937 | THIS Lie is Keeping You Stuck

The Rachel Hollis Podcast

Rachel Hollis

Relationships, Education, Society & Culture, Self-improvement, Personal Growth, Personal Development, How To, Health And Wellness

4.4 • 16.6K Ratings

🗓️ 23 February 2026

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Upgrade to the Ad Free Premium Podcast Experience - https://rachelhollis.supercast.com Rachel Hollis gives a tough-love talk on self-deception—how people perform a version of their lives (especially through social media) to feel significant, but end up emptier because they avoid facing what’s real. She breaks down three common lies (performing growth instead of doing it, living in “someday,” and performing for an audience) and offers steps to get honest: a reality-check person, a calendar/bank audit, and saying the true thing out loud. Get your copy of Rachel's Book Here: Audible, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Millon, Bookshop.org, or wherever books are sold! 00:00 Scarcity Mindset & Why “Faking Abundance” Feels Empty 01:09 Meet Rachel Hollis + Why This Episode Is Tough Love 03:36 The Pattern: Performing Your Life Instead of Living It 06:10 Rachel’s Vertigo Story: When Emotions Show Up in the Body 08:55 You Can’t Fix What You Refuse to Face (Fake It Till You Make It?) 11:13 What Self-Deception Is—and Why Your Brain Does It 14:22 Sawyer, Mirrors, and the Cost of Not Seeing Reality Clearly 19:21 The Quest for Significance: Social Media, Scarcity, and “Looking Successful” 28:10 3 Types of Self-Deception (Type #1: Performing Growth vs. Real Growth) 30:05 When Self-Help Becomes a Trap: Consuming vs. Actually Growing 32:01 ‘Eat Pray Love’ Syndrome: Changing Scenery Without Changing Patterns 33:26 Real Work Isn’t Cute: The Uncomfortable, Unseen Healing Process 35:39 Self-Deception #2: Living in ‘Someday’ Instead of Facing Today 38:35 Self-Deception #3: Performing Your Life for an Audience (Social + AI) 44:07 The Way Through: Ego Deaths, Radical Honesty, and Letting Go of the Facade 46:06 Her Biggest Ego Check: Why ‘Girl, Wash Your Face’ Was Mostly Luck 50:14 3 Practical Steps to Get Real: Accountability, Audits, and Saying It Out Loud 54:37 Closing Reminder: You’re Human—Choose Truth in One Area This Week Sign up for Rachel’s weekly email: https://msrachelhollis.com/insider/ Call the podcast hotline and leave a voicemail! Call (737) 400-4626 Watch the podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/RachelHollisMotivation/videos Follow along on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MsRachelHollis To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices.

Transcript

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0:00.7	When you are looking at your life from scarcity, yeah, you're always going to feel insignificant.
0:06.0	And you're always going to feel like if you can fake the abundance, then other people will admire the abundance and then you will feel better about yourself.
0:16.0	But since the opinions of strangers never actually going to reach you in your solar plexus in your heart,
0:21.8	like you can't actually get to you. It's not going to do anything, but make you feel more empty.
0:28.1	I am not saying this to you to be cruel. I am saying this because I see it constantly.
0:37.3	And I think that the first step of getting out of it
0:40.8	is understanding that your brain is doing something really human, right? Really human, really
0:46.9	understandable. It is how you are wired. But just because you are wired for something doesn't mean that you can't unwire, that you can't rewire, and that you can't change the way that you think, the way that you feel, and how your life expands.
1:09.3	Hey guys, I'm Rachel Hollis, and this is the show where we talk about life, real life.
1:17.0	Around here, we cover everything, from habits and motivation to relationships, parenting,
1:24.0	and what it looks like to build a life that you love.
1:30.6	If you're trying to grow, heal, or just feel a little bit more like yourself, you're in the right place.
1:39.7	Okay, here's what it is. Here's what I would say if I wasn't afraid of hurting your feelings.
1:45.9	I have been doing this work for a decade. That's 10 years of coaching, having a podcast for nine of those
1:55.9	years, writing books in personal development, and doing the Rice Rice conference and sitting across from women
2:02.3	in every season of life all around the world. I feel like I have a pretty good grasp of the
2:09.4	things that we struggle with, that we think about, that we're trying to navigate our way through.
2:15.9	And I have noticed a pattern. And if I'm honest, I don't really
2:21.1	talk about this pattern because I don't know how to talk about it without feeling like I'm being
2:26.5	mean. But I'm also getting to this place in my life. I don't know if this is 40s or paraminopause,
2:33.2	where I am just less worried about
2:38.4	pleasing people. And I think that if I'm doing this work, that I need to be more honest
	...

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