 It's not easy living in this country by yourself. Oh hey you, if you don't know, my name is Shan Boudram. I am a public-facing sex and relationship expert. I currently work as Bumble's sex and relationship expert, as well as KY's sex and relationship expert. In addition, you might know me as one of the retreat leaders from Netflix's Too Hot to Handle. I worked on a TV show with Andy Cohen that's called X-rated. I currently have a show on the Roku channel that is called The Marriage Pact, and I've popped up a whole lot of other places talking about this topic. I have lived in Los Angeles for 10 years now, and in this video I'm going to be talking about if I think it's worth it to move here, if you want to pursue a career in entertainment to any capacity. And furthermore, what are some of the mistakes that I've made along the way? And we're going to go there and get into it. So first, let's get into the sponsor of this episode, Squarespace. Well, 2024 has arrived, and yeah, it's time for a complete restructure. This year, Shan and I are embracing a new direction, focusing on artistically stunning and engaging content, starting with Shan's website Makeover. There's no better partner for this transformation than Squarespace, the proud sponsor of this video. Squarespace isn't just a sponsor for us. It's ideal for us in tailoring our brand and fit our unique needs and our desires. It stands as the ultimate platform for entrepreneurs looking to stand out and succeed online. With Squarespace, creating a captivating website is a breeze, allowing you to connect with your audience and know your audience with in-depth analytics, plus you can sell everything from products and content to time. Now while I can go on and on about Squarespace's impressive capabilities, I'll save that for later in the video. But if you're eager to explore Squarespace right now for yourself, visit squarespace.com slash shan booty for a free trial, no credit card needed. And when you're ready to launch, go to squarespace.com slash shan booty to enjoy 10% off your first purchase of a website or a domain. Enjoy the video. We'll talk soon. Wow, 10 years ago, almost to the date, I moved mid-March 2014 from Toronto, Canada to Los Angeles, California. Classic story. I loaded up my car, drove down here with whatever I could fit in that four-seater, and then I crashed on my friend's Angela Dugan's couch for a few weeks while I tried to figure out if I could figure it out here. And I actually still drive by that apartment on Olympic Boulevard where Angela lived. And I just have so much gratitude for that version of myself who took that leap. And of course, gratitude for my friend who allowed me to leap onto their couch. And I really hope that that version of myself can look forward and be really proud of how far that we've come. First and foremost, we are actually shooting from my home studio, which we had built at a home that I now own in California. And actually, extra fun fact, next month I have my citizen appointment booked. And those of you who are OG years on this channel know that I went through my immigration struggles. So to get to this place now where there's like really a sense of permanence here genuinely means a lot to me. Look, there are so many versions of myself that I have been in the past 10 years. And I want to answer the question off the top. Do I think that everybody who wants to work in entertainment or has a dream should move to Los Angeles to make it come true? I would say kind of sort of not really absolutely. I know that's a terrible answer. But for me, when I really reflect on what this move did, it was less of a shift in opportunity and more of a shift in mindset that I needed. And it was an opportunity to reinvent myself, which means in order to get big opportunities, you don't need to make big moves. You just have to make yourself big and visible enough so that people know where to find you when those opportunities come up. And then eventually you can decide whether you want to fly out for some or some are done just best digitally. A lot of stuff can be figured out from the comfort of your home, no matter where you live. I would say for myself because I did the traditional, almost like early 2000s, late 90s thing of moving here with nothing, with no job, no opportunity, nowhere to live, damn near no friends. And no one to even model my career off of to say, oh, this person in my field moved to LA, did this and that. So I should do that to follow in their footsteps. I just knew that this was the land of opportunity, one America to California. And I knew that I just wasn't happy or moving forward in Toronto. So I will say for me, this move was necessary, not necessarily because of the location shift, but because of the mental shift that it provided for me. A lot of spaces in Toronto just started to feel sad to me. The memory of the person that I was, or furthermore of who I wasn't, existed in buildings, it existed in parks or places I would drive by. And furthermore, just the version of myself that I become overall, who I was in a relationship with, who some of my friends were and who my family saw me as, just wasn't speaking to my higher self or to my greatest potential or to what I knew my actual vision to be. So physically taking myself out of that, moving somewhere else where no one knew me and I knew no one and knew of nothing and every building street tree was brand new to me was necessary just to allow me to build something that I didn't really know how to build. And I made a lot of mistakes in private. The first couple of years, I was so sickly thin and sick period just from existing on the poverty line. And I think having to do that around people who knew me would have been really hard and impossible. And even people from Toronto not being physically here but kind of seeing me here and there, I would get polls from home being like, you should come back, you should throw this in. And so I just know that if I was back in Toronto kind of going through that same ugly process, there would have been a lot more frequent encouragement to quit because the process was not pretty. I will also say what was really great about the move to Los Angeles is really just being here. I'll say this is actually one of my biggest regrets because being here is only relevant if you want to go. And wanting to go isn't as simple as saying like, I want to be invited to big parties. I want to be invited to those events or I want to go to where I want to go where the people are, you know, hashtag Little Mermaid. You actually have to be good at putting yourself in position to do those things. You actually have to be good at networking, like genuinely networking, building relationships with people, playing the long game with people. And I wasn't and to this day, I'm still not good at that. So for that reason, spending the amount of money that I spend on property tax and state taxes here, given how seldomly I'm able to take advantages of being in a city where many people in the entertainment industry are, it almost doesn't really make sense. In my defense, I would also say that Los Angeles is one of the more difficult cities to make friends in, especially if you live here. Especially, especially if you live here with a family, which I should also just say this is a caveat. It wouldn't have been possible to have my family without being in LA, because my husband is from here. But because this is a very expensive city, more than likely, the more people that you have around you, the further out you have to move in order to get enough space to accommodate them. And the further out that you move, the harder that it is to find people to connect with who live close to you. I regret that I don't have closer friends in Los Angeles. And actually, this is something that I'm really starting to shift my focus on and try to figure this out, try to genuinely make friends. I did an episode about this last year on my podcast, Lovers and Friends, and while I've definitely made some headway with some remarkable people, I think I could do better. And that's something that I am calling myself to rise to that challenge. According to New York Times, there's three conditions that sociologists since the fifties have considered crucial to making friends. Okay. Proximity, repeated unplanned interactions. Okay. That one hit me. Huh. I want to get your reflection on that one. Yeah. And then lastly, a setting that encourages people to let their guard down and confide in each other. Hmm. No, I think that the second one is just standing out to me. Repeated unplanned interaction. Yeah. Why I can see that is because it's like, I just called you. Okay. I just reached out to you like, this is actually a big distinction for me because I have been saying in making this episode, I don't have friends. And I'm also like acknowledging, we just worked together recently and we're around a group of my friends. Yeah. So that's why it was surprising for me to hear you say that. Because this is actually really helpful to me in the research for this. There's a difference between sentimental friends and active friends. So I have a lot of sentimental friendships that I have known them for a long time or we have a special place in each other's hearts. So there was a time where we had a very active friendship. Yeah. But those aren't people who I think actively can say, here's what Shane's going through right now. Yeah. I love that you like reframed that because now that I think of that, then that makes a lot of sense. Just somebody that you can call up and be like, what are you doing? Or call up when you're crying. Yeah. Call up and just be like, what are you doing right now? I need to see you or this is like something hilarious that I found on the like those unplanned interactions. I definitely think help to cement a friendship when you can kind of just like call and talk about nothing. Another reason I don't think you really have to be in Los Angeles anymore is because general meetings are kind of a thing of the past. I personally have never found value in a general meeting. No disrespect to anybody who I've taken one with. And those essentially are where you're in the city and you go to the networks, you go to the producers, you go to so-and-so and you just meet with them and chat. While one, it's really great to build relationships. Again, if you're not actually good at following up on those relationships and going out with people and being in the scene, that one time meeting is really not going to be the game changer for you. And two, your general meeting is your social media presence. And yeah, it definitely is a challenge, especially in the city. But just all in all, I want to say none of this discounts how incredibly rich my life is here, pun intended, how grateful I am and how I don't think that this life would be possible unless I made the move that I did 10 years ago. And to commemorate that, I would love to show all of you what my life is looking like these days. OK, little pause here. 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