Episode 545: Sarah Shahi: Playing Sex/Life Billie & The Courage To Live and Love Fully As A Woman
Habits and Hustle
Handling Public Life and Criticism
Sarah describes building thick skin, turning off comments, and reframing public reaction to personal events.
Most women are told that wanting more makes them selfish. It’s like fitting on a societal construct of a “woman” as a mother, parent, and wife is the only destiny that awaits every female. Sarah Shahi spent years believing that too until she got the role of Billie.
Playing the lead in Netflix's global hit Sex/Life didn't just make Sarah famous. It cracked her open into seeing what’s on the other side of choosing herself through Billie. Her story is one of the profound embodiments of an authentic woman who took courage to come home to herself and finally be free from societal mold imposed on women.
In this episode of Habits and Hustle, Sarah shares where it all started, how she suddenly got into acting, and the journey of being an actress for almost two decades only to break through when she’s about to give up.
She shares all the wisdom she learned from pain, what it really means to be a recovering people pleaser, how she rebuilt herself after a very public divorce and breakup, and the philosophy she has quietly built that most people never get to hear.
This is not another celebrity interview. This is a masterclass in courage to be a woman.
What's Discussed:
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(8:58) The moment she knew she wanted to make a change in her life.
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(14:03) How the Sex/Life audition actually went and what really happened in that room.
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(26:23) How playing Billie gave her the courage to question everything in her own life.
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(26:47) What real courage looks like & the wisdom behind it.
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(40:28) What divorce during COVID taught her about love, loss and starting over.
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(41:46) Her birth as a writer through her Glamour article.
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(46:14) How she developed thick skin living her life in public.
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(57:17) Why she dances until she smiles and the science behind why it works.
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(59:17) The exact mindset shift she used to survive her most public breakup.
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(1:01:38) The teachers and thinkers who shaped how she processes pain.
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(1:03:19) Why she calls her divorce her PhD in pain and why she does not see it as a failure.
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(1:06:58) What a year of being single for the first time in 23 years taught her about herself.
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(1:09:14) Her production company School for Women and what she is building next.
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(1:21:31) Her full beauty, hormone and wellness routine including what is actually behind that skin.
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Find more from Jen:
Website: https://jennifercohen.com
Instagram: @therealjencohen
Books: https://jennifercohen.com/books
Speaking: https://jennifercohen.com/speaking-engagements
Find more from Sarah Shahi:
Instagram: @sarahshahi
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