Jennifer Tracy: Hey guys, welcome back to the show. This is MILF Podcast, the show where we talk about motherhood, entrepreneurship, sexuality and everything in-between. I'm Jennifer Tracy, your host. Happy new year. Welcome to a new decade, 2020. It is on. It's already buzzing, I can feel it. And I really hope you guys enjoyed the bonus episode that came out on New Year's Eve with me and my son. I really had a great time doing that. I'm so thankful that my producer, Sarah, thought of it. It was her idea. And yeah, it was just really, really sweet. I hope that everybody's having a great week this week.
Jennifer Tracy: I love this week, because depending on when Christmas and New Year's Eve fall generally, especially New Year's Eve, that kind of tells you how much longer you have. But this year on break. This year, it falls in the middle of the week, and so we've had the rest of this week. I know my son doesn't go back to school until the seventh. So it's a nice long break. And there's just really your hands are tied. I mean, most businesses are shut down. There's not a lot you can do. Even though I never shut down. I've been working this whole time. But luckily for me, my work is playful and fun, most of the time. But I'm going to talk more about that in this episode, because it's just me today. I'm flying solo on this first episode of the year. I do have a couple of announcements.
Jennifer Tracy: The first one is I'm collaborating with these two really rad companies, both female owned. The first one is called My-Tee Girls, and I came upon them through my dear friend Kate Grace Bauer who lives in New Orleans. She posted something about them on her Instagram. And so I went and investigated and I got on a phone call with Regen, the owner, who is a lawyer, full-time lawyer and a mom and she has this company, and we talked for quite a while. It was really fascinating. So what it is, and she's been so gracious as to offer my listeners a discount code, of MILF20. So mighty girls is a clothing brand for little girls that is whimsical, as it is inspiring. It encourages its young wearers to be fun and playful as well as strong and empowered as early as can be.
Jennifer Tracy: My-Tee Girls founder, and is spelled M-Y-T-E-E. So it's a play on My-T like my T-shirt but My-Tee, it's just so cute. Founder Regen Shanzer is a little lawyer by day and a children's designer by night. Crafting stylish and comfortable apparel for girls, her brands core message roots from her belief that girls can be anything they want to be while bringing their own flair to it. So check that out, myteegirls.com is her website. And if you go on there and you shop, you can get an exclusive 20% off using the discount code, MILF20. So I just think that's really cool and I really had wanted to do this. I did it a little bit in November and December too, I'm going to do it all of January.
Jennifer Tracy: And really just to be totally transparent, I'm not getting money from these companies. This is just me wanting to promote companies that I think are doing good things, that are helping to elevate women and girls. I think women helping women is one of the most powerful things we can do. And I'm also going to speak to that later because it becomes hard for me when I need help to ask for help. It's so hard. Why is that so hard? It's really hard. But I'm doing it anyway. So the second company that I'm wanting to promote today, I'm so excited about, is this company called Fluide. Their website is Fluide, F-L-U-I-D-E.us. And what it is makeup, and let me tell you that I, so I have done the phone with Laura, the owner, and she and I had a long talk and she ended up sending me some of the makeup to try, which I'm going to be posting about all week.
Jennifer Tracy: You guys, this is the best lipstick I've ever used, hands down. Hands down. Their red lipstick, I mean, I have two different shades of red that she gave me, and I gave some to my niece. I call her my niece. She's not my niece by blood, but it's my best friend's daughter, Sarah, she's 17. And she's gorgeous. And she's really, really, really good at makeup. So she tried it and she loved it. So it's this collection of cruelty free, high pigmented beauty products designed for all skin shades and gender expressions. Inclusivity and diverse representation is at the core of Fluide's mission and brand identity. All of their models showcase a spectrum of gender expression, sexual orientations and ethnicities. And their robust online content and social media channels provide both a destination and a platform for new generation of politically engaged consumers.
Jennifer Tracy: Fluide donates to and partners with organizations that support health and legal rights in the LGBTQ community by naming lip and nail shades after queer spaces around the globe. Fluide seeks to pay tribute to the importance of safe spaces for the queer community. I love this company. I'm obsessed with this company. And not only just their mission statement and their manifesto but the product is incredible. Fluide is also giving my MILF listeners an exclusive 20% off with the code MILF20. Guys, if you do nothing for yourself in this new year, go online and buy their lipstick. I have such a hard time with red lipstick because it bleeds. And it doesn't matter if I use and I've asked April Uchitel tell the CEO of Violet Grey, I've asked another famous person whose name I won't drop. But she's a singer and she wears a lot of red lipstick all the time and it's always perfect. I just can't get it. I just can't.
Jennifer Tracy: And this is the first time I've ever gotten a red lipstick where I just put it on. I don't have to even put liner on, because it comes in a tube so it looks like a glass. So it's wet. And you paint it on and there was zero bleeding and it stayed on. Like through dinner, through the ballet. I went to see a ballet. I went to see, you guys. Oh, my god. Okay. So Fluide. I'm having attention span moment. Fluide.us and the discount code is MILF20. So I went to see my gay husband. He used to be my gay boyfriend but now he's upgraded to my husband. So he took me as a holiday treat to see Black Swan downtown at the Dorothy Chandler here in LA. And it is Matthew Bourne's rendition of Black Swan. I mean, the Black Swan, excuse me, Swan Lake. I'm getting confused with the movie that I love with Natalie Portman. That movie so insane. I love it. I love it.
Jennifer Tracy: So Matthew Bourne is just brilliant choreographer. He's English. He's won a gazillion awards. He's choreographed and produced dozens and dozens, probably 100 ballets all over the world. And I hadn't been to a full ballet in years. And I think the last one I went to see was the Nutcracker, which I've seen a million times, which is absolutely gorgeous. But this was theatrical. It was sort of vaudevillian. The dancers were not your typical ballet dancers. It really explores gender and sexuality in this way. I mean, that this ballet that he's done has been around since, I want to say it debuted in '89. Don't quote me on that. Because I was reading about it last night, but I can't remember when it debuted. I want to say '89 but it might be '97 or something. But it's been out for a while is my point.
Jennifer Tracy: It was just stunning. It was just absolutely stunning and we had great seats. But somebody near us was wearing, I swear to fucking god, like a bottle of perfume. And we both at intermission were like, oh, my god, I feel sick. Why do people do that, you guys? I don't know. We looked around and there was like one elderly woman there with two men that looked like they might be her sons. I said, "Well, maybe she's lost her sense of smell. And she thinks she needs more. I don't know." But yeah, I can't with the perfume. But the ballet was exquisite. And now I'm obsessed with Matthew Bourne and I want to go see everything he's done. And I want to find out. I think The Red Shoes is on right now in London, which I was like, can I swing that after I go to New York? I'll just zip over to London real quick. But I'll deal with that in a minute. Because right now I'm busy doing this podcast for you guys.
Jennifer Tracy: What I wanted to talk to you guys about today was the reason that I'm going to New York is because I've been working on this novel for about five years. Wait, is that right? 14, 15, 16, 17, 18. Yeah. Oh, my god, over five years now. Oh, my god, is it almost six years? It is six years. Now, a lot of that was me putting it down and not working on it for long periods of time. I was getting a divorce, I had mediation, I had stuff with my son and his schooling and all kinds of things. Within that time, I began to teach writing, the irony of which was not lost on me because it was so hard for me to get to my own writing. But I would and I would write other things and I started creating this podcast and other forms of expression and doing live performance again.
Jennifer Tracy: But what I really wanted to talk about today with you guys, which is very vulnerable, I'm feeling a little nervous even just talking about it here. But is that it's really, really, really hard to do something no matter who you are. I want to dispel that because I know some incredibly successful people, and I've had the privilege of learning from them and watching them in their process. And they struggle too. There's always that imposter syndrome no matter what level you're at, there's always the feeling that, this will be the last gig. They're going to know. They're going to pull the curtains and they're going to see that I'm actually just crap. And I don't know what I'm doing. Or this one's going to flop. Maybe I got lucky with the other ones. It can be so, so crippling.
Jennifer Tracy: What I have found in the last couple months since I really made this decision to push myself to go to New York and take these meetings, I'm going to be meeting with some literary agents. And push myself to just almost ... I mean, it was telling a friend the other day, I said, "I literally I'm just pushing myself off a cliff with this because I don't feel ready. I feel scared. I feel like the book isn't ready. I've never felt like the book was ready." I mean, I do feel like it's ready. I do feel like it's ready. But I honestly could tinker with it for another six years. But that's not going to serve anyone, particularly me.
Jennifer Tracy: So I had dinner with a friend right before Christmas, another author who's brilliant and just really, really brilliant woman. I showed her this sort of this, it's like a brochure. It's called a deck in the business but it's an online, basically, a one sheet or a brochure about my book that I made, that I had my assistant make for me because she knows how to do it and she's brilliant at it. So she made it look really great and I edited the copy inside. Anyway, this girlfriend that I went to dinner with, this other mom who's an author, who's very successful and really smart, was like, you need to ... She read through it and she kind of read me the [riot 00:13:19] act. She was like, "You are not really giving your A game here."
Jennifer Tracy: At first I was like, "I'm not? What do you mean I'm not? I've worked so hard on this." And then she lovingly gave me notes, and I really saw that I wasn't ... I don't even know if it was me being "humble" or if I was afraid to sound arrogant or whatever, but I wasn't really showing in this document, anyway, all the things that I am. I think that as women, we really have a tendency to do that a lot. and I can cheer on my girlfriends and tell them how beautiful they are and tell them how wonderful they are and what a great job they're doing. No problem. But when it comes to me talking about myself and writing about myself and writing about my accomplishments, I just feel like, I got nothing. There's nothing. I'm so grateful that I have people around me that are like, excuse me, no. Stop. Get a pencil, write this down. Because I don't know what that is.
Jennifer Tracy: And then asking my friends for introductions to people in the business is also really just cripplingly hard for me. And yet every single person that have asked for help has said yes. Every single person. Some people couldn't help, like, they just couldn't, but every other person said yes. And I have to think that, I'm really comfortable even saying this, but that reflects on who I am in my relationships with everybody. With them, with people around me, with the work that I put out. And again, I feel like I have just put this disclaimer, I know that I am so flawed, so deeply flawed and I share about this on the show all the time. But it was a shocking to me how willing people were to help me.
Jennifer Tracy: Now that doesn't mean it's going to be an easy road from here on out. I mean, I'm talking about getting a book published. I'm well aware that it's difficult and competitive and all of those things. But I have to do this, I have to see this through. I just wanted to talk about this on this podcast on this day in the beginning of the year, because I know that whether you're out there listening to this, whether you're a writer, whether you're an artist, whether you're a dancer, whether you're a business person, an entrepreneur, whatever it is that's in your heart, it's there for a reason. And I really, really believe this.
Jennifer Tracy: I was working with a writer the other day, and she's got a really difficult task. She's wanting to write something that is based on something true, and something really painful. And yet, it's scary to write that because other people in her life will be affected. So we sat down, and we talked about it, and it was really vulnerable. I said to her, "There's a reason that this is calling to you to express in this way, in this public forum. And you never know who this is going to help." And really, that's the thing. When we write books, and I know like Jennifer Pastiloff is such a great example of that. I mean, she embodied that before she even published her book On Being Human. Especially, after she published her book and was and is still doing like book tour stuff and signings and events, and she's just constantly out there. Her whole purpose is to help people heal, because she was able to heal. And that's just so profound.
Jennifer Tracy: I think we can do that with any kind of medium that we create. Again, like whether it's you're writing a book, whether you're writing a screenplay, whether you're performing a play, whether you're painting a painting, whether you're opening a business. These businesses that I've been promoting are really helping change lives. Like imagine if 20 years ago, there was a makeup line that you could identify with if you were a trans-kid. I mean, well, 20 years ago, imagine if there was anything you could identify with if you were a trans-kid. I have a friend, a really beautiful, amazing friend who is young, she's like 31 and she's trans. And she wants to write a book, like a YA book about a trans-girl who has magical powers. And I'm like, "Yeah. Why has that not been done yet?" Like, you are being called to write that. That is so brilliant.
Jennifer Tracy: By the way, it's funny people will say don't share your ideas or like I say, my book is about a mom who becomes a dominatrix. And some people say, aren't you worried someone's going to steal that idea? And I'm like, Well, here's the thing about that. You could take 10 different people, and they could write a book about a mom who becomes a dominatrix, and you're going to have 10 completely, completely different books. So unless you can get my manuscript for me somehow and pawn it off as yours, which is, I don't know if that's a federal offense, but it's a criminal offense of some sort. I think we're good. Again, like I think that, I mean, this is a little woo-woo, but I do think that these ideas come to us for a reason from whatever place they come.
Jennifer Tracy: I mean, I think they come from our psyche and our experience in this lifetime and stuff. But I also think it comes from some other place in conjunction with some other place. Oh, my god, I sound so wacky LA. I think that there's a reason that we're the chosen voice of that particular story. So that further leads me to believe that when you have that burning desire to tell that story, there's a reason because it's ... And it really doesn't have to do with you, which takes the weight off, right? It really doesn't. And it's just about you being this conduit for this healing. A conduit for someone somewhere being able to relate. And say, I have that thing too. I need lipstick that is gender inclusive. I need whatever it is. I need a T-shirt that says "yes, I can" for my 10-year-old daughter that wants to be an astronaut and the boys laughed at her because they said girls aren't good at math or whatever it is.
Jennifer Tracy: So I just wanted to just do this really quick podcast today to encourage anyone out there who's listening that you can, you have it in you, and there's a reason that it's in you. That's what she said. I've been watching The Office so much, you guys. I swear to God. And I'm looking right now at my Christmas tree is still up and there's a Dwight. My friend Amy MacPhail sent to my son, she sent a Christmas ornament in the shape of Dwight. That was so sweet because she knows he loves The Office. But there's nine seasons of it, as you know, and I think we have watched all nine seasons, my son has watched. I haven't watched every single episode with him. Maybe five times through. I mean, it's obsessive. But there are worse things to be doing. And he's not playing video games, I have to say. He doesn't. All he wants to do is watch The Office. It's fascinating. And he has like every single script memorized. I'm just so curious what that's going to evolve into as we go along.
Jennifer Tracy: So let me check the time. Okay, I've been talking for almost 22 minutes. And I kind of feel done. This is a really short one. But I really just wanted to check in and kind of, I don't know, if I could offer a little New Year's inspiration to you to just follow that path and follow that dream. There's no time like the present. None of us are getting any younger. I'd love that ... Somewhere I heard some somebody said, I want to learn to play the piano. Well, I don't have time. It'll take me three years or whatever it was. Or I want to go to law school, I want to do this. Yeah. But in three years, whether you did or whether you didn't go to law school, the three years is going to pass. So why don't you just do what you want to do and get the thing done? I'm totally messing up that phrase.
Jennifer Tracy: But the point is, yes, of course, it's going to take time. And look at me six years into this novel, and I'm just now at this stage. And then I'm going to be at the next stage, and the next stage, and so what? It's okay, it's all okay. And I'm grateful to be doing it. And I'm grateful to have the courage to put it out there even though I'm terrified. Terrified. What if people laugh at me? What if people don't like it? They won't. They will. I mean, they will laugh at me and they won't like it, some people. You know what I'm saying? Like, not everybody's going to like everything that you put out. But it's worth the risk to me and it's worth going for it and even if I fall flat on my face, at least I'll know that I tried.
Jennifer Tracy: So with that, I'm just going to remind you guys to go to My-Tee Girls website and Fluide website and use your MILF20 discount codes you guys. Those are gold. After the holidays, I mean, this is way post-holiday shopping discounts. And these are beautiful companies. So you'll be supporting amazing women bringing beautiful things into the world with meaning. I can't wait for next week's episode. I have Miriam Feldman on the show, who is also an author. She contacted me and I just fell in love with her. She said, "I'm in LA for three more days, can we do an episode?" And I said, "Oh, my god, where can I meet you?" So we met and I'm going to apologize in advance because the guest house in which she was staying the day that we scheduled this, the lawn mower was going for like an hour. So my poor editor who's just such a patient man really had to work hard on that one. So you may hear some in the bag.
Jennifer Tracy: But it's worth it because Miri is a genius and she's hilarious and her story is heartbreakingly beautiful. And so worth it. And if you are a writer and you're interested in writing and getting more inspiration, please go to my website jennifertracy.com and check out this Virtual Writers Summit that I've put together. I'm so proud of this you guys. I don't really talk about this a lot on the show because my show is not about writing. But it kind of was today. I interviewed 10 women, 10 authors and screenwriters and TV writers, and I videotaped it. Oh, my God, I'm aging. Updating myself. I filmed it, I put cut it together, and it's really an incredible catalog of these interviews with very successful writers. Tembi Locke wrote From Scratch, Jennifer Pastiloff, who I mentioned earlier, Claire Bidwell Smith, Kelly Hampton, Nancy Katz, Cylin Busby, who are award winning screenwriters.
Jennifer Tracy: It's an incredible lineup. I'm missing a couple because I don't have the list of ... Rebecca [Beruchi 00:25:32]. It's a really great crew. And it's free if you sign up on my website, jennifertracy.com. So you get free access for a limited amount of time. I think it's a week or 10 days or something. I actually don't know, isn't that terrible? But it's better that way. Because I just let my team handle all that stuff. I just create the content and then I put it up there. I make it as good as I can make it. But it really is inspiring to listen to these women talk about their inspiration, their writing, how they got from not having anything published to having a best-selling book. From not having a ... Being an assistant to being a showrunner for one of the best TV shows on television for nine years running.
Jennifer Tracy: Again, like that is such inspiration for me to know like, okay, if they can do it, I can do it. If they can do it, I can do it. Most of them have children and families and pets and wildlings and all the craziness that we have to juggle. So anyway, I'm going to wrap up this first episode of 2020. I really love you guys. Thank you for allowing me to bring this to you every week, and happy new year, and I will talk to you next week. Bye.