you’re someone who didn’t want the divorce, but here you find yourself in this situation, you’re having to come to a place of acceptance. That was really the first step for me was accepting, do I have a part in this? I absolutely have a part in this. So what’s my part to play? What can I learn from this? And can I just accept reality on reality’s terms?
(08:23):
And it was when I allowed myself just to be an acceptance. And not that I was necessarily tolerating certain things or I was okay with certain things, but when I allowed myself just to accept the reality of the situation and just to accept him and things and all of that was that that was the time that I was finally able to get the courage to say, I know I wanna leave and I’ve wanted to not be here for a long time, but I’ve been so afraid to admit that because what does that mean about me and what does that mean about the rest of my life? But it was, it was the courage to accept that allowed me to have the courage to make a change. And that was huge for me.
Elizabeth Rider (09:07):
Yeah, absolutely. And you said something so important that I wanna say to anyone who’s going through a difficult life change, whether it’s a divorce, career change, or even if you’re watching a sibling or a friend or a child or a significant, somebody else in your life going through this because it’s, it’s hard to witness too, as somebody on the sidelines. Someone explained to me once, it was Dr. Deb Kern, who’s a coach in many ways. She told me that I called her when I was in the middle of my divorce, and I was like, I just, I don’t know what’s happening. I can’t think straight. And she’s like, that’s exactly right. You feel like you’ve fallen off of a dock into a lake and you have hit the bottom of that lake and all of the sand has come up around you and you don’t know which way is up.
(09:48):
You don’t know which way is down. You don’t know what choice sideways. You need to just give yourself a little bit of time and you will be able to see the surface again. And I think that was so incredibly important to hear and it was so comforting to hear at the time where it was like, just give yourself a little bit of time, keep taking care of yourself and you will eventually make your way back to the surface. So we got, like I mentioned in the, the last request for q and as, there was a lot of, a lot of that, and it’s really just time to process to move forward. Mm-Hmm. , but Jules, talk to me about there is so much shame whether you cause a divorce, whether you ask for it, you don’t ask for it, it might be a surprise, it might be a long time coming, there’s so many different things happen or career change, whatever it is, these massive changes. How do you help your clients like first even recognize the cycle of shame that they’re in so that they can start to make changes?
Julie Solomon (10:40):
Yeah. You know, I think awareness is always the first step. If we’re not aware of our thoughts, our feelings, what got us into the situation, what we don’t like about it, what we like about it, what we wanna take, what we wanna keep with us, then we can’t even get to the acceptance piece. And so the, the awareness and that, that requires a presence, it requires an acknowledgement of yourself. It requires you also kind of taking a hard look of like, what’s really happening here? And can I be aware again of like my part to play and some of this dysfunction or some of this stuff that I’m saying that I no longer want or some of this mess. Can I be willing to see my part? And then from there, if you can be willing, then you can get to this place of acceptance.
(11:25):
And again, acceptance doesn’t mean you tolerate something or that it’s okay or that you’re brushing your feelings aside. It’s just, okay, I’m gonna accept reality on reality’s terms today. I’m going to accept this person, this place, or this thing exactly as it is and not as I wish it could be or should be. Even if that means like, I don’t, I don’t even like this person, but I can at least just accept like, you are who you are. And then from that, it allows us to then take action towards the things that we want to change and towards the things that we actually have the ability and the responsibility to change. You know, we, we can’t necessarily change circumstances. We can’t change other people’s, you know, dynamic and relationship with this, but we can change how we approach situations. And I think by doing this, by having the awareness, then getting to this place of accepting yourself and, and, and what may be happening around you, and then being able to take action.
(12:24):
It also allows you to take a step back from that judging mind that we can all have. Because really all judgment is, is just a judgment of ourselves. Yeah. And then, you know, when we kind of get tired of the internal dialogue, we just mirror that out onto the world and onto people and onto the things that are happening. And so if you can get to that place, I think of just acceptance, it allows us to be a little less judgmental on ourselves, which I think and a lot less critical of ourselves, which you’re never gonna get to the place that you wanna be if, if you’re just constantly criticizing and judging yourself. And so to me that’s, that’s really, you know, when I look at my own life and when I’m coaching my clients, it’s like, well, well let’s, let’s get down to the root of the thing. You know, like, what is, what is the root of, of what’s really happening here? And, and, and what do you really want? And do you know what you, what you really want? And are, do you know that you’re actually capable of getting what you want? You just, you feel like you’re not, because you’ve got all these kind of blockers that you’ve, that you’ve put, you know, in front of you. Yeah. So let’s, let’s do what we can to remove those and, and start to move forward.
Elizabeth Rider (13:31):
Yeah. And the stories we tell ourselves, the judgment thing is so true. No high achiever has ever judged themself into success. Right. That’s just not how it works. Yeah. Mm-hmm. , yeah,
Julie Solomon (13:42):
A million percent. And that’s, that’s something that I don’t think we realize, again, if we don’t have the awareness, like the things that we say to ourselves day in and day out, you know, oh, that didn’t go well, or, oh, who was I to do that? Or, oh, that was so stupid of me. Or, oh, what was I thinking? Or, I mean, those are all just very critical things that day in and day out we’re, we’re constantly in that loop. And so even just having the awareness of the thoughts that you’re thinking, you know, the way that you talk about yourself, the way that you talk at yourself, because it really does begin with you.
Elizabeth Rider (14:15):
Yeah, absolutely. So let’s move fast forward a little bit. I know that you move to LA you meet your gorgeous husband and you are at that point or in book pr, is that correct?
Julie Solomon (14:27):
Yeah, so I was in music and book PR before my, my Real job, which is now a, a coach in the online space. I had a, a corporate and agency job in, in publicity and pr very traditional pr. So I was doing B book PR at the time.
Elizabeth Rider (14:42):
Yeah, yeah. And we will fast forward through a few things because I know you did the mommy blogger thing at first and then, you know, really found your footing in the influencer space, started the influencer podcast and really kind of became an expert at pitching brands. And I love this story if you would tell everyone this story because you did not have a huge following and you ended up pitching cost plus World Market into redoing your entire house. So I think a lot of us would be interested in that , how did you do that?
Julie Solomon (15:12):
Yeah, so it, it really did stem from this, this breakthrough of, as you mentioned, I had, I had kind of gotten to this, this point and and Liz, I’ll, I’ll back up a just a little bit to kind of share what happened here. About a two years before the world market gig happened, I found myself at the kitchen table kind of being found out, if you will. Like, I had, as you said, like I had found my dream guy. We had gotten married, I had my son. He was, you know, I think not even two years old at the time. And I had, over those last two years since having my son, I had started to acquire credit card debt and I did this, I acquired credit card debt and started buying things as a way to avoid this feeling of kind of loneliness that I felt living in this new city of la I was a new mom.
(16:03):
So I was also having to kind of come to terms with what that meant of being a new mom and kind of shedding this old version of me. And, and so my fix, you know, some people’s fix is alcohol or drugs or love or you know, for me it was shopping and I justified my shopping cuz I would say things like, well, I’m just buying some lip gloss, or I’m just going to lunch with a girlfriend. You know, it’s not like I’m going down to Rodeo Drive and buying a new Louis Vuitton bag. You know? So I would, I would justify my spending habits. But over time, throughout those two years it accumulated and because it was accumulating and I felt shame about it, I never told my husband, but we were in the process of refinancing a home. And the, you know, he heard from the lender, the lender was like, yeah, you’re good to go except for this one, you know, piece of credit card debt.
(16:54):
And my husband was like, what are you talking about? Like, I don’t, I don’t have credit card debt, you know, as a matter of fact, like, I have worked very hard to not have credit card debt. That’s like a big thing for my husband. And he was like, well, you have this $30,000 visa. And my husband’s like, no. And so then my husband calls me and he was like, when were you gonna tell me about the credit card? And so this, this truth of being found out that I had a mass over $30,000 of credit card debt in two years, and most importantly had hid it from my husband. And now I was being found out. And so there was a lot of stuff that I did not wanna be aware about. There was a lot of stuff I did not want to accept.
(17:33):
Just a lot of deep-rooted stuff around money, around my ability to make money around my self-concept of worthiness around money that had just accumulated into this moment. And I remember just being like, you know, what is wrong with me? Like I, I had gotten past the craziness. Like I’m not, you know, this crazy 20 something year old anymore. Like I’m a mom and I’m a business woman and I felt like a fraud. And I mean, it was just like all of this stuff coming to terms. And so I knew in that moment that I had to really take stock of like, what am I doing in my life? So of course that meant starting a lot of inner work therapy, a 12 step group, reading all the books, listening to all the things, like really working on myself because I do believe that, you know, in order to be fulfilled, inner work and success are intertwined.
(18:24):
Like, it, it truly is an inside job. Yeah. And so in those, you know, once I was found out in 2015, I spent about a year kind of processing the inner work. And around that same time I had started the mommy blog. And so the investing in my inner work started to pay off because at the start of 2016, from this rock bottom moment to this now epiphany, I had two huge breakthroughs. The first one was that I was really tired of pr, I had been tired of it for a long time, but because it had been my quote unquote bread and butter, I was afraid to admit it. It was also my safe corporate career. And I would be crazy to leave it, you know, I had 401K and I had the blah, blah, blah, blah blahs. But I couldn’t deny that anymore.
(19:14):
And then the second breakthrough was that I started to realize that all of the women that I was meeting in this virtual and in person blogger community, whether it was in person in LA or virtually on social media, they were starting to really want more just help from me. Like we would be naturally talking about, Hey, I just landed this brand dealer, I got this partnership with this brand. I just made, you know, $3,000 working with, you know this skincare brand. And they would be like, how are you doing that? And so I started to realize like, oh, there’s, there’s people that kind of want my help and want my advice in these things. And so that’s when I kind of gave myself the permission to quit PR and to finally go all in on really what evolved into the business that I have today.
(20:08):
But it started as I was going to take this knowledge that I had and I was gonna turn it into an online course. And yeah, that wouldn’t have been possible if I hadn’t have done all that inner work first. So I wanna say that, so in the midst of working with these brands and, you know, starting just to kind of be a sounding board for these other content creators the reason why I was so good at this and am so good at this, is because I was a publicist for over a decade. I know how to pitch myself. I know how to work with companies and work with media. I know what it is that they need. I know how to get ’em what they want. I know all of these things. And so early on, and what really caught the attention of a lot of my creator friends was this world market story.
(20:52):
So I had like no followers. I honestly, I think I had maybe like 500 people following me on YouTube. I had a very low following on Instagram. But because I knew how to connect and communicate with people I, I wanted to get my home remodeled and I didn’t wanna have to pay for it. , don’t we? It’s like, okay, , how do I get my home remodeled? And I started to pitch these furniture companies. I was like, Hey, you know, I’m, I’m turning my son’s baby room into a toddler room. There’s some other rooms in the house that need some, you know, remodeling. Would you be interested in doing anything? And of course they all said no, because it’s like, what do you have to offer? You have like five followers on Instagram and you have a great pitch, but like, what’s in it for me?
(21:40):
Right? And so I started to think, well, what is in it for this brand? Like what would they see as a, cuz it’s not my following mm-hmm that that they’re gonna find valuable cuz the following doesn’t exist. So what would they find valuable? And so in order to figure that out, I had to ask them, well, what are your goals right now? What are you looking for? You know, what do you want? And all of them were saying like, we want more visibility. We wanna get out there, we wanna reach more people, we wanna get our products in front of our consumers. And so I thought, well, one way that you can do that is with media. So I thought, well maybe if I pitch media to cover the home makeover, then maybe the brand would then want to do the home makeover. So I stopped pitching the furniture companies and I started pitching media and I just said, Hey, I’ve got this idea for a home makeover.
(22:33):
You know, we can, we can partner with, you know, a reputable furniture company. I, I didn’t know who it was gonna be. They had all said no to me at the time, but I was like, let me just try this. And you know, I, I pitched, I pitched as a contributor to a lot of different.com sites and at the time, people.com, they were starting a blog in print on people.com. And they wanted to hear from, from more creators. They wanted to hear from people in the mom space, the lifestyle space, the beauty space. So they said, Hey, we will run a feature. We’ll run a.com on our, on our people moms blog for this. And that’s all I needed. All I needed was that like, oh yeah, this sounds interesting. And then I took that back to three companies, one of which was World Market.
(23:16):
And they said, yes, we wanna do it. That’s incredible. And so because they said yes, I turned, cuz initially my idea was just like, one room, let’s turn my my son’s baby room in, into a toddler room. And then I was like, but now that I’ve got this media opportunity, let’s do the whole house. And so I told what market, I said, I wanna make this big. I want this to be a win for everybody. So in order to really make it something bigger, we’re gonna do multiple rooms. And are you guys open to doing my master my living room, my son’s room and my office? And they said, yes. And so that’s how that happened in the grand scheme of things. And then once that kicked off, that’s when I really realized that my years as a publicist and really knowing the skillset that is how to negotiate and pitch it, it helped me kind of perfect this art of pitching in an online space. So when it came to landing brand deals, it was very natural for me. And then that’s what gave me really the courage. I didn’t even really have the confidence yet, but it just, it gave me the courage to say, you know what, I’m, I’m gonna help other women do this if th if, if this is interesting to
Elizabeth Rider (24:24):
Them. Yeah. There’s two really important things there that I don’t wanna mention because it’s, it’s such an incredible story. But one is when you started talking about how you, you know, would get like a $3,000 skincare deal or something to this effect and people were asking you about it, creating an online course around something that you love and that you’ve already done and you’re good at, is the key to making an online course work. There are so many online course creators who want an online course, and you should have one, I believe you wouldn’t wanna have an online course if you didn’t have it in you to create one. The key is it has to be something that you are good at and that you have done. And if you’re good at it and you’ve done it, you can create an incredible online course around it.
(25:06):
So kind of focusing back on that. And then the other one is your ability at the time, you probably didn’t identify this, but not having binary thinking. So getting out of the binary thinking of youth said, well, I didn’t have a lot of followers, so I didn’t know how else I was going to get the brands to say yes to this. A lot of people are in the yes and no binary black and white A or B thinking, saying, right, well, I don’t have a lot of followers, which means I can’t ever have a brand deal. And that is binary thinking. So you had the ability at the time, like I said, whether you knew it or not, to say there’s a whole alphabet to choose from here. It doesn’t have to be A or B, I can create the outcome that I want here. It’s not black and white, it’s not binary. Love that.
Julie Solomon (25:48):
Yep. And, and that, that’s the thing. And I’ll, I’ll even coach my clients today out of this, it’s a lot of times when I see that they’re at a point of resistance or a point at, you know, also known as I’m stuck
(26:00):
Yeah. Liz, I’m just stuck. I’m stuck. I’m just stuck and I’m stuck and I’m stuck. It’s typically when they’re in that all or nothing thinking Yeah. You know, it has to be all this way or it’s just nothing at all. Yeah. It’s a black or white. And then we just, we swing from that superiority to that inferiority. Mm-Hmm. And that gets us nowhere. And so how can you be more open and curious? And I think for me, just at that, at that time, you know, and I think it was Liz Gilbert that said, I’m, I’m gonna botch it, but it’s basically like you have to get so sick and tired of your own bs. Yeah. And that was just me. Like, I was so sick and tired of being so sick and tired. Right. And I was so sick and tired of working and like, you know, no, you know, and I, I made good money in pr, but you know, it wasn’t as much money as I wanted to make and I didn’t feel shame about that.
(26:47):
I wanted to be, at the time a six figure earner. I wasn’t making six figures as a publicist mm-hmm. . And then now I had this debt, I had this $30,000 of credit card debt that I had to pay off and we, you know, we had taken money from my child’s savings account for his college to pay it off. Which of course that gave me a lot of shame. But that shame gave me this drive of like, I am going to pay my son back. I’m going to pay that account back. And I did, within a year, I had made from my course, I created my first course Pitch It Perfect. Which is loaded with every type of foundational pitch technique that you would need from how to position yourself to brands, how to attract the dream brands or even dream clients and companies that you wanna work with.
(27:32):
You know, there’s plug and play templates. I even have the email template in there of how I got, you know, the world market deal all those years ago. Yeah. Because people love to see that kind of stuff. And and of course there’s a ton of, you know, of, of coaching in there as well in the curriculum. But it was from the willingness to do that, that within a year I made $250,000 Wow. And I paid the debt back. And that wouldn’t have happened if I had binary thinking mm-hmm. at all. Yeah. And so I think one of the biggest keys to success is staying open and staying curious and really asking yourself like, how bad do you really want it? Because if you really want it, you will figure out a way to get it.
Elizabeth Rider (28:13):
Yeah, absolutely. And I think it’s just like what you said you were, you were sick and tired of being sick and tired, and that’s where, whether it’s a relationship, whether it’s your career, whatever it is, look for patterns. Like are you feeling the same way multiple times over and over again in seasons and in patterns If that’s happening, it is something that you are creating. And I wanna say this actually from something we talked about at the beginning, this is important to distinguish between, there is a difference between being a victim and having victim mentality. So being a victim is a real thing. There are people who are victims of real crimes, real abuse, real trauma, all of that is real. Mm-Hmm. being in the victim mentality is something different. And that is when you are in a pattern and in a cycle of continuously not being able to look about how you’re contributing to your own demise and your own situation in the own life that you don’t wanna have. So victim, being a victim is real. That is a different thing than being stuck in a victim mentality.
Julie Solomon (29:12):
Yes. And, and, and that’s also like when I ask like, well what’s your part to play mm-hmm. , if you are a victim of something, you don’t have a part to play in that, you know, you don’t have a part to play in being tortured, abused, traumatized. Right. You know, psychologically or, or whatnot. But if you are creating your own suffering Yes. And perpetually staying in that state of suffering. Yes. Then you do have a part to play in that. And, and those are the things that we can control.
Elizabeth Rider (29:40):
Jules, you, the person who I would ask this when I get this on the q and a, so I’ll ask it here because I know there’s people listening to this wanting to know this. If someone is in a relationship I’m in, and this is generally coming f in my audience from women who are, you know, cisgendered heterosexual women who are in relationships, who are in that pattern of suffering in their relationship, feeling like they don’t, they have shame or they, they’re not sure if they’re in the right relationship, what are just a few steps or questions they can ask themselves to start to kind of make a decision.
Julie Solomon (30:12):
Hmm. So a good one, I think to ask, and this is for any of ’em who, who might, who might be a, a parent because a lot of times we can’t see it for ourselves. But a good question you could ask yourself is, would I want my son or my daughter to be experiencing this right now? Yeah. Yes or no? Wow. And I think that’s a big one. Yeah. Because if you’re like, oh heck no. And it’s like, okay. And would you do anything that you possibly could to encourage them to get out of that situation? Heck yes. Yeah. You know, I think that’s a, that’s a big thing. Cause a lot of times we will allow ourselves to suffer and demise mm-hmm. , but we don’t want it for our, for our children or the people that we love. So I think that’s a really good question to ask. I think another one is, I
Elizabeth Rider (30:56):
Wanna add too, if you’re not a parent, think of your best friend or your sibling or, you know, an niece or a nephew or a child in your life. Or you can ask that same question for someone if you’re not a parent.
Julie Solomon (31:07):
Yep. And you may just be, you know just a loved one. Mm-Hmm. , you know mm-hmm. It’s, it’s, it’s really anyone that, that you care and love for mm-hmm. that you, you know, would not want them to be in that situation. So I think that that, that’s a, that’s a big one. I think another question, because this can, this can kind of get lost in, in the muck of things is what is really essential here. Like, in order for me to, let’s say if someone wants to leave a relationship, but they just don’t think it’s possible, they don’t think it’s possible financially, they don’t think it’s possible emotionally, they don’t think it’s possible. Well, what is really essential for you to leave? Like what is essential? And getting really clear on the brass tacks of those things, I think is super important.
(31:54):
I know for a lot of women it deals with finances. They feel like they can’t leave because they literally will be left with nothing and they, they, they won’t have money. So then money is essential to survive. So then the next question after that is, okay, well then what is it going to take mm-hmm. , what is it going to take for you to figure this out? What is it going to take for you to just, just one step closer to whatever that may be? That is just the way that I see the world. I know that not everyone is like me and not everyone is going to see the world this way. I also know that there’s a lot of people in the world who they say that they don’t wanna suffer, but they made an agreement a long time ago that they were gonna be okay with it.
(32:36):
Mm-Hmm. . And until they wanna make a new agreement, nothing’s going to change. You know, it’s kind of like, okay, well you know, Julie, just, some people just suffer in life and that’s okay. It’s like, well, I don’t think that’s okay and I don’t wanna be some people , so I’m gonna choose a different path. Yep. And I think that another thing we have to remember is that this is our life. Like, this very moment that we’re in right now is our life. There is no dress rehearsal. And if you are not conscious and aware one day you are going to wake up and you’re gonna be a lot older than you are today. And you’re gonna look back at your life and be like, what the f just happened? Yeah. And where the f did my life just go.
Elizabeth Rider (33:20):
Yep. Absolutely.
Julie Solomon (33:22):
And you’re not gonna be in the same position or place then to maybe make some changes that you could make today. Mm.
Elizabeth Rider (33:30):
Well, we have to end with that. We’re gonna have to bring Julie back for a part two to break down the influencer industry a little bit more. Jules, the last thing I always ask my guests, would you have given us so much advice today? So thank you for that. Is what is the best piece of advice you’ve ever received and what is the worst piece of advice you’ve ever received in either order?
Julie Solomon (33:52):
I think the best piece of advice I have ever received, it’s, it’s, it’s a two part go easy on yourself, and there’s only one way and that’s forward. Hmm. So it doesn’t matter what happened in the past, just just keep moving forward. Yeah. And the worst piece of advice I think I’ve ever been given, and I don’t know if it’s advice, but I, I think people say it as kind of an advice. This idea of time heals all wounds. I don’t think time heals wounds. Time gives you perspective. Yep. And it gives you reflection and it gives you space. But I think you heal your wounds.
Elizabeth Rider (34:27):
Yes. Yes. Amen to that. Thank you Julie. This was incredible. Where can everyone find you? And if somebody is interested in learning more with you, where can they find more about Pitch It Perfect or having you as their coach?
Julie Solomon (34:41):
Yes. And so right now, if you go to pitch it perfect.net/training, you can get a fun three part easy training if you wanna opt in just to kind of get your feet wet on how you can actually start monetizing the content that you’re creating online. I give you a really simple el elevator pitch strategy that you can start diving into, and I kind of lay the groundwork there. So that’s pitch it perfect.net/training. If you want to dive into that. And then of course, my podcast, the Influencer podcast, wherever you love to listen to podcasts, you can dive in. My website is juliesolomon.net. There you can learn more about me and ways to work with me. And then I tend to be the most active on Instagram. So I’m at @julssolomon, over there.
Elizabeth Rider (35:27):
Awesome. We’ll put all of that in the show notes as well. Julie, I love you so much. Thanks for being here. Love you. Talk to you soon. I can’t wait to see you soon. Okay, you too. Thank you so much for joining me on today’s episode of the Elizabeth Ryder Show. I hope you caught something today that helped you uplevel your mind, body, and or health. If you want more episodes, insider our notes, recipes and resources, then make sure to subscribe to my weekly newsletter over at elizabethrider.com/list. Or simply go to the website and hit the subscribe button and enter your email address. You can also download a free recipe guide, a meal plan, or the top 10 Micro Habits guide while you’re there. And if you are a person who likes to share things to make sure you share the show with a friend. And if you really like the show, I would be so grateful for a five star review in the podcast app. Thanks for being here. I’ll talk to you next time.

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