PepTalkHer Founder & CEO Meggie Palmer chatted with Liv Schreiber, a content creator and coach based in New York. Liv shared about how random acts of kindness can change one’s life and most especially her productivity hacks.
What’s your story and how did you end up where you are today?
Liv: I have always felt like helping people is my passion and I wanted to figure out how exactly I could do that. And so I graduated a year early from Wisconsin, and instead of taking the traditional four-year college route, I was like, you know what, I'm gonna become a real estate agent.
That is my calling. I love people. I like sales. I'm still doing it so I ended up getting into real estate, got my real estate license, and it was so not me. It was totally not what I expected. I wanted to be like a million dollar listing with Steve Golden. It just was just not what I expected.
So, I started Instagramming about it under my desk and that ended up sparking my love of branding and communicating with people over social and I started a digital marketing agency a year later.
Meggie: One of the things that you talk a lot about on social media is productivity hacks, getting stuff done, like motivating yourself, can you run us through?
What are your top three tips for people who want to stay productive?
Post It note hack
Liv: Okay, so number one is my Post It note hack, which is a Post It note calendar. I set up every single month and actually I have IGTV all about it. So if you need to know more about it, it's incredible. You can head to my IGTV Liv Schreiber and the two other things are definitely working out.
Working out and Music
I think you need to get your endorphins in, or flowing. And number three is I abide by the power of music. I think that it has such an effect and can really change a mood. So, I also have a ton of different happy playlists and podcasts that I am always constantly filling my brain with because I really feel that you have to treat yourself like you’re a kindergartener, and you always have to be responsible for what you're feeding. Not only yourself but your mind.
Meggie: That’s really a cool concept. Can you talk a little bit about that?
What do you mean you have to treat yourself like a kindergartener?
Liv: Yes. You know when we're little our moms or dads are the people taking care of us. They're constantly monitoring what we're taking in and they're always protecting us. “Don't watch anything PG13 and don't do this." And once you get to be a certain age, I think you have to take that on for yourself. So, it's about reclaiming responsibility for what you allow inside of you, and that maybe everything from surrounding yourself with positive people, cutting off the toxic ends. I always say cut off your dead ends and by dead ends, I don't just mean your hair. So I think it's a combination of just filling your mind with good things.
Meggie: What was the moment in your life that kind of made you realize that?
How did you come to realize that you needed to cut off the dead ends, that you needed to surround yourself with great music, and positive people?
Liv: I don't think there was one specific moment. I think it just has been a culmination of my whole life and just knowing that I deserve to be surrounded by people who lift me up. Time is of the essence. Time is everything. Time is our most valuable, valuable thing we have here which we all know. Why spend precious time on anything that's not going to lift you up?
Meggie: Yeah, that's so true. For those who follow you, they know that like your positive energy is very infectious. How do you kind of keep that energy going? Do you ever get tired? Or like what is your advice for other people who are like, sure I get motivated in the morning to be positive. But then as the day goes on, I kind of wait.
What's your advice to keep positive energy last the whole day?
Liv: I think we're all human. And the people following me know that you know, I'm not perfect at all in any way, shape, or form. My mother, if she's watching definitely can tell you that. But I think it's about not being down on yourself and don't knock yourself down. I'm taking a Yale online course right now. It's free. It's on Coursera and it's free. It's all about how we as humans are used to comparing and how comparison is the thief of joy. But at the same time, we can't help it.
So whenever you feel as though you're most of the time, the dismantling of joy comes from the fact that you're comparing yourself to someone else, whether you see it on TV or on social media, you just feel like you're not doing enough. So I think that what I learned in my happiness class, actually last night at 3am, because I can't ever sleep is that whenever you feel like you're comparing yourself to anyone else, you actually have to take a step back and run through your head that what you're doing is vocalism. And you're actually just focusing on one aspect of someone's life or of your life when in reality, there are so many different entities that make up a person.
“The dismantling of joy comes from the fact that you’re comparing yourself to someone else.”
Meggie: Yeah, that's really interesting. I love that. One of the things that you do a lot of work in is with women who are at college or maybe women who are in light levels of high school, college and then the early stages of their career, what are some of the trends that you hear from them? What are some of the biggest challenges that they're facing? Because you do a lot of coaching and you have your own agency. What is the some of the things that keep coming up for young women? Because at PepTalkHer, our mission is all about closing the gender pay gap and giving people the right balance, that they need to advocate and negotiate for themselves. So I'm really interested to hear from your community.
What are the challenges that you're observing from the women you work with? What are some of the pieces of advice that you're giving on a regular basis?
Liv: I think a lot of it right now is uncertainty and how to deal with it. Internships are not happening and jobs are not happening and it's a conversation that really everyone is going through, not just girls in college. And to that, I always say you can't just have a plan A and a plan B. There always have to have a plan ABCDEFG.
For those people who are stuck or waiting on one thing, I always say don't put all your eggs in one basket. It's just like stocks or investing. Like, if you're waiting on a certain brand to answer you, why not send out 50 more personal, detailed emails to people or pitch yourself? You know, I think nothing is promised. And you just have to make sure that you're constantly working to ensure that you have moving parts and pieces and just it's like this is the same reason why we have multiple friends.
We don't just rely on one best friend for everything. No, I have a best friend who is super deep, who I can talk to about theories of the universe. And then I have another best friend who I love to go out with and it doesn't mean one girl is better than the other. It just means that like I need all of these people to better myself and that's the same for internships or feeling like you are missing out on something, don't just rely on one thing.
Meggie: That's great advice. I love that, that you can't get everything. You shouldn't expect to get all things from one person. And so it's great to kind of have a variety of different people to help you. One of the things that you've set up during the pandemic is a program to support young women who are looking for internships who have had internships canceled because of everything going on.
What is it and how can people get involved if they have a company where they can offer a role or if they're looking for a role?
Liv: Thank you for asking. That's a great question. And so this idea came to me randomly in the shower and I was like, “Oh, well, should I do it?” I don't know. But I ended up just going for it. And you know, I think that there's something to say there about even people who you feel are the most confident or you know, have it all together still feel like anyone else. And I created this document because I realized that the two things that we're missing in this world right now are acts of kindness, acts of kindness for service people, and medics, and also jobs and internships. So how can we combine the three to ensure that we're hitting all those birds with one stone? That's the violence, but we're tapping two birds with one stone.
So I figured, why not come up with a list of hundreds of different internships that I can offer to other people in exchange for them doing a kind act or a kind deed and tagging me and tagging three friends who also need internships so that way we can circulate not just internships and opportunities because there are so many out there, but also so that we can circulate hope and kindness and smiles so the internship doc has been up for two weeks and it's been absolutely incredible.
So anyone can find the post that says “Thank you, we love you” on my Instagram page to access the available opportunities and how to do it.
“I realized that the two things that we’re missing in this world right now are acts of kindness, acts of kindness for service people, and medics, and also jobs and internships. ”
Meggie: That's so great. And I feel like, at the moment, the world needs more and more acts of kindness, more and more acts of kindness, I should say, one of my good friends, Adriana Picker. She's a botanical Illustrator and she had her fifth book released just at the very start of all of this. And she was kind of like, on one hand, she was a bit upset. But on the other hand, she was like, it's not about me, how can we survive during this time? And so she and I actually did a thing as well, where we had people message us if they knew a healthcare worker, to just randomly surprise them with a book. So I've been loving watching all the things that women in your community have been doing as well. It's nice to have that reminder that it's very easy to do one small act of kindness.
For people who want to keep in touch with people who want to learn more, what's the best way to hear more about your agency, and like how can we connect? Do we have internship opportunities?
Well, you can definitely send me a DM. I like to say my phone is now a part of my body. So I always answer everyone and everything and I always will. And if you want to listen to internship opportunity, the same goes for you got to do a kind deed. I like to say that no one is excluded and no one is too good for doing kindness. So, although it is incredible for anyone who does want to offer internships, I'm still holding you to the same tier as everyone else, and everyone just has to do a kind deed and they can access pretty much everything and more positivity hacks, kindness and just overall authentic self on my Instagram.
Meggie: It's been so lovely to hear more about your productivity hacks and your positivity hacks. And everyone can check out at @livschreiber on Instagram. She's awesome!
“No one is excluded and no one is too good for doing kindness. ”