Suze Yalof Schwartz was the Energizer Bunny of fashion media. Dubbed the “Fairy Godmother of Makeovers” by the New York Times, she worked for 20 years in senior positions at magazines like Glamour, doing makeovers for shows like Oprah and Good Morning America. But Suze was also overworked, and she knew it. Then she stumbled upon a 3-minute breathing exercise, and it changed her life forever. It was when she discovered meditation. Suze talks to Katherin about the difficulties pivoting from fashion to founding Unplug, the world’s first drop-in meditation studio, and the low points in her previous life that convinced her to make a change. She shares how meditation has kept her calm in dangerous situations (even during a bank robbery), and the unexpected benefits of daily meditation.
Suze Yalof Schwartz was the Energizer Bunny of fashion media. Dubbed the “Fairy Godmother of Makeovers” by the New York Times, she worked for 20 years in senior positions at magazines like Glamour, doing makeovers for shows like Oprah and Good Morning America. But Suze was also overworked, and she knew it. Then she stumbled upon a 3-minute breathing exercise, and it changed her life forever. It was when she discovered meditation.
Suze talks to Katherin about the difficulties pivoting from fashion to founding Unplug, the world’s first drop-in meditation studio, and the low points in her previous life that convinced her to make a change. She shares how meditation has kept her calm in dangerous situations (even during a bank robbery), and the unexpected benefits of daily meditation.
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Hosted by Katherin Vasilopoulos. Made by Cansulta and Ethan Lee.
Music by © Chris Zabriskie, published by You've Been a Wonderful Laugh Track (ASCAP).
Songs used in this episode include: "Air Hockey Saloon," “The Sun is Scheduled to Come Out Tomorrow,” “Short Song 102723,” “We Always Thought the Future Would be Kind of Fun,” “Land on the Golden Gate.”
Used under the Creative Commons 4.0 International License
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Katherin Vasilopoulos: [00:00:00] Hi, I'm Katherin Vasilopoulos. (Breath) Starting my own venture wasn't easy.
After a decade working in the corporate world, I realized that so many things were out of my control, like layoffs and changes and direction. I didn't like the instability. I didn't want that to define my whole career at professional story, and so I left. I started my own company and achieved more than I ever imagined.
Now I'm on a mission to share stories from extraordinary entrepreneurs who are changing the world and who never gave up on their vision.
(Breath) It's easy to get caught up in your work to feel overwhelmed by your to-do list and the desire to achieve, but it's also easy to meditate.
Incorporating meditation into your day is easy, and the effects can be profound. For Suze Yalof Schwartz, discovering this was a revelation. She spent 20 years working in high profile positions for fashion magazines like Vogue and Glamour, doing makeovers for shows like Oprah and Good Morning America. The New York Times called her the "Fairy Godmother of Makeovers."
It's not hard to imagine that Suze's experience in fashion was high stress, to say the least. But in 2010, a three minute breathing exercise changed her life. She left her career behind to start Unplug, the world's first drop in meditation studio. For someone who spent two decades thriving on a fast-paced schedule, Suze's philosophy on meditation is surprisingly simple: that you can do it too. She's offering a 30-day free trial of the Unplug app for listeners of And So, She Left, which we'll talk about at the end of the episode.
Hi Suze. Thank you so much for agreeing to speak with us today. What I'd like to start with is, um, what was your career like in the beginning stages, in your crazy, fast-paced Manhattan life? Uh, as your, you know, you were formerly known as the "Fairy Godmother of Makeovers."
Suze Yalof Schwartz: [00:02:17] Well, I actually worked at magazines from 1990 all the way to 2010.
So I worked at Vogue, Elle, Marie Claire, and when I landed at Glamour Magazine, what happened was I was doing, um, the swimsuit, makeovers and working with someone on that, and they were shooting them on mannequins. And I said, why are we shooting them on mannequins when we were testing these swimsuits to see if they would, you know, make someone's bust look bigger, rear look smaller, whatever we were trying to do, , because it was so much more effective looking at the before and afters on them.
So I said, Let's put it on the real people. And so we did that and it just went viral. So Oprah Winfrey saw the magazine and she loved it and she wanted us to put it on her show. And then, um, the New York Times saw the show from Oprah. Then they wanted to do a story on me, and the next thing you know, I'm doing makeovers for the rest of my life in the fashion industry. So I remember the New York Times photographer taking that photo and saying, I just want you to know your whole life is gonna change after I take this photo. And I said, okay. And it really did. It was a sound bite that they used, the "Fairy Godmother of Makeovers." Need a ratings boost. Hire Suze at Glamour Magazine to do makeovers. So, because they said that line, I was on television before that, but this made it so I was on television Monday through Friday, sometimes multiple times a day doing makeovers. So, because people thought they would get a rating boost.
Katherin Vasilopoulos: [00:03:56] And what does that do for you in terms of workload and the level of stress. I, I imagine it increases the stress because more is at stake right now.
Suze Yalof Schwartz: [00:04:06] Well, I look back at those days fondly because I am an energizer bunny. I love working a lot. I loved doing a lot. I loved saying yes to everything, and I never really thought about my own stress levels at the time. For people who are workaholics, they don't really stop and think about what they're doing.
And I didn't have a real crash in burn until I ended up leaving, um, Glamour moving to Los Angeles and then just doing nothing was really shocking. And I realized, wow, all those years of just going, going, going and not being present in the present moment when I was, took a toll. So it was a high stress, crazy environment and I wish I was meditating then.
Had I known then when I know now, I would've been even more successful at that.
Katherin Vasilopoulos: [00:04:59] There was one moment in the book that I wanted to ask you about that you called your lowest moment, which was when you were still working in the fashion industry and your assistant brought the wrong bag to a photo shoot. What happened?
Suze Yalof Schwartz: [00:05:14] Um, we were shooting with Good Morning America and Glamour, a huge makeover shoot at Nascar, and we were doing makeovers in the pit. And my assistant at the time packed the reject rack. The reject rack were all the clothes that my Editor-in-Chief at the time said, Absolutely, do not bring these clothes. They can't go in the magazine.
So there was the good rack and there's the reject rack. Well, she packed the reject rack and not the good rack.
Katherin Vasilopoulos: [00:05:51] Oh no.
Suze Yalof Schwartz: [00:05:52] So we're in the middle of Nascar. There's no shopping centers close by. The closest one is 20 miles away and it's a Walmart, and so I was so upset. So I think first I scorched the village.
I took it out on her. I got really mad at her, yelled at her. I started hysterically crying because I was just so, didn't know what to do. I mean, I, all these people and I have to be happy cuz I'm on television and you know, I have a huge team. This is like a, you know, $80,000 shoot. At the time we even had a partnership with another company, like a beauty company that came in as well, and then I calmed down and then I did it.
I took care of it. But had I been a meditator, I would've never scorched the village. I would've stopped and taken a breath and figured out how to respond to the situation. But because I never meditated, I was just letting the emotions rule me. I still cringe when I think back at that moment, but I, we've all been there, we've all been so angry that we've taken it out on other people.
We've all been so upset that we've just cried and over the dumbest things of all time. You know who this is not life or death, you know, shooting makeovers at Nascar, but it, it appeared like it was from my emotional state. So we all have reactions, but I'm able to pause before I lose it.
Katherin Vasilopoulos: [00:07:29] It's your reality. It's your problem happening at that moment. It's very important. Even though to an outsider, it may not be. And I call those moments, those volcanic moments where the volcano just, whoosh, everything goes up in flames and everything comes outta your mouth. And before you know it, you've said it and it's too late, you can't take it back.
And then you're like, oh no, I did it again. Um, but maybe the meditation is something that will help those of us who are more volcanic than others. I don't know.
Suze Yalof Schwartz: [00:07:57] I'm never gonna forget that for the rest of my life, Katherin. A volcanic moment. That is the perfect way to say it. And yes, this is actually stopping the volcano from erupting because-
Katherin Vasilopoulos: [00:08:12] Mm-hmm.
Suze Yalof Schwartz: [00:08:13] -we all get the volcanic moment, right? It's the eruption that we wish didn't have to happen, right?
Katherin Vasilopoulos: [00:08:20] So let's go back a little bit. You were in Manhattan, then you moved to California because, um, your husband is, uh, invited to a new job and you take your whole family there. Tell me the steps that had to happen from making that move to then creating Unplug.
Suze Yalof Schwartz: [00:08:36] So what happened was I was actually out in Los Angeles for the Oscars, helping Robin Roberts find an outfit and getting dressed and commenting on the red carpet. And then I went to go visit a friend of mine who lived in Malibu who had three kids running in a field. I had like three hours to go visit him, and I was like, wow, he's pretty amazing.
Our kids are climbing up the walls of Manhattan, like Joe's kids are living large here in LA. So when I came home as a joke, I told my husband, we should move to Los Angeles. Two weeks later, he gets a call out of the blue about this incredible opportunity to work with one of the most unbelievable humans.
Eli Broad. He has a museum here. Eli talked him into it and he is like, let's have an adventure and move to LA. That's when I quit my job in New York, moved to Los Angeles with my three kids, not knowing anyone here. Never having been anywhere but the Chinese theater in my friend's backyard. And then I started working again and going back and forth to New York.
When I went to New York on one trip, I almost had a panic attack because I didn't feel good about leaving my three kids in LA even though my husband was home working. And my mother-in-law, fortunately, was a psychotherapist, was there, and she literally taught me a three minute meditation that transformed me from stressed to calm, from worrier, to not worrying at all.
And after that happened, I said, what is that? I wanna know what that is. And she told me it's meditation and I should really learn how to do that. Probably something she was thinking for a really long time and never actually said to my face. And so when I came back to LA, I started searching for places to meditate and it was not easy.
There were three week programs, six week programs, four day extensive programs in some stranger's apartment. There were no places like the dry bar where you could just pop in and get your hair done for 30 minutes, come out look great, feel great. Um, there was nothing like that for meditation. And that's when I started thinking, wow. Meditation needs makeover. So I said to my husband, I honestly feel like I should open a meditation studio. And he said to me, you should really learn how to meditate first. And I said, oh yeah, there's that . Okay, you'll see I'll do this. And so I started, um, learning from all the different people. All the experts.
And next thing you know, I'm connecting with the entire spiritual industry out here and I'm searching for spaces, and I find one, I say, This is it. And I literally said to the person who owned the building, I know nothing about business, but I really believe this is gonna be the biggest thing in the world.
And there'll be one on every corner. We then, from that point on, started opening up classes, and that was tax day, April 14th, 2014. So we're just about to celebrate our ninth year birthday at this studio.
Katherin Vasilopoulos: [00:11:44] It's incredible because you said you knew nothing about business and you knew nothing about meditation, and yet it worked.
What did you have to do to prepare for all this? Where did you get all of your training and what had to happen?
Suze Yalof Schwartz: [00:11:56] Well, I went to a very exclusive university called University of YouTube. It is free for anybody who needs to go. So I always say for anyone who has an idea that they can't stop thinking about and they wonder, how am I gonna do this?
Who am I to open up the world's first meditation studio? Who am I to do that? Right? It's about taking steps in the direction of your dream on a daily basis, microsteps, and that's exactly what I did.
Katherin Vasilopoulos: [00:12:28] What kind of stuff was available out there? You said some stuff was three weeks. Were there things that were out of reach and that you thought, oh, I could do better than that?
Suze Yalof Schwartz: [00:12:35] Well, I really did think I could do better than all of it, but I took a six week program at UCLA which was great, but it was really slow for a New Yorker who wants to transform that six weeks into six minutes. Um, I did all of Deepak Chopra's 21 day meditation series back to back to back to back. I started, you know, going to lectures with Eckhart Tolle and all these different leaders and just kind of trying to absorb as much as I possibly could.
And really, I started learning and reading books, a ton of books. And the books were actually the best thing. In fact, there was one book called Please Meditate by Olivia Rosewood. And I just read that book and I loved it so much. So I tweeted her actually, and found out she lived in LA and I said, can I meet you?
I'm opening up the studio. She came to the studio and explained to her my philosophy and she said, that's so weird. That's my philosophy too. And what it was, was I was actually quoting her to her. I didn't realize, like I'd underlined every single thing on her book, that her philosophy then became my philosophy and she became one of our teachers.
Katherin Vasilopoulos: [00:13:45] Sounds like you were surrounded by a lot of important people and good people who helped you out. Uh, I think that's very important when you're starting off. But were there ever any moments that were really hard or you thought, I can't do this anymore. It's just too hard.
Suze Yalof Schwartz: [00:13:59] Everything was scary. I didn't even know how to sell anything.
Point of sale system. I had to set that up. There's so many things that I had to learn the hard way. Unfortunately. I mean, when I first opened up Unplug, I was giving away free classes. And that is the worst thing you can ever do. Free services. You think, oh, they'll come, they'll try us, they love it, and they'll come back.
It doesn't work like that. Free services, they come, they try it, they say thank you, and then they look for the next free service. So they don't really value it. So when you pay, you pay attention. Even for a single class, they don't really value it as much. I'm paying X, I'm coming to one class, I'm one and done.
But if you create a two week unlimited, which is what we did, all of a sudden, you wanna get in as much as you possibly can, and then by the time that it's over, you're addicted. And that's when we say, oh, you should join us for membership.
Katherin Vasilopoulos: [00:15:06] It's like, give me an example of people who take your classes and what impact that's had on them.
Suze Yalof Schwartz: [00:15:10] There's zero type, so you might be sitting in a class next to an A-list celebrity and then next to a surgeon, next to a tree hugger. What they all have in common is they all have big hearts and they all are overcoming obstacles to be a little bit more responsive and less reactive in their lives.
Katherin Vasilopoulos: [00:15:32] Yeah, I, I guess when you're in it, you're not thinking about. Going through the motions, you have to get things done. It's uh, you know, you have your to-do list day in, day out. You have to go ahead and tackle what's in front of you, so you're not really thinking, oh, this is a stressful moment.
Suze Yalof Schwartz: [00:15:47] Usually what happens to people is when they function like that, they end up having a disease afterwards because they're so stressed and they're never taking time for self-care.
And what happens is they end up getting sick and then they find self. I remember Arianna Huffington telling me the story of how she was working like that. And one day she literally collapsed at her desk and hit her head and was bleeding, and that's what it took for her to find meditation and self-care.
Katherin Vasilopoulos: [00:16:22] That's pretty impactful. No pun intended. But I mean, that's really where people, , people realize at some point something has to happen in order for you to have a wake up call and say, Oh, I can't keep going at this pace because it's literally gonna kill me. Or it will at least, you know, incapacitate me for a bit.
And is that, I guess that's what happened with you in, in California?
Suze Yalof Schwartz: [00:16:44] Mm-hmm. It's interesting cuz I've met so many people like that. Like, um, there is a client who comes to Unplug who was having panic attacks and going to the hospital and the emergency room. They knew him at this point cause it was happening so often.
He was a gold trader that they started rolling their eyes when he got there. And one day he's looking outside of his office and he sees our studio. And he thought it was built just for him. It was a mirage cuz they were telling him he needed to meditate and then he stopped having panic attacks. And one of our teachers lost an organ working in the music industry.
She got so sick from stress and now she teaches meditation all the time. So it's so interesting how powerful. Um, when I say you can't function at that level for too long of a period of time before something taking a toll takes a toll on your health.
Katherin Vasilopoulos: [00:17:40] I know it's a cliche question, but how does that make you feel? You're giving them this space, you're giving them this opportunity to do something that they may have never tried otherwise. Like, how do you feel about this life choice now and was this a calling for you?
Suze Yalof Schwartz: [00:17:54] This was a calling. I had an idea. And I tried to suppress it, but nothing would let me suppress this, and I was determined to see it through until the end, and it is the greatest decision I ever made in my life.
To be able to impact lives. And it's not even me. I'm, I'm hiring the teacher.I'm providing the space, but the teachers and the people who work at the front desk or work with me, they're holding space for so many people and changing so many lives. It's such a collective. I don't really see it as an individual.
I really don't. And I also feel like I'm the client. So, I feel grateful that I get to go, and I'm also grateful the clients share are their stories with me, because I have hundreds and hundreds of stories of people whose lives... one woman credits her baby to us. Her fertility doctor sent her to unplug after the third fail.
She was gonna try it one more time for in vitro. She came to Unplug. She, she was a producer at a television show, and she took a two week leave of absence and came to Unplug three times a day. And she has a little baby named Sam now. And every time I see Sam, I'm just so happy. And she always says, Sam's an Unplug baby.
Katherin Vasilopoulos: [00:19:18] Oh.
Suze Yalof Schwartz: [00:19:19] Because stress was a thing that was her hurdle for fertility. You know, it was stress. That's what her doctor said.
Katherin Vasilopoulos: [00:19:28] To me, that's one of the most, um, impactful things to hear, is that when somebody takes charge of their own health and decides that they're going to try something else that isn't medication based or is not something that's been, you know, prescribed. It's something that's from within.
Suze Yalof Schwartz: [00:19:46] I was at a Duke conference and they said that 70% of Duke students feel overwhelmed one or more times a week, and they said that that percentage was low compared to the other universities. So mental health is going to be a real focus for universities across America.
Our kids who just went through the worst pandemic of all time are going to need support. This is something that's been really de-stigmatized. So we're gonna be seeing a lot more people being a lot more open about their mental health needs moving forward.
Katherin Vasilopoulos: [00:20:29] You have a book that you've published in 2017, and there was one passage in there, which I thought was really important is there was, um, an incident nearby, um, concerning a bank. Can you tell me more about that story?
Suze Yalof Schwartz: [00:20:42] That's actually one of my favorite stories because it really shows you how well this can work. So I was at the front desk with my studio manager and there were about 30 people in the room meditating. And our studio has windows right on Wilshire Boulevard and from the front, we were hearing helicopters and a lot of noise outside of the studio.
So Deborah and I decided to take a walk outside and we looked to the right and there were two police officers pointing guns in our direction, and they said, Get back in the building and get everyone away from the windows. There's a bank robbery going on, literally right next to our studio.
So we run inside and panic overcomes us. Like my whole body's heated. I'm turning completely red. I can barely breathe. I look at her and her face is white as a ghost. She is just in panic mode. And I said, we need to breathe. Let's just do that. So we did this 16 second breath, which we learned from David G.
It's called the box breath, and we calmed ourselves. And then I calmly walked into the room. I went up to the front. I took the bell that was at the front, um, on the stage in the studio. I rang the bell and I said, Hello, everyone, if you could just gently open up your eyes. I'm gonna ask you all to leave this room.
Um, nothing to worry about. There's a bank robbery going on next door and we're just gonna go to the back room.
Katherin Vasilopoulos: [00:22:20] Nothing to worry about. No, no.
Suze Yalof Schwartz: [00:22:21] Following me to the other room. And, we were in lockdown for three hours.
Katherin Vasilopoulos: [00:22:28] Oh wow.
Suze Yalof Schwartz: [00:22:29] So we're sitting in there and we're getting to know each other and we're kind of having fun and everybody's understanding they can't go outside cause there's a bank robbery and this is one of the strangest things that ever happened to them. And finally, actually the bank robbers got away with it. And we have a video, I think somewhere on our website at the bottom under press, um, about the story because the news channel started coming to the building.
Katherin Vasilopoulos: [00:22:55] Okay.
Suze Yalof Schwartz: [00:22:56] And I thought I was so calm from doing that breath and choosing to remain calm, and I'm like, this is a great PR opportunity. So I went outside and I said, If you show the sign, I'll tell you exactly what happened. And I kind of walked them through the bank robbery and how we were in the back and how a lot of people became members that day because they were like, wow, if you two can stay calm then and you could make us come, then we wanna do this more often.
And it was one of those situations that I'll just never forget.
Katherin Vasilopoulos: [00:23:28] That's extremely real and it really hits to that inner place of fight or flight. You know, when you get really panicky and you feel like all the blood rushes to your feet and nothing is working and you can't move, or whatever people go through when they're panicking, that breath is what made it all okay and recentered everything. Um, and helped a lot of people stay safe.
Suze Yalof Schwartz: [00:23:49] When we're afraid, you know, what we don't do is we don't breathe. Our breath becomes really shallow. And so consciously just deepening it is the easiest way to self sooth.
Katherin Vasilopoulos: [00:24:12] I think there's, uh, something to be said about learning techniques to calm yourself down and being very self-aware. Tell me more about these breathing techniques. Can you tell me a little bit more and share?
Suze Yalof Schwartz: [00:24:22] Yes. Uh, you know, as you're talking about this, I'm really thinking about how simple it is because we all have moments outside of us that are chaotic, that are moments we cannot control, that are moments we wish were never were.
And in those moments you can, you know, freeze, fight, or. That's kind of what they say. You know, if you just took that little space, there is a Victor Frankl quote. In-between stimulus and response lies a space, and in that space lies our freedom. That space is accessible through counting and breathing. So breathing in for four, holding for four, exhaling for four, holding for four is that space, and anybody can do that.
You don't have to be a brain surgeon to be able to do it. In fact, I've taught it to brain surgeons who do it all the time. Now, there is another way to get happy quick, which is literally closing your eyes, and I'll invite you to do that right now. Make sure you're not driving. If you're trying this, pull over and just visualize your happy place.
Where is your happy place? It could be your bed. It could be a beach, forest, hiking. It's your meditation. And what happens in your meditation stays in your meditation.
So visualize your happy place, and now just imagine yourself really being there.
And what are you doing when you're inside your happy place.
When you're ready, you can wiggle your fingers and your toes and open your eyes, and I have to say, it's, you have huge smiles on your faces, so clearly you went somewhere and you didn't have to pay for it with the first class ticket there. Katherin, where were you?
Katherin Vasilopoulos: [00:26:43] Well, It's the happy place I go to and I go to the dentist to be quite honest.
I close my eyes and I go right there cuz I can't deal with the, the drilling and all that. It's, it's a big green field and I'm skipping through the field and I can feel the grass grazing by the side of my legs and, and I'm, I'm skipping and there's a white butterfly flying around me and keeping me company as I'm doing this.
And there's a big, beautiful blue sky and a beautiful sunshine, and it's, everything is peaceful and there are no threats. Everything is just peaceful and wonderful and it's, it's ongoing and it's infinite. That, that the field doesn't end. And that's where I went.
Suze Yalof Schwartz: [00:27:24] And how easy that you can go there for 60 seconds and feel happier. So yes, Bob Roth, who's a famous TM teacher, talks about the ocean and he says, when it's stormy outside, the surface of the ocean is very choppy and scary. But when you go underneath and beneath the surface of the ocean, it's really still and calm. And we are just like that.
Katherin Vasilopoulos: [00:27:50] What do you tell people who say, oh, I don't do meditation. That's not for me. It's too hippy, or It doesn't work for me, or, I've tried and it's just I can't sit still. Like, what do you tell them?
Suze Yalof Schwartz: [00:28:01] I love hearing that because it depends what kind of meditation you're doing. Look, we can call it tactical breathing, and that's meditation, right? It doesn't have to be called meditation.
If that word scares you, let's just call it tactical breathing, which is what the Navy Seals call it. And it's the exact same thing.
Katherin Vasilopoulos: [00:28:23] I was gonna say. That sounds very military .
Suze Yalof Schwartz: [00:28:25] Yes. Yeah. Tactical breathing, or we could call it mindfulness in schools, or we could call it meditation in the ashram. You know, there's so many different ways you can talk about it, but scientifically speaking, this works.
There has been a study by Sarah Lazar. She did a TED Talk, and you can watch it on YouTube where she shows before and after MRIs of the brain. And she takes 50 year olds who've never done this before and compares them to the brains of 25 year olds. 25 year old brains are super sharp, and that's when your brain peaks.
And what happens is after the age of 25, it slowly starts to decline. So she took 50 year olds and had them meditate and did the before and after. And what she found was the area where executive decision making memory focus. That area in the front of the brain grew and the area, the amygdala back of the brain, stress and anxiety, shrunk.
So people were able to change the physical structure of their brain, scientifically speaking, by doing these practices. So it's not about does it work or doesn't it work? There's so many scientific studies that prove that it does. . Now the next question is, um, I can't do it cause I think too much. And what people don't realize is we have between 5 to 80,000, 5,000 to 80,000 thoughts every single day.
That's about a thought a second. So you're not gonna stop thinking, you're never gonna be able to clear your mind. Meditation is a practice between your mind wandering and you coming back to the present moment. And it's like a dance. Your mind will have you planning a vacation to Italy and then you're like, whoa, let me come back here and get my brain and body into the same zip code.
The practice is actually being able to notice when you're unaware because these thoughts that are on autopilot for us, stress, anxiety, we're not good enough. They're sometimes they're really mean thoughts that we're telling ourselves that aren't even true. We're able to be aware of those thoughts and now able to unsubscribe from them because we have that awareness and the practice is to come back.
Noticing what you're thinking is going to help you clear out those thoughts that are no longer serving you, and actually inputting thoughts that are going to move you forward. You know, there's a lot of hype about toxic positivity, but to me, negative thinking is the worst thing that you can do to yourself because when you are a negative thinker, you're sabotaging yourself all day long, every day, and enough people are trying to sabotage. The last person we need it from is ourselves.
Katherin Vasilopoulos: [00:31:24] Right, exactly. What's toxic positivity? How do you describe that?
Suze Yalof Schwartz: [00:31:29] Toxic positivity is a sound bite used in our worlds of where they say, you know, think about your happy place like we just did. Or find the light. Negative thinkers sometimes really dislike toxic positivity.
We can't always be positive, but we can be negative less. And less and less and less. And when you start practicing and cultivating your practice by meditating a little bit every single day, then you are able to work your muscle and actually choose where you're gonna place your attention and awareness. So for people who are distracted like me, I'm probably one of the most dis, I love a shiny new thing.
Give me a shiny new thing any second. And I'm, I'm all in. The people who like shiny new objects are really distracted by being able to be aware of your triggers and your habits and the things that are running on old software. Like our brain is, we learned a bunch of stuff when we were young, but we haven't taken the time to edit that stuff out and reprogram ourselves. This is like a reprogramming that you can do for yourself. Where do I wanna place my attention? Where do I wanna place my awareness? What do I wanna focus on? How do I wanna feel? These are questions most people don't ever ask themselves, but we do cuz we're meditators.
Katherin Vasilopoulos: [00:32:48] Can we go back for a second and talk more about, um, although I love the whole meditation discussion because I don't know a lot about it and so for me it's fascinating. But I do wanna talk about, you know, the transition that you had to make from being a, a person that works in a fashion industry on the East Coast and doing all these high profile, uh, jobs on a constant basis, and then this decision to create a company like Unplug and an app. Tell me about this thought process. I mean, how, how did you think it was gonna unfold and was it easy? Was it hard? Was it scary?
Suze Yalof Schwartz: [00:33:24] Um, it's not easy. It's still not easy. That wasn't easy, and this is not easy, but when you love something so much it's, and you're passionate about it, you just wanna do it every day.
So my husband says to me, Oh, this isn't even like a job for you. It isn't. Cuz I find it so fun. It is not any slower than what I did at Glamour. I'm slower, but I'm also able to do more in less time. Because I'm not getting so distracted by everything, so I'm able to focus for longer stretches and periods of time.
When we talk about, you know, going from one to another, we think about the skeptic and how do skeptics go from being completely skeptical to doing it. I'll tell you, Travis Elliot, who's a yoga teacher, Lauren Eckstrom who's one of our teachers on the app said, You know, how do you know if it's working? Or one of her clients said that, and Travis said, You stop doing it.
So when you stop meditating after you meditate, you remember what you used to be like, premeditation, because it wears off. So I can't even miss a day because if I miss a day, I notice I am not myself. I'm a better mother, I'm a better boss. I'm more focused, I'm more present. I'm less volcanic.
Katherin Vasilopoulos: [00:34:52] And this is something that you probably didn't think would ever happen. You know when you start your first career, when you're younger and you don't know what's coming up ahead, and now you see and you look back, you go, yeah, that's pretty cool what I've created.
Suze Yalof Schwartz: [00:35:06] That's the beautiful thing is people might be thinking, oh, well I'm not her. I'm not as connected. I can't do this because that's not me. And I want you all to know, whoever's listening to this, that yes you can. You know, I didn't have a lot of money to start this business. In fact, I bartered my services for certain things. So I did closet makeovers for logo design. I did media training for free legal advice, you know, and I basically bartered with my friends to help me get off the ground.
And I was super scrappy. And I always say, if you love something and you have an idea and you wanna go forward with it, you can do it at the same time as you have another job. It's when you hit that moment of conflict like I did, I was actually doing segments for Good Morning America, and it was at the time when Kate Middleton was wearing all these great outfits and they would constantly be asking me what did I think of what she was wearing? Can you do a segment on that? And I loved it. I loved fashion, but I was unable to do it because I was too busy going to classes, too busy learning about meditation, meeting new teachers, and finally I couldn't do both anymore, and I had to make a choice. And then my choice became where my passion was, and it was with meditation. So I've never looked back since then.
Katherin Vasilopoulos: [00:36:25] I have a smile on my face right now because I love coming to new realizations and, and learning something I didn't quite understand before. And now you've kind of connected the dots for me. Are there more meditations? Do you want to...
Suze Yalof Schwartz: [00:36:39] There's one for every mood you want to feel.
So if you say, I want to be X, let's say I'm teaching a room of a thousand people, I can actually have them feel exactly as they want to. So we can try one more. You know, it's not about your to-do list in the morning. It's about your to be list. That is so much more important is to think about your to be list.
So for instance, how do you wanna show up? Would you wanna be calm? Would you like to be present? Would you like to be focused, disciplined? Um, more energetic, less energetic? I don't know. This is gonna be your meditation. So let's begin by closing our eyes.
And I'd like you to just visualize how you want to be today. Just come up with one word, one word only, and raise your hand when you have your word.
Great. You can drop your hands. And now on the inhale, I would like you to say to yourself, I am, and on the exhale, you're going to repeat your word and you're gonna just do this silently to yourself. I am on the inhale, your word on the exhale, three times.
And now just visualize the rest of your day from this point forward of you being your word. Who are the people that you come in contact with? What are the things that you do? Just imagine yourself being your word, and on the next inhale, silently say to yourself your word and just release the opposite of your word. So if your word is calm, then it's gonna be stressed. On the exhale, inhaling your word. Exhaling the opposite as if you are releasing the opposite from your body.
Do you feel like your word?
And when you're ready, you can open your eyes.
Katherin Vasilopoulos: [00:39:43] Many thanks to Suze Yalof Schwartz. To get a 30-day free trial of Unplug, you can use the code found in the episode description. And So, She Left is made by Cansulta and Ethan Lee. We'll be back next Wednesday with a new episode. Music by Chris Zabriskie, edited for your enjoyment.
You can find a list of all the songs you heard here in the episode notes, I'm Katherin Vasilopoulos, and thanks for listening.