Erin: Welcome to Hotter Than Ever, where we uncover the unconscious rules we've been following. We break those rules and we find a new path to being freer, happier, sexier, and more self expressed. I'm your host, Erin Keating.
A little housekeeping before we get into this deep interview. As you may have noticed, if you're a longtime listener to the podcast, and if you're not welcome, you're in the right place if you want to feel good over 40 I am doing one episode a week in July and August. It's summer. Everything is slower and this is going to give me some time to rest and reflect and get ready for what's going to be an incredible and explosive fall full of new, hotter than ever projects and good stuff that you will be the first to hear about. Speaking of new Stuff, I am doing a live show about dating online over 40 with my friend, talented and charismatic Amber J. Lawson. It is called Swipe Club and it's going to be a really fun, informative, and empowering night out here in Los Angeles.
If you want to benefit from my trials and tribulations dating on the apps, I have distilled down all of my insights and Amber J has done the same, and we have a lot to say about how to to make it fun to date in your forties and beyond. You're also going to see me taking on and off my reading glasses a whole bunch throughout the night. So if you want to come and empathize with me, I would really appreciate that. It's at the Bergamot Station arts complex at a comedy club called the Crow Theater. It's a really cool little space. It's Friday, July 19 at 08:00 p.m. Tickets are $25 or $20 with the code flirty. Go to crowcomedy.com for tickets and look for all the details in the hotter than ever newsletter if you are subscribed.
My guest today is Lori Hamilton. She is an award winning writer, director, performer and insights expert. What is an insights expert? We are going to find out. She lives a robust double life as both an artist and an entrepreneur, writing and performing one person shows, directing films, and also providing corporations with data and insights that bridge the gap between consumer desires and brand innovation through her company, Prosperity Productions. So what does that mean to us here on the hotter than ever podcast? Well, in our wide ranging conversation today, I think the most fascinating thing is that Lori has spent a lot of time gathering insights and conclusions about how we all changed as a result of the COVID pandemic, especially how it's impacted how we prioritize our time, how we think about work, and how we show up authentically in our lives and want others to do the same.
Lori work helps corporations, but I think it will help you, too. I know I have been feeling like so much has changed, and certainly Covid catalyzed a lot of changes in my life, but it has really shifted our culture and values fundamentally. And Lori's work helps to crystallize what you may have noticed in passing were not able to put your finger on. All right, let's get hot.
Lori Hamilton, welcome to hotter than ever.
Lori: Oh, thank you so much for having me, Erin. It's a pleasure.
Erin: I am so excited to have you here. And one of the things I think is so interesting about you is that you live a double life, and I kind of have known this about you, but in a recent conversation, we really dug into what that feels like, what that is like, and how you sort of shift gears. So many artists have bread and butter work that they do. Yours is through a company that you own and that you have run successfully for a decade or more.
Lori: Yes, actually.
Erin: Yeah. So talk to me about the work you do as an artist and the work you do on the corporate side of your life.
Lori: So I once went to a lecture where the gentleman said that whatever you were deprived of as a child often becomes your gift to give to the world.
Erin: The wounded healer.
Lori: Yeah, the wounded healer. And so, for me, my mom's nickname for me was the child who ruined my life.
Erin: God, that's not fair.
Lori: Totally true. The other five kids that came after me, unsolved mysteries. I can't help you with that. It was kind of like being the night manager at FedEx because I had all the responsibility and none of the authority. Good training for corporate America. So, to me, my theme in life that I have realized over time, I didn't set out to do this. It just kind of evolved, is I love bringing everyday heroes to life. I love seeing the gold, the goodness, the sincerity, and the good intentions underneath what are often overlooked people.
And so, to me, both of my jobs do that in corporate America with the, you know, and in nonprofit world, et cetera. What I'm doing is looking underneath the surface of what motivates people. And often what motivates us is not thought about. It's. It's our emotional motivation. We actually have an emotional motivation first, and then we backfill it with logic, like rationale. Have you ever been up, like, eating in the middle of the night and you're creating a speech in case someone bursts through your door going, why are you eating that? That's an example of that.
Erin: I love that.
Lori: So I understand that. And then also on the. On the company side, whatever you do best, you have almost no awareness of because your brain doesn't pay attention to things that come easily to you. Like, if you ever met someone who's like, I'm a people person. No, you're not. You know, or you're at a party and someone's like, I'm so funny. I don't think so, right? Versus when you're watching a film or a television show, you know the character better than they know themselves because you can see the contrast between who they say they are and what they actually do. So on the corporate side, what I do is uncover companies trying to sell something which is supposed to be a gift and valuable, and the audience is supposed to receive this and create, have value, hence prosperity.
I uncover where the real value is underneath all of that and how to wrap that gift, that product, that service, in a way that the person receiving it feels like a gift. And the analogy I give here is, have you ever had someone give you a gift and like, oh, yes. I know why you thought that was.
Erin: A good gift so many times, right?
Lori: Versus when someone gives you a gift, you're like, oh, my God, you know me so well. So that's what I do on the corporate side, on the. On the film and entertainment side. I was actually working on a screenplay this morning. What I like to write about are beautiful people who can't see that far. They can't see what's ahead of them. And we may overlook them. We may see, you know, and it's not trying to be a lecturer, it's.
It's meant to be, like celebrating folks that other people might overlook and talk about serious subjects in a funny way. That's what I try to do. I don't know if I am funny, but I. People have said that.
Erin: Is that true? You know, you're funny.
Lori: Yeah. I mean, I think I'm. I think I'm funny, but supposed to be self deprecating.
Erin: But if you're funny, you know, you're funny.
Lori: That's well, good. Calling me out. Love that.
Erin: Yes.
Lori: She shoots. She scores.
Erin: Already laughing. You're making jokes and I'm laughing. That feels like evidence.
Lori: Yeah. So, that's basically what I do. And I actually named my film company after the people that adopted my dad from foster care when he was 13.
Erin: Wow. Wow. Wait, I want to go back to this thing. You said that people don't see what their gifts are like. They don't take them seriously, because that is true in my experience. And one of the biggest professional revelations of my life was, I'm a natural producer. But I did not know that because I was busy trying so hard in my teens and twenties to be an actor, because I thought that's what I was supposed to be. Something in my brain told me, know you need attention.
I guess that was what it was. But then I found myself producing everything I was involved in, and I had a moment of clarity where I was like, oh, I do this with ease. This is a gift I have. And why am I running away from my gifts? As opposed to running toward my gifts? Like, why am I doing something that's harder than what was given to me naturally? And that was. It was an enormous pivot point in my life because I actually had a flash of revelation where I could see that. And then, of course, that revelation is insights retreat. But, yeah, talk to me about that and yourself and what you've observed there.
Lori: Yeah, I actually wrote my one woman show that I took to the Ed Fringe was sort of about this.
Erin: People ask me for non show business people who are listening to this podcast. What is the Ed Fringe?
Lori: The Edinburgh Fringe Festival is the largest, most prestigious fringe festival in the world. Yay. And I brought my little show and my ten suitcases. I don't recommend bringing ten suitcases to Edinburgh in the middle of a pandemic. Just foil.
Erin: Oh, my God.
Lori: Yeah, I actually. It was. There's many pictures of me and the suitcases all had names because they were. I use them as the set and as props and et cetera. But I digress. The show is called North Star, or what I listen to instead of my intuition, and it's basically me and my guardian angel. Alter ego Guardian angel was demoted for gambling, and her punishment is that she has to guard people like me, who have a wonderful intuition for everyone, but don't listen to it themselves. Anyone can read it.
Erin: Everyone.
Lori: So what I discovered the hard way, people are like, Lori, how are you so wise? I'm like, well, when you make a lot of mistakes, they give you the wisdom for free. So what I learned was, like, you, Erin, and I think it's, first of all, let me really acknowledge you, because that's a tremendous observation about yourself, that not everyone has the self awareness or does the mental and emotional work to be able to have that understanding. What we tend to do when we think about work is we think it's supposed to be hard. And we line up jobs that we know of and we pick the one that seems the least awful, and we pick that. And there's a great joke by Paula Poundstone, who says, people are always asking little, little kids, what do you want to be when you grow up? Because we're looking for ideas.
Erin: She's so brilliant. That's so true. We are looking for ideas, right?
Lori: So what we do is we focus on what requires effort rather than what comes easily. And what I learned, again, the hard way is, for me, I found my calling, if you will, not by following what my mom said or what society said or what my boss said or because I'm, you know, shockingly a people pleaser. Amazing child who was rejected by mom becomes a people pleaser. Let's write that down. New story. So what I learned is that the way you find out what you're good at a lot of times is by doing something you don't like until you get good at it. Venus and Serena Williams, or particularly over 40, paying attention to what lights you up inside for no reason at all. What can you do until 02:00 in the morning and still have energy? What do you linger on? Who do you, you know, we tend to try.
We, meaning myself, try to go on a campaign with, like, all of our yard signs, trying to convince people who don't like us to like us and then expecting our friends to clean up the mess afterwards. Anyone, just me, I don't know, rather than going who or what, like wherever. Where's the sunshine? Let me lean into the sunshine because that's going to be a better indicator of what you're really good at and what your gifts are. And your gifts are not for you. Your gifts are to give to other people. And so when you have that energy, when you have that passion, you're going to be so much better at it, more successful at it than when you're grinding away, taking, frankly, someone else's chair in a job that you don't enjoy.
Erin: It's so deep. Lori, I really, really believe that this time in our lives is driven by that internal compass and those internal sparks because we are not fulfilling a cultural mandate in quite the same way at this point in our lives. Right? So over 40, you've probably gotten married or not gotten married, had kids or not had kids like, or on those paths, found a career with a capital c or, you know, found success with a capital s. I meant to capital letters. You know, I feel like. And then there's this thing of midlife. Oh, I have no fucks left to give. I don't believe that that's true.
I actually believe in midlife, we have more fucks than ever and that we just want to put them in the places where we think they deserve to be. You know, we want to preserve our energy for the things we care about, the people we care about. And that's, I think, part of why we're seeing, especially because we're all living so long. If we're lucky, we're seeing midlife reinvention career, reinvention personal life, reinvention marriages changing, relationship dynamics changing. Like, if you give yourself permission to listen to those insights, listen to those little, like, you know, intuitions that, like, for me, I'm not a comedy writer. I'm not a comedian, but comedy has been a driving force in my life. And what I do for fun a lot of the time is listen to people talk about process for comedy. I listen to podcasts where people talk about how they came up with jokes and how they shape those jokes, and then they work on jokes together, and then they discuss the life of a comedian and the work of what's the point of comedy? And all of this.
This is a lifelong obsession for me, and I have been really lucky to work in this world on and off over time. But I will say, for me, that's like, one area of recreation that is a little spark of, like, huh, maybe. Maybe I should do something with that now. I have done something with that, but it's coming up again in my life, and it's like, oh, fuck, that thing won't go away. You know, that, like, lifelong obsession isn't waning. It's actually, you know, continuing to be a force. Do you. What are the things for you that.
Lori: Are those things that, first of all, I want to really acknowledge you for all of your observations, because I do think there is. You know, it's interesting, if you look at women leaders, they're 88% less likely to have any kind of controversy or illegal activity. And there's a great new book out by Caddy Kay called the power code about how women use power differently than men do. And it's frankly more effective because it's more inclusive. If you look at, like, Taylor Swift, whether you like her or not, she gets power, and she includes everyone in her circle. She's given more to the UK and food banks than the british government has given in the last 14 years.
Erin: Oh, my God.
Lori: Okay, if that's not sharing power, I don't know what is. And so acknowledging that, yeah, you know what? We've got some wisdom here, and it does take some time. And we're like rubber bands. We stretch, we go, oh, that's what I love. Oh, I'm scared, you know, because. Because of deservability and all the other things that you've talked about so eloquently with so many guests on your. On your podcast. So that just want to give you that acknowledgement for me.
Same. I'm obsessed with, like, I just finished reading Steve Martin's book about his process. He's so vulnerable and so honest and his. And, you know, I go down the rabbit hole, I watch his documentary, read all of his books, go back and listen to all his albums. Like, the whole thing. I love, love, love comedians. I think it's just. It's just yummy and delicious.
I could give you a bunch of rational reasons, like the refrigerator, but I just love it. It's fun. I also love mysteries. I love murder mysteries and puzzles and figuring things out. I have this, like, little kid belief that if people could just understand what's underneath the surface, we'd all start being kinder and more compassionate with each other. That doesn't always work out because some people's. The name of the game is you can't win the game. And I'm a jerk, so there's no personality transplant for me when that's another thing I've had to learn about.
But. And, you know, self help, and I have on the website that I did for the show, I put all of the resources because I've spent a lot of time getting myself out of the well of depression and despair and feeling like I'm not enough and all of those things and what worked for me may or may not work for you or for someone else, but the way I think about it is these were the ladders that helped me. Maybe they'll help you, maybe they won't. But believe in ladders and keep looking until you find the ladder that helps you get out, because you don't. No one does it for you. You have to get your own ass out of the well. But there are ladders in the world. And then I like things where there's actually, you know, I love data.
Do you know that if you want to improve your mood, scientifically proven, we'll look at cat videos and baby videos, and that's temporary. What actually will transform your mood on a longer term basis is watching humans do acts of kindness.
Erin: What about even doing them yourself?
Lori: Always? I mean, I really, I try to. I don't always achieve it because there are days when I get really irritated and I'm over scheduled and eating too much coffee and. And then I trip over the stool in the kitchen and I start yelling at inanimate objects, and it's like, time out for me. But I really. I aspire to be kind and see the best in people and treat people in a way that when I look back on it, I feel good about how I behaved, so. And I do a lot of stuff for people large and small that I don't really talk about, you know, whether it's giving away money or giving away. We have a community kitchen here in Hell's Kitchen. We have a homeless thing.
We have. There's a lot of migrants that are here that really need resources and then, you know, reaching out to other friends. One of the things, when I'm really scared about work and we all get there as entrepreneurs, I will go do free projects for people who are looking for work. And just having the opportunity to help somebody else make their dreams come true make. Makes me feel valuable, and it helps kind of up my energy to go get more work.
Erin: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. I think that's right. I think when I was, like, in the thick of, like, the marriage and the career and the little kids and all the things, like, I didn't even really have the bandwidth to reach out to my friends and see how they were doing. And that is a thing, that's a practice that I've been working on in my life. Like, I know a friend has a thing coming up, some medical thing or some emotional thing in their life. That's going to be hard. I could put it in my calendar.
I put it in my calendar to just remember to check in because I know how meaningful that is for me. I mean, beyond, like, you know, giving my monthly donations to whatever my causes are. You know, I learned that from my mom. She's very, like, you know, put your money where your mouth is. But, yeah, and I think it's like I see my relationships strengthening as a result of that, but that's not why I'm doing it. I'm doing it because I want to be of service to the people I care about, you know?
Lori: Yeah, that's such a great way of putting it. The other thing that I learned, also the hard way, is the tendency to be, I'm fine. At one point, I had mono and adrenal fatigue for 18 months. It's like you ever stayed up till 02:00 in the morning for like five nights in a row and then evaluated your life and given yourself a big fat f. That was me for 18 months. And I couldn't really tell anyone in my mind because I'm an entrepreneur, so I'm fine. And what I learned is that when we don't share our vulnerability with our friends, we are depriving them of the opportunity to feel valued to us. So another, it's a two way street, reaching out to someone else and also sharing a piece of vulnerability.
Here's what I learned. Here's how I screwed up. Here's, you know, we like people more. And that kind of goes to the North Star research is we really are done with this idea of matching a search for excellence with a facade of perfectionism.
Erin: It's such a gorgeous segue into your research work because I think the themes in your creative work and your corporate work sort of overlap. It's not church and state. How could it be? It all is a product of you. But I really want to talk about the new North Star, which is a research project that you did. You interviewed 2000 people to gather insights about what exactly has changed in the world post Covid. And I just want to slow down and talk about that piece of it for a second because we all know the world has changed. We all know we got spit out the other side of that thing and we are like, what the fuck just happened to us? I mean, I came out the other side divorced, right? So I came out the other side laid off. Like, the aftermath of COVID for me was a complete revolution in my life.
And it is what a magnificent fucking gift, you know, when you can. When you can allow change to be positive. But obviously it's not a gift for everyone. It's not a gift for the million people who died. It's not a gift for, you know, all of the job loss and all of the. All of the upheaval. But I think we just. I haven't heard anyone talk about, like, how are we different? How is the culture different? I just know that everybody knows it is.
So I would love to hear from your perspective, like, what did we learn? What changed? How are we changed?
Lori: So, yeah, and I want to go back to the 2000 interviews were not interviews for this project because we do interviews all the time. So at the beginning of every interview, I asked people kind of where their emotional barometer is. What makes you feel successful as a human? What makes you not feel successful. And that gives me the core motivation. And what I noticed was that that navigation system changed over time with COVID And I took my little theories and I vetted it with over 100 thought leaders, including people from meta and Google and Metlife and little bitty companies and psychologists and advertising. So it was really a co creation project with all of these people. And here's what I learned. First of all, the power of not being perfect.
When Covid happened, we all went, I don't know what the fuck I'm doing, and neither does anyone else. You know what? That's a relief. I'm tired of trying to be perfect all the time. Aren't you? And, yeah, my kid makes noise, or my cat makes noise, or I'm wearing sweatpants right now. Let's get down to business. And what really brought that to life for me was one day I was interviewing moms that shop at Walmart about viral video, and they said, you know what? I really like the video better? When you can see a little spaghetti on the mom's face, you can see the laundry in the background. And that afternoon, I interviewed an executive for the World Health Organization who's managing $650 billion. And he said, I like it when asset managers, people that invest their money, tell me what they're thinking before it gets in the white paper.
I like it when they tell me what they got wrong last year and what they learned from it. And I realized this is the exact same comment. This is us all not just having a physical experience, but a physiological one, because there's a thing in your body called the vagus nerve, which goes from the base of your brain into your stomach. It's actually two nerves clawed together, and it's the nerve of mirroring gut reaction and intuition. So when you hear a singer sing, your vocal cords involuntarily mimic what that singer is doing. That's why we feel physically good after listening to certain singers, right? So we all mirrored each other in this. Let's separate. I'm striving for excellence, but I'm not pretending to be perfect anymore.
And women, particularly women over 40, are really like, you know what? I'm done with this whole, like, trying to be perfect stuff. It's ridiculous. So that's the first thing that's really changed.
Lori: Yeah. Lori, I was. I was deep in corporate life, in Covid. And then I spent a year and a half working out of my bedroom, you know, with the kids on the other side of the wall, doing homeschooling with our nanny, who happened to be available and, like, was living a very small life, and so we could sort of contain the COVID variables. But holy shit. I mean, being able to see my bosses, like, juggling their own lives, and my one boss, like, take calls from his van in the driveway, and the other one would be like, I'm on a walk. We're going to do this call. I'm on a walk ahead and get out of the house.
Erin: Like, it just all became. Everything kind of superficial and artificial got stripped away, and we were still our incredibly high achieving, buttoned up, capable selves. But we became humans to each other in a totally new way because we weren't putting on our little metaphorical business suits. You know, I guess in tech life, it's like putting on our hoodies, although I never wore a hoodie. Please, God forbid I should wear a hoodie. I'm a glamorous woman. I. You know, we were showing up messy with each other, and we were showing up human and flawed and fucked up and emotional and scared, and we did the best work of our professional lives during that time.
Lori: The thing about all of these findings is that they're not conclusions. They're issues we're wrestling with, because all of us felt the power of not being perfect. But not all of us had that permission. Healthcare workers, essential workers, parents, teachers had to be more perfect. And we're like, that is not fair. And so now we're wrestling to your point, there are gifts from COVID that we can choose to keep or not. We can choose. Everybody has to be the same way, and we all have to be perfect, or we can be imperfect, and we're still wrestling with that.
So that's the first issue that we've all decided to engage with as a world. So the second issue is that Covid is to our relationship with work, but the birth control pill was to our relationship with marriage. When the birth control pill came out, everyone went, yay. We don't have to have babies when we don't want to. And then we went, wait a minute. What does that mean about what an ideal romantic relationship really looks like? And we decided to reinvent that right when we all got a big time out from work, we went, wait a minute. What do I want my relationship with work to be like?
Erin: That's right.
Lori: Do I want to be all in? Do I want to have multiple gigs and go, I'm going to show up, and I'm going to do a great job, and then I'm going to go home and do my side hustle, because that's what I really love. Do I want to work for? Do I want to spend money with a company that doesn't share my values? We are really not up for. I mean, you said it so beautifully earlier, Aaron, of like, it's not that we don't have any fucks to give. We only want to give the fucks to the things that also align with what we care about.
Erin: That's right.
Lori: So there was a guy who worked for McDonald's or works for McDonald's. He's 65 years old. He's had some issues with addiction and incarceration, but he loves his job at McDonald's. He's like Captain Fry cook. Walks every day. He's like, goes to work. He's like, king of Fry. Until McDonald's announced that they were giving away 12 million meals to essential workers, but nobody from McDonald's came to thank him, an essential worker, for making any of those meals.
And now he's out on the picket line fighting for unionization because he's like, wait a minute. I thought we had a good relationship, and now I see that. That love that you said you had for me, you're giving to everybody else and you're ignoring me. I'm not down for that.
Erin: And that is a different expectation of your employer and your relationship with your employer. Yeah. And it's. And it's interesting because we are in a moment when labor is sort of saying, hey, guys, like, you're doing really well up there at the top of the top of the top. Maybe take a look at how that's impacting us. And there's those so many superficial gestures of corporate solidarity with whatever cause. And we saw it during George Floyd, and we saw it in Black lives Matter, and we've seen it across so many things. And, yeah, my hope is that individuals can hold companies to account for everybody just being a fucking human being to each other, you know, and having compassion when that's not really the rule of the day, and it hasn't been for 30 years, you know? Right. And this is not a politics podcast, but it's very hard to. To tease these things out in modern life.
Lori: Well, and it's also that there are a lot of leaders who also feel the same way that you and I feel. They want to have purpose, and they want to do that, but they're doing it in a very socially awkward way where the leadership is like, yay, we have all the values, and everyone else at the bottom is like, we're not buying what you're selling because it's like, imagine if it's 1978, the first year women can get credit cards on their own. And we're having women's power, and we're going, you know, the feminine mystique and what do I want in a relationship? Imagine if your husband comes home and says, you know what, Aaron? I agree, we need to have a better relationship. And he pulls out a PowerPoint deck on what the relationship should be. Even if it's exactly what you want, you don't want it presented that way. So if you are a leader in a company, you cannot come in with this. Here's the answer again, that goes back to the power of not being perfect. If you come in with the answer, even if the answer is right, we don't like it.
We want to be included. We want to be involved. We want to co create it. We want to have the messiness of vulnerability. So there are lots of corporate leaders that are really on board with these values, but they're getting learned helplessness going, I gave you the PowerPoint of what our marriage should be or what our work relationship should be, and you're still mad. Yeah, because the way you presented it didn't work for me.
Erin: But aren't people afraid to be in dialogue? I feel like. I feel like a lot of corporate life is like a kind of public relations effort internally where the company is sort of presenting to you like, this is our narrative. This is our story. As opposed to like, hey, let's have a conversation about what our story is. And also because they don't necessarily need you or want you as an employee at whatever level, unless you're in the tippy top elite elite to be in that conversation to define the story. Because the story is largely, okay, I'm on a fucking soapbox. But the story is largely for Wall street. The story is not for the employees.
Lori: And it depends on the company. There are, I work with Matt Life, who has one of the most diverse workforces, one of the biggest commitments to things. I mean, Microsoft has a whole program for people that think differently. They have a whole. An orientation program for people on the autism spectrum.
Erin: I think they need those employees because they're brilliant in certain ways. Yeah, right.
Lori: But we have bad habits. It's like, I don't know if you've ever heard this story. There's a little girl is making the roast with her mom, and the mom cuts the ends off the roast and puts them on the side. She's like, mommy, why do we do that? She's like, that's a family recipe. And she's like, but why? She's like, I don't know. She asked her mom, I don't know. They ask grandma, I don't know. Finally they get to great grandma, who's like in the retirement community, like, great grandma, how did we get the family recipe where we cut the ends off the rose? And she goes, what? You still cutting the ends off the roast? We only did that because the pan was too small.
Lori: It wouldn't fit.
Erin: I get it. So we inherit these things and we don't question why, right?
Lori: We have these habits of, we can't present something unless it's perfect. And we have to tell people what to do. And it's just habit. And it's a habit like, it's a habit that doesn't work. A lot of times, even right now, white papers. White paper's like being at the dinner table at a party and everyone's talking about Taylor Swift. And then 5 hours later you comment on Taylor Swift. We already did that.
You know what I mean? So there's just a lot of stuff that we have that we think is what we're supposed to do that is not only not coming across the way it's intended, it's actually repelling people. So that's what reinventing this. And again, as you said, there are companies who are like, yeah, we're going to pretend that we like you, but we all want, we want you, everyone in the office five days a week, and we don't trust you. And there are companies, there are basically two philosophies. One, the employee is an asset that you value and grow and treat with respect. The other, the employee is an expense that you manage and control and squish. And if you're in a company that believes that you're not going to do a personality transplant on that company, that's the way they are. And guess which company is probably going to be more successful in the long run? The one that has employee retention and treats people as assets.
Erin: So in my experience, though, they dissemble like, they act like you're an asset that they want to cultivate, but then they don't actually do it. And when push comes to shove, you're an expense.
Lori: And that's the cognitive reality.
Erin: Right?
Lori: And that's where you have to, like in any relationship, don't look at what they say, look at what they do. And that's how you know, because what they say is not, is worth, you know, the price of the piece of paper that they put it on or the email that they put it on. So, so the thing is that if you're, if you're in a moment, and I have a lot of folks that I know, a lot of clients and friends, if you're in a moment where you're reevaluating your job with your relationship with work, you first have to look at your relationship with the company. And if the company is just nothing, not sharing your values, you're not going to change that. You may decide to stay, but you may also decide to ratchet back. Like, you have certain friends that you're like, I don't like this person, but they're fun to go out to drinks with, but I'm not telling them any of my personal stuff because she's going to spill it to everyone. Just be aware of what your relationship is with your employer and what you want to do on your side to make it more what you want.
Erin: Right. It's so smart. It's so smart because, because there's a lot of virtues to being at certain companies and doing a specific job that you're very good at or that you really enjoy, but the wider context maybe doesn't sit right with you. And we have to figure out, like, what part of that is okay and what part of it is not.
Lori: Yeah. And shop for what you do want in. You know, can I get some extra skills? Can I, you know, what kind of, am I going to stay? I have friends who hate their jobs are like, I only have to be here three more years until I invested and then I'm peace out. That's right. But just. But not have the expectation that the abusive husband is suddenly going to stop being abusive. They're not going to.
Erin: Right. Right. But if your employer pays for your graduate degree and then you have to stay there for two years after that, that may be worthwhile because then you get to take something with you. So the next theme in your research is really related to this?
Lori: Yes, the next is I decide. In the 1980s, Yankelovich did a study about what people think success is, and we all said, oh, someone with a lot of money. Then in the nineties, we said, oh, someone who has flexibility of time. In the two thousands, it was flexibility of place, because if you were really successful, you had access to technology. But after the 2008 2009 recession, we went, this is all B's. And the new symbol of success, the status symbol, became kind of, I'm living my life with purpose. We can all think about the humble brag and, you know, oh, look at me living my life with purpose. After the pandemic, we went, why does anyone else tell me what success looks like? I decide for myself, which is also a double edged sword, because.
And this is where women over 40 again, have an advantage. In order to navigate your life with your measuring stick of success, you have to have enough self awareness and life experience to know what that is and enough emotional maturity to go if you don't like it. I don't care.
Erin: Yeah. God. I mean, and the I don't care is so hard one. The I don't care. I mean, that takes so much deprogramming and unwiring. And I do think some of that sort of erodes with age as, like, a function of age. But I also think you have to decide that what you care about is more important than assimilation. And we are assimilators.
We're pack animals. We want to be part of the group. And so to go your own way is easier when you're older because your estrogen is not telling you. Accommodate. Accommodate. So they'll take care of your babies. But, yeah, I mean that I don't care. I call it my fuck it era.
You know, that I'm kind of living in my fuck it era because I just. If you're not into what I'm doing, I don't really give a fuck. Like, good. That's fine. That makes it clearer to me, like, who my people are and who my community is and who I'm in service of and who my changes can help. That's kind of how I think about it.
Lori: And Mel Robbins has a great phrase for this. She's like, let them. They don't like you. Let them. The strongest motivation for humans is very unhealthy. It's inconsistent, positive response.
Erin: Oh, I know.
Lori: So what we do is, and Julia Cameron talks about that in her book, the artist way, is that when you have this new on Bambi legs idea of what you've decided, your success looks like, you immediately go out to your most critical friend and let the friend squash your idea.
Erin: Oh, my God. Is that right?
Lori: You can't do that to yourself. But we do that, don't we? Do we get tempted. Cause we want. We go now. You'll finally like me. Cause I have this new idea, and they hate. And I've had people. I had a friend of mine who I was working on a project, and it was the very first draft, and she didn't.
I learned not to ask, like, to be specific when I'm asking for feedback. And this person, rather than saying anything good, about the work, just like blasted me like she was doing, you know, a reporter's devastating review of it. I felt like I had been shot in the chest. I was on the street when I got her voicemail. And I literally will not do that project because every time I think about it, it's so I did it in another form. It's actually what I ended up doing as the play. But it was so devastating to have that feedback. And that was on me in part because I went to somebody.
I didn't ask for what I needed in terms of feedback. And I also, you know, it's not like this is the first time this person has been, you know, super critical like that. I mean, it was probably the worst that's ever happened. But we tend to go when we are doing, when you're creating, I decide what success looks like. You cannot go to anybody. It's really important. Go to the people that love you already, that already make you feel good until you get so confident that you don't care what anyone else things.
Erin: I love that so much. There's a twelve step saying, don't go to the hardware store for milk. And it's like, you know, you go to the same people for emotional support your whole life and they don't have that for you.
Lori: Yeah.
Erin: You know, that's not available there. But even worse, what you're talking about, which is like, you're going to someone for approval. And that approval and support, actually what you get is punishment.
Lori: Right. Exactly. So the last thing is, is it worth it? We all were like, you know, and I noticed I didn't fight with my relatives over Thanksgiving during the pandemic because we didn't go, you know, that group, this couple that we always used to go out Friday nights and now we have to get dressed up and get a babysitter. They're kind of judgy. Is it worth it? So it, on the positive side, to your point earlier, Erin, we're focusing on people, places, and things that we like. On the negative side, we're all sunburned underneath our shirt. You know, when you're sunburned and someone taps you on the shoulder, you're like, ouch. Right? We're so traumatized by the pandemic that the smallest things irritate us and we miss good content.
If a Buzzfeed article says, here are five things and they're not bulleted, you're dead to me. Oh, here's a cute video. And the video they have is not the video. You're dead to me. So, you know, we really. We need to be really thoughtful about how we're reaching out and communicating with people. When you send a positive email or text, it is received as neutral.
Erin: Is that right?
Lori: A neutral email or text is received as negative, and a negative is, like, way off the charts. So we have to work extra hard to make sure that our good intentions and our positivity are coming through when we're communicating electronically with people.
Erin: That's so interesting. I find that in parenting, too, where I actually have to reinforce the positive again and again and again and again and again. That's what I have to focus on doing consistently as opposed to, you didn't do this, and what about your chores and whatever? It's more like, hey, I really love the person that you're becoming. You're so responsible, and I never have to stress about whether you're going to do your thing. Like, I love that you did that because I didn't even ask you to do that, or you did that with no complaint. I have to do that a billion times. And then I see that my kids are getting built up, right, instead of being like, oh, mom hates when I. Whatever, whatever.
But we don't learn that. I think that's a muscle you have to build. What we're told is scold and criticize and punish. I am not in a punishment mode about fucking anything for anyone. Like, I am. I'm dating online. Like, my. My whole thing is, like, I can bail at any time. I'm gonna bail. I'm not gonna correct. Yeah, I'm not gonna correct. I'm not gonna coach you.
Lori: Maya Angelou talks about this, and I've really always tried. I don't always remember it, but I try to. She says when you come into a room, particularly with a child, the first thing they look at is your energy on your face. And if you're like this, looking at your screen and you're scrunching my face here, that's what they see. They see you looking at their shoes untied. So really try to have a habit. I try to have a habit of this, of when you see someone, whether it's on a Zoom call or just, I'm so grateful that you're here today. Let that gratitude be on your face as the first thing that they seed, because it really.
I mean, think about that. You're smiling already as I'm. As I'm saying this, how that feels when you walk in a room and someone's like, yay, you're here.
Erin: Yeah, it's huge. It's huge. And we needed it when we were little, and we need it now. You know? And I think I have less and less tolerance for being in situations where people are ambivalent about me. You know, I only want to be in places and with people who are like, I think you're awesome, and I think they're awesome. And, like, then let's make something. Let's build something. Let's do something.
Let's laugh. Let's have fun together, because we've spent so much of our lives just being in situations where we're being tolerated and we are tolerating. And I think in midlife, it's like, enough of that. And what your research says is, post Covid, we feel like that, too.
Lori: Exactly. So that's what I've learned. And it's really about we're all going through this and we're all wrestling with these things. So try to be as kind as you can to yourself and other people. And, you know, my one piece of advice for anybody in just, again, navigating your life, as you said, as an artist and as a researcher, is really make a practice. Whether you use stickers or numbers or whatever means at the end of your day, what lit you up? Because a lot of times what we think is lighting us up, like you were talking about earlier about your career, what you think is going to make you happy, what you think is going to make you feel fulfilled, is the opposite of that. And something that you're overlooking that you're like, oh, my gosh, these beautiful friends, this producing that I'm doing that feels so effortless and feels so fun. That's the thing to pay attention to. That's the sunshine to lean into.
Erin: I love that. Lean into the sunshine. I love it. Okay, I am going to ask you the question that I ask everyone who comes on this podcast, which is, are there any deal terms in your life that you are ready to renegotiate? And those can be explicit deals or implicit deals. They can be ways that you do things, ways that you approach things, things you've been sort of muddling through where you're like, you know what? That's not quite working for me anymore.
Lori: That's such a great question. Let me give a second to think about that. I think for me, there's a couple that are coming to mind. I'm sure they'll be as soon as we get off the phone, I'll think of eight zillion more. That's how we use two things. One is I am no longer, I will give it a couple of tries, but I am no longer in the business of convincing people to value who I am and what I do. If I've tried two or three times to go, hey, by the way, here's why research is important, or here's why art is important and you're not getting it. And by the way, saying nothing and saying no are identical, so people don't have to say no, I don't like you.
They just like you. Go, hey, do you ever want, would you like to get coffee? And they don't say anything. The answer is no, they don't want to go get coffee with you. So, you know, I'm not going to be in the business of trying to convince you of my value or the value of my work. The second thing is, and this has been really hard because the COVID economic thing kind of really hit me this last year, which was surprising after all these years of being in business, is I am no longer willing to take out worry insurance and decide that constantly worrying about things that I can't control somehow makes them go away. Bad things are happening in my life, or I don't have, the client is paying me late, or the proposal didn't come through, or I'm scared about this or that. Have I done everything I can do on it at this moment? Yes. Do I have a place to live? Do I have food? Am I fine? Yes.
All right, then let's just put that on the shelf. You know, you know this. When you're, when you're an actor and you go to the theater, a lot of times there's, you'll see, like, british actors will do this. They kind of like go before they go in the theater because you're dropping your baggage at the door. Let it, put it down. Carrying your baggage around all the time, or even worse, carrying other people's baggage. You think you're carrying their baggage, but you're just making a copy of their baggage. So now there's twice as much baggage, which isn't helping anyone.
Erin: You can carry somebody else's stuff.
Lori: I'm just not, I'm just not going to let every waking moment of my life be filled with fear or worry about something when there's nothing I can do and there's plenty of happiness to be had in the moment. Things a friend of mine says, lori, things are not happening to you. They're happening for you. Doesn't mean that they're good, but it also does mean that you can take, as you said earlier, so beautifully, Erin, you can take the things that have happened and you can transform them into something good if you're willing to do that.
Erin: Yeah. Sometimes things are happening to you, though.
Lori: Yeah. And sometimes things are bad and it's, you know, and like a leftover paper towel. Cardboard is not inherently good and things do suck. But you can take that and you can put paper mache on it and turn it into a fucking flower. So even when bad things.
Erin: A trumpet in my house.
Lori: It's a trumpet. Yeah, exactly. You can do what you, you know, and, and things. So the question is what? I find that I do better when I look at something, when a door is closed or my, my ego is bruised and go, okay. Matthew McConaughey says, you're either winning or you're learning. And if you're learning, you're winning.
Erin: All right, all right, all right. I think we'll leave it on that. We'll leave it on that.
Lori: Laura, thank you so much. Such a pleasure.
Erin: You're so smart. You're so insightful. You're so clear. Your examples are amazing. I have loved this conversation. So thank you so much for coming on and let hotter than ever listeners know where they can find you.
Lori: Yes, you can find me@theloriehamilton.com. you can also find me@prosperityproductionsinc.com. or anywhere social media lori l o r I hamilton. Like the musical?
Erin: Excellent. Excellent. We'll put all that in the show notes. Thank you so much.
Lori: Thank you. This has been such a pleasure. You're such an inspiration. I feel so grateful that we got to spend time together and thank you for sharing me and my time with your listeners. I'm just full of gratitude for this day. Thank you so much.
Erin: Thanks for listening to hotter than ever. If you loved this conversation, send it to a friend. It's that easy. Go on the podcast app where you're listening to this podcast. Hit the Send button. Send a friend a little note. Technology makes it so simple to share the things that you enjoy and that light you up. Like this show and this conversation with Lori Hamilton.
Did you know that there's a hotter than ever newsletter you can sign up for at hotterthanever.substack.com. on the substack, I write and think a little bit more deeply about the people and conversations I have on this show, and I also provide links and more information about my guests and the work they're up to in the world. People are signing up every day. It is really cool to see. I would love to see you over on the sub stack where we keep the conversation going. And that's another place to share what you think about the show and give me your honest feedback.
Hotter than ever is produced by Erica Gerard and Podkit Productions. Our associate producer is Melody Carey. Music is by Chris Keating. That's my brother, with vocals by Issa Fernandez.
I hope you're taking some time to relax and chill and hang out with friends and lovers this summer. It is definitely my favorite season, even though it is like 110 degrees in the San Fernando Valley. I am really tan, even though we're not supposed to get tan, but I really like getting tan in the summer. Not summer without a tan to me. I mean, if you are wiser than I am, maybe you're not tan, but put on sunscreen. Put on sunscreen. Do as I say, not as I do. I really could be better about that. I'm good on my face. I'm just less good with the sunscreen on my body because, you know, I want to be Tanya Wallace.
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