August 28, 2026

“When you love yourself, when you actually have your own back and you think you are the greatest thing since sliced bread, you will want to do epic shit.” —Sari de la Motte

Resources

• Atomic Habits by James Clear — One of my favorite books of all time. Clear scientifically proves that real change isn’t driven by self-punishment or “hard work”—it’s powered by craving, pleasure, and joy. Go read it!
• Opening Masterclass — Secure your seat and build your opening statement with ME. Only 12 seats per masterclass!

Podcast Transcript

Meg
Hi everyone. Meg here from Team Sari. Please enjoy this encore episode of the Sari Swears podcast.

Sari de la Motte
Well, hello, everyone. Sari de la Motte with you here today talking about, is it possible that you can be too kind to yourself?

Before we get into that, we’re going to go to a reader shout-out, one of my most favorite ones ever, five star from Dan B, and he titles his five-star review, “What You Focus On Becomes Your Reality, Incredible Book.” He says, “This book has changed my entire view of juries. It brought out things that I instinctively knew, but had it suppressed based on the common wisdom. I was taught to mistrust the jury. If you lose, it’s because they screwed you. Voir dire was taught as a way to ferret out those evil jurors that want to screw you. I stereotyped. I jumped to conclusions. I based on jury selections on fear. I couldn’t have been more wrong, all caps. By focusing on my fears and prejudices, my cases became about my fears instead of doing justice.

Sari’s approach looking for the good jurors and mining their life experiences for the right values for your case has totally changed my approach. By looking at them as inherently good people who want to do the right thing, Sari’s approach turns your fear into hope. Before being indoctrinated in law school in my early career, I thought people are ultimately good. This book reaffirmed that basic belief, trust in yourself. Trust the jury and trust the process. You picked this profession and this client for a reason. Now, go find your heroes who will deliver justice. Thank you, Sari.

Well, thank you, Dan B. I just love that review, first of all. Yes, but this has made such a tremendous impact on you. That is exactly what I’m hoping for. And if you’ve not reviewed the book recently, recently, ever or recently, please go to trialguides.com and do that. And you can also review the podcast wherever you are listening.

All right. So last week we talked about this concept that I’m giving up and that maybe you should too. And if you haven’t listened to that podcast, I would go back and listen to it because it’s all about the concept of having a goal and having this goal just absolutely torture you. In some of our cases for many, many years, I talked about a goal that’s tortured me for 20 years and just makes us feel bad. And if that is in fact the case that you need to drop that shit as soon as possible and get on your merry life, having your fun, fulfilling, happy life instead. Now, of course, that would bring up for many people, well, Sari, if we do that, we’ll never achieve anything. I mean, if we just gave up when things were hard, then how would we ever achieve anything?

And this is also true when I was speaking at a law school recently, well, a couple months ago, and I was talking about this concept of self-love that I teach all y’all and that I’m learning myself right along with you. And one of the students in the class said, “Well, if we love ourselves as is, why would we ever get any better?” So in that moment, I knew that I had to do a podcast on this because there are some assumptions y’all are carrying around with you that I think most of us are carrying around with us that are so dead wrong that if you change the way you’re thinking about change and motivation and how and why we do the things we do as human beings, this is going to change your life.

Now, the first assumption that I want to talk about, when we talk about this idea that we’d never achieve anything if we just gave up when things were hard, the first assumption is that things have to be hard, right? Hard work, that’s the big one for you trial lawyers. That’s a big value of yours when I ask you what are your values. Hard work is value. We have to be hard on ourselves. And that brings us really to the second assumption, which is being hard on ourselves is somehow motivating even. That when we’re hard on ourselves, that will motivate us to change. And that brings us to the third assumption, which is the reason we have to be hard on ourselves and the reason why we have to motivate ourselves through this being hard on ourselves and being horrible to ourselves is because inherently we’re lazy. That’s the big problem, right? We’re lazy and if left to our own devices, we would never do anything. And that’s why we have to “Work hard and be really hard on ourselves.”

It’s all fucking bullshit and I’m going to prove it to you today in today’s podcast because here’s what I think you don’t get is that being hard on yourself is the exact opposite of what will actually create change in your life or what will actually bring new goals or achievements into your life. So one of my favorite books in the universe is Atomic Habits by, oh, what’s the name of the guy, James Clear. And so he talks about the science of how habits work. And he talks, I’m going to read a little bit from the book, he says, “The process of building a habit can be divided into four simple steps. Cue, like C-U-E, craving, response and reward.” All right? So he says, “This four-step habit,” or pattern, I should say, “is the backbone of every habit and your brain runs through these steps in the same order each time.”

“First, there’s the cue. The cue triggers your brain to initiate a behavior. It is a bit of information that predicts a reward. Our prehistoric ancestors were paying attention to cues that signaled the location of the primary rewards like food, water, and sex. Today, we spend most of our time learning cues that predict secondary rewards like money, fame, power and status, praise and approval, love and friendship, or sense of personal satisfaction. Now, your mind is continuously analyzing your internal and external environments for hints of where rewards are located because the cue is the first indication that we’re close to reward, it leads naturally to a craving.”

“Cravings are the second step of the habit loop and they are the motivational force behind every habit. Without some level of motivation or desire, without craving a change, we have no reason to act. What you crave is not the habit itself, but the change in state it delivers. You do not crave smoking a cigarette, you crave the feeling of relief it provides. You’re not motivated by brushing your teeth, but rather by the feeling of a clean mouth. You do not want to turn on the television, you want to be entertained.”

Sari talking to you now. Does this sound familiar from last week? We’re chasing a feeling, folks.

If you’re a longtime listener, you’ve probably heard me say practice makes progress. And what better way to practice than with a fellow group of trial attorneys in person and with me? Our two-day Command the courtroom masterclass sessions put the H2H method into action. I’m there every step of the way with live coaching and feedback and finish mama fierceness. And don’t just take my word for it, here’s what PI Attorney Sean had to say about our two-day masterclass:

Sari de la Motte
Now, seats are limited. These are small group, high-impact courtroom sessions, not an auditorium full of board attorneys and dull lectures. If you want to change the way you go to trial and turn your practice into progress, visit sariswears.com/masterclass to register for a 2026 class today. That’s sariswears.com/masterclass.

“Every craving is linked to desire to change your internal state.” Let me read that again, “Every craving is linked to desire to change your internal state. This is an important point that we will discuss in detail later, he says in the book.” So you’re going to have to find out where that is if you buy the book. He continues though, “Cravings differ from person to person. In theory, any piece of information could trigger a craving, but in practice, people are not motivated by the same cues. For a gambler, the sound of slot machines can be a potent trigger that sparks an intense wave of desire. For someone who rarely gambles, the jingles and chimes of the casino are the background noise. Cues are meaningless until they are interpreted. The thoughts, feelings, and emotions of the observer are what transform a cue into a craving.”

“The third step is a response. The response is the actual habit you perform, which can take the form of a thought or an action. Where the response occurs depends on how motivated you are and how much friction is associated with the behavior. If a particular action requires more physical or mental effort than you are willing to expend, then you won’t do it. Your response also depends on your ability. It sounds simple, but a habit can occur only if you’re capable of doing it,” also what we talked about last week. “If you want to dunk a basketball but can’t jump high enough to reach the hoop, well, you’re out of luck. Finally, the response delivers a reward. Rewards are the end goal of every habit. The cue is about noticing the reward. The craving is about wanting the reward. The response is about obtaining the reward. We choose rewards because they serve two purposes. They satisfy us and they teach us.”

Now, I just want you to think about the words, this is Sari now, that you have just heard me say over and over and over again, rewards, desires, wants, cravings. What you did not hear is making things hard, being hard on ourselves, punishing ourselves, being afraid, all the things that you think motivate you. The number one motivator for any of us is something we want, a reward, something that is pleasurable. But think about how you go about your day-to-day existence. You tend to make things hard on yourself and then you convince yourself that that’s the way to actually make change in your life, that if I make things hard, if I do things that are hard, somehow I’ll get the life that I want. That’s not how our brains work, people. That’s simply not how our brains work.

Our brains are wired to keep us alive, first of all, but also to bring us pleasure and to bring us things that make us happy and fulfilled and fun. But we somehow have this backwards idea of how this works. I mean, think about this for a minute. I was just at Canyon Ranch for my 50th birthday and I had a hypnotherapy session, which I’d never had done hypnotherapy and there’s not much you can do with hypnotherapy when you just do one session, which is what she told me, because hypnotherapy is like creating a habit. It takes many, many sessions to actually create a change in your brain. And that’s really what it is. It’s like deep level visualization about how you want to be. But she said something to me that just so pinged me. And I just thought, I’m going to bring this back to my people.

She said, “You know the number one way to change anything,” and I said, “Ooh, what is it?” And she said, “Joy. Joy. We move toward things we want. When something is painful or hard or, well, painful or hard, we don’t move toward that shit, we move away from that. Nobody wants to be in pain. Nobody wants to be in things that are difficult. We try to avoid that shit like the plague.” So why do we believe that being hard on ourself is the way to achieve our goals? And more importantly, that it’s somehow going to, if we’re too kind to ourselves, it’s somehow going to prevent us from getting where we want to go.

And we’ve got this backwards where this whole hard, things have to be hard, and hard work. I mean, when I think about of the achievements in my life, my writing my book, losing the weight that I have lost up to this point, creating the business that I now have that is incredibly successful, I want to say to you right now, and listen up, that those things were hard, many of those things, not all of them, but it’s not that they were hard that I ended up doing it. Meaning writing a book is hard, y’all. It’s hard, it’s hard to do. But it’s not that it was hard or I had to be hard on myself to make myself write it. It’s because I so wanted to get my ideas out in the world that I overcame how hard something was because my joy, my desire, my wanting to get my ideas out in the world was greater than the difficulty of actually writing the book. Things don’t have to be hard. Sometimes things are hard. And it’s our love for ourselves and the process and the thing that we’re trying to create that carries us through.

Let me say that again. Things don’t have to be hard. Sometimes things just are hard, and it’s love that gets us through. It’s love that overcomes that. It’s love that creates the fire that sat me at my desk every day for 13 months writing, even though sometimes that shit was hard. I mean, my business, I didn’t create a business because I wanted to make money. I mean, that’s a big part of it. We want to make sure we pay bills, sure. But that wasn’t my primary goal in creating my business. If it was, I would have given up a long time ago. There are easier ways to make money than running your own business. Do you run your own business? Do you hear me? You feel me? If you do, you know what the hell I’m talking about. There are way easier ways to make money.

So is it hard to create and run your own business? Yes. But it’s not that that’s why I was successful. I wasn’t successful because I was hard on myself going through that process. The only reason I was successful is because I love what I do. That’s what carried me forward. Love is the answer here. That’s what gets us through. When I lost the weight that I lost, and I’ve been able to keep that off pretty much, I had the time of my life. I was having so much fun when I was doing that. It was the only time I ever lost weight in my life. Every other time when I’ve tried to make it hard on myself, when I’ve tried to cut out all the foods and exercise like a maniac, I wouldn’t last two weeks and then it was over. This time, I was actually able to get it off and keep it off. Why? Because I was loving myself through the process.

See, when we think that it’s possible to be too kind to ourself, it’s because we’re carrying around these ideas that things have to be hard, that we’re inherently lazy and if we’re not hard on ourself, then we’re just going to stay these blobs that never achieve anything. Let me give you this example. Michael Jordan. Okay. I’m trying to think of like, and you know how I am with the sports metaphors, I’m going to try here, but I’m trying to think of like one of the best athletes of all times. Just think of Michael Jordan. He played football, right? Kidding. I know that he’s a hockey player. But anyways, think about… I’m joking. Think about Michael Jordan at the top of his game. He was the best shape in his life. He was totally winning. I think he was with the Chicago Bulls, right? I think so. He was winning nearly every game. He was completely nearly unstoppable. He’s like near perfect. Okay?

Do you think that when you achieve that or if you ever achieve like near perfectness, like what I’m telling you right now you are perfect right now as is, that from that place you would be like, “You know what, I’m so perfect. I’m just going to sit here and do nothing.” That’s what that lawsuit was afraid of. If we accept ourselves as we are Sari, then we’ll be never motivated to do anything great. Michael Jordan was near perfection. He didn’t just sit on his ass and go, “Look at me. I’m perfect. I’m going to just sit back now because I achieved it. I’m just so perfect, and I’ll not do anything.” No. He was like, “What can I do from this place? I’m at the top of my game, what can I achieve from here?” In fact, didn’t he go off and try to play baseball or something? Like he wanted to do more great shit.

See, there’s that other belief that if I actually accept myself and I’m really nice and kind to myself as is, then I’m somehow going to lose my motivation. I’m somehow not going to want to do other things. He went and played a whole other sport that he didn’t have any experience in because he was like, “I’m so great at this, what else could I be great at?” And I actually don’t think he was very great at baseball, if I remember correctly. But the point is, is that love of himself and acceptance of his greatness made him do that, not telling himself how shitty he was, how lazy he is.

We think that when we say, “I’m going to be nice to myself, I’m going to accept myself as I am,” that that’s going to somehow stop our progress, I’m telling you right now, that is the key to everything. When you love yourself, when you actually have your own back and you think you are the greatest thing since sliced bread, you will want to do epic shit. You will want to go, “What can I do from this place?” When you release all the fear, all the societal expectations, all the shit you’ve been carrying around, all these myths about what it means to actually be great and you go, “I’m great now,” you’re going to feel so light and so free that you’re going to go do things you never even thought possible. That’s what love does. That’s what I’m teaching you. That’s why I want you to be kind to yourself and that it’s not possible to not be too kind to yourself.

And guess what? You don’t also need to constantly be improving. You can be a ball of self-love that walks around loving the shit out of yourself and never achieves a single other thing on your time here on earth and that would be an absolute, totally complete way to live, if that’s what you choose. Don’t let anybody else tell you that the whole goal is to constantly be achieving and improving. If you want to go out and do epic shit, you got to love yourself there. If you do not want to go out and do epic shit, you can love yourself as is. There is nothing wrong with just walking around, loving yourself for no other fucking reason because you exist. I love you because of that reason. You don’t have to do anything to prove to me that you’re worth being on this earth, that you’re worth being loved. And neither do I and neither does anybody. That’s the point I’m trying to get across here.

When I looked up the word kindness, because I was trying to think of do I want nice or kind, can you be too kind to yourself, can you be too nice to yourself, I went with kind because I loved… Nice was like this kind of passive language. But kind, the definition of kind, friendly, generous, I loved that. Consider it. How friendly are you being to yourself? How generous are you being to yourself? And that could be buying you lovely things that make you feel great. It could be giving yourself lots of room when you make mistakes. How considerate are you to yourself? It’s not possible to be too kind to yourself. I reject that utterly for myself and for you.

So I want to close with a quote from Elizabeth Gilbert’s book, Eat Pray, Love. I just love this quote, or this part of her book. She says, “I walked into an office building one afternoon in a hurry, dashed into the waiting elevator. As I rushed in, I caught an unexpected glance of myself in a security mirror’s reflection. In that moment, my brain did an odd thing. It fired off this split-second message, hey, you know her, that’s a friend of yours. And I actually ran forward towards my own reflection with a smile, ready to welcome that girl whose name I had lost, but whose face was so familiar. In a flash instant, of course, I realized my mistake and laughed in embarrassment on my almost dog-like confusion over how a mirror works.”

She says, “Never forget that once upon a time in an unguarded moment, you recognized yourself as a friend.” And I don’t want you to forget that either. The first person you need to make peace with is you. The first person you need to befriend is you. It’s never possible to be too kind to yourself. Whether you want to do great stuff or whether you don’t, the key is to love yourself in both situations and then see what and if you want to do from that place.

All right, until next week.