Tara Schuster on Rising Up From Rock Bottom

Famous Failures

Tara Schuster is an author, playwright, and accomplished entertainment executive, currently serving as the Vice President of Talent and Development at Comedy Central. She was the Executive in Charge of the Emmy and Peabody Award-winning Key & Peele, the Emmy Award winning @Midnight, and numerous other shows.

Tara’s first book, Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies: And Other Rituals to Fix Your Life from Someone Who has Been There, will be released on February 18, 2020. The hilarious and relatable self-help/memoir tells the story of Tara’s path to re-parenting herself and becoming a “ninja of self-love.”

Sign up for Tara’s newsletter to receive weekly self-care tips at: taraschuster.com/subscribe, and find her on Instagram as @taraschuster.

In this episode Tara and I discuss:

• Why Tara decided not to pursue a career as a New York playwright
• How Tara’s budding playwriting career pivoted into an internship on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart
• Why Jon Stewart doesn’t believe in “Big Breaks”
• How cleaning the Daily Show office coffee machine opened doors to Comedy Central for Tara
• Why Tara strives to be the best at the worst
• How Tara hit rock bottom on her 25th birthday
• The first step Tara took to build a sense of self-awareness
• Tara’s advice for cultivating new friendships as you grow older
• How Tara managed to be so honest in her memoir
• How Tara faces the high risk of failure in the entertainment industry

Resources mentioned

• The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron

My book, Think Like a Rocket Scientist: Simple Strategies You Can Use to Make Giant Leaps in Work and Life, is now available for pre-order (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Indiebound).

I’ve been ecstatic about the early reviews. The book was named a “must read” by Susan Cain (NYT Bestselling Author of Quiet), “endlessly fascinating” by Daniel Pink (NYT Bestselling Author of Drive and A Whole New Mind), and “bursting with practical insights” by Adam Grant (NYT Bestselling Author of Originals).

If you pre-order the book, you’ll get digital access to the book to read on your favorite device within seven days of your pre-order. That means you can start reading it months before the book is released to the public.

You’ll also get pre-order bonuses worth at least 10 times the cost of the book. You can check out the bonuses at rocketsciencebook.com.