Eventually, she decided to get therapy in order to figure out why she was constantly sabotaging herself, and she figured it out. Now she has a great job and loves it, and happens to be a great worker. But the best part is that working has really changed her life. Nowadays, when she gets up in the morning, she’s like me—full of energy and excited about the day ahead, and happy because her life has direction.
More recently, she signed up at Equinox. She has the best body ever, without having to work out, but now she goes three times a week and loves it. She has even begun to cook for herself. She goes on YouTube, finds a healthy recipe, then runs out to the store, picks up the ingredients, and makes herself a nice meal. “I’m not happy when I don’t have something to distract me,” she told me recently. And I said, “That’s the way it is for all of us. We need to be active and occupied. That’s why they have that saying, “An idle mind is the devil’s playground.’ ”
She and I have been close friends for sixteen years. We’ve always been really close and I really respect her for taking the initiative to elevate her life and be aware of her faults and improve herself. She’s upbeat and purposeful and energized, the kind of friend you want to have around. Before, she was often depressed, defeated, and devoid of ambition. I’m glad I gave her a second chance and I am doubly glad that she was able to turn herself around.
Sometimes you can help a friend find the right path. You in turn will find yourself inspired by some of your good friends—how they live their lives, the choices they make, even just the way they are. You will also inspire people close to you.
Friends may come to you for advice. Don’t hesitate to share what you’ve learned; just keep it short and sweet and don’t turn it into a lecture. You never know how people are going to react, and there’s always a chance you can help. Maybe that one word from you will be exactly what they needed to hear, and it will make an actual difference in their life.
Recently, for example, my brother came home and said he ran into an old friend of ours who told him I had saved his life. “What are you talking about?” I said. “I talked to him for maybe ten minutes!” Apparently, those ten minutes had been enough. Our friend had had a couple of serious brushes with the law, and at one point I bailed him out of jail. Afterward I sat him down and had a little talk with him. I had no idea my words had made such a big impression! The only thing I remember telling him is that I valued him more as a human being than he valued himself, and that I wished he could see himself through my eyes. I guess he looked and saw what I saw and liked it.
Here’s the thing: I’ve always been a big believer in speaking my mind, and that’s what I did in his case. In my experience, honesty resonates. So I always say, Use your voice. Speak up. Say something. It may not do any good, and it probably won’t save a life, but honesty will not hurt a person if it comes from a loving place. On the other hand, if you’re trying to help someone by criticizing him, that’s probably not going to fly. Honesty can be harsh or loving and gentle. Which do you think is the better choice?
It’s All About You
The funny thing is, when you’re starting out in life—eighteen, nineteen, twenty—you are usually pretty clueless about what you want to do with yourself. And that’s okay. Nobody’s asking you for hard answers. What’s not okay is to do nothing. Your mind needs exercise, too. And it’s not going to get it without a push. And really, it doesn’t matter what you do, as long as you’re engaged and productive. You want to be a dog walker, fine. You want to join a circus, great. The choices you make shouldn’t frighten you, because they’re just temporary, and you can chalk them up to experience. If you end up running a multimillion-dollar dog-walking business, that’s cool, too. Just don’t be afraid to try new things, and learn to stop worrying about where they will lead. And don’t act like you’re too good for a job. That guy running the movie studio started in the mailroom at the William Morris Agency.
Even more important, try to understand that you are making changes in your life for you; that it’s all about you. It’s not about making your parents happy or your friends happy or your strange Uncle Seymour happy; it’s about making your life work.
That reminds me of something that happened with Lamar, a real eye-opening experience. He’d been invited to be part of the U.S. basketball team in the 2012 Olympics, and I was super excited for him. I knew they were going to win the gold. They had LeBron and Kobe on the team, and they were asking Lamar to join, and I was so proud of him. What a lineup! And I wanted him to go for a couple of reasons. Like most of us, Lamar does better with structure. More important, I felt he was getting close to the end of his career, and I wanted him to go out with a bang, with an Olympic gold medal under his belt. So I pushed and I kept pushing until finally one day Lamar said, “Khloé, you can’t win it for me. I need to want to win it on my own. And I don’t want it the way you want it.” Something clicked. I knew he was right. I wanted it so badly that I would have played in his place. Although my wanting it for him came from a good place, it made no sense, and Lamar knew it made no sense. He had to want it for himself.
No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.
—Buddha
That’s what I’m talking about when I say that you can be there for friends and family—support them, nurture them, lend a hand when they lose their way—but real change has to come from within. Moral of the story? Work on yourself.
Seven Rules for Choosing the Right Friends
1. Look for people who will enrich your life. It’s nice to hang out with friends who share your interests, but people with interests of their own will broaden your horizons. There’s a whole world out there you know nothing about, and they can help you explore.
2. Look for people with qualities you admire. Kindness. Empathy. Generosity. A sense of humor. Qualities you hope to continue to develop in yourself.
3. Look for honesty above all else. A true friend will be honest, even when it hurts. And we all need friends who are willing to protect us from our own worst impulses.
4. Surround yourself with people who want you to succeed. This seems like a no-brainer, but not everyone has your best interests at heart. A true friend will listen when you talk about your hopes and dreams, and she will encourage you to pursue the right ones.
5. Look for people who are driven. People with energy fuel your own energy, and people without energy will drain you. Who’d you rather hang out with?
6. Look beyond the surface. Idle chat and gossip are always a good time, but real connections come from digging deep. Real friends have substance; real friends are a treasure in the truest sense of the word.
7. Don’t look for perfection in others, and steer clear of people who expect perfection in you. Life is not about perfection. Life is about striving for perfection. Anyone who doesn’t understand that doesn’t deserve to be your friend.
Negative Energy
Here’s a sad reality, and forgive me for stating the obvious: There is a lot of negativity in the world. For some crazy reason, lots of people seem to take pleasure in bringing others down. It happens to everyone, and it tends to be magnified when you’re a bit of a public figure, like me. I hear negative things about me on the social media every day, and sometimes a dozen times a day, but I put my blinders on and keep moving forward. I’ve gotten so good at it that I feel really desensitized to that type of negativity. It doesn’t affect me as much as it used to because it doesn’t register with the same power.
People are entitled to their opinions, sure, but that doesn’t mean I have to buy into them. There’s always the temptation to reply to some of the nastier comments, but that’s only going to fuel the negativity. People who post that kind of shit are either mean or stupid or both, and you don’t need them in your life.
The trick is to develop enough confidence to listen to yourself and to trust your own opinions. In fact, I’d venture to say that your own opinion is the only one that really matters.
Strength of mind is in many ways more challenging that strength of body. There are a number of reasons for this, not the least of which is that we tend to be more negative than positive. And I’m not just talking about me. I’ve read many articles on the subject, and apparently our brains are wired for bad news because that’s what helped us survive in the wild. When a caveman was out hunting, for example, he imagined a lion behind every rock, and nine times out of ten he was wrong. But when he did encounter the lion, he was ready for it, and that negative thinking saved his life.
Weird, isn’t it? And I know it’s true from personal experience. We gravitate toward the negative. If I’m having a great day, and nine people tell me I look good, I’m happy. But if the tenth person says I look tired, that’s the comment that stays with me. One negative remark can ruin your whole day.
I have found that the most critical element in developing a strong mind is figuring out how to stay positive, and that’s a challenge on a couple of major fronts.
The first relates to that little voice inside your head. Yeah, it’s you again, talking to you. Being negative, usually. And boy, it’s hard to shut that little voice up sometimes. And the stuff it’s saying! You’re not smart enough, you’re not good enough, you’ll never pull that off, and so on and so forth, nonstop—a sort of running negative commentary on your life. A friend told me that Buddhists call this our “monkey mind,” because of the endless chatter and all the jumping around. That same friend told me to stop arguing with that voice and not to listen when it’s being negative, which is most of the time, and little by little I’m getting better at it. That voice is just me trying to undermine myself, being a total Debbie Downer. It’s my insecurity speaking, coupled with our natural human proclivity toward pessimism. So I’ve conditioned myself to stop listening when she’s negative, though lately when she pisses me off, I’ve committed myself to proving her wrong. If Debbie Downer tells me my dinner party is going to be a disaster, I tell her, “Yeah? You just watch, bitch!” And that gives me all the motivation I need to make it a resounding success.
Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you’ll start having positive results.
—Willie Nelson
The result of this exercise has been to make me a stronger, more positive person. I bench-press away the negativity, hour after hour, day after day, and I’m building some awesome mental muscles.
On this issue of optimism, I’ve also learned a lot from Cici, who is a cousin of mine on my father’s side. She’s in her sixties and lives in Texas. Some years ago she was diagnosed with cancer, but to this day she is the most positive and beautiful human being I have ever met. She has infectious energy and an unbelievable outlook on life. Whenever I speak to her, she is so excited and attentive and vivacious that her energy comes through the phone. Her enthusiasm has made me understand what it means to truly appreciate life. If I tell her, “I bought these really cool Ralph Lauren drinking glasses,” she says, “Oh my God! I’m in front of the computer. Tell me what they’re called so I can Google them while we’re on the phone.” When I told her I was writing a book about being strong in body, mind, and heart, she said, “Oh my god! I can’t wait. It’s going to be a bestseller.”
She has a heart of gold. She is honest at all times, but she does it in such an uplifting and supportive way that you love her for it, even when it stings a little. From Cici I’ve learned that it’s not what you say, but how you say it.
She makes me look at life through different eyes and helps me understand that every minute counts. She makes me appreciate my own life, because she appreciates it, and because she knows every waking minute is a gift. Here she is, struggling with chemo treatments, losing her hair, being forced to think about the limited time she has left, and the irony is that she’s the person I call when I’m down and need a little pep talk. Crazy, isn’t it? I should be calling to try to brighten her day, but she invariably brightens mine.
So yeah, staying positive is critical. We could all learn a great deal from Cici. But most people never lose their ingrained negativity, which can be very bad for your mental health. You need to address that in yourself, and you need to steer clear of negative people.
Whenever Debbie Downer starts raining on my parade, I repeat a little mantra that always works for me: The soul becomes dyed with the color of our thoughts and I want to paint my soul in vivid and bright colors. Take it. It’s yours. You can thank me later.
Let It Go
While we’re on the topic of negative people, I need to point out that there’s no point in trying to change or somehow “educate” them. That’s an exercise in futility. People change only when they are ready to change, so don’t waste your energy. I promise you, it’s not going to happen. The one thing you can change, however, is the way you respond to them. As I get older, as I continue to work those mental muscles, I’ve learned that I don’t have to react to every asshole on the planet.
There are two kinds of people in this world. One kind drops her iPhone, breaks it, and curses and stamps her feet like a spoiled child. The other one puts the phone back in her back pocket and adds an item to her to-do list: Go to Apple Store. Which would you rather be?
Say you’re in traffic and somebody cuts you off. You can get upset and flip the offender the bird or pretend you’re taking a picture of his license plate to send to the DMV, but that only makes things worse. It upsets you. You’re like a kid having a temper tantrum, and the only person you’re hurting is you. And honestly, it has nothing to do with you; he’s the one with the problem. So I say again, Let it go.
I’m not saying it’s easy. I remember one time Lamar and I were supposed to meet for a couples therapy session and he didn’t show up. I kept thinking, “He must not be very invested in saving our marriage if he can’t even show up for couples therapy!” I did the session without him, and when I left, I was so upset that I decided to work my feelings out at the gym. Except I’d forgotten how late it was and the gym was closed. I remember pulling into the parking lot and bursting into tears.
Later, when I finally reached Lamar, I asked him why he didn’t show up. And you know what he said? “It’s too hard.” It’s too hard! “It’s hard for me, too!” I said. That experience opened my eyes. We’re all dealing with our own shit. Everyone is going through stuff we can’t even begin to imagine. That’s why they do bad things. They hurt us with their own pain. You have to learn to accept other people’s frailties. You have to remember that it’s usually about them, seldom about you.
Still, the list of things that can set us off is endless. Someone doesn’t return your phone call or arrives late for dinner. Or the store is out of almond milk. These are insignificant experiences that have absolutely nothing to do with you, and yet they end up darkening your day. But only because you let them.
You know what I do when that happens to me? I ask myself, “Why am I getting so pissed? How does my reaction really help this situation?” And I already know the answer. I’m getting pissed because I’m making this personal, and my reaction is only making things worse. Sometimes the simple act of posing those questions is enough to defuse the situation and help me get back on track.
Author Richard Carlson points out that your life, like a car, is driven from the inside—that you need to be in control. He also thinks you would do well to enjoy the journey and worry less about the destination. “As you focus more on becoming more peaceful with where you are, rather than focusing on where you would rather be, you begin to find peace right now, in the present,” he writes in Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff . . . “Then, as you move around, try new things, and meet new people, you carry that sense of inner peace with you. It’s absolutely true that, ‘Wherever you go, there you are.’ ”
All of this takes work, of course. I’m not Gandhi. But looking back I know I’m making progress. For example, when I was about twelve and was attending private school in Los Angeles, one of the new teachers couldn’t believe that Kim and Kour
tney were my sisters. “You’re really related to those girls?” she asked, incredulous. And I kept saying, “Yes, they’re my sisters.” “Same set of parents?” “Yes!”
I couldn’t understand why she was questioning it. It didn’t fully register at the time, but later, when I thought about it, I found it incredibly hurtful. She might as well have said, “Those two are in another league. You got left behind.” Were my sisters really so much more beautiful than me?
This experience was hurtful and damaging, and it stayed with me for a very long time, and I’m sure it contributed to my teenage insecurities. But if I knew then what I know now, I wouldn’t have let it affect me in the same way. I would have let it go.
Still, you can’t ignore the power others have over you, the way they can affect you to the very core. You want an even crazier example? During my marriage, according to the media, I was pregnant at least eight times. At one point, my own publicist called to ask me if the rumors were true, saying that a nurse in my doctor’s office had apparently confirmed it. I denied it. Vehemently. But suddenly I began to wonder, and I was filled with self-doubt. I went to CVS to get a pregnancy kit just to be sure I wasn’t pregnant. My husband looked at me in disbelief, realizing that this was a whole new level of crazy. “Girl, what are you talking about?” he said. “We both know you’re not pregnant!” I knew, of course, but all those screeching voices had filled me with doubt, and I could no longer hear my logical self.
I actually did pick up a pregnancy kit, and of course the results were negative, but the fact that I had been driven to that extreme was frightening.
This is what I’m talking about when I say that you can’t let other people define you and affect you with their talk. That crazy pregnancy business—that would never happen today. It wasn’t even three years ago, but I’ve made huge strides since and I feel myself getting mentally stronger all the time. People are always going to talk shit about you, especially if you are in the public eye, and some of them will take pleasure in tearing you down, and at times it will hurt, but you work through it and get strong.
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