Laura Belgray’s Book Tough Titties

• Laura Belgray had a complicated relationship with food… but I never would’ve known
• My #1 favorite lesson EVERY GIRL… every woman should learn, from this coming-of-age book
• I’m giving away an Advanced Copy of Tough Titties ↓↓↓

Laura Belgray is the copyrighting GOAT

GREATEST OF ALL TIME, people!

She’s hilarious, has always lived in New York City and thanks to Laura Belgray’s Mastermind: Shrimp Club, I feel comfortable talking about my 10 year struggle with food, weight and hunger and how I normalized my relationship with food.

Why?

Well, because of my favorite thing about Laura!

She’s completely non-judgemental and ENCOURAGES you to be un-apologetically you. And to write like YOU.

As Laura says:

“Being un-apologetically ‘you’ has a ripple effect. It gives others permission to be more ‘them’.”

Oh, and she just wrote a memoir called: Tough Titties.

Memoir = diary = I’m TOTALLY reading it.

And Laura really did write her book like a diary.

She tells the truth.

The whole truth.

And nothing but the truth:

“On Living Your Best Life When You’re the F-ing Worst”.

Unquote.

I only know the Laura Belgray from THE FINAL chapter: Company Woman

I only know the COOL, funny, always-knows-the-exact-right-thing-to-say Laura.

The Laura who has THE BEST fashion and OVER-DELIVERS.

The gets-an-idea-and-sees-it-through, races ahead of the pack doing things her way, has-a-2nd-house-in-the-Hamptons Laura Belgray who EVERYBODY wants to sit beside and get feedback from.

I only know the totally-together Laura who uses iced coffee to prompt her morning writing ritual that creates content for her multi-million-dollar generating emails—the only ones anybody reads any more!

The Laura Belgray who eats store-bought watermelon chunks.

(I slug that baby home, carve it like a roast chicken and then 8 hours later my partner, Alex, pleads: Next time can you wash down the butcher block straight after, because that stuff gets sticky… )

↑↑↑ Yum!

I only know The Laura Belgray who’s a polished professional… with sparkly eyes and a cheeky grin that allow her to get away with ANYTHING!

And somehow she’s manages to hold onto that child-like vulnerability.

This is the Laura Belgray I know!

The one EVERYBODY loves! ❤️

…BTW, Laura doesn’t like the word “vulnerability”.

She prefers: Flawsome!

This Laura Belgray:

If you ever catch me in a similar outfit, yup, it’s 100% swiped from that pic ↑

And I guess the reason I don’t recognize the Laura Belgray in her book is because…

I met Laura Belgray after she discovered:

The thing that made her obsessed: WRITING!

I'm not lazy, as long as I'm obsessed— Laura Belgray, Tough TittiesI’m with Laura.

Life’s too short to put energy into anything that doesn’t make you bolt out of bed in the morning.

So I super respect Laura for being so honest in her book and sharing the fact that things weren’t always as they are today.

It would have been beyond easy for her to edit her life as well as she edits her emails, to curate a perfect past.

There’s lots of details she could have left out.

Writing honestly ain’t easy

Before I was in Shrimp Club I blogged under a pseudo name: Scaramoosh.

The name of my cat:

↑↑↑ Look at that face!

Scaramoosh was at the shelter because
he’d been hit by a car,
lost most of his tail
& part of each of his ears had frozen off.

And I blogged mostly about straight-up weight loss, rather than what I really wanted to write about:

How to break the starve-binge-purge cycle

Then during my monthly Shrimp Club hot-seat (a designated time you get to ask Laura anything), I said:

“I want to help people reach a healthy weight.”

And Laura said:

How about helping people reach their “HAPPY Weight”?

Boom!

Laura Belgray is the Greatest copywriter Of All Time

Laura helped me stop being scared to tell true stories.

I mean, we’re all full of stories that are:

Beautiful, sad, funny and true.

Or as Jason Bateman said in his podcast SMARTLESS:

Joaquin Phoenix manages to do something I love, when I watch actors. He has the ability to communicate vulnerability and humanness and flaws and elements of being broken, because we’re all broken. We’re all vulnerable. But we all learn to wear these different skins so we can try to hide it. And he’s so courageous… of being warts and all. Look at all my flaws! And he finds them in every character because that’s all part of it I suppose… of [being human].

Can someone DM Jason and introduce him to the word flawsome?

The reviews are in for Laura Belgray’s book Tough Titties

And the one I’ve heard over and over and over again, is:

For me?

I felt seen in Chapter 5: Watch the Potato Chips

You know where I’m going with this!

SIDE NOTE:
I didn’t even know that Laura obsessed with “working out and food and weight.”

So it just goes to show you how prevalent this “food stuff” is.

You’re not the first.
You’re not the last.
And you’re not alone.

Another way to say this?

Check out Tim Ferriss’s quote below, where I’ve substituted the words:

“weird interest”
for
“weight-loss experience”

b/c BOTH are true:

It turns out your weird interests weight-loss experience, as unique as you think you are, is actually shared by a lot of people… Even if your interest weight-loss experience is one in a million, like the weirdest sexual fetish weight-loss experience you can conceive of, one in a million still means you have an entire city of people in the world, who are into experiencing the same thing as you.

– Tim Ferriss, author of: The 4-Hour Workweek

Laura’s complicated relationship with food is TOTALLY different from mine

But it was also exactly the same.

It sucks up all your bandwidth, this body-image business. I’ve let it hold me back and limit me in a whole Skittles rainbow of ways. I’ve turned down or lost jobs because I needed time to work out in the morning (but not early morning). I’ve freaked out about trips where there’s no gym, no walkable road, too short a beach, too many activities and meals, or, god forbid, an itinerary… without enough blank space for working out. I had a two-year falling out with a friend because I couldn’t make time to see her on her once-a-year visit to the city. I didn’t say why, but I think she knew the conflict was dance class. I wanted to be extra lean for an upcoming trip.

-Laura Belgray, Tough Titties

I almost had to repeat my year in Teacher’s College

One morning my prof tracked me down by the student photocopier and gently pulled me aside to say:

“If you miss one more day, you’ll have to repeat the entire year.”

I’d already missed too many days by just the end of October 🙁

The reason?

I was convinced I had a rare, tragically slow metabolism that made real desserts off limits— Laura Belgray, Tough TittiesEvery time I ate even ONE bite I regretted, I’d drop out of everything planned for the rest of the day to punish myself and re-plan a new diet I’d have to stick to… perfectly.

Then one morning I woke up LATE, after staying up all hours bingeing, purging and then writing out a new diet that detailed everything I had to do from the number of pushups to the number of hours to study each day.

And it was too late to do my (obsessive) exercise routine before I walked the 5 kilometers to the school where I was a student teacher.

So I got stuck in a tug-of-war between:

exercising FIRST & being late
(i.e. risk having to repeat the whole year, as an International Student)
OR
pushing through the anxiety & exercising later that day.

Anyways, there were so many parallels…

Parallels between my weight-loss story and Laura Belgray’s

Namely, the taking-over-your-entire-life-obsession that happens when you follow sh*t information to a “T”.

(Though of course at the time we both believed everything that came out of the diet industry. We thought we were following FACTS.)

Laura captured the agony so clearly that as soon as I finished Chapter 5, I went straight down to Alex’s office, popped Tough Titties into his hands and announced:

“You have to read the potato chip chapter.”

Alex knows everything about me

And he reads every post before I hit “PUBLISH”.

He’s my long-time (suffering) editor.

As Ann Handley, Author of EVERYBODY WRITES says:

All writers need an editor… one who has a tight grip on grammar, usage, style and punctuation. But most importantly they know you and your style.

So Alex has read all the ins-and-outs of my preoccupation with food, weight and hunger… AND still I thought Laura’s chapter on obsession with what to eat to lose weight and fear of food (that the diet world brainwashes us with) was: Required Reading.

A new level of me “feeling seen”.

And even one element of our recovery was similar.

Laura Belgray’s weight loss experience supported my story

The potato chip chapter is a MUST READ if you want someone you love ❤️ to understand what goes on in the head of someone who’s dieting, no matter where you fall down the spectrum of an unhealthy relationship with food.

I began weighing myself every bathroom visit, before and after I peed. At parties, I brought my own liter of Diet Coke and swigged from it all night. I wouldn’t even look at pizza.
– Laura Belgray, Tough Titties

I’ve often described all the diet rules, tips and tricks I applied to everything I ate, to feeling like a load of old necklaces all tangled up in my head:

Only eat the white of an egg.
Chew your food 15 times before swallowing.
Don’t eat after 8 pm.

The rules go on and on and I spent years collecting them, believing that I was building a comprehensive weight-loss approach.

Reality: I was developing a complicated relationship with food.

For years I thought I needed a lobotomy to get better.

Turns out I just needed a sandwich.

I just needed to go back-to-the-basics and treat my body with respect.

Once I got some good information, strategies and encouragement, I lost 30 pounds for good, 24+ years ago.

First Step:
You don’t need an obsessive exercise routine and eat meals PACKED with fiber. Fiber helps you lose weight.

Want an advance copy of Laura Belgray’s book?

Laura’s book comes out on June 13th.

But I’ve got an Advanced Copy I can send to you NOW!

I’ll tell you how ↓↓↓

Laura Belgray’s book is a coming-of-age story

Tough Titties takes place in New York City.

↑↑↑ Found that huge pic of ‘NYC in the ’70’s’ behind a building on one of my first solo-dog walks with Moon.

I love New York Stories. ❤️

I loved the TV show:  Sex and the City.

But I did NOT love the episodes that took place outside the city.

For me, we need all the characters to make the magic work.

A single sentence in Laura Belgray’s Book

…could instantly transport me back to Grade 7… or just make me laugh out loud.

Stuff like:

Jill’s mom was a tiny woman with a tiny head, giant eyes, and a heavy New York accent. A Jewish-mother version of E.T. Her hobbies were: driving around in a new Jaguar (leased), picking up prepared foods from Zabar’s, stirring up rumors, and looking for Jill. Her name was Janet, and we heard it a lot in my house. ‘Janet called. She wants to know if you know where Jill is.’ ‘Sure, Jill can stay for dinner, but I don’t want to have to deal with five phone calls from Janet.’…
– Laura Belgray, Tough Titties

And:

I once fainted getting out of a ski resort hot tub in Colorado and had an entire dream that seemed to last an hour. When I woke up, with concerned, wet grown-ups around me, I asked how long I’d been lying there. They said only one second. They’d seen me crumple and shaken me awake right away.
– Laura Belgray, Tough Titties

And this:

Dante had flirted with me before, at a barbecue in Central Park called Bone Fest. He saw me getting a Diet Snapple and asked, “Are you in recovery?” I said yes, from Diet Coke. I meant it. He laughed, said I was sassy and he liked it.
– Laura Belgray, Tough Titties

These gems pop up on each page.

However…

When I read Tough Titties, I was on a mission

Each day I allowed myself to read one chapter.

(I swear, I’m really, really fun to hang out with… The only person I’m mean to is me.)

And I challenged myself to:

1 – Figure out the LESSON
Some of our BEST lessons are from our most difficult experiences.

&

2 – Record my reflections
By applying the lesson to my life.

So… to give you a taste of what I’m talking about:

Here’s 5 LESSONS from Laura Belgray’s book

From 5 of her 22 chapters, chock-full of lessons.

I want to challenge you to apply each lesson to your life.

And see what memories flood back for you.

…Memories that you haven’t thought of for years.

Maybe decades!

But please note:

The real fun of Laura Belgray’s book is in the stories

Her stories.

And her story-telling.

Like this:

A few weeks into ninth grade, to fit in better, I went out and bought a wood file (as one does). The guy at the hardware store asked f I was going to bake it into a cake and help spring someone out of prison. Ha ha, no. I mumbled something about a woodwork thing. A dollhouse for my sister? I didn’t want to explain it was for my shoes. I know—file? For shoes? To fit in? I’ll get there.
– Laura Belgray, Tough Titties

The BEAUTY
of Tough Titties
is in the writing.

And that I’ll leave for you to enjoy as you read her book.

Ok, let’s look at:

Laura Belgray’s Book Tough Titties: Lesson 1

CHAPTER TITLE:

Deb Fishbone Likes This

LAURA’S LESSON:
We all have a Deb Fishbone in our life.

A person who’s a thorn in our side and tough to remove.

She could be in your classroom—the tiny ecosystem you cannot escape when you’re a kid—or she could be a neighbor planted firmly beside you.

Or a family member.

She can be a “friend”, sister, mother…

When you’re a kid she’s hard to spot.

And when they’re a family member they’re hard to eject.

We can let the Deb Fishbone’s of our lives break us OR they can be our best teachers.

(And provide great material for our memoirs.)

Stop watering dead plants.

Deb Fishbone, be gone!

PERSONAL REFLECTIONS:
Looking through my teacher lens… Deb Fishbone is totally jealous of Laura and Laura’s too sweet to see all the cool things about herself that Deb Fishbone wants.

I’ve supply taught in schools all around London, England.

(I liked to go to a different school every day so I could get to know the city. I loved to pop up from a tube station, straight onto the high street and flip through my A to Z to find my destination. God, it feels like a lifetime ago. And I only accepted jobs in the morning <so there was an expectation I’d be late>. )

I’ve taught in Toronto, Canada too.

And…

You see the Deb-Fishbone dynamic EVERYWHERE

Even in kids as young as nursery school.

Honestly, I Could. Not. Believe. It. when I was sitting in a small circle of 4-year olds and one girl passed a block from a big pile in front of her to everyone in the circle BUT one super-cute little girl who was shy, with whom the block distribute-er maintained eye contact the ENTIRE time to make sure the girl who didn’t get a block KNEW she was being left out on purpose.

How’d she already have that playbook?

As a 24-year old teacher, new on the scene, my heart was pounding out of my chest but I totally called her out on it.

And yes I had a Deb Fishbone in my life too.

And in so many ways she was my best teacher.

But I got to the point where I’d learned enough 🙂

QUESTIONS:
1. Do you have a Deb Fishbone in your life? Who!?
2. Will you stay or will you go now?
3. What’s the most gracious way of de-boning your Deb?

Laura Belgray’s Book Tough Titties: Lesson 2

CHAPTER TITLE:

How To Be Popular

And I’d add this subtitle:

The dawn of Laura getting scrappy and becoming the entrepreneur she is today.

LAURA’S LESSON:
The best stuff we learn at school is not in lecture halls or textbooks but by navigating endless “people situations”.

These emotional roller coasters help us discover who we are. Math and science is the easy part!

As we get older we learn: The superficial stuff we do to try to “fit in” is never the reason our real friends like us.

There’s nothing more attractive than knowing EXACTLY who you are. ❤️

PERSONAL REFLECTIONS:
Laura’s descriptions brought me right back to grade school where your entire world is the classroom and stuff like what you wear can feel like it will make or break you.

Details, like the way you “do” your shoelaces is monumental.

I remember finally getting the coveted Benetton Rugby shirt in green…

Or was it blue?

Am I remembering mine, or everybody else’s?

On any given day at least 3 people in my class would be wearing it.

(BTW… these are now going for 100’s of dollars on Etsy & Ebay. Vintage!)

In Grade 8 putting safety pins on your jeans—calf-down, to make them tailored, sort of like skinny jeans—was all the rage at Oakridge Public School, Class of 1988. Safety pins in jeans was “the look.” And I remember feeling like I just could not space them right.

It was something to worry about and practice at night.

A lot of this chapter in Laura Belgray’s book, boils down to peer pressure

But something interesting happened to me in high school.

And I couldn’t connect all the dots until I was an adult.

It was when everyone started drinking alcohol and I gave a hard NO.

Privately I thought:

I can’t handle diet coke.
I drink a case a day.
(That’d be 24 cans.)

And I hated the feeling of always:

• wanting more
• needing money to buy it
• & sneaking around drinking it.

I hated being preoccupied and sort of feeling controlled by something

So I decided I absolutely cannot touch alcohol.

It was such black and white territory for me it never crossed my mind that there could be a “social falling out” (!)

Sure, my friends nicknamed me Cindy (as in Cindy Brady… the youngest of the bunch), which, BTW, I loved. And teacher’s started to too.

And I was the proud Designated Driver from the moment I got my license.

But at some point I realized that nobody actually cared.

Nobody gave a sh*t.

People don’t think about you as much as you think they do!

Later on I learned that people admired me for having a firm stance and sticking by it.

And for the rest of my life it’s been easy to make decisions based on what gives me peace of mind, even if it goes against the grain.

A surprising gift from my eating disorder, and one that keeps giving.

How to be popular was so much fun to read

And noodle on!

I just LOVE seeing the early entrepreneur in Laura getting scrappy with a wood file…

Don’t know what I mean?

You’ll have to read her book!

QUESTIONS:
1. What was THE LOOK at your school?
2. Do you have a photo or can you describe your finest fashion faux pas? What did you think looked good way back when that you wouldn’t be caught dead in, today?
3. When was the last time you felt peer pressure?

Laura Belgray’s Book Tough Titties: Lesson 3

CHAPTER TITLE:

Boys Don’t Like Me

LAURA’S LESSON:
Another life-changing mind-shift brought to you by Laura Belgray:

Do you have a scarcity or abundance mindset?

I. LOVE. THAT. QUESTION.

It kinda changes how I do e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g.

PERSONAL REFLECTIONS:
When I was probably 9 years old I heard that my Grandma, Gladys, would:

Hop on a plane at the Welland Airport → Fly to Toronto to take cooking lessons → And be back before her husband, my Grandfather, got home from work.

This story was told very nonchalantly.

But I soaked in every word and have clung to it ever since.

SIDENOTE:
Gladys was very glamorous.

Or I like to say “is”.
I believe souls stay with us.
Love can’t disappear.

My grandma had the most beautiful clothing that was hand-beaded, always wore flowers in her hair and VOGUE magazines and books about DIANA were piled around their home, on tiny nesting tables.

And she always gave my mother the free Estée Lauder bags packed with full-sized samples that you get when you spend a certain amount.

…These bright orange and bubble-gum pink lipsticks ended up in a shoe box that my friends and I would spend hours applying and re-re-applying, when they came over to hang out.

By the end we looked like clowns.

But I thought we looked fabulous.

Gladys was also a member of the Red Cross Ambulance Corps during World War 2.

I loved that she could be all these things, at once.

Everything about this flying to Toronto “cooking” story sang to me

In a Gospel sort of way.

It cracked open a whole bunch of truths, like Gremlins hatching—if they were good-hearted.

My point:
Just like Glady’s wore rose-tinted glasses, I suddenly saw the world differently too.

Full of possibility!

That’s the Laura Belgray Abundance Mindset

Glady’s get-up-and-go taught me that YOU need to MAKE things happen for yourself!

I love her “things will work out” thinking.

Just go for it!

You miss 100% of the shots you don't take— Wayne Gretzky

It was this cooking story that made me feel 100% “in” when I faxed off my resignation for my full-time teaching position (WITH Alex’s knowledge!) while holding a bottle of bubbly that was ready to POP the moment I saw it cinch into the machine.

(Granted, up until that moment I’d been teaching full time, tutoring 9 kids each week after school and spending any other spare moment creating my kids self-esteem & literacy program Who Is NOBODY?—that I left my job to do full time.)

Life’s all about doing things you believe in

Working hard.

And trusting that the next step will become obvious.

That’s the abundance mindset!

And it helps when you have people who come before you to show you there doesn’t need to be a path to head in a direction and people you get to watch in real time, people like Laura, living it.

QUESTIONS:
1. Can you recall a time you had a scarcity mindset? What did you hold back on? What would you do differently now?
2. Who helped shape your mindset?
3. What’s something you want to do right now, that you’re a little scared of doing?

Laura Belgray’s Book Tough Titties: Lesson 4

CHAPTER TITLE:

Tough Titties

LAURA’S LESSON:
“Play a bigger game… grow every day, and don’t let anyone keep you small. Be the biggest version of you!”
– Laura Belgray, Tough Titties

PERSONAL REFLECTIONS:
Sometimes I press “PUBLISH” on a blog post and then feel super stressed out.

Then I remind myself what Laura taught me.

If my mission is to help women unlock their H 🙂 PPY Weight without dieting, the stuff I write about won’t be for EVERYBODY.

And anyways, if you write to everybody, you’ll actually be writing to NOBODY.

So really lean into the SOMEBODY I know will flourish the same way I did, with the same information that helped me lose weight and never think of it again.

Laura Belgray taught me to stop trying to write to EVERYBODY ↑

This chapter about going BIG or going home, also reminded me of the difference between “needing” and “wanting” things.

And how when you “need” something it’s waaay harder to get it.

The first thing that comes to mind?

Needing a boyfriend.

“Needing” keeps you small and shriveled and being oh-so careful.

The night I met Alex I was about 2 weeks away from graduating Teacher’s College in London and returning to Canada for good.

So when a group of us ended up at a pub and Alex and his friends sat at our table I didn’t even think about meeting someone. All the pressure was off.

He got my “Halls of Residence” number from my friend.

(No cells phones back then… or even a land-line in my shoe-boxed sized dorm room half a block from Russel Square.)

And we met up at Waterloo Station that Saturday, went to Punch & Judy in Covent Garden and then (after one of his friend’s called him with a fake emergency in case he needed an out) we had dinner at a Chinese Restaurant.

Sunil060902, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

When he was in the washroom I “took” one of the pink napkins because the night felt significant.

Then I gave him the napkin for Christmas.

(The napkin was made of cloth… and I gave him other stuff too!)

I didn’t need the pink napkin.

I wanted it.

QUESTIONS:
1. In what part of your life are you playing small?
2. When do you find yourself trying to be “everything to everyone”? What’s one thing you can do to change that?
3. What’s something you think you “need” right now that would be healthier to change into a “want”?

Laura Belgray’s Book Tough Titties: Lesson 5

CHAPTER TITLE:

Bl*w J*bs I Gave in the Early 90’s

Disclaimer/SIDE NOTE/Warning:
Neither Laura’s mom or husband have read this chapter.

LAURA’S LESSON:
Do you have a meaningful metric?

Welcome or not, these encounters were a satisfying metric. Something other than my weight that I could measure and check. Wonder what meaningless numbers we obsessed over before follows and likes?
– Laura Belgray, Tough Titties

PERSONAL REFLECTIONS:
While I didn’t see this chapter heading in this direction at all, it made total sense when Laura asks:

“Do you have a meaningful metric?”

This got me thinking about how EVERY kid should be asked this question:

What’s your barometer for success?

And every woman should ask herself that too ↑

I started the kids program Who Is NOBODY? because I wanted young people to figure out what makes them unique and use it to help others to build a sense of purpose & belonging.

(Instead of worrying about their weight, like I did.)

But still, and maybe it was my OCD or how girls are raised, but for ages, I kept thinking the thing I should be aiming for—in ALL aspects of my life—is “perfection”.

Whaaat?

I thought “perfection” was a worthy pursuit because it would protect you.

I wanted there to be fewer places to poke holes.

Like I remember standing in a group of girls during lunch break at high school and each time one girl left, someone in the group would completely rip apart:

• her clothes
• her hair
• or the way she walked 🙁

I decided to stay planted in the circle until the bell rang.

Aiming for perfection also eased my anxiety

And gave me something to hang on to.

So I’d stay up all night studying and run miles and miles a day, even in snow storms—so I could get:

A report card plastered in A+’s
&
win running races

These achievements were things I had control over that no one could judge or take away from me.

And they offered a stamp of approval, reassuring me I’d tried my best so could I shut down that nagging voice in my head, telling me I could have done more or tried harder.

“Perfect” was the only way to get peace of mind (from myself!).

But what if we funnel that across-the-board energy into just a few important things?

This got me thinking about:

Something Laura Belgray taught us in Shrimp Club:

What if you stopped getting lost in the details of trying to do everything perfectly and:

Focused on how to WIN
at what matters most to you?

Like choose a couple things you want to excel at and do them FIRST each day.

You know, instead of trying to do a million things perfectly…

Do one thing a million times and get really good at it.

Stop focusing on perfection and focus on WINNING!

My undoing with my eating disorder?

The whole trying to have perfect days & stick to my diet perfectly rather than getting a few KEY things right and MOVING ON!

This chapter in Laura’s book blew my mind because it crystalized the need to prioritize.

Simply to amplify.

Oh, and ONE MORE LESSON…

From this chapter in Laura Belgray’s book

And it’s a really important one:

People take you at your own estimate.

As a chronic apologize-er for stuff I didn’t do… Apologies just pour out of me instinctively to everyone, even walls I “accidentally” bump into, this lesson is KEY to me.

Can I just give a shout-out to Mike who says (on Page 115 of Tough Titties):

‘I’m sorry, Laura,’
Mike said when Dante ignored us all evening.
‘You’re so much better than that.’

QUESTIONS:
1. “You’re so much better than that.” Where does this apply in your life?
2. What are the 3 most important things that you get done each day, to really move the needle in your life?
3. What’s your barometer for success?

OK… and one bonus LESSON:

Plus how to win an advanced copy of Laura’s book ↓

Laura Belgray’s Book Tough Titties: BONUS Lesson

CHAPTER TITLE:

Company Woman

LAURA’S LESSON:
There’s tons of lessons in this chapter and I laughed so much too.

The two I’ll touch on are:
1 – Invest in yourself
by focusing on your zone of genius.

2 – And ask for help!!!
Other people can see things you can’t.

PERSONAL REFLECTIONS:
LESSON #1:
Get obsessed about YOUR area of excellence.

I write my blog for Type A women who want to unlock their H 🙂 PPY weight without dieting.

So this lesson?

It’s especially for you gals.

Because we’re:

• empaths
• peacekeepers
• perfectionists
• & pleasers

We can get lost in the details trying to be EVERYTHING to EVERYONE… stop!

It’s incredibly easy to spend the whole day doing what you think will make other people happy.

And then kinda hate yourself.

Hands up if you’ve felt that way recently?

(I’m typing slooowly with one hand.)

Instead…

How ’bout applying that obsession to what you’re good at?

And then using it to help others.

Still feel selfish?

Think about it this way:

When you get good at something you can help MORE people.

LESSON #2
Ask for help because other people can see things you can’t.

In university, my doctor said to me:

“Kelly do you see patterns in your life?”

Ummm no…

And that’s when he told me about the starve-binge-purge cycle… a vicious cycle I’d been caught in for years.

You know, that first diagram in this post:

Until that point I just thought I had incredible willpower…

And then had “weak” moments when I fell off the wagon.

I thought my diet struggles were a straight line.

A character flaw.

I needed someone on the outside to see the pattern

And point it out to me.

I needed someone to help me see my fixation, an obsession… with proving I had the WILLPOWER (to starve myself thin) so I could focus on the science of unlocking my H:) PPY weight by working WITH my body.

Getting good information and strategies
Vs
Running like a mo-fo with the wrong end of the stick.

QUESTION:
1. What do you feel selfish about doing, that in reality, if you invested MORE time in, you’d be able to excel at and in fact, help more people?
2. Where have you been trying to shove a round peg in a square hole? Maybe it’s time to stop blaming yourself and try something new.
3. Do you see asking for help as a weakness… or a way to fast-track your success?

…I could have worked in a silo for years and never got anywhere near where Laura helped me go via joining her Mastermind: Shrimp Club.

Connecting with an expert like Laura, opened my mind and gave me insight into things I never would have been able to achieve on my own.

Laura Belgray thanked a ton of people

I noticed at the end of Laura’s book she’s got a beautiful and long list of Acknowledgements.

A true sign of intelligence.

Ask for help so you can get back to your own zone of genius.

I love true stories

I’m a documentary junkie.

And one of the things I learned the most from reading the True Stories in Tough Titties:

Is that we’re unreliable narrators.

We’re too hard on ourselves!

I’m positive that high school Laura saw herself differently than others did.

Just like E. L. James wrote the 50 Shades of Grey Trilogy twice, from both Anastasia Steele’s perspective and Christian’s (I’ve only read Ana’s interpretation of events. Book Club homework!)

…I’m sure if Laura’s friends rewrote Tough Titties from their perspective she’d be the cool kid in so many situations she doubted herself.

The lessons in Laura Belgray’s book are fun & great for reflection

And above are just a few of the 22+ lessons Laura teaches via 22 short stories full of observational humor.

I’m an even better people watcher after reading her book!

No nuance of human behavior is lost on Laura.

Make Today Count

What are the 3 most important things you get done FIRST each day to move the needle in your life?

Is it eating fiber at every meal?
Going for a walk after dinner?
And following Laura Belgray: @laurabelgray

All sound worthwhile to me!

Just reading Laura’s Book: Tough Titties will make you a better writer (whether it’s emails or wherever else you put pen to paper).

Build healthy eating and exercise habits & a healthy weight will follow

Next Steps with Laura Belgray’s book Tough Titties

Ever been in a bad relationship?

Not sure if you want a baby?

Feel behind?

Laura’s book Tough Titties covers the coming-of-age gamut.

Including:

Don’t let crap diet advice suck up all your bandwidth.

If any of these topics have been on your mind, Laura will walk you through them via her diary-documentary-style book that captures growing up in New York City and:

In the end, finding the LOVE and CAREER of her dreams…

Not by Putting On The Ritz (a song significant to Chapter 2: How to Be Popular)—

But by living and sharing her authentic life—no matter how beautiful, sad, funny or true—which brought her EXACTLY where she was meant to be.

Not in spite of her flawsomeness.

But because of it.

I love Laura Belgray because of her message to YOU

And it’s captured so well in this Mama Cass Elliot Song:

Make Your Own Kind of Music

Nobody can tell ya
There’s only one song worth singin’
They may try and sell ya
Cause it hangs them up
To see someone like youuuuuuu

But you’ve gotta make your own kind of music
Sing your own special song…

Even if nobody else sings along
…
It may be rough going
Just to do your thing,
The hardest thing to do

Tough Titties is Laura Belgray’s first book

Laura’s the founder of Talking Shrimp and co-creator of The Copy Cure with Marie Forleo. She has been featured in Fast Company, Money Magazine, Forbes, Vox, and Business Insider, and has written for Fandango, Bravo, NBC, HBO, USA, Nick at Nite, Nickelodeon, TV Land, FX, Nick Mom, VH1, TBS, Lifetime, The CW, and more. Belgray lives in New York and, except for college, has never lived anywhere else.

Follow @laurabelgray on Instagram and let me know you did in the comments below ↓ to win an Advanced copy of Tough Titties.

Want to walk all over New York City with Laura Belgray?

Coco(nut) makes it look easy.

Order Tough Titties here.

Follow Laura Belgray on Instagram here: