Finding Self-Worth When Life Hits Rock Bottom with Tanya Memme

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Finding Self-Worth When Life Hits Rock Bottom with Tanya Memme

As always, I’m excited about this show. Before we get into it, I want to say thank you for joining me again. I realize there are a lot of blogs out there that you can choose from. The fact that you’ve chosen to rock out with me and read this, I want to say thank you for that. If you’re reading for the first time, welcome. I’m just happy and delighted that you are here with me. We have an exciting show, as we always do. I have Tanya Memme with me. This is a big deal for me because Tanya is an Emmy nominated TV host. She’s a do-it-yourself expert speaker and positive psychology executive coach. She teaches how to communicate effectively. She’s the Founder of Life Masters TV, a TV show on iTunes, Apple TV and Roku on the EverTalk TV platform. I can go on and on. This lady has so many accolades. She’s awesome as she’s decided to join me on the show. Welcome to the show, Tanya.

Thanks for having me.

I am just delighted. I’m thanking you for being here. This is an absolute pleasure and honor for me to have you.

Rodney, I’m very excited to be here.

We have so much to talk about. Tell us how you got started.

I’m from Canada originally and in my whole life, I always wanted to be on stage, but I didn’t know what that meant. I just knew that I wanted to affect a lot of people and have my voice heard. Honestly a lot of times, these things happen when you’re young. I grew up in this tiny little town in Canada in a sod farm of 400 acres. I remember waking up one day going, “I’m going to do something one day. I’m going to move somewhere. I’m going to at least give this life a try.” I got into dancing. I danced ballet, tap, jazz and all that stuff and then I got into pageants. I won Miss Canada, which was crazy. I went to the Miss World pageant in Sun City South Africa. The experience was insane. I went to college in Niagara Falls. I minored in theater. I always wanted to be on stage and get in front of people. When the pageants took me out of the country, I started to discover the world. I ended up in New York City because I got into The American Musical and Dramatic Academy.

I went and graduated from there, then I auditioned for Broadway, which I didn’t get anything on. I’m an okay singer, but I’m not a great singer so I couldn’t compete against the incredible singing talents that they have. I did that, and then I started getting commercials and more commercials and I wanted to be an actress. I screen tested for all kinds of stuff, but I was solidly booking commercials. I fell into hosting and my first hosting gig was on DIRECTV. I was at the Super Bowl one year and this is how that happens. I was at Super Bowl and I was sitting at this bar. My shoes were off and my feet were exhausted. It’s the end of the night can’t deal and this guy, Tom Bracken, comes and sits beside me.

We started chatting up and stuff and he says, “What do you do?” I said, “I was an actress and I’m in New York. It just tough pounding the pavement.” He says, “Can you read a teleprompter?” I said, “Yes, I can read a teleprompter. I got a lot of it.” I told him that I could read it, I lied about it and he said, “We’re looking for a new spokesperson for DIRECTV.” This was before anybody even knew what DIRECTV was. They had 15,000 subscribers. Fast forward two years, I ended up becoming the face of DIRECTV for their customer news channel, and I started honing my hosting, my teleprompter chops and all that. That’s how it all started.

Did you feel like that was just by chance? A lot of people have these goals and dreams to be on stage, but it doesn’t happen for everyone. What do you consider was the significant moment or the significant thing that allowed you to be so successful?

It’s the persistence. It’s never stopping. You keep going, you do the menial jobs, you know what you have to do and move the train forward or whatever it is. It can be messy, it might not be perfect, but things will align and you’ll end up aligning yourself into a situation where it falls into place. After that job, I had to work hard to get the next one and the next one because that’s not the one that changed the big game, but that was the one that started me. It allowed me to make enough money every month so that I could then go and fly back from New York to LA and do a pilot season. The main thing is you keep moving forward. Do whatever you can do. I was doing stuff for free. Whenever I got the chance to host or do something, I did it.

Did you feel like giving up?

All the time and then something just pulls me back in again. I felt like giving up many times in my career, but I didn’t.

What was that something?

When you get into the performing world or the acting world, if this is the only thing that you want, you can’t have a plan B. That’s the risk that you have to take. This business takes every single ounce of you that you have to give it all of you. There’s always going to be somebody out there that’s way more talented, that’s more persistent, and has way more connections than you. If you want it that bad, if there’s that desire inside that you need to keep on going, you just have to keep on going. I always had that thing. When I was a lot younger and when I had to train for the Miss Canada thing, I was always an achiever. I always wanted to achieve and I wasn’t lazy to do anything. I had five jobs in New York City. The jobs I had in New York alone to pay my rent were insane. You have to have the drive. Even now, it’s harder to get into this business. It’s a lot harder. There is more opportunity, but it’s harder.

What is that opportunity? You speak about more opportunity. What is that? Can you elaborate that a little bit?

The opportunity when I was starting out is very different because the landscape has changed. We didn’t have YouTube and all that. That’s what I mean by opportunity now. You have the opportunity to get your face out there. Your podcast is a great way to start. It doesn’t mean you’re going to make it, but it means you’re starting and keep moving forward. The one thing that helped me with my career was because I’m very social. I was always out. I always had meetings with people that had equal or more than I did. It was somebody that I could learn from and I was very strategic about my meetings. I didn’t just go out and meet anybody.

Finding Self-Worth: The opportunities will come after believing in yourself and knowing that you can do it.

I would go to a party, I’d get a card, I’d send like, “I love the time to get a call.” There was no such thing as email. It was different then. The thing is that desire doesn’t go anywhere when I was in my early 20s or my 40s. It’s this thing that you just have to be very strategic on who you spend your time with, who you surround yourself with, who you allow yourself to be, who you listen to in your mind and even what podcasts you listened to. Everything has to move the train forward. It’s believing in yourself and knowing that you can do it. You’ll create those opportunities. The opportunities will come.

In the field that you’re in with TV hosting and things like that, I can imagine there’s a lot of competition. You talk about broadcasting and being on television. There are a lot of people that want to do that and some are good at it. Did you ever feel that you aren’t good enough? Did you ever have thoughts like that?

Yeah, I still have thoughts like that. That’s something that maybe is not an all of us, but it’s a part of being human. When I was in school, I was never the smartest kid in the class, but what I did is I worked hard to get the grades I got. It taught me how to work hard in order to achieve anything. The feeling of not being good enough and self-worth is something that people battle every day. I battled it throughout my entire career. You can always be better. There are always people that are better. I’m sure that there are huge celebrities that work all the time, but still fight these little things. There are always these little demons at all of us that we’re all fighting for whatever reason. Even though I’ve had a very great career, I battled with that.

How did you overcome it?

It’s very interesting because it happened later in life. It happened a few years ago. I was on a TV show called Home & Family. The environment, unfortunately, on the show was extremely toxic. This was before the #MeToo Movement. It was not a sexual harassment situation. It was more of bullying, verbal abuse and all that. It went on for a long time. The person that has caused the situation is no longer there. Since then, the environment has gotten a lot better. That had gone on for about four or five years. I can’t even explain how abusive it was. I promised myself and I said, “If it happens one more time, I have to go because I’m worth more than this.” It happened again and I left. I never came back. It was a TV show. This was a very well-paying job. It’s a gig that’s very hard to get. I knew that I was worth more than that. A couple of years later on the back end of that were very difficult years trying to reinvent myself, figure out what I’m going to do and keep going.

I lost a lot of money and I lost a lot of friends because I’m not on TV anymore. It’s very interesting. The one thing that I gained was my self-worth. Nobody will ever take that away from me. I don’t have problems with self-worth anymore. Sometimes when you hit rock bottom and you go through so much stuff, there’s that little mustard seed inside of you that says, “I’m worth more.” I don’t know what it is, but it’s that thing. It’s a decision. You’re either going to let life beat you or you’re going to beat it. I was ready to beat it. I was like, “I’m going to weather the storm by quitting this job.” I don’t know what this means. I’m a single mom. Everybody thinks that I get all this money from my ex-husband and I don’t. It was a rough two years after that. I do believe that God closes doors for you because you’re not supposed to be going in that direction. No matter how hard it is, he’s giving you a massive sign to spin on your feet and walk the other direction and keep going because there’s something amazing on the other end.

I can speak from a personal situation. I went through something like that where you felt like you’re going one way and this is your destiny, what you’re supposed to do in life and it’s what you want to do in life then life has something different. God has something different. If you go through that, pivot if you will. When you’re in the bottom of that pivot, which is the hardest part of life sometimes is when you’re in the bottom of that, what was it that allowed you to come out of that and complete the pivot?

I had to do a lot of soul searching. I was probably suffering a little because the self-worth thing came up a little bit later. I had to even go down a little further. What happened was I quit and then I tried all these different businesses. I tried a subscription box business and I tried Amazon business. The reason why I was grasping, trying to make things work and trying to make things happen because I thought, “What am I going to do? I’m not on TV anymore.” I was trying so hard to make life happen because I was in fear, I was in survival mode. I was in scarcity mode and nothing was working. I kept picking the wrong business partners and it was awful. I came to a point where I had almost lost everything. I came to a point where I was like, “This isn’t working. A couple of years has gone by. I’m just going to hang up. I’ve got to wave the white flag and surrender. I’m going to sit here.” I sat and I didn’t do anything. I thought, “I’m going to let life come to me.” Sometimes you have to allow life to come to you because if you force it, you start this whole whirlwind of nonsense. If you try to force it too much, it won’t happen and the universe will show you that.

I came to a point where I became quiet within myself. I started doing some meditation. I started learning about myself. I started reading more books. What it was for me is I needed to understand what was going on. I needed some kind of understanding because when you’re at the bottom of your barrel, you’re like, “Why me? I can’t understand this.” You get very angry and very bitter. You go through a phase of blaming it on everybody else and not taking responsibility. It was my decision to leave the show and it was a hard decision to live with. Once I understood, I tried to wrap my head around why things weren’t working. I’m so used to so much success. I’ve been very successful in my whole life. Why is it all going away? It was because I didn’t have enough self-worth. This was a whole process. I realized that I could do it on my own again. I created my whole career on my own, so why did I feel like I needed a partner? I felt like I needed somebody because I couldn’t do it. There was just a lot of like, “I can’t do it,” situation at the time.

The people that love me most have always told me, “Tanya, go do it on your own. You’re capable of doing this. You don’t need a partner. Go and do what you want to do. You don’t need a cohost. You don’t need a business partner. You don’t need somebody to help sell your skincare products on Amazon. You can go and do it yourself.” I had to listen about it and work hard because I was scared. I didn’t think I could. I had to do a lot of self-discovering. I realize that being a television host and being successful for 25 years, it went on for a long time and I’m so thankful, but when you’re on TV, I was given my script. I was given what to say and what not to say, what hair, who’s cutting my hair, who’s doing this, where am I going to show up. “Here’s your script, that’s what you say, go on set, stand right there, there’s the director.” All I had to do was stand up and deliver. When all of a sudden you’re not in the business for whatever reason, probably because it’s just my own craziness of trying to make things happen, I was sitting there going, “I don’t have any of these skills. I don’t know how to keep a schedule.”

It was weird for me because everything was done for me. Even social media was a big deal for me. I didn’t even know how to get out there, be honest, open and vulnerable on social media because I’m so conditioned to be something else, say somebody else’s words or tell someone else’s opinion. Every show I’ve been on, it might sound like it’s my opinion, but it’s not. We know what direction the segment is going to go and there’s a lot that we’re not allowed to say. It was a very interesting shift and I had to challenge myself. I have to come into my own and find that thing inside there that I was worthy, I was good enough and I can do it on my own. It’s like, “What’s the other choice?” You’re either going to sit there and still have nothing happened and then lose everything or you’re going to somehow find that little thing inside that’s going to get yourself, back up, and come from a place of strength and come from a place of like, “What do I want to do? If there were no rules in life, what would make me happy and what would make me excited every day?” That’s how Life Masters TV came about.

I love that you said what’s the alternative. There are so many people that get to a place like this in life and they literally cannot go forward. In my mind, there’s no value added to give up too quickly and to let go. There’s just no value. At the very minimum, if you try, at least there’s the opportunity, the possibility, the potential for something positive to come out of it. If you choose not to, what can you expect? How dare you have an expectation when you choose to give up? There’s nothing that you can look forward to.

You have to surround yourself with people that love you in the way that you need to be loved. I wasn’t on TV for a while, it was interesting to see how it shifted with my friends and even with some of my family members on how they respond to somebody rebuilding their career and finding a new passion in life or finding a new direction. It’s either people are going to come along with you or they’re not. The one thing I realized and I have said this to my close friends. I made a pact to myself and said, “I am no longer going to have people that don’t see my self-worth in my life ever again.” I had a very good friend of mine suggested like, “Why don’t you go sell cars or something?” It’s not that there’s anything wrong with selling cars, but when you’re at the deep bottom, when you were a television star, you don’t want somebody that is one of your best friends to tell you to go sell cars.

It’s like, “Why don’t we come up with a business idea and think of something great and just try this?” At the same time, I knew that I needed to come up with my own idea. This is the other thing I realized, Rodney. No one is going to do it for you. When you’re at the bottom of your barrel, no one is going to come and rescue you. When you’re there, you feel like nothing is going right. There’s a lot of shame when that comes along too and for some reason, we keep thinking, “Somebody will come along and rescue me.” They don’t. You have to rescue yourself. You have to get out there and change things. Change your mentality and your vibration. It’s hard. I woke up with panic attacks for two years because I couldn’t sleep. I was so afraid I was going to lose everything.

Tanya, how did you provide and having a certain amount of self-worth for yourself affect how others view and perceive you?

I don’t know how it affected others. I don’t know what other people think of me that I’m not on television and I don’t care. Honestly, I’m a better person for it because I can relate to more people, especially with what I’m doing. Everything I went through, I do not want to ever go through it again and I’m still on the tail end of it. I’m still digging myself out a little bit from the financial loss because I lost a lot of money being out of work for so long. It was my choice to leave and I had to learn to own it. There were days when I wished I didn’t quit because you feel like doomsday is coming. It was the best thing that ever happened for me. I don’t care how other people think of me. I used to care a lot. I cared a lot before.

Finding Self-Worth: When you’re at the bottom of your barrel, no one is going to come and rescue you.

Sometimes we come into a new light of loving ourselves or recognizing our own self-worth. Some people view that differently than the way we may view it. We’re coming into this awareness about our self. I found that the way you treat you teach others how to treat you. I was just wondering if you had any experiences or any situations where people may view you differently, there was some friction or maybe people relate it to you differently as a result of this new found awareness about yourself.

Do you mean going from a massive TV and started being out of work for so long?

Not that, you stepped away from the job because of the value that you have within yourself.

If you go back on my social media to May of 2015, there were hundreds of comments, private messages, emails and people. I didn’t ever come out with the story. It’s very interesting. The person that was yelling and screaming at me all the time, I don’t know why, but I still cared about him a lot. As angry as I was, I was also thankful that he gave me the job in the first place and he believed in me. I also know that people that are hurting inside hurt people. I don’t know if it’s a saying and it’s true. I didn’t want to walk around with all that resentment, so I let the story out a little bit and then all of a sudden, people see me not on TV. A few months later, the true story came out because there were other things that happened aside from me and then the story was somewhat exposed to the public.

I have had women come up to me that know my story. It used to happen a lot when it first happened and they would be like, “You’re such an inspiration. I’m having a hard time at my job. I’m being bullied at work too. I don’t know what to do.” Those are the people that I’m coaching. I coach women and men, especially women through the transition. I went through this experience and because I’ve got so much affirmation from the outside world, it changed the direction of my career and I’m doing something extremely fulfilling. There was a shift. There was a handful of people that knew about my story and it became public a little bit. I never gave names and I never gave too many details. It was just because I need people to know why I wasn’t on the show anymore. It made a difference in how people viewed me for sure.

Why Life Masters TV? Tell us about that.

I had hit complete rock bottom. I’ve had a lot of success. I went from that to nothing and it’s traumatizing. People are like, “At least you had success.” You’re right. At least I had it so I’m thankful that I experienced it. If I never get to that amount of success again, I’m okay. I’m on this planet to help people and I have a bigger message to tell. My life is not about being on television. There’s a lot more to life than TV and that’s another thing I learned. We all get so caught up in it, especially people in it and it’s not who I am. My self-identity was very attached to my career, especially when you’re on TV for so long. It was never, “No, that’s just who you are.” Upon all of this hitting rock bottom, I had to figure out, “Who am I? Where do I go? What do I love to do?” It was confusing and it took me a long time to get out of it. It’s expensive living in LA. Every month you see the money going into the bank account and you’re like, “I’ve got to figure this out. I’ve got to fix this.”

When I hit the lowest of the low, I went online and I was like, “I need somebody to talk to. I don’t know what to do. I have no direction. I’m lost.” I had to admit that to myself and I started admitting it to my friends. I was like, “I’m lost. I need help.” I was searching everywhere for advice and for anything that I could just grab onto to help me figure out the next chapter in my life. One night I had this massively crazy dream about this thing called the mentored perspective. I started meditating as well and praying a lot. I’m a very spiritual person more than I am a religious person. That’s when I told you I was surrendering and I let life come to me. I was exhausted. I was tired. One night, I slept and I had this massively deep sleep and this whole thing came to me, and it was called the mentored perspective. That’s originally what it was called.

It was like, “This is what you’re going to do.” It was speaking to me. Life was speaking to me and I got this message saying, “You’re going to start a talk show because that’s what you love. You’re great at interviewing so go and do that. You’re going to interview people and through interviewing people, you’re going to find your answers.” That’s all that was said to me. I saw a book too. Eventually, I’m going to be writing a book. This dream was so powerful. You don’t have these experiences very often, but it was just this download and this message I got. I called my friend, Andy Waldman, who owns EverTalk TV Studio. He’s always wanted me to do a talk show with him at his studios so I called him and I said, “Is the offer still available?” It’s a passion project for me. I’m the producer, I’m the creator and I do everything. I do all the social media so far. I do all the guests’ bookings. Within two months, I have to turn people away from being on the show because they want to be on the show. It’s very flattering and exciting for me. I have met the most incredible people.

I hired a business coach. She’s somebody that I met through Life Masters. When you are in a bad place in life, join some group. I always tell people to join a group. I joined this group called the International Association of Women. I have some of those women on my show. Through all of that, I have now reacquainted myself with most of my connections in Hollywood with people that are guiding me to for my new career in life, which is building my show. I have a coaching business now and I’m going to be public speaking too. It’s all starting to fall into place and it was weird. It all came about because of Life Masters. It’s weird and I’m doing it for free. I don’t get paid to do my show.

People think I’m making all this money. I am doing it because something inside has told me to do it. Now I have this wonderful coaching career and that I do get paid for and my speaking engagements. I started speaking a little bit, but I’m now speaking about self-worth, your self-identity wrapped up in your career and the experience that I went through. I’m just open and vulnerable about it for the first time ever in my life. I’m building myself back up again and it feels so good because I’m doing it on my own. I’m doing it exactly how I want to do it. I am happy here now than I’ve ever been. It’s so fulfilling. It’s so empowering and I love what I do because now I feel like I am helping people.

It’s a wonderful thing where you go through life and then you hit resistance. You hit that challenge and that difficulty like, “Life sucks. I hate it. I don’t want to go on. I don’t want to move.” When you put that seed in the ground, it probably doesn’t like it because it’s in a place where you can’t get any sunlight. It’s got dirt all around it, but it doesn’t realize it’s in his best environment. It probably won’t realize until it peaks out above the ground and it starts to grow and becomes this great big tree.

It looks back to when it was filling a certain way because it pushed the dirt thrown all over the top of it. Without that moment, you can’t become a tree. You can’t become what you’re supposed to go. I’ve experienced this many times in my life and it’s a beautiful thing. The game changer with that is just realizing when you’re in that moment that there’s something good, some opportunity and some possibility in all of this. We have to discover what that is. That’s the hope. That’s the key, the reason, the why to keep going because we can create something else. There’s another opportunity. There’s another possibility. It’s not over. If you’re breathing, it’s not over.

It’s hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel sometimes. There are also many ways to make money out there. If you’re open-minded, you learn, take it all in and become strong within who you are, I’ve helped many people start their own businesses. I’ve helped them start a jewelry line. I’ve helped somebody start a whole Instagram page. Another thing I do is I help people bring out their personality in their videos to tell their story. Everyone has got a story. Within that story, you find what resonates with you in your life and where that next chapter can go. You have to find that thing inside to help plant the seed, water it and let it grow. Sometimes you’ve got to sit where you’re at for a minute. When you’re all over the place, you can’t get out of bed and you can’t do this, just sit for a minute. The first thing is to try not to be so hard on yourself.

I had to let a lot of that go and start filling my brain with other ways of looking at life. I don’t know what you do, Rodney, when you’ve ever been in that situation, but you have to fill your brain with positivity. I started listening to podcasts and I started listening to all kinds of YouTube videos about different philosophies on happiness and different philosophies on surrendering. When you try those things, it’s amazing what works. There is something to this universal law. You have days when you get up and whether you have makeup on for a woman or not, you go to the store, you do your day, and there are people that are looking at you or saying hi more often. They want to chat with you. There are days when you wouldn’t even mind a little bit of attention and no one pays at all. You’re like, “I think I look good now.” It’s an energetic thing and how you are from the inside out.

When I started Life Masters, I saw hope. Here’s the other thing. Be of service. I’m doing Life Masters for free. People think I make a lot of money on it. I’m doing it because it’s a passion project. I would like to sell the show. I would like to place the show on a network or an online platform. It’s on an online platform, but I’d like to grow it and eventually make it be something big and I know I can do it. You have to do something that you love and the money will come. Just fight through it. You have friends that are there to support you and family to support you. When you’re living your truth, which is what I do through Life Masters, I’m learning things about people. Your show is very similar to mine. You learn things from these wise people that help you through life and that give you these gifts.

Finding Self-Worth: Do something that you love and the money will come afterward.

I have new friends now that I never had before because of the show and it’s all because I’m standing in my truth. I’m energetically putting out this whole new world of energy. It’s weird. I’m meeting the most incredible people and now we’re crafting this new chapter. Every level I get in my coaching career is like, “I’m good with this. How do you do group coaching?” When we talk about group coaching, I have people there that tell me how to put that together so that all my clients feel good and feel like they got enough for me. How do you do this part? How do a mastermind? I’m now connecting myself with all the right people to answer all the questions that I’ve wanted all these years and it’s weird. It’s all aligning into place. When you’re living in alignment with your truth, people come into your life, opportunities happen, and things start to mold. All of a sudden, you start to look back and go, “It all makes sense now.”

Isn’t that the game-changing moment? You said three times to live in your truth. Many times, we get up, we’d go and do things and it’s not who we are. We’re doing it may be for money or for other reasons, but we were doing things from the heart. I believe that every person here has something that they’re supposed to offer to the world. Everyone has a contribution. When you’re living in your contribution, money is not the biggest factor anymore. You find that as a result of continuing to do it consistently. It’s consistently serving more people. You begin to get what you need, whether it be money or whatever, in order to survive, in order to be happy, in order to live a wonderful, peaceful, joyous and abundant life.

It just happens. That’s what I’m experiencing. I’ve been doing this business for about a couple of years now and that’s how it works. You have to give up yourself first. What I found is even when you’re in your darkest moments, it requires you to begin to give of yourself. As you give of yourself, that’s when you see that light at the end of the tunnel. You start to see your way out and you start to see how you can be more of a contribution and how you can serve more people. Before you know it, you start to see how you can make it and how you can be happy.

What you said there was interesting because when it comes to being of service and giving, you also start to realize who you’re going to give your time and energy too. I have to become way pickier with who I give anything of me too. I’ve been way too generous my whole life, which is a part of the reasons that I even got into this position too. I gave away so much. I lent people money all the time, which I never saw again. It has ruined friendships. I’ve given the shirt off of my back more times than you can imagine. When I was going through my hard time, it’s interesting to see who’s there and who’s not. The lesson that it taught me when it comes to self-worth is, “What are you worth?” You have to make sure that you give your time to people that see your worth and that are with you there during the tough times.

As far as contributing too, a contribution is a big word for me too. You’ve mentioned that a couple of times. Contribute to life, but at the same time, be careful who you decide to give of yourself too. It shifts. I go to Guatemala every couple of years with my dad. He has a nonprofit called Wells of Hope. We go to Guatemala and we build houses, schools and wells for these high-top mountain communities that have no access to water. That is giving of yourself and I think everybody should do something like that at least once every five years. You should go and give of yourself in another country. I’m very big on that. There’s so much that comes along with that. I’m sure you’ve had to realize that though too in your life. It’s how you give of yourself. My how I gave of myself has changed a lot.

I feel that how I give of myself is in the work. It’s passing along the skills, passing along the information and the experience that I’ve gone through to others. I’m helping them see the path to what they want in life or overcoming some dire situation or experience that they’ve encountered. Much of my work is contributed to that. I was given a second chance. Not many people have recovered from the injury the way that I recovered from it. For that, I’m grateful. The doctors even say, “You’re one in a million. 1% of people recover this way.” I take that very seriously. I feel that I need to and I have a responsibility to do something with that and to do something positive with that, not just the other way. I could not be that 1%. I could be the other 99% that this doesn’t happen for.

What’s that thing inside of you that kept you going? You’ve had some pretty dark days too.

It’s just that what I said to be that example. I realize that the more that I succeed, the more I believe that I can succeed. I was in a place where I couldn’t. Everything was like, “You’re not going to be able to walk. You’re not going to be able to do this.” When I began to do something, it makes me want to do more and then more. I live with no limits.

You work off of people that anybody that holds you back, it almost feels the fire.

It does. It’s my fuel.

I have the opposite effect. I had to come to a point and just not care because being on TV, you get criticized a lot. It’s always the negative people that you listen to. I’m at a point where I don’t care. I know who I am and I’m not changing.

I’m not competitive in terms of I always want to be better than someone or anything like that, but I have a competitive nature with opposition in itself.

It comes from different places for different people. It’s finding that within yourself. It’s that little thing. Sometimes you can’t always explain it, but when you’re in the darkest moments of your life, you have to find it.

We’ve been talking about self-worth here. Another thing from me and I think it’s the same thing for you, I’m worth what I wanted in my life. I have that self-worth about myself and who I am. I also expand that to what it is that I’m trying to accomplish and what it is that my goals, my dreams, and the person I want to be in life and the way I want to show up in life. I’m worth it. I strive for it. That’s a barrier for a lot of people. They want things, but they don’t feel they’re worthy of that thing. If you don’t feel you’re worthy of it, then you may not go for it as hard. You may not try as much. You may not try as long because deep down inside you don’t feel that you’re worth it.

I went through many years like that not knowing. I had people ask me before, “Do you have a lot of self-worth, especially when you’re on TV and you’re nominated for Emmys and all this success?” I’d be like, “Of course, I know my worth.” I was never like that. I’ve always been very humble, but inside, those thoughts do go through your brain because you’re on the top of the world. You don’t know what your self-worth is until you hit rock bottom. I don’t care what anyone says. You have to hit rock bottom in order to find that worth. When you have a lot of outside accolades, stimulants and everything, you’re not dealing with who you are. There are people that will never have to do that because they’ve had a very charmed life. We all have our struggles and that’s okay. That’s their path in life. I personally don’t believe that people will ever know their self-worth until you hit rock bottom. You’re there for a little bit too. You’ve got to sit in it and accept it and then figure out who you are.

Finding Self-Worth: Healing comes when people hear other people’s stories.

That’s where you find out what you’re made of when you’re in that place. You got the reality of it all. If you got everything going good for you all your life, then you don’t know what you’re made of until you’re tested. Until that challenge comes, you have to fight for who you are and fight for what it is that you want out of life. That’s the justification. That’s what justifies your worth and who you are when you can put yourself out of that.

You can’t learn it any other way. Even your self-identity. How do you know who you are when we have so many external things to distract us? I wish none of us had to hit rock bottom. I don’t wish it upon anybody. It’s awful. What it does is it’s given me so many gifts on the other end as well. Would I want to go through it again? No, but I could go through it again. We don’t know. Life is a series of roller coasters and we don’t know. I’m more resilient now and I look at things differently. I can relate to people. My dream was always to have a coaching career that has to get on spate stage to do. One of the things I want to accomplish was the TED Talks. I’m working on that right now and I’m going to get there. I’m so going to get there, Rodney. This is what my dream was even more than being a television host. Being a TV host allowed me to gain a following, to have some fans and to have my voice heard, but it was never my voice. I’ve always wanted to have my own voice heard. I’ve always wanted to help the underdog. I’ve always wanted to get their voices heard.

That’s what I thought hosting would do for me. Of course, it didn’t because I was never allowed to voice my own opinion. I was supposed to screen test for a big show talk show and they canceled my screen test the day before the screening test. They said, “The executive producer met you before. He doesn’t think you have an opinion.” That’s why they canceled it. They said I didn’t have an opinion because I was so used to being on shows where I wasn’t allowed to give my opinion. I think it’s very powerful. Healing comes when people hear other people’s stories. That’s why stories are huge now. How can we help each other if we’re not all in this game together? We all go through ups and downs. I don’t want to always hear it from a well trained. I want to hear it from people that have gone through it. How did you get out of it? Exactly the questions that you’re asking, there’s so much healing that comes along with this for other people.

How can people connect with you if they wanted to learn more about your story or be a part of your coaching program?

I’m on Instagram, @Tanya_Memme. I’m on Facebook, but you can reach out to me with a direct message. I can go through with you with everything that I do with the coaching and learn more about what I do. For my TV show, which is what I would love for you to watch as well, it’s called Life Masters and it’s on the EverTalk TV app. You can also see it on Apple TV and Roku, but then you have to look for the EverTalk simple thing. It’s there. There’s also a podcast. Please subscribe to the podcast and give me a rating and comment on it. The podcast is on iTunes. That’s probably the easiest way to hear it is through the podcast on iTunes. I also put it all over my social media. I’ve done about 30 episodes and I don’t have all of them up, but they mostly will end up on YouTube eventually. We’re trying to get people over to the podcast and over to the EverTalk TV on the Apple TV. That’s where it’s at.

Tanya, I want to say thank you. This has been a wonderful conversation. We’ve covered a lot of ground here with this. It’s been very helpful to me. It’s taking me back down memory lane a little bit back when I was at the bottom. There’s an appreciation for that. It just helps me realize that we’re all going to go through the challenge. It may be someone that’s reading this that’s in the middle of a challenge. What I’ve learned from those challenges and I’m sure you can attest to it is that there’s so much to gain from them. When I walked away from my accident and as I look back on it, I look at how hard it was and how traumatizing it was, but then I look at everything that I’ve gained from that experience. I can’t say that I would have gained the same thing had I not gone through that experience.

There were an appreciation and a level of gratitude that I have for the challenges that have come up in my life. I want to challenge the audience to think about that. Just think about viewing some of the things that we go through that we consider hard, traumatic or life-changing. Perhaps there’s something good and perhaps there’s something that we can be grateful for in that. Maybe there’s something to gain. A lot of times we focus on what we lose or what we’ve lost, but what if we could look and see what there is to gain out of all of that? We’re finding something beautiful. Do you have any final words for the audience?

Sometimes you have to accept the situation. When you’re at the bottom of the barrel and you feel like you’ve lost everything if it’s a relationship, if it’s a career, if it’s all of it, sometimes you just have to be willing to take on the storm. Denial is the worst thing. I was in denial for a long time seeing this whirlwind spin in the wrong direction. Once I said, “This is how much money I have and this is my situation. I’m going to own it. I’m going to sit in it for a little bit because I don’t know what to do yet and then I’m going to take a step forward.”

A big part of getting yourself out of it is realizing where you’re at, accepting and dealing with it. If you’re in denial, it’s going to keep on happening and happening. I call it people are running. It’s the people that run and end up drinking a lot or doing this a lot. There’s usually a reason how it at least starts and then become an addiction. There’s a reason why it starts and they’re running from something. You’ve got to stop running and just sit in it and accept it. Pull out that sword and start fighting like Game of Thrones

Thank you again, Tanya. There you have it. It’s another beautiful episode of the Game Changer Mentality podcast. Until next time. Peace and love. Thank you.

Important Links: 

• Tanya Memme
• International Association of Women
• @Tanya_Memme – Instagram
• Life Masters on EverTalk TV
• Wells of Hope
• Facebook – Tanya Memme
• Life Masters on iTunes
• http://TanyaMemme.com/
• https://www.YouTube.com/user/TanyaMemme
• https://www.Instagram.com/tanyamemme/?hl=en
• https://Twitter.com/Tanya_Memme?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
• Is Life Knocking You Down? Read Rodney’s inspiring story – Get Up! I Can’t. I Will. I Did… Here’s How! https://rodneyflowers.com/get-up-book/
• Recognize Your Positive Potential – Essential Assertions by Rodney Flowers https://rodneyflowers.com/essential-assertions-book/
• Get Access to Rodney’s Daily Inspiration in your Inbox Today https://rodneyflowers.us9.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=01f76a038256f77a6fbc93590&id=307d726734

About Tanya Memme

Tanya Memme is an Emmy Nominated TV Host, DIY Expert, Inspirational Speaker & Empowerment Coach where she travels around the country teaching people how to empower and engage their tribe. She is the founder of “Life Masters” a Talk Show/Podcast on iTunes, AppleTV and Roku on the EvertalkTV Platform. She intensely interviews Mentors, Speakers, Leaders and Healers about their life story. She digs deep into their rock bottom moments and against all odds rose back up to the top. She gets to the real truth on how they did it. Stories of unwavering perseverance and words of wisdom to help others get through the challenges of life. She is the Founder of “Freakin Amazing Skin Scrub” and Freakin AmazingSkin Serum” by MemeDerm.

Tanya is most famous as the host of the Emmy nominated show, “Sell This House” on A&E for 15 years. She also hosted popular shows like “Sell This House Extreme” and “Move This House” on A&E, FYI and BIO Channel & “Home & Family” on Hallmark Channel, Awesomeness TV, “Best Vacations and (syndicated travel show) ET CANADA on Global TV.

Tanya was crowned Miss Canada in 1994 and competed for the coveted title of Miss World in Sun City South Africa. She has traveled the world giving motivational speeches and with World Vision filming and uncovering the truth about Child Trafficking and Child Labor. She was the DirectTV Customer news Anchor for 7 years and has hosted over 50 infomercials.

Tanya is big into giving back and makes trips to Guatemala with her dad to help WELLS OF HOPE build schools and bring clean water to remote communities.

She has a 7-year-old daughter Ava who also appeared (crafting with her mommy) on Hallmark Channel’s “Home & Family” for 4 years.

www.tanyamemme.com

Representation:
blair@taylortalentservices.com

Social Media URL:
Life Masters on EvertalkTV
https://www.evertalktv.com/programs/life-masters-1

Life Masters Podcast on iTunes
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/life-masters/id1452062182

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