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Bramble. Hello. I've been living in LA for almost five years now. It's almost my five-year Los Angeles anniversary. I grew up, if you didn't know, I grew up in Northern California near San Francisco. And when I was 17, I moved to Los Angeles to pursue my career in the internet. To pursue my internet career, I moved to Los Angeles at 17. I feel like now that I've been here for five years, I can really finally discuss whether or not I think living in LA actually helps your career or not. Because the reason why I moved here was not because I was like, oh my god, I want to go hang out at the Hollywood sign every day. I want to go shopping on rodeo drive every day. I want to experience hot and sunny weather every day. Like, no, that wasn't the reason why I moved here. I moved to LA strictly for my career. And I'm not the only one. You know that. We know that. I'm not the only one. A lot of people pursuing a career in anything entertainment. LA is the spot, right? You make music. You're an actor. You're a podcaster. You're a YouTuber. You're a TikToker. You are a comedian. Whatever you are. LA is the spot. I mean, New York is the spot too. But LA just has the reputation of being the place where people in the entertainment industry can grow their career. And I've gone back and forth over the years trying to decide whether or not I think living in LA helps or hurts your career long term. I'm not talking about short term. I'm talking about long term. And so today we're going to discuss that. We're going to answer the big question. Does living in LA actually help your career? To start, I want to talk about how I think living in LA has helped my career. Number one is obvious. Okay. Living in LA is incredible for networking. Oh, the word networking. Like meeting people who are in your industry who have connections, networking. And the word networking to me is so... There's something about it that I just despise. You know, it just seems so douchey, I guess. But there's something to be said for networking. I have met so many people just by hanging out in LA who have ended up being incredibly helpful in my career and one way or another. And I think networking can be a negative thing at times if it's rooted in selfish intentions, right? Like if you go out and you talk to people just because you think that they're going to get you somewhere in your career, that's kind of gross. You know what I mean? You should always talk to somebody because you admire what they do or because they just seem cool and you want to have a conversation. And then if five, ten minutes into the conversation, you realize that you two might be able to help each other out and it could be mutually beneficial. Great. But you should never like go into a conversation with the intent of, oh, how can I use you? And that happens a lot in LA. But I have experienced a lot of great networking moments where I've met... Like let's say I met a photographer and I start talking to this photographer and we're just talking about social media and stuff like whatever. And then they bring up, oh, I'm a photographer, you know, blah blah blah blah. And then I'm like, oh my God, no way. Like I love to see your work. I see their work. I'm like, wait, I love it. Let's like do something together. That's cute and fun and harmless. And now we're both benefiting. I get to work with a photographer and a photographer gets to have someone to take photos of. You know, like that's a great mutually beneficial thing. Moments like that are frequent in LA because so many people here are working in this industry. So it's like you meet people who are in the same line of work as you all the time and nothing creates a better product, if you will, than collaboration. You know, working together with other people who have their own style of doing things and mixing that with your own style of doing things helps you evolve. Working with other people helps you evolve and it is a really cool opportunity to have so many people in one place that can all in theory help each other. That's cool. And so I do think that the ability to network in LA can't be ignored because it is a valuable thing and it has helped me as well. Living in LA is also great because things can move faster here. For example, let's say you have a business meeting. Ooh, meetings. Let's see if a business meeting. Most of the time, companies who work in the entertainment industry are based in either LA, New York or both. So most of the time, that's where meetings take place. And obviously I know now we all take Zoom meetings as much as we possibly can, but sometimes you need to do an in-person meeting. You want to meet someone face to face and truly read their energy, et cetera. So living in LA is incredibly helpful when a meeting pops up, an opportunity pops up, and you need to meet with somebody in person. Instead of having to schedule travel to get to LA or New York, if you live in LA, there's a good chance that the meeting can happen in LA. You see what I'm saying? So things can happen faster. The time between deciding that a meeting should happen and the meeting happening can be a 24 hour thing, you know? Whereas if you live out of LA, you might have to schedule a flight, plan your travel, all of this, and that sort of drags the process out. So there's this ability to be efficient when you're here because everyone's here, it feels like. And so everyone that I would potentially be working with is most likely here. So there's this ability to do a lot more, I guess. And that's good because the quicker you can get the ball rolling and anything, the better. So if you have a big project, you want to start. For example, you want to make a movie, right? The faster that you can meet with a potential producer, I don't fucking understand how movies work. I don't know why I use movies as an example. I genuinely don't know how it works to make a movie. But you see what I'm saying? The sooner you can have a meeting with a producer, the sooner you can have a meeting with a streaming company. I don't know how this works. But you go and I'm saying the process can expedite so you can get more done in less time and get to your end goal so much sooner. And if we're trying to answer the question today, does living in LA actually help your career? Or is that kind of bullshit? The sooner that you can get shit in motion, the sooner it can be out in the world for everyone to see. And in theory, be successful, you know, because in the entertainment industry, you have to put things out and then they have to be perceived by the public. And then that determines whether or not your project worked or not. And you see what I mean? So, efficiency is real. It's real. The next helpful thing about LA is that there's a lot of resources. Let's say you're a musician. There are endless studios to record music in LA. Endless hundreds, probably, thousands, probably. Let's say you want to film a short film with your friends. You need to rent a nice camera, like one of those big bulky, fancy cameras. Okay. There's 1,300 million camera rental stores. There's resources here. You know, there's a demand for these specific things that are necessary for this industry, right? There's a demand. And so then, therefore, there's a supply. And if you live somewhere like, I don't know, Rhode Island or Connecticut, it might be harder to get those things because there's not a lot of people making music in Connecticut, you know, who need a recording studio. So the accessibility of resources is great. You know, that's great. For me, personally, I don't need resources. Personally I don't. I use no resources. Okay. To do what I do, I have a little recorder that I used to record my podcast that I bring with me everywhere when I'm traveling. When I'm at home, I put it on my nightstand. You know what I mean? Like, I bring it with me everywhere. If I'm filming a YouTube video, I use the same camera I've been using forever and I don't ever level up. I love my camera. I don't need to level up, you know? And like, so for me, that's not necessarily necessary, but for some people, it totally is. And the fact that that's there is very helpful. And last but not least, I think there is an element of support in Los Angeles because everyone's in the same industry. Everybody's sort of dealing with the same struggles or whatever that come with this particular job or career path. And so there is an opportunity for a community. I'm not saying that there always is because, you know, I would argue that the entertainment industry really does attract a unique type of person. It attracts all different types of people. Sometimes good and sometimes bad. And so I wouldn't rely on finding a community in LA, but there is a potential for it. It's not easy to find, but there is an opportunity to find people that are in your industry that you can relate to that are good people. And it might be challenging to find. It might actually be impossible to find. It depends. But there is an opportunity there for that. Whereas if you lived somewhere, again, like Connecticut, where maybe people aren't really working as much in this industry, it might be harder to find people who maybe understand the anxiety and stress that comes with being in the public eye, for example. Because most people in Connecticut aren't in the public eye. You see what I'm saying? So it's like, naturally, it might be harder to find people who you can relate to if that's what you're doing. You know, the last thing about living in LA that's helpful, and this is like so gross to me. Like not gross, but like talking about this is just so cringe to me, but whatever, it's true. We're just going to have to deal with it. The last helpful thing about living in LA is that there's more of an opportunity to be seen. And I know that sounds disgusting. Like it really does sound just so kind of scummy, right? But an important element of having a career and entertainment is being known. I mean, if no one knows who you are, then they can't enjoy what you're putting out into the world, right? That's obvious. Having an audience is the biggest driving force of this industry. If there was no audience, this wouldn't be an industry, right? So a huge factor of becoming known is being talked about in any way, shape or form. And a big part of being known is being seen on the internet, talked about it on the internet. And there are a lot of events and paparazzi and opportunities to be posted to the internet by the media in some way. And that can sort of help boost your career in this industry. Additionally, I don't really experience this. I almost never get paparazzi. I actually did last night. I was at a Halloween party. And I used to hate getting paparazzi. Even though for me, it's always like not that bad. You know what I mean? It's like not bad. Like for some celebrities, it is so bad. For little old me, it's like, they're like, who the fuck is that? Okay. Well, I think I'm going to take a photo of her. I think it's like, I feel like I should, like she's, I don't know, she's, we'll see. We'll just take a photo and like try to figure out who it is later. You know what I mean? Like, nobody's like harassing, harassing me. Like I've maybe been harassed once. It's really, I'm not, I don't deal with this in like a huge way. And I also don't seek it out because there are ways that you can seek it out. If you live in LA, you know the spots where the paparazzi hang out. There are certain restaurants, there are certain clubs, there are certain, you know, coffee shops that everyone knows are like paparazzi hot spots where they just wait all day for the celebrities to go. It's a whole thing, you know what I'm saying? And so if you want to participate in that, you can, if you want to call paparazzi on yourself, you can. And there's a lot of paparazzi here. So there's a lot of opportunity to sort of be seen in that way. I don't really utilize this personally because I just don't love that. But if you know, you're somebody who wants to do that and you like feel comfortable doing it and it doesn't exhaust you or, you know, whatever, then it's an, it's an option. And that is definitely helpful for a lot of people. I mean, think about the people that you look up to for their street style, for example, how did they become a street style icon in your mind, probably from paparazzi images that were taken of them just being them, whatever doing their thing and acute outfit, right? Now, you know, they've built up a sort of identity in your mind of being like a stylish, a stylish person. And you know, you start, maybe you follow them because of that, et cetera, et cetera. So it can help grow your career in that way. And that is helpful, right? So I don't know, you know, that's definitely something. But also if you go to events all the time and like get dressed up or whatever, there's an element of sort of weird, subconscious credibility, I think that we give people when we see them going to events, you know what I mean? Oh, they're at this event. Oh, they're at this event, you know, that is, it's a weird psychological thing, but it means something in this industry. It like has this sort of status attached to it, which is to me, listen, I know that this is all just a game. You guys probably know that this is all just a game deep down. But at the same time, it doesn't mean nothing, right? Like it doesn't mean nothing because in the, for some reason, psychologically, when we see someone at a celebrity event who we don't, we've never seen before, maybe we don't know who they are, we might get curious and be like, oh, what do they do? And then we might want to look it up. We're like, this is a cool event in there here, but I don't know them. I want to know who they are and then you look them up. Maybe you're like, oh, they're really cool. And then you follow them again, growing that person's career because there's something fascinating and entertaining about all the different celebrity events and what celebrities do on their day off. Like there's something interesting about it. I love seeing it. I go on my explore page all the time and I'm like, what's everybody wearing on the street? Where's everybody going? What events is everybody going to? What's everyone doing? You know, I'm fascinated. I don't know why, but I am and I pay attention. And I've discovered so many different people from a paparazzi picture of somebody wearing a cute outfit or a photo of somebody taking at an event that I think is kind of cool. And I've been like, who's that? You know, and then I look it up. So the ability to be seen in LA in those ways is powerful and available. It's very available and it's powerful in the sense that it can make a difference in your career for sure. If that's the way that you want to do it, right? So yeah, I mean, I think that living in LA can be very helpful for growing your career. There are a lot of reasons why it can be helpful. And a lot of them are weird to talk about out loud because they're always the things that people don't talk about. You know, people don't want to talk about networking. People don't want to talk about the way that business interactions run. People don't want to talk about calling paparazzi on themselves or going to specific events because there's a specific goal in mind of how they want to be perceived. Nobody wants to talk about that because it's weird. It's weird because it's supposed to be the thing that like celebrities do intentionally, maybe, but the public isn't supposed to know the inner workings of how things run. But I don't care. I'll air it all out. I will air it all out. This is all a sort of mirage. It's all sort of smoke and mirrors. I think living in LA can help not only give you resources, but also give you the opportunity to play with your public image because there are so many opportunities here to do so. But this is when the plot thickens, right? Because all of the things I just mentioned are helpful and can be a game changer for someone's career and entertainment. But none of the positive things matter if you're experiencing too many of the shitty parts about moving here for your career. So let's discuss the ways that living in LA can hurt your career. This episode of Anything Goes is brought to you by Squarespace. You can also remember how incredible it is that we live in a time where we can literally put things online and express ourselves. It gives me feelings of anxiety and it gives me feelings of gratitude. We can truly create whatever we want and put it on the internet and show people who we really are. And then anyone in the world can access it. It's actually kind of wild when you think about it. If you aren't already, you should be taking advantage of this time. In Squarespace does it better than anyone else. It doesn't matter if you're building an online shop or if you're trying to create content. You'll have an all-in-one platform on Squarespace to craft a beautiful site, sell anything you want, and more. And what Squarespace really specializes in is allowing you to connect and engage with your audience. 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Therapists are trained to teach us about how to cope with the trials and tribulations of life. And they're coming from a perspective of just wanting to help you. And that's what makes them such an incredible tool. Therapists help people learn coping skills, learn how to deal with trauma, and so much more. As the world's largest therapy service, BetterHelp has matched 3 million people with professionally licensed, invented therapists, available 100% online. Plus, it's affordable. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to match with a therapist. If things aren't clicking, you can easily switch to a new therapist anytime. It really couldn't be simpler. No waiting rooms, no traffic, no endless searching for the right therapists. Learn more and save 10% off your first month at BetterHelp.com slash anything that's BetterHelpHELP.com slash anything. I think the biggest one is that there are a lot of temptations in LA. There are a lot of parties, celebrity Hollywood, juicy, crazy parties in LA. There are a lot of famous people that are put on a pedestal that are appealing to hang out with. There are or try to hang out with. There's a lot of people who wear expensive clothes and expensive jewelry and expensive bags and prioritize material things. There are a lot of people that are really focused on their appearance. Maybe there's a lot of focus on every little detail of how you look. There's a lot of people enhancing the way that they look, maybe by doing something as simple as getting hair extensions or something as surgically invasive as getting an entire facial reconstructive surgery. There's this focus on appearance within the culture of this industry in LA. There's a lot of people who party really hard all the time, do a lot of drugs, drink a lot, etc. So my point of listing all those things was there's a lot of temptation here. It's hard for some people to live here because there are so many opportunities to deviate from your own moral code. There are a lot of opportunities to maybe slack off your work to focus on things that are not bringing you closer to your ultimate goal. An example would be let's say you move to LA to be an actress or to pursue your podcasting career. I don't know. You move here and immediately you get swept up into the party scene and you're hanging out with all these super famous people and you guys are going out every night and you're drinking every night and you're doing a bunch of drugs every night and then during the day you can't get shit done. So you can't make it to acting class and you can't record a podcast episode, whatever your career goal may be. You can't focus because you're focusing all your energy on a useless element of Los Angeles. There's nothing wrong with partying and having fun every once in a while. Don't get me wrong. But if you're doing that every night, which a lot of people here do because it's hard to say no, then you might get distracted and you might end up deviating from your initial goal. Right? Your initial goal was to come here to do all of the things that I brought up in the beginning. Network with people in your industry, you know, build your public image, whatever it might be. You can't work on that and work on your personal goal career wise if you're, you know, partying all the time. You just can't and a lot of people come here and get super addicted to partying because it's so available and it is fun, you know, because there are a lot of interesting people here, a lot of them in the public eye and stuff like that. And there's something appealing about going out in LA because it's like, who am I going to see tonight? You know, they're like, am I going to see Harry Styles tonight? Am I going to see, you know, that's like a weird, opportunity. So it's 10 times more appealing than just partying in general because there's this added intrigue of like, who's going to be there? And that's a really hard temptation to refuse. And so it makes sense to me when I see people who get into sort of a routine of partying really hard all the time because I'm like, yeah, it's kind of a dicting. It's a dicting for so many reasons. You know, I can't even begin. There's so many reasons why it's a dicting. So it makes sense. It makes sense. It takes a lot of self control for majority of people to not want a party in LA because it's appealing. There's also a temptation to sort of change who you are to try to be accepted by the people here that are in this industry because naturally we as humans can sometimes put people on a pedestal if we admire them, right? And let's say you move to LA to pursue whatever corner of the entertainment industry you want to pursue in LA. It's not hard to find people who have already made it. I've already succeeded in that world. It's easy to find those people. There's a lot of them here. And so there can be a sort of mind game of like, whoa, there are so many people here who have made it and like they're so accomplished and like, I'm intimidated by them because they already did it. Like they are they have made it and I want them to like me, you know, and accept me because I want to be friends with them and I think they're so cool and I admire what they did and whatever. And that can put pressure on you to sort of try to morph yourself into a version of you that you think that they will like, right? And through that you can lose yourself. The temptation to fit in here can cause you to lose yourself. And when you lose yourself, it's a lot harder to stick to your goal. And one of the most valuable and important things in the entertainment industry in general is being truly you. It applies in every corner of the industry if you will. Music, movies, TV, podcasting, YouTube, TikTok, whatever it is, you have to bring something uniquely you to the table or else you don't stand out. You know what I mean? If you're not the only time that you can truly be unique and interesting is when you're being yourself because the only person that can do that is you. Anyone can act like Harry Styles. Anyone can pretend to be Harry Styles. They can copy a style, copy his personality, copy his lyrics, copy his music, whatever, like copy him. But the only Harry Styles that can succeed is Harry Styles. So if you want to succeed, you have to bring something new to the table, something that's uniquely you. And I think that people in LA find themselves trying to be something that they're not to fit in. And then that bleeds into their career. And then there's also the temptation to change things about your appearance and that kind of goes along with fitting in, right? There's this desire. We always have this desire to fit in. And in LA, you know, there's a certain obsession with appearance here. And I want to say, I don't judge anyone for doing whatever. If you want to have a bunch of hair extensions in an eyelash extensions in, in, you know, lip filler and a face lift and do whatever you want. It is none of my business. That is your choice and your prerogative. Okay. I am not here to judge the only person that I can judge, I guess is myself and whether or not I want to do that and whether or not that's something that I believe I should do. Period. End of story. But I think that there's nothing wrong with wanting to enhance the way you look or whatever. If that's, if that's really what you want to do. Again, it's completely up to you, but here's where I think there's an issue in LA because it's so popular. I think that people who maybe don't even really feel like they need it or feel like it's something that aligns with them personally will end up doing it anyway because they want to fit in. And you know, any choice made because of the desire to want to fit in is maybe not good. If you want to go get lip filler because you want to get lip filler because you think it's going to look good and you think you're going to like the way you look, that's great. But if you want to get lip filler because all of your friends have lip filler, that's not good. You know what I mean? You see the difference there? And that's the problem with living in LA. There's a temptation to change the way you look because everybody else sort of is following this kind of trend. There's like trends in appearance here and it can be in the and it's very apparent and it's very strong. Whereas elsewhere, I don't think that's as much of a thing. For example, I grew up in Northern California near San Francisco. As I said earlier, I think or maybe I didn't, I don't remember. There was not a huge focus on what people look like. I mean, of course, naturally we're human. We judge people based on everything, the way they talk, the way that they look, the way that they express themselves. We're constantly absorbing information about other people. In appearance is one of those things. So it's not like we're not aware of it. It's not like where I grew up. Oh, we're not aware of what other people look like. But there wasn't this huge obsession with having this sort of perfect, wrinkle free, smooth, plump, perfect appearance. Whereas here, that is a lot more popular. And again, like, is there anything wrong with that? I don't know. I don't think that there is as long as the people who are getting the cosmetic enhancements that they're getting done are getting them done simply because they want to and not because they're just trying to fit in, right? The temptation that people experience in LA is hard to fight. It's hard to fight. I've fought all of these battles. I've had to fight against all of these temptations. The temptation to party. And I've never been, I don't dApple with drugs personally. I mean, I have smoked weed before and if you listen to my weed episode, you know how that went. So that's as far, that's where I draw the line. It doesn't go well for me. But I don't, I never was tempted to try drugs just because I just am frightened and it's just not something I want to do. But you know, I've been tempted to go out and just like drink every night for a week just because it sounded fun to me. And I was like, you know, I've been tempted to change who I am to try to fit in. I have had moments where I've changed who I am to fit in. 100%. I've been here for five years almost. And there have been many moments when I've sort of lost who I was because I was trying to be something else to appeal to people I wanted to be friends with. And then that ended up bleeding into my career and it affected my career for periods of time. I've also felt the temptation to change my appearance in extreme ways. And that's not something that I ever really thought about before. And I don't really want it like deep down. I don't want to do those things. I don't, I don't need to do those things. It's unnecessary. I am the way that I am. And who fucking cares? Of course I have insecurities like I'm a human being. Everyone does. But I don't need like I don't need to do that. I don't want to do that. I want to just accept my own personal perspective is I just want to accept who I am and figure out a way to love that the way it is. That's my goal for myself. That's what I want to do. And that's sort of my goal deep down. But there have been moments when I've been tempted to get my lips done or like you know whatever get like Botox in my forehead like you know it's just it's an L.A. thing. I've seen other people do it and they're like no it's the best. And then I've been like oh I kind of like what if I did that because like everyone else is doing it. You know it's I would love to say that I haven't felt tempted in a lot of ways since moving here. And then I've been stronger than that and bigger than that and better than that. But that's not true. I've experienced all of this and everyone who moves here has in one way or another. And it can really end up taking you farther away from your initial goal and it can eliminate all of the good parts of living in L.A. You know if these temptations take over your life in one way or another and I'm not shitting on people either who have struggled maybe a little bit more with these temptations and I've not been able to fight against them. I'm not this is not at all saying anything mean about those people because I understand it's the pull is strong. It's really strong and it's hard to push against at times. And for whatever reason some people struggle with it more than others it's challenging. And so it's something to be super aware of. You have to make an extra effort to stick to your own morals and your own values and your own priorities and you have to have discipline with yourself and you have to be honest with yourself in a way that you don't normally have to do because you're being faced constantly with temptation to deviate from your goal and who you are. And in this industry your goal and who you are are intertwined because this industry in particular is rooted in the individual which is weird because you know obviously there are other jobs that are more rooted in your ability to do something right. But your personality or who you are whatever it's not necessarily as important it's about how good you are at a skill. But this is weird because it's like how good you are at a skill being 50% and then what your personality is being another 50%. And so if you lose yourself you lose 50% of your career you know what I mean. And it's likely that the other 50% which is your ability to be good at a skill will end up falling away too. You see what I mean and then you have nothing and it's scary and that's why it's so challenging. Is this thing all check one two one two. Hey y'all I'm Kiki Palmer I'm an actress, a singer, an entrepreneur and a Virgo just a name of you. Now I've held so many occupations over the years that my fans lovingly nicknamed me Kiki Palmer and trust me I keep a bag of love. But if you ask me I'm just getting started and there's so much I still want to do so I decided I want to be a podcast host. I'm proud to introduce you to the baby this is Kiki Palmer podcast exclusively on Amazon music. I'm putting my friends, family and some of the dopest experts in the hot seat to ask them the questions that have been burning in my mind. What will former child stars be if they weren't actors? What happened to sitcoms? It's only fans only bad. I want to know. So I asked my mom about it. That's all the questions that keep me up at night. But I'm taking these questions out of my head and I'm bringing them to you because on baby this is Kiki Palmer. No topic is off limits. Listen to baby this is Kiki Palmer exclusively on Amazon music. Download the Amazon music app now. I'll talk to you soon love. You know it's your girl. This episode of anything goes is sponsored by Macy's. Macy's is a long time partner and friend to the show anything goes. My show anything goes. And for that I'm so grateful. So this is a really busy time of year but it's weird because it's also not busy at all. It's like I don't have a lot of work stuff going on but I have a lot of family stuff going on. For example thanks giving's coming up because there are so many different events and gatherings that I'm looking forward to. It really helps to know that I have a store like Macy's that I can go to as a one stop shop to get everything that I need. For example for thanksgiving I need to load up on some warm clothes because my family loves to go on a thanksgiving walk. After we eat we walk it off you know what I'm saying. There are so many different types of events during this time of year and all of these events require different things. For some you may need an exquisite vibrant dress and blazer but for another event you may need an ugly but super comfortable sweater. Macy's is incredible because they have both. Macy's collection is truly amazing and it really allows each and every shopper to own their specific style and find exactly what they need. Fireside movie sessions, snowball fights, family gatherings, no matter what events you have and how you mix and match your holiday staples, you make it style. For all the inspo you need visit macy's.com slash own your style. I would say the other thing about living in LA that's tough is that for every person that you meet that is incredibly talented and is inspiring and has you know something cool and creative to bring to the table that they can share with you and maybe there's room for a collaboration of some sort for every person that you meet that wants to work with you and you want to work with them for an organic genuine collaboration. You're going to meet five who want to use you for something because this is just an industry where people are really hungry and determined to succeed and they will do anything that they have to do to get there. And I know why this is it's because again for whatever reason psychologically as humans we associate fame and notoriety with power. Not everybody thinks like that but most people do and one of the most tempting things is power because power is like the ultimate force right having power. Everybody wants power in some way. Some people just want it in a more toxic way than others. Some people don't really care about power at all. Like I don't know but there are a lot of people in LA who want power and they want it now. They want to succeed. They want to get famous. They want to have a lot of money. They want to you know what I'm saying. So there are a lot of people that will try to succeed in any way that they can and that might mean back stabbing you. That might mean using you for something. That might mean stealing from you copying you, spreading a fake rumor about you sabotaging you. Like who knows there's so many different gross ways that people find a way to thrive in LA. It's not everyone. There are a lot of people here truly who are good people. But there are also a lot of people here that are bad people. It's like the definition of yin and yang, the balance. There's definitely both. When you first move here, your spidey senses might not be as good and you can't tell the good from the bad apart. It's harder. I struggled with this in the beginning where I couldn't tell if someone was using me or not or taking advantage of me and my kindness and my generosity until it was too late. And then it was like, oh my god, I've just been getting played for the past year. You know what I mean? It sucks. But you learn eventually. But in the beginning, it's tough. And it's kind of icky feeling. And you feel isolated, which can affect your happiness, which can affect accomplishing your career goals. You know what I mean? That's obvious. They all go hand in hand. You can feel isolated because you can feel like you don't know who you can trust. And that sucks. And that's very LA. Next, I think that you can get sucked into the world of the entertainment industry in LA in a way that's all consuming and it's hard to get out. I'll explain it. So I believe that our reality is completely dictated by what we're surrounded by, what we see, what we force ourselves to experience. So for example, if you're going on Instagram all the time every day, multiple times a day, and you're scrolling and you're scrolling, eventually your Instagram feed will become a part of your reality because it's something that you're seeing every day. So seeing your friend in Hawaii, that's now a part of your reality and your reality. Seeing your best friend and her boyfriend kissing in front of the evil tower, now that's a part of your reality. And if you decide to take a walk around your neighborhood every day, the little things that you see every day on that walk become a part of your reality. But if you stop going on Instagram and you don't even look at it anymore, you delete that off your phone, that no longer really is a part of your reality. Anymore, it's gone. It's gone. The second you stop seeing it every day all the time, it immediately removes itself from your reality. It's almost like the world in your mind when you close your eyes and you just think about the world, right? That's made up of all the things that you see and experience every day. So if you decide you want to remove something, once it's been removed for a little bit, it's removed. Like when you close your eyes and think about the world, you're not thinking about what you saw on Instagram because you're not seeing anything on Instagram anymore. That's removed from your reality. So yeah, it might exist out there somewhere, but it's not in your face and therefore it's not really a part of your world anymore. To bring this back to LA, when you live in LA, it's like you're living in your phone because LA is such an epicenter for the entertainment industry. A lot of events happen here. A lot of people who work in this industry live here. A lot of this sort of drama that we read about online happens here. A lot of the people that you become friends with are people that you might also see on your Explorer page on Instagram later in the day. Something disconnected from the internet world is a lot harder in LA. You're so close to the source that it's like even when you turn off your phone, you still feel like you're in it. Do you know what I mean? So let's say for me, I'm having a period of time where I'm like, you know what, I've been focusing too much on what's going on on the internet. You know what's happening? What's the drama? What's everyone doing? Who's dating who? What's happening? Where's everyone traveling to? What are they wearing? What's happening? Sometimes I hit a point where I'm like, I can't see all this anymore. I don't want to see all this anymore. I don't have the energy for this to be a part of my reality right now. I want to sort of shift my reality a little bit. And I don't want my phone to be a part of it. I can shut off my phone, but then if I go out to dinner that night, I might see four, five people that I also see on my Instagram feed. Do you see what I'm saying? So that's weird. It's harder to escape this bubble when you live here. You can't just shut off your phone and immediately go immerse yourself in the real world. Like when I'm on vacation, say in Northern California, if I want to shut my phone off and then go hang out at a cafe and go shopping and just hang around a neighborhood all day, I will truly feel disconnected from LA altogether. LA, Hollywood, celebrity, culture, whatever. It's all gone. It's all gone. The second I turn off my phone, put it away and go for a walk when I'm not in Los Angeles or New York, I truly feel like I'm in the real world. I'm back in the real world. I'm grounded. This is what reality is. This is like truly what normal is. This is just normal. You can't do that as easily in LA. You can't just shut it all off because even when you shut it off, it's still all around you. And that can be weird and challenging and it can be easy to sort of lose your footing and to feel not grounded because you can't escape it. It's just everywhere around you. To add on to that, I have to mention the fact that nobody should be too heavily focused on celebrities in LA, celebrity, culture in general. That should not be 100% of your reality in your mind, the reality that you create. No one should allow that to become too much of their reality, whether it's through Instagram because you follow all the people who live in LA and do whatever, or you literally live here and are participating in it, no matter who you are, that should be a very small percentage of what takes up the space in your mind. You have to be rooted in the real world because if you start to believe that all of this celebrity shit really matters and all of this LA fitting in whatever shit matters, you're living in a lie in a way because all of it's an illusion. It's all smoking mirrors, it's all just one big show. When you live here for too long, you start to forget that. You start to forget that it all is kind of an illusion and it's all kind of smoking mirrors. You start to just believe that it's real because it's your whole universe in your mind because you don't see anything else. You don't go for a walk in the middle of Texas and just see what normal life is like. You know, you're stuck in this bubble. It's easy to get stuck in that bubble. And I would say the last struggle about moving to LA for your career is the adjustment period. The adjustment period is long. Like I'm just now, five years later, feeling fully adjusted to living in LA. I feel like I have my social situation finally figured out it's going to change again. It's going to evolve again. Don't get me wrong. I feel really, you know, solid in that. I feel really comfortable here. I feel like this is home to me in a way. I'm not scared or intimidated or tempted by the things that I once was. I have found all these different ways to keep myself grounded while I'm here and not lose track of my goal and lose sight of my goal. I've figured it all out, but it did take me five years. And have I fucked up along the way? Absolutely. Left and right. Of course I have. And did some of those mistakes maybe affect my career negatively along the way? For sure. You know, if I wasn't being myself or I was not motivated to make things to put on the internet, you know, like that. There's definitely been times when living in LA has hurt my career. There's also been a lot of times when it's helped my career. I think in conclusion, living in LA can help your career. And it also can ruin your career. So in conclusion, there's no solid answer. It just depends on you, really. For me, do I think it helped my career? Yes, I do. I'm happy I moved here. I've been able to utilize living here to my benefit without losing sight of who I am too much to a point where I couldn't save it. But also all of the negative things that have come with living in LA have taught me something. And it made me who I am today. It would not be who I am without all of those experiences. And so I don't regret moving here. Like it is what it is. It was meant, like this is what was meant to be and it happened. Do I think it helped? Yes. Do I think it was the most important factor? I don't know. I don't think so. No. The moral of the story is people moving here make sense. You know, I don't think it's all just hype. I think that there is a good reason why people move here to try to develop their career. It isn't just hyped up whatever. There is a lot that can be utilized here. But only if you can fight against all of the demons that are here as well too. It's kind of a battleground. It's a battleground for your mind, body, and soul. And if you push through and keep pushing and keep pushing and keep pushing and stay true to yourself no matter how painful or uncomfortable it is, there's a good chance that you might end up finding that LA is an incredible place for your career. But you got to fight off all those demons first. You know what I mean? And you got to get through it and come out the other side. I feel like I'm finally just now coming out the other side standing firm in who I am and focusing 90% of my energy on what I need to be focusing my energy on. The other 10% who knows? I'm leaving 10% up for weird shit that I decided to put my energy on at any given moment. But I'm focusing 90% of my energy on things that are important for my own well-being and for my career in general. But it was a long journey to get here. So I don't know. I'm not telling you to move to LA right now. Trust me. I'm not. But I don't regret it. And I think you can do magical things. Yeah. You guys, that was a journey. It was funny. And recording this the day after a Halloween party. And I'm really hungover. But I was really inspired to record this because I just haven't gone out and like done the LA party thing in so long. And I did last night. And I was like, wow, what a spectacle this all is. What a spectacle this all is. All of these people are not from here. They're all here to make their career happen. You know what I mean? At least, you know, obviously LA is massive. So when I talk about LA, I talk about like the people in the entertainment industry in LA, which is a big portion of LA. And it's also not at the same time. There are so many people who are like staying far away from that this world in general. But you get what I'm saying. But yeah, it was just interesting. And it's sort of I was like, wow, all of these people live here for their career. And does it even really help? I don't know. I'll let you decide. I'll let you decide what you think. Let me know. Let me know what you think about all of this. You can tweet me at AG podcast, you can send me a DM on Instagram or comment on one of my Instagram posts at anything goes. You can follow anything goes on any platform, you stream podcasts. You can check out Chamberlain Coffee, my coffee company ChamberlainCoffee.com. Use code AG15 for a little discount. Pick up some coffee. You know, you know the drill. That's all I got you guys. Thank you so much for listening. If I was talking super like slowly today, I haven't partied hard in a while and I really did last night and I loved every second of it, to be honest, I actually had fun. It was weird. No, I actually had fun. It was actually weird. I never have fun when I go out. And last night I did have fun. I had fun. I was dancing. I didn't care. I drank tequila. I don't even like tequila. I was drinking tequila all night. I was drinking tequila sodas. I felt amazing. It was so much fun. I was dancing. It was a Halloween party. I was wearing a like ugly little dress I got online a week and a half ago. Last minute, just trying to make the Halloween costume happen. Like I was letting loose. It was great. It was great. But I'm, you know, I'm feeling it today because I'm not, I'm not as resilient as I used to be and I haven't been practicing recently. I haven't been practicing my party lifestyle. So like it's taking an extra big toll on me today because I don't know. I'm just rusty. I just haven't been, I haven't been at this recently. You get it. Okay, I'm gonna go take a nap. Thank you guys so much for listening and hanging out per usual. I really, really love and value all of you who listen and share your opinions and perspectives with me. That's my favorite thing on the entire planet. And I'll talk to you guys next week. Bye.