Stop Looking for the Five Steps - Start Looking at Yourself

In this Carmen Talk, I get honest about why the self‑help industry keeps selling “five easy steps” while real life keeps proving there are none. Love, joy, relationships, purpose — none of it comes from a formula. It comes from knowing yourself, asking the hard questions, and being willing to see where you’re lying to yourself or avoiding the work. 

I talk about why love feels magical at first, why every relationship eventually requires effort, and why trusting your own lived experience matters more than any guru’s blueprint. I share what I learned growing up in other people’s homes, watching real relationships behind closed doors, and how that shaped my understanding of connection, boundaries, and authenticity. 

If you’ve ever felt pressured to “fix” yourself through someone else’s method, this episode is a reminder that you already know more than you think. The work isn’t about loving yourself — it’s about knowing yourself. And once you do, the rest starts to make sense. 

At the end of the day, it really is all about the joy.

Thank you for stopping by.  Please visit our website: All About The Joy and add, like and share.  

You can now watch the livestream version of the show on YouTube at @CarmenLezeth 

You can also support us by shopping at our STORE - We'd appreciate that greatly.  Also, if you want to find us anywhere on social media, please check out the link in bio page.

Music By Geovane Bruno, Moments, 3481
Editing by Team A-J
Host, Carmen Lezeth


DISCLAIMER:  As always, please do your own research and understand that the opinions in this podcast and livestream are meant for entertainment purposes only. States and other areas may have different rules and regulations governing certain aspects discussed in this podcast.  Nothing in our podcast or livestream is meant to be medical or legal advice. Please use common sense, and when in doubt, ask a professional for advice, assistance, help and guidance. 

Transcript

Carmen Lezeth

[00:00:00] here's what I do know about love and this I really wanna share with people. 'cause I think I've known this for so long, I don't know why people don't get this, 

[00:00:09] I get angry and upset because so many people are making money off of people. Basic human desires. We all want to wake up in the morning and not have to worry about going to a job that we either hate or have to do. Even if you love what you do, the idea that you have to do it because you have to pay rent and you have to do this and you have to pay for your kid's school or you know you have to survive.

[00:00:37] Everybody dreams of waking up in the morning and doing something that they want to do, right? Doing something that they love to do. Everyone dreams about finding that perfect soulmate or that perfect love or that perfect partner, right? We all want that because happiness seems to be the thing we all want to have on a consistent basis.

[00:01:01] I think people mean well. I think of course people are always trying to make money and are always trying to sell their experience, their expertise, and I get it. I really wanna talk about the love thing. ' cause I, I, I think that's the one that cracks me up the most, I think, because I also did it too. I'm like, how do I find love? So for those of you who don't know, I am happily divorced and I've been single for a long time and I think, I think being single is just.

[00:01:36] A state of mind at this point. It's not even about, I don't want a relationship or I do want a relationship. It's just this is where I'm at, but here's what I do know about love and this I really wanna share with people. 'cause I think I've known this for so long, I don't know why people don't get this, but here I am for 39 99.

[00:02:00] No, I'm just kidding. Right. Here's the thing about love that's really amazing to me. Love is like magic. Okay? Just hear me out for a moment. You ever watch a magician, a really good magician who does like a card trick and you're like, oh my God, that's amazing. Or they'll vanish somebody, right? They'll put somebody in a cube or something in a box, and then they like open the door and they're gone, and you're like, that was amazing.

[00:02:30] The cutting in half thing always freaks me out, but those things are just magical because we don't understand how they work. And love, love is a lot like that because here's the thing, when you do realize that the card trick, that when you turn the cards around, they're all your card, they're all the queen of hearts, right?

[00:02:56] That's why he knew what your card was when you picked it. When you realize that the person vanishing in the box in the cube or whatever it is, isn't actually vanishing, they just behind the trap door. When you understand how the magic works, it makes total sense and it's becomes like even like, oh my God, that's kind of clever.

[00:03:20] That's kind of amazing, and that's what I love about love. That love is so magical, but when you get into the depths of love, it really is not a mystery. It takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of.

[00:03:45] Patience it takes and, and look it, I'm not just talking about finding your spouse and your partner, and I'm talking about siblings and family and friendships especially. Right. But yes, also your lover, your partner, your best friend, your whatever. It doesn't, your anybody that you have a relationship with in any way, shape, or form your boss.

[00:04:10] It all takes work. It all takes so much work, and at first it feels magical, right? Especially when you're in love. But the truth is that you have to do the work behind it. To understand that magic, you have to be able to understand how each other functions in the relationship, no matter what the relationship is.

[00:04:37] And there are no five steps to that. It's unique and brilliant and beautiful and hard and painful and sad, but it's relationships in general. Again, I go back to this thing about joy. I've been blessed on so many levels to have such a interesting, viewpoint because of the way that I grew up.

[00:05:02] Okay.I lived in so many different people's homes, and so as a kid, and so what would end up happening is I would sleep on people's couches, whether it was in, like the living room or 'cause the places I lived in, people didn't have guest homes and stuff. You know, these are regular, hardworking people that I was blessed to know.

[00:05:20] And, and I was never, ever really comfortable in anybody's place. But I would always pretend to be asleep. I would always pretend to be like, oh my God, I'm like sleeping. Okay. Mm-hmm. But I would hear, especially when the actual, like my friends went to sleep in their bedrooms or whatever. I would hear, I would hear the fighting between parents.

[00:05:41] I would hear, the conversations about how to figure out money stuff. I would hear the love making sometimes, you know, when you're a kid, that's really gross. Um, I would hear so many things 'cause I would really, I would pretend to be sleeping. And I think the hardest thing, and probably again, I'm starting to think of all the ways in which I started to learn acting, is like I would wake up in the morning and I'd pretend I didn't hear anything at all.

[00:06:07] You know what I mean? Like, I think that was the beginning of my, uh, performing career. But, um, I don't know. But I just remember understanding relationships in such a different way. And I can actually go back and. Think about the relationships that are, you know, lasted and people are still married to this day, or the ones that got divorced.

[00:06:32] I can pinpoint exactly why or how or, and it's such a different insight, right? It's such a different viewpoint, and I feel blessed to have learned that. But that's where I learned all this stuff about relationships. Now, that doesn't make me a pro at it, but it does give you insight as to why. I feel so adamant that when you see all of these people who are giving you these five steps to anything, that it's all BS and what you really want to start to understand, what you really want to grasp is that all relationships.

[00:07:12] Are good and difficult and bad, and problematic and joyful and you know what I mean? Like they're, every relationship takes a bit of work, no matter how magical they may be at the beginning of it all. So be kind to yourself, right? Be kind to whoever it is you're mad at, you know? Um, I think for me too, the reason why it's so easy for me to walk away from people, and this is, I'm, I'm happy to share this, is because I can so easily see when it's not gonna work for me.

[00:07:46] Or the other people, you know, like I feel blessed because I do have so many people that I love, but sometimes you have to love people enough, and this is another cliche, you gotta be able to let them go because they grate on you. They, they hurt you. You know, um, I, I have said this a million times, you know, I have no problem walking away from people who do not help me become a better person.

[00:08:16] If all we're going to do is have conflict, if all we're going to do is disagree, if all we're then, then we're not the right people to be connected to. There's 8 billion people on the planet. It. Just because somebody lives next door to you or because you saw somebody in class, that doesn't mean that person has to be your friend.

[00:08:37] That just means that's the person who you interacted with because they're the closest to you. But the beautiful thing about relationships and friendships is that when you turn around and you allow someone to leave your life, right, and you make that choice for yourself, other people show up. It's an interesting dynamic,because you become a better, more whole person when you can turn around and understand who you are in the world, 

[00:09:08] And what you need. This isn't about just hating on people 'cause you don't like the way they did this. This is about understanding who you are in the world and what works for you and what does not work for you. And I know I'm gonna keep saying it, it goes back to understanding joy. It really does.

[00:09:28] So the last part of this is, how you can live your best life, right? I mean, Trust that you know more about living your best life than anyone else. And here's what I'm gonna say. I'm gonna go to the cooking analogy, okay. I know that I am not a cook. I will never become a chef, and even though somebody will give me the fundamental information about cooking, at the end of the day, I, I just want chicken, right?

[00:10:00] I, I just wanna eat the chicken, so I. I know myself well enough. I am not gonna invest the time to become an expert chef, so therefore I need to figure out a different way to get chicken. You know what I mean? So I'm gonna buy the chicken, or I'm gonna hire a chef, or whatever it is. You know? What I'm saying is, is that I know myself well enough.

[00:10:21] Trust that you know yourself well enough that you don't need other people to tell you what you have to do, what you need to do. You need to buy my book in order to, you know, live your best life. I'm not against people sharing their experiences, I'm sharing my experience right now too. I'm just saying you are a unique and beautiful, wonderful, flawed, crazy, ridiculous human being too.

[00:10:50] And you do know your life. You know who you are. That's why sometimes when you're hearing people, when you're hearing people talk about, like, you know, whether it's a motivational speaker or a life coach or whatever, and you're like, oh, yeah, yeah, you, you, you know what they're saying because you already know yourself well enough.

[00:11:09] Maybe you've heard it before or maybe it's something you formulated in your mind. I just want you to feel good about who you are in the world and understand that what people are sharing with you is something that you might need the fundamentals of, but you know yourself well enough. You have to bring that part into it in order to continue on your journey.

[00:11:37] There is nothing, there is nothing I'm going to say that's going to absolutely change your life. Nothing but something I may say might trigger something in you that reminds you of something you already know and you're gonna turn around and be like, you know what? Okay. I'm not gonna cook the chicken in the five steps.

[00:12:01] I'm not gonna buy the chicken, and I'm gonna spend my time over here doing this. Or maybe you can be like, ohoh, now I get it. Now I'm going to use all these spices. I get it now. Whatever it is. But trust that you know who you are in the world, that you have lived your life in, your journey, in your steps, and nobody else knows you better than you.

[00:12:24] Nobody. That doesn't mean you can't go to a therapist. We all benefit from therapy. We all benefit from talking to each other, but start understanding that you are so well versed in who you are. Don't let other people tell you who you are. Believe in yourself. Believe in what you know to be true about who you are.

[00:12:50] But you gotta be honest. You gotta be honest about yourself. You cannot be somebody who is lying to yourself. You can't be a hypocrite to yourself. You can't say one thing and then behave differently. You can't contradict who you are. You have to be authentic. Now, that might take a lot of. Work because I think a lot of people haven't done that work.

[00:13:14] But if you can be honest with yourself and know your strengths and your weaknesses, and you can understand those brilliantly and honestly, then you can take information from other people and take the parts that matter and take the parts that fit for you and continue on your journey. Then you're not constantly just listening to every life coach guru and buying self-help books and do, again, nothing against self-help books.

[00:13:48] I know people who have like so many self-help books and are like, I'm reading this, I'm doing this, I'm watching this, and they're still in turmoil. Because you keep thinking somebody has an easy, you have the answer. You have the answer. Everybody else is just giving you their vision, their routine, their formula, their foundational ideas.

[00:14:13] But you have to trust who you are. If you wanna live your best life, do that work. Do that work. What are you lying to yourself about? What are you not absolutely authentic about? What can you do better as a human being on the planet to actually plant yourself and know who you are? People have talked about love yourself, right?

[00:14:39] Love yourself. It's not love yourself. It's know thyself. I don't know why people don't get this I don't know, maybe I love myself too much, so I don't get it. It's not love yourself. I don't know how you don't love who you are in the world.

[00:14:55] Maybe you don't like some of your behaviors. Maybe you drink too much, smoke too much. Maybe you don't do A, B, C enough or whatever. We all have those. We all have things we wish we could do better. All of us have those rich people, poor people, big, fat, skinny, doesn't matter. All, all races. All genders.

[00:15:14] Everybody has things they don't like that they, no, I procrastinate too much. I'm this. That's normal human behavior.

[00:15:25] Loving yourself means knowing yourself. I don't know why people don't get that, but I'm here to tell you, right? Know thyself. Understand what you're good at, what you're bad at. Be honest. Are you behaving one way and then talking a different way and then behaving this way, but then spewing this stuff?

[00:15:56] but you see what I'm saying. Right.

[00:16:01] I. Have a lot of flaws, but my authenticity is not one of them. People get hurt by how blunt I am or that I will call you to the mat, or that I will call you out when I know you are doing something wrong, because that doesn't fit in my world, because I have worked way too hard my entire life to stay on point as to who I am, no matter what My circumstance has been.

[00:16:32] And I am not gonna allow other people who are fake, who are liars, who are, you know, say one thing to your face and then are talking about you behind your back. We all know those people. And the thing is, I see it so clearly and so easily, it bothers people. It bothers people because I know people so well.

[00:16:51] That's the gift and the curse, by the way.

[00:16:58] Don't worry about loving yourself. That kind of happens once you know thyself. Trust me, once you know who you are in the world and how, and look at we, we all have different styles. I'm not saying you're gonna end up being like me. I'm not saying that I'm perfect in that way. I'm saying everyone has different stylistic ways of doing this, but when you know who you are, love takes care of itself.

[00:17:22] It really does. It takes care of itself. Okay, so let me just recap for a moment. The reason why I am doing this, Carmen talk today, is because I want people to feel more empowered that you know more about who you are in the world and that there are no 10 easy steps to anything. If there were, I would have already put them all together and sold them to you, but I would never actually sell that.

[00:17:52] That would be something that, would be a lie. It goes against everything I believe in. There are no 10 easy steps to anything. everything takes time, everything takes effort. Everything is both complicated and extremely easy, and if that kind of makes you sad, then I want you to think about why it makes you sad.

[00:18:18] It energizes me to know that rich people, poor people, we're all kind of walking in the same journey. We're all just trying to figure it out and what I really wish, I wish the world didn't function on money. And I guess, you know, somebody smarter than me would say, well, if it wasn't money, it'd be something else.

[00:18:40] I, you know, I wish it was something else. I really do. Like, imagine if creativity was the currency, right? Or emotional intelligence, man, I'd be the wealthiest person on the planet of that, I'm sure. Right. Or if like integrity and character were the currency we used, you know? So even though it's not, that's what I stand on.

[00:19:04] I stand on that every single day, and I want that for so many people. I want that for so many people, and that's why I am sharing it with you because no matter what has ever gone on in my life, I have always been a person who is positive and joyful. And I've always been someone who shows up trying to be as helpful and as optimistic as possible, and that rubs people.

[00:19:34] A lot of people the wrong way, but for me it's made life no matter the situation,

[00:19:42] magical and beautiful, and I want that for you. ' cause I think the world would be a better place if we were all just a little bit more joyful.

[00:19:59] Thanks for stopping by and remember at the end of the day, it really is all about the joy. I appreciate you. Bye.