The beautiful Melissa Ambrosini’s brand new book
(slash comprehensive how-to guide on living an awesome life)
December 2015
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While I used to adore reading for leisure when I was younger, I can count the books I’ve read over the past few years on one hand. Perhaps because of the heavy load of reading that accompanies a law career, I no longer reach for a book when I want to relax or unwind. It’s also impossible to multitask while reading a book, so I fall into the “I’m too busy” trap far too often prioritising less engaging, quicker sources of entertainment that stoke my increasingly short attention span. And the few books that I have managed to get through have been multi-stage endeavours that span weeks if not months before I finally finish them off. That was until I met the beautiful Melissa Ambrosini a few weeks ago and got my hands on one of the first copies of her brand new book, Mastering Your Mean Girl.
I had been following this inspiring soul for quite some time and was delighted to discover she was a big fan of matcha leading us to connect through Matcha Maiden. Melissa is an author, entrepreneur, motivational speaker and self-love teacher (and her book is incredibly captivating not least because of its honest recount of her personal journey weaved in among the pearls of wisdom). We were honoured to have her attend our Matcha Maiden x Fit Mixes Friday Flow event up in Sydney and I was lucky enough to steal some of her sought after time for a more intimate lunch the next day. One of my favourite sayings is that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. Alas, what was waiting for me at the table along with the beautiful Melissa? Her hot-off-the-press book full of all the lessons I needed to learn or re-learn at this particular point in my life. Having just noted how little appeal reading has held for me recently, I powered through it in two hours!
I think of myself as quite a self-aware being that generally “has her shit together”. But the past year has seen Nic and I start a new business, me leave my law job to work in it full time and both of us undergo a dramatic lifestyle change as a result. All the wisdom I had under my belt to help me navigate my old life suddenly needed to be revisited and adapted to the new one. Lucky for me, MYMG covers the field offering up powerful and practical messages on health, work, play, relationships, money, confidence, every aspect of life using the concept of “Mastering Your Mean Girl” – quietening that inner critic that leads you to self sabotage, self deprecate, and self destruct. I am a big fan of motivational quotes, “self-help” books and the like so the key concepts in the book were not unfamiliar to me. But as Melissa notes, even she benefits from the regular reiteration of frustratingly obvious things like the importance of looking after the body. I pored over every page soaking up the blend of personal anecdotes, expert observations and interactive spots for writing down affirmations or lists relevant to each chapter. I used post-it notes for the first chapter to highlight important points but gave up when I saw I had one on every page!
Over three parts and 10 chapters, Melissa channels all of her wisdom, experience and love into what she calls her “no-BS guide to becoming wildly wealthy, fabulously healthy and bursting with love”. It’s not really about anything in particular but more about everything on how to live a generally awesome life. What I love most about the book is the intimate details of the spectacular crash and burn that sparked Melissa’s journey to where she is today reassuring us that even the most accomplished, knowledgeable, beautiful and successful people have had their own rough patches but that nothing is insurmountable with enough love, passion and drive. I also love how it balances personal anecdotes with more generic messages so that the book can bear relevance to anyone and everyone on all different walks of life (including men who need to master what Melissa calls their “Bad Boy”). The warm and conversational tone makes it an easy and accessible read – I wanted to laugh out loud or respond verbally to so much of the book.
I won’t reveal much more because you all need to read it for yourselves, but I am so delighted to have spent an hour with Melissa chatting about a few key themes to give you all a sneak peek! The questions are listed below so you can fast forward to what you’re interested in.
NOTE: Sorry for the audio glitches, our recording software got a bit excited too and this was my first try at recording a Skype interview – bit of a noob!!
Get your copy at www.masteringyourmeangirl.com!!
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The questions
- For those who don’t know you yet, tell us a bit about yourself and your journey to get to where you are now.
- Talking about writing a book, this is your first book, so what inspired you to undertake the epic task of putting everything you’ve learnt into a book and how did you go about making it happen?
- For most of us who aren’t yet published authors, is there anything unusual or unexpected about the process of writing a book that you might not expect from what it looks like on the glamorous outside?
- You mention that your “Mean Girl” was talking to you at that time, so getting to the content of your magical book, tell us a bit about the concept of “Your Mean Girl” (so we don’t all think there’s a Lindsay Lohan running around in there somewhere). What does that mean?
- Even now you’re living your truth and you’re happy in every area of your life, do you still struggle with your own Mean Girl and experience fear and uncertainty? To give us a sneak peak, what are your top tips for ongoing maintenance in keeping her at bay?
- On thing I can imagine our Mean Girl has a big impact on is self-esteem. Self-esteem is a huge thing especially today where our lives are filled with social media images of picture perfect people enjoying glamorously breezy lives. How do you stay grounded among all that?
- It was really reassuring to read in the book that you have also hit rock bottom at some stage of your life and people don’t come out of the womb with everything together. To any one else who has hit rock bottom as you once did, what are your best tips to them on how to take the first steps to turning themselves around? How did you pull yourself out of that place?
- Once you did discover self-love and start to practice it more actively, did you find the people around you adapted with you? Or did you just adjust the people you surrounded yourself with? Tell us a bit about surrounding yourself with the right people both in your relationship and your friendships.
- One thing I really like about the book is that you have a lot of spaces in your book for writing notes and keeping yourself accountable. Do you think that committing things to writing is important?
- Another thing you also talk about that I really needed to hear myself is to stop the glorification of busy. But surely you’re busier than you’ve ever been? I love that you say that not taking time out is actually doing yourself and others a disservice, rather than a service! Tell us about “the daily hour of love”.
- Coming from a law background where being busy is quite a badge of honour, and now moving into an area where there are so many fun things I want to go and be part of, another thing I find very difficult is saying “no” – how do you manage that when there’s so much you want to do? And the dreaded “FOMO”?
- Moving on to food, you talk a lot about having a healthy relationship with food and how eating can be affected by the rest of our lives. Tell us about your food story – where have you come from and where are you now?
- What’s your day on a plate – what’s a typical breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks?
- You talk about how it’s not just what you eat but also drinking. You, like myself, don’t drink alcohol any more – tell us a bit about that.
- Having haters is a side effect of having a public profile (and I like to see it as a sign that you’ve made it in life!) Coping with criticism is an interesting part of your book, I thought that was a very valuable skill to highlight that none of us are great at, especially if we suffer from low self-esteem to begin with. How do you deal with constant scrutiny and judgment being in the public eye?
- Most importantly, where can we get our hands on Mastering Your Mean Girl?
- Finally, And just lastly, what’s next for you for 2016?