Shattering Societal Labels: Lana Chairez on Stripping, Comedy & Authenticity

Have you ever imagined the behind-the-scenes stories a stripper might have about the Secret Service?

I'm so f*cking stoked I get to sit down with the one and only Lana Chairez – she's a stand-up comedian, host of the "Laughing with Lana" podcast, a former stripper, and an engineer, all rolled into one! She's not just funny; she's a powerhouse with a story that flips the script on societal norms.

Lana and I dive deep into what it means to live authentically in a world that's constantly trying to box us in as we ripe off the societal labels and diving into what it really means to chase your own version of happiness.

Here's the scoop: It's not all about fitting into the box society has built for us. Lana's past as a stripper? It's a part of her story that challenges every stereotype and judgment you've ever heard.

We get real about the entertainment industry and hospitality world, where external perceptions often clash with internal happiness. Lana shares how her past as a stripper shaped her identity and perception in society on labels and judgment.

From t*ts to titles, we reflect on the pursuit of authenticity and how societal status often overshadows our true selves.

In the world of self-improvement, we sometimes have to ask ourselves...."When you feel that you have to do something to better yourself, are you bettering it for yourself, or are you bettering yourself for society? Because there's a difference."

This episode isn't just a conversation; it's an experience! Lana and I prove that laughter can be the best way to cope with life's challenges and how we turn some of our traumas into humorous ways to connect with others.

At the end of the day, "Just be happy. You yourself need to be happy. Don't please other people, because that shit, you're going to live a fucked up and horrible, miserable fucking life."

Ask yourself this: Are you living your truth, or just following society's script?

If you found a piece of yourself in our stories, or had a good laugh during your journey of authenticity and breaking societal molds, don't stop here.

Head over to our website for more episodes that will challenge, inspire, and empower you. Hit subscribe, leave us a review if you loved what you heard, and share this episode with someone who needs to hear it.

Together, let's redefine success, one authentic story at a time. Catch you in the next episode – stay fit, stay frugal, and most importantly, stay true to you.

Watch this episode instead w/ full timestamp💚

Connect with Lana Chairez on Instagram, follow her podcast, & checkout her website 

Thank you for spending your time with us!

Subscribe to my Youtube & Join our tribe💜

Follow me (it's not weird):
Instagram: @fitnfrugalpod or @tawnisaurus
Facebook | Tiktok | LinkedIn

Please let me know your favorite moments:
Like, Subscribe & Review over on Apple or Spotify

Transcript

[TRANSCRIPT]
0:00:00 - (Lana Chairez): I would want people to ask themselves the question of when you feel that you have to do something to better yourself, are you bettering it for yourself or are you bettering yourself for society? Because there's a difference. People could be like the best person that they know how to be, but they still are being the best person that they know how to be. That is ill going to people please the society or their parents or their family or something like that.
0:00:32 - (Lana Chairez): I've noticed. I'm genuinely happy because I make me happy. But some people are genuinely happy because they think that what they are doing is what society expects out of them.
0:00:49 - (Tawni Nguyen): Let's just say if you did tell someone, hey, I used to strip, they just assume you fucked like 1000 people. That's the presumption that they make based on the context of ignorance and lack of knowledge.
0:01:03 - (Lana Chairez): Go ahead, keep going. Because, oh my God, every time I tell people like, oh, I'm a stripper. And they're like, oh, so how many? Like, they're always asking how many guys I've had sex with? Or like, did you have sex after the parties and stuff?
0:01:19 - (Tawni Nguyen): Hey, everyone, welcome back to the fit and frugal podcast. I'm your host, Tawni Nguyen. You can find me on IG at Tawnisaurus. We had a little bit of a riot right before this. Trying to control my face right now. Before Chase over there yells at us like, keep your shit together. I have here with my girl Lana. She's going to introduce herself.
0:01:40 - (Lana Chairez): I am Lana. I am the host of laughing with Lana podcast. And I am a standup comedian, a business owner and an engineer at Stickypod Studios. Fuck yeah. Fuck yeah.
0:01:52 - (Tawni Nguyen): Got that pitched.
0:01:53 - (Lana Chairez): I got titles, bitch.
0:01:55 - (Tawni Nguyen): What every female strives to have the main girl world.
0:02:01 - (Lana Chairez): I just want to be a main.
0:02:03 - (Tawni Nguyen): The power pants title. Oh, the power pants title, right.
0:02:06 - (Lana Chairez): What does that mean exactly?
0:02:08 - (Tawni Nguyen): I was talking to a girl recently and she was just like, I work with this company that slaps a logo on her pretty much. It's like, I want you to move up in the company. I'm going to make you CMO. So chief marketing officer. She was like, what does that even mean? I was like, what are your roles and responsibilities? She's like, I don't know. I don't really have any. And I was like, what are you doing now? She's like, I don't know.
0:02:30 - (Tawni Nguyen): Give me this title. So I just assume I'm supposed to do these things.
0:02:33 - (Lana Chairez): She sucked the CEO's dick. Yeah.
0:02:36 - (Tawni Nguyen): No, she doesn't. She's married. That context of the conversation. When I was going through finding what I want to do with life outside of bartending, I went through a couple of phases, too, to where my friends like, oh, just come work with us. We'll make you this position. Something sales. I'm like, okay, sure, the title sounds good, but again, I have that exact conversation. I'm like, so what am I supposed to do, right?
0:03:04 - (Tawni Nguyen): How do I make money without showing up and being cute? Or what is that? Like legalized prostitution?
0:03:12 - (Lana Chairez): I'm okay with that.
0:03:15 - (Tawni Nguyen): But why do you think it's so important for females kind of like us to feel that we're worthy of something, right? Like, when people ask you like, hey, what do you do?
0:03:25 - (Lana Chairez): I think that's anybody, though, because I don't think it's just females. I feel like everybody in general needs a something to feel that they're worth something, which is usually a fucking title, because at the end of the day, no matter what field you're in, you can always be the best in your field. Did you know that there's such a thing as those little skateboard, those finger skateboards. I forgot what they're called. Chase, do you know what they're called?
0:03:53 - (Chase): Tech decks.
0:03:54 - (Lana Chairez): Tech decks, exactly. There is like a whole world of tech decks competitions. And they build. Yeah, they build these little cities of tech decks, and they do tricks with their fingers and shit. And I'm like, it's crazy how you could really be, like, a tech deck Nevada state champion kind of deal. And I'm like, no matter what, you could really be the best of the best no matter what you do. But I feel like that title, anybody having a title that says champion or me producer was like a huge.
0:04:31 - (Lana Chairez): That was like a huge stepping stone. Stepping stone in my life, because it was like, oh, my God, I'm a producer, engineer and editor. And that's something that I'd always wanted to do. But in other words, someone else would be like, oh, my God, you're a producer. That's nothing. I'm a dentist. I'm a dentist. And that's something. It depends on people. It was like, I feel like. I don't know titles. They're so important to people, and I don't see why, but I see it.
0:05:01 - (Tawni Nguyen): Well, two things. Because if I was a tech deck person, I'd put that on my resume as, like, specialist girl can use my fingers.
0:05:10 - (Lana Chairez): Ray beach.
0:05:14 - (Tawni Nguyen): That's probably why I don't have a job. But, no, I do agree with that because there was a period, too, where I moved to Vegas. And I had to review my resume. And I just came out of college, and I was looking through my resume. It was like two pages. It was all like, for me, it was very status driven. And I looked at some of these things. I'm like, what the fuck do these even mean? At the time that I put it on my resume, what do you like? I'll have the career guidance or whatever.
0:05:45 - (Tawni Nguyen): Help me with these words, right? They're like those corporate title people to where they make anything sound really good.
0:05:51 - (Lana Chairez): Oh, yeah.
0:05:52 - (Tawni Nguyen): And then I looked at my resume. How did they turn a volunteer position into this grand scale? Like, something, and it sounds so cool. And that's kind of like a label that society kind of puts on us. Because if you're really good at marketing anything, you can sell anything by engineering. Because if I was to tell my parents I'm an engineer without giving them the context, like, if I was a sound engineer and I just drop all the words around it and I just tell them, hey, I'm an engineer, they'd be like, oh, my God, that's a great role as an asian trophy. I can tell my parents I'm a fucking engineer. Instead of, like, when I dropped out of college, they're like, no, we can't tell people that.
0:06:33 - (Tawni Nguyen): Like, having a role. Like, when I did marketing in my 20s, my mom didn't take that seriously because I wasn't a nurse, because I dropped out of biochem, so I lost my asian status. I wasn't asian anymore, right? And they find out, they're like, oh, so you're making all right money doing marketing. I'm like, yeah, here's the money, and here's all my side hustles and all the cash jobs. I didn't tell them, right?
0:06:58 - (Tawni Nguyen): But I'm like, I can't tell them. They're like, what's a bartender? But if I say, like, oh, mixologist. Yeah, that's incredible. Good job, honey. I'm like, okay, so I get people drunk at 11:00 in the morning.
0:07:12 - (Lana Chairez): But that's my specialty, mom.
0:07:17 - (Tawni Nguyen): I think that's somewhere down the line. It's kind of really funny how the fluidity of how we can almost manipulate anything, and especially we strive so hard for these titles and these status in.
0:07:27 - (Lana Chairez): Society, which is so funny, because I'm like, we strive so hard for these titles. But hear me out. In the asian culture, I was married to an Asian before, and in their culture, it's so funny that you say that. There's the doctor and there's a nurse. And they really hyper focus on being a nurse or a cop. Their title is like, oh, my God, you're royalty. If you're a nurse.
0:07:55 - (Tawni Nguyen): Of authority.
0:07:56 - (Lana Chairez): Of authority, yeah, exactly. And the thing that I found so funny is that I'm like, when you're working in the medical field, a nurse is a glorified ass wiper. You literally administer pills and you measure excretion. That's disgusting. All you do is wipe ass and wipe cooter and make sure that people are clean because they can't clean themselves. But you're glorified for that. And I get it, but I'm like, why would you want to wipe ass for the rest of your fucking life? That's it.
0:08:31 - (Lana Chairez): And it's not just the asian culture. This is just anybody. I feel like everybody's always like, thank you for your services, nurse. And I'm like, okay, a nurse is a glorified ass wiper, in my opinion. But doctors. Doctors are royal, right? The status is, oh, my God, he's a doctor. He saves lives and all this bullshit. But I'm like, me working in a hospital, a nurse is a lot smarter than a doctor. A doctor just has the license to get sued, to be fair.
0:09:04 - (Lana Chairez): Because if you really think about it, I'm like, the nurse is the one that's evaluating the patient, telling the doctor what it is that the patient needs. And the only thing that the doctor has to come in and do is, okay, sign off.
0:09:15 - (Tawni Nguyen): Sign off? Yeah.
0:09:16 - (Lana Chairez): All they do is sign off. And guess who goes to court? The doctor, not the nurse. I feel like their license is basically, I can get sued and I'll go to court. But you're fucking glorified because you're like some fucking. Oh, you save lives, but you don't really save the lives the nurses do.
0:09:32 - (Tawni Nguyen): To be fair, that's what I dropped out of college of, is I was a CNA, so I was the one that was wiping the asses for the nurse. Girl, 16, $11 an hour. Terrifying.
0:09:43 - (Lana Chairez): I did that too. Yeah, I went from CNA to cardiology tech. Yeah, I hated every second of it.
0:09:50 - (Tawni Nguyen): I did the EMT tech route. Are you that really adrenaline high through a life. And I got in the ambulance, I'm like, this is $11 an hour. I'm out.
0:10:01 - (Lana Chairez): And it's scary.
0:10:02 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah, it's scary.
0:10:03 - (Lana Chairez): It's a really. Talk about adrenaline rush. That's a job to be, like, first on the scene, to see the shit that, like, oh, no. Hell no. All the shit that you see coming into a hospital, as traumatizing as it is, picking that shit. Yeah. I salute you, bitch. Because I wouldn't have ever done that. No? Hell no.
0:10:28 - (Tawni Nguyen): And recently, you know, on Vegas issues, they had the video of the man, like, fighting the cop.
0:10:34 - (Lana Chairez): The nude guy.
0:10:35 - (Tawni Nguyen): The nude guy. The guy that was like beating up the cop. And in my head, I'm like, why wasn't I there? That would have been funny. Maybe now it doesn't happen a lot, but that's the kind of it.
0:10:47 - (Lana Chairez): Is it wrong if there's a dude and he's combative and he's naked and shit, why can't the cop just, like, grab his dick? Why don't they do that?
0:10:58 - (Tawni Nguyen): Hey, Chase. Yeah?
0:11:00 - (Chase): What's rude?
0:11:00 - (Tawni Nguyen): If you're naked trying to fight a cop and someone grabs your dick? Or would you take that as arousal?
0:11:05 - (Chase): I wouldn't take it as arousal. But if I'm in a fight, there's no rules. That's what I'm saying. Even if you grab a dick, I would grab and twist.
0:11:18 - (Lana Chairez): Oh, my God. Yeah, he said purple nerple on your dick, bro.
0:11:28 - (Chase): And think about how. How few problems you'd have fighting anybody if you just grab and twist.
0:11:35 - (Lana Chairez): Grabbing. I mean, yeah, because I'm like a titty. A dick that would work even on a booty shit. Like, if you grab my ass cheek and twist it, I'd be mad as fuck. That would hurt. Or even the ear, because my mom used to do that as when I was a kid. Oh, yeah. Grabbing and twisting. Grabbing and twisting is a fight mode. Oh, Chase, tell me something.
0:11:57 - (Tawni Nguyen): In the green room, we were like, what do we want to talk about? And I think I find energies like yours really resonating. Because you know how on the surface we're cracking jokes, we're really inappropriate, especially you telling me, like, last night, you did stand up and all of these things, right? That's really, for me, liberating. Because we don't abide by a set of societal rules about what we can and cannot do with the status that we create for ourselves.
0:12:22 - (Lana Chairez): Right?
0:12:23 - (Tawni Nguyen): And for me, after all, now being in my 30s, I'm like, what the fuck do all those status and all these things mean? Eventually you're going to make money doing something fulfilling that actually brings you joy, makes you actually want to wake up, not kill yourself at the end of your shift.
0:12:36 - (Lana Chairez): Every fucking literally.
0:12:38 - (Tawni Nguyen): And how did you find that path from your previous story that you were sharing with me is that you were. Hold on, let me see if I can make this glamorized I'm trying to use all the marketing terms I've ever learned. An adult entertainer.
0:12:58 - (Lana Chairez): I used to dance naked, motherfucker. That's what I was. A stripper. An adult entertainer.
0:13:04 - (Tawni Nguyen): I'm going to bring you home to my mom. My mom. I mean, my mom, my friend is in the adult entertainment industry.
0:13:12 - (Lana Chairez): No, because then they always think I do porn.
0:13:15 - (Tawni Nguyen): Everyone always thinks I do porn now because every time she calls me, I joked about it with John.
0:13:20 - (Lana Chairez): Because you never recorded yourself fucking? No, never.
0:13:23 - (Tawni Nguyen): Oh, no, not that, of course. But now I'm trying to describe to her, like, what a video podcast is. I'm like, hey, I'm filming and da da da. And I try to joke around because she's like, what do you do? And what I do as mobile Notary, I meet people. I meet strangers in the parking lot, which is a lot similar to what I used to do in my teenage years, except now I'm not selling drugs, I'm signing paperwork, and I'm filming with strange men.
0:13:49 - (Tawni Nguyen): But now it's a video podcast and not porn. I like to freak her out, keep her on her toes a little bit. She's been humbled a little bit lately since I got my shit together, so I got to freak her out a little bit.
0:14:03 - (Lana Chairez): Especially as an asian parent. You're not doing nursing, but you're still successful. She's probably pissed as fuck, bro.
0:14:11 - (Tawni Nguyen): You're not using your college degree.
0:14:13 - (Lana Chairez): What the fuck? You're not using your asian degree. You're not using your asian dna just to make money, bro.
0:14:19 - (Tawni Nguyen): No, I'm banned from the community, dude. How does that. Because we obviously have a different sense of humor lately. I realize it does come from coping with a lot of trauma, and we take light life really lightly now, because when you come from a darker place, you really don't want to go back to feeling that way or putting anyone around you in a dark space. In a dark space. And you carry yourself just lightly.
0:14:50 - (Tawni Nguyen): And I love people like that, that when you actually find out their stories, you're like, holy crap. Right? But it's not fair to everyone that kind of has to wear that mask of pretending like everything's okay. That's what I've been finding myself talk about on my platform a lot. It's like we have this entirely different life on social media versus the life that we actually live in real life. And somewhere in between is the authentic life that we truly live day by day and how we are to each other.
0:15:17 - (Lana Chairez): True. I don't know.
0:15:19 - (Tawni Nguyen): Back to the stripping thing before my ADHD. Take the whole different tangent.
0:15:25 - (Lana Chairez): No, to be fair, when it comes to me and the whole trauma, I personally don't think I live a double life. I just don't put everything on social media but my thing, I don't share everything, but if people ask me, I'm going to share it. And that's one thing that I've learned over time, throughout the years. I've learned everything that I have gone through, whether it's negative or positive, everyone else has gone through also, maybe not so much like, not everybody has been like me. I've been raped.
0:16:09 - (Lana Chairez): Not everybody has been raped, but someone has gone through that trauma. Someone has gone through trauma where you've taken away my freedom somehow, some way, every single person has gone through that. An employer, a boyfriend, a mom or dad or something. Someone has taken away that person's freedom. And I'm like, whether you got through it or not is up to you. My trauma has taught me that everything, you could just get through it. You just get through it.
0:16:39 - (Lana Chairez): I don't see why life has to stop because you're going through a death in the family or my brother's an alcoholic or, I went to jail. I went to jail for my family, and it didn't stop me from living life. All that bullshit never stopped me. I don't see why it should. But at the same time, am I going to post everything on social media? Absolutely not. It's not even a privacy thing. It's just like the last thing I'm going to do is go up to you and be like, hey, I went to jail.
0:17:18 - (Lana Chairez): Let's talk about it. And then I have to go and tell you, and I have to tell your boyfriend, and if I meet your mom, I'm going to tell your mom. And then if I meet Chase, and then I tell Chase, and then I have to tell George, and why do I have to tell every single person something negative that happened in my life? I don't. But if I want to tell them something negative that happened in my life, guess how I'm going to do it? Through a fucking joke. So make light of it so that it makes it funny. If I do want to vent to somebody instead of me just bringing their day down, because that's weird too.
0:17:47 - (Tawni Nguyen): Is that your way of testing out the waters?
0:17:50 - (Lana Chairez): No, it's my way of coping. Yeah, I have to talk about it. If I don't talk about something, then it's eating me alive. Yeah, 1000%. But if I talk about it and I make a little bit of a joke about it. And other people don't feel uncomfortable talking about my trauma with me. That's what makes me feel better. And I think that's why I joke so much when it comes to my trauma. Because I sit right next to Chase when we're in the computer and we're editing and stuff. And then if I have something going on, I'm just like, chase, my fucking pussy's broken today. And then he starts.
0:18:29 - (Lana Chairez): Because in my head, I'm like, damn it, I hate my life because I can't have kids. My pussy doesn't. I can't have kids. So I'll sit there and I'm thinking about it, and I'm just like, sad, beating myself up. But then I like, chase, God damn it, my fucking pussy's broken. And then he's laughing. And I'm like, if you're laughing now, I feel better to talk about it now. Let's talk about it. And then it's like, okay, then. Got it out of my system.
0:18:53 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah. And I think I resonate with that because I sometimes feel like I'm like, is this too dark for someone? Because I'm joking about childhood trauma. I'm joking about being kidnapped, sexual assault, like, all of these things. And it's just kind of like testing out the frequency of the person as well.
0:19:06 - (Lana Chairez): That too.
0:19:07 - (Tawni Nguyen): But some people get really uncomfortable. But again, you can't really judge someone for the depth that they don't have to meet themselves within their trauma. Like, everyone goes through stuff.
0:19:16 - (Lana Chairez): That was a really nice word to use the depth. Right.
0:19:19 - (Tawni Nguyen): They can't face it. You thought about something else?
0:19:23 - (Lana Chairez): Yes. I'm just like, you fucking ignorant bitch. Because it's usually the most ignorant people that you can't relate with or the people that you can't talk to. Because I'm like, if I go up to you and I'm telling you about, like, you say, childhood trauma, if you talk to me, I'm over here like, bitch, tell me more. Yeah, but some people get so uncomfortable. And I'm like, how do you get uncomfortable? And you didn't even go through it.
0:19:52 - (Lana Chairez): You didn't even live the situation. You didn't live it. I'm just sharing it with you, and you want to get uncomfortable, you bitch. That's weird.
0:19:59 - (Tawni Nguyen): And now you know whose authentic energy you can share things with, right?
0:20:03 - (Lana Chairez): Oh, very true.
0:20:04 - (Tawni Nguyen): It's like we joke around all the times, but I feel like we know more about each other through a really inappropriate dark humor. A lot of people, if you say something to them in a perfectly worded sentence, like a pr sentence. They're going to be like, oh my God. Or they'll ask you inappropriate questions. And I'm like, why would you ask me that? Yeah, is there a context of the closeness of our, I don't know, social relationship to where you can ask me about something I don't know, that's kind of like the tethering that I'm still figuring out with boundaries.
0:20:36 - (Lana Chairez): Give an example. What do you mean? Like body count or something stupid like that? Yeah, because I hate when people ask me stupid questions like that.
0:20:44 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah, because let's just say if you did tell someone, hey, I used to strip, they just assume you fucked like 1000 people. That's the presumption that they make based on the contacts of ignorance and lack of knowledge within themselves.
0:20:59 - (Lana Chairez): Go ahead, keep going. Because, oh, my God, every time I tell people like, oh, I'm a stripper. And they're like, oh, so how many? They're always asking how many guys I've had sex with her. Did you have sex after the parties and stuff? And I'm like, one time I was on a podcast and I told a guy I was a stripper and I was like, I'm an ex stripper. I'm an ex stripper. And he goes, well, when you walk up and down, when you walk up and down the strip and you see the other prostitutes and the other hookers, did you ever get in a fight with any of the other hookers? Because you know how they're very territorial over their space and I'm like, where in that sentence did I say I was a fucking hooker? I said I was a stripper.
0:21:41 - (Lana Chairez): Yeah, but you're walking up and down the strip. When do strippers walk up and down the strip? When I'm looking. He was like, no, but you know what I mean? And I'm like, no, I don't. Clarify.
0:21:53 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah, clarify.
0:21:54 - (Lana Chairez): What the fuck do you mean? Because obviously I don't know what the.
0:21:57 - (Tawni Nguyen): Fuck a stripper or a hooker is.
0:21:59 - (Lana Chairez): Because I was living the life. But you are giving me a completely definition of what the fuck a Stripper.
0:22:05 - (Tawni Nguyen): Or a hooker is.
0:22:07 - (Lana Chairez): I'm like, I wasn't a hooker. Well, you know, you know, this is the same, actually. You know, it's funny is that I've been victim shamed so much when it comes to me being. Because I got while I was stripping and one of my friends, I told him the same thing where I was like, I got while I was stripping and he was one of the guys that was like, well, isn't that, like, what you guys do anyway? And I'm like, I'm a stripper.
0:22:35 - (Lana Chairez): I strip my clothes off for money. I don't strip my vagina off for money. That's not what I did. He was like, yeah, but that's kind of the scene anyway. Like, strippers fuck. And I'm like, some strippers. I get it. They didn't given us a wrong name or a bad name. But not all strippers had sex for money. Yeah, it's a stripper. There's a reason why there's two different names. There's a stripper, there's an escort. I was one of them. Well, it was a sugar baby, though.
0:23:09 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah, same thing.
0:23:12 - (Lana Chairez): I know, right?
0:23:13 - (Tawni Nguyen): No, so we should probably put that into context.
0:23:15 - (Lana Chairez): I should put that into context.
0:23:16 - (Tawni Nguyen): Your definition, before there's any presumptions out there. Yeah, right. Because there's a lot of men that likes to mansplain things. That's completely wrong.
0:23:25 - (Lana Chairez): Oh, God. Let me get the red pill people to attack me now.
0:23:31 - (Tawni Nguyen): Let's put a target on your back. Might as well.
0:23:33 - (Lana Chairez): Yeah, of course. Love me. Basically, there's strippers who take their clothes off and dance for money. Then there's a ho, which is a person who's like, she has a pimp and she literally works. Has sex for money. So she will meet you, and it's a business transaction. She gives you sexual favors, and you're done with her. Then there's a sugar baby, which is basically a ho with returning clientele. That's what I call it. Because I'm like, you have a boyfriend.
0:24:10 - (Lana Chairez): You are paid to be this man's girlfriend. You guys go out to eat, you guys go to dinner, you guys kiss, you guys hold hands. They show you off. You go back home. If you guys fuck, you guys fuck. If you don't, you don't. But you are his girlfriend and you're paid to be his girlfriend. So that's what I did. I was doing a lot of the sugar baby stuff. I never met somebody and then had sex with them and left and never saw them again.
0:24:38 - (Lana Chairez): Wait, I've had one night stands, but they were free. I didn't do it.
0:24:41 - (Tawni Nguyen): That's your choice out of.
0:24:44 - (Lana Chairez): Was. It was just me living Lana's life.
0:24:47 - (Tawni Nguyen): Your consciousness.
0:24:52 - (Lana Chairez): Yeah, I just need to put that out there. I'm like, I've definitely had one night stands, but I wasn't a how and escorting is a stretch. But, like, sugar baby, I definitely did the sugar baby. Lifestyle. And it's not fun. Yeah, it's not fucking fun.
0:25:06 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah. How much of that was their emotional involvement to a lot of your clientels, or did you ever.
0:25:13 - (Lana Chairez): I liked all of them.
0:25:15 - (Tawni Nguyen): Oh, you actually had feelings for them? Like a platonic kind of feeling or romantic?
0:25:18 - (Lana Chairez): Yeah, no, platonic. I would say. It's one of those, I could kiss you and still care about you and still not want to marry you, if that makes sense. I could separate that. It sounds so bad.
0:25:32 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah, no, that's so bad. This is why I think it's a better conversation to have. Because it's more progressive to actually distinguish the boundaries in between, because the language gets so blurred. Because when people find out, like, in my past, I was serving bikini, like, coffee, so it's like a whole big thing. In Orange county, you wear bikini, you serve coffee. Since I quit in my early 20s, became a bartender, which I was still doing some gigs in my bikini, like, at dive bars, people think I'm a stripper, right? So if I come home with a bag full of money and they see, like, a bikini hanging and out, they just think I'm stripping.
0:26:07 - (Tawni Nguyen): So it's not far from that totem pole of sugar, baby. Everything kind of blends. Like, the minute you are not wearing clothes and you step into this world where you're pretty much selling your body, your soul, whatever you want. People take really wrong projections of calling you, like, certain things, and I'm like, you would go to a coffee shop now. Coffee shops in Orange County. I do have to say that some of them did turn into strip clubs.
0:26:34 - (Lana Chairez): Nice.
0:26:34 - (Tawni Nguyen): That's not when I worked there. I just want to clarify when I.
0:26:38 - (Lana Chairez): Just know I wasn't present.
0:26:41 - (Tawni Nguyen): The scene has evolved 15 years later. That's why they're like, oh, Donna used to be a coffee shop girl. Because I've been like, I see what they do. I'm like, okay, do you time travel? Because the market wasn't the same when I was 19 versus now that I'm in my 30s. It's not the same place.
0:27:00 - (Lana Chairez): Right?
0:27:01 - (Tawni Nguyen): It's like, ten owners later and whatever business model they have. So I think it's really important to have that conversation of how women can actually evolve over time, even if we choose certain career path that kind of projects us into now. You're doing your podcast. Like, you're full of life. You love making people laugh, but the minute they find out about your past and you say, they try to victim shame you.
0:27:21 - (Tawni Nguyen): But what are you trying to shame? If I'm not ashamed of my past. And I think that's more power to you of having the ability to even say, hey, this is what I did. It's not my identity, because I'm not held rigid within that same identity of, like, I'm a stripper. That's all I'm going to be. You can evolve.
0:27:38 - (Lana Chairez): I mean, I've evolved for sure, which is fucked up because I did stripping. I specifically went into stripping for my podcast. Like, literally, I want. I got into. I got into stripping at first because it was like I just needed money for rent. So it was like quick money. Like every now and again, when I needed some money, I was like, oh, let me just do a party real quick. Then when I decided that I wanted to get into podcasting, because I was like, I need to share my story. I was like, I think my story is, I need to get it out there.
0:28:12 - (Lana Chairez): I was like, I need a mic. I need this. I need a mixer. I need a laptop. I needed so many different things that.
0:28:20 - (Tawni Nguyen): I was $1,000 worth.
0:28:22 - (Lana Chairez): A lot of $1,000 worth. Later, bitch. Oh, my God. Podcasting is not a cheap hobby. It is not cheap, okay? Holy fuck. It's like getting into photography. That shit is expensive as fuck. So when I realized that I wanted to get into podcasting, I was like, I'm going to start stripping in order to get my mic and stuff like that. And the more material I got, the more I started learning and everything like that.
0:28:53 - (Lana Chairez): It's so funny how I got into stripping just for my podcast. And now that I'm in my podcast and I'm telling my stripper story, which is funny, is people just know me as a stripper. I'm always a stripper. People forget I'm a comedian. I was like, I'm funny way before you saw me tell a joke, before you saw my titties out. But yet you still call me a stripper before you call me a comedian. That's everybody.
0:29:24 - (Lana Chairez): Every single person does that because it's easier, too. It's just not even easier. I don't know if you've heard that saying. If I cut a guy's hair once, it doesn't make me a barber. If I brush a man's teeth once, it doesn't make me a dentist. But if you suck one dick, you're always a dick sucker. So I'm like, yeah, that's true. People are always going to remember that one negative thing that you did.
0:29:52 - (Lana Chairez): Just like, for example, usher is one of the most world renowned r b artists we all know usher as know let it burn and all this. He has every song under the sun. But what is the main thing that we know about Usher? He had herpes at one point. Really? Oh, sidbits. But now, you know, you're always going to, like, everybody always talks about how Usher had herpes or like, how Chris Brown. Chris Brown. Of all the things that he's done, we always remember as a woman beater.
0:30:23 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah. See, it's stuff like that social label kind of sticks with you forever.
0:30:27 - (Lana Chairez): It sticks with you. And, like, cardi B, even Cardi B, she's a fucking famous rapper. She's a fashion mogul now. Cardi B has worked herself so high up from her stripper label, but she's always known as an ex stripper now. Rapper, that's fucked. Oh, Cardi B, ex stripper, now a world renowned rapper. And it's like, can't she just be a rapper?
0:30:52 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah. How do you feel? Like, is it hard for people to shed those kind of identities and share a new brand through? Because people are always going to remember the fucked up things you do, but they're never going to want to admit, let's just say a year from now, you get your own show. You're on stage. You're on stage with, like, Joe coy or something.
0:31:12 - (Lana Chairez): Yeah.
0:31:13 - (Tawni Nguyen): But when people go see you, like, oh, that's an extraper. She's just an know. And I think for me, that's really fucked up to where people really can't let that go and admit, like, ha ha, she's a hilarious comedian.
0:31:25 - (Lana Chairez): Yeah.
0:31:25 - (Tawni Nguyen): But somehow they have to put the disclaimer in there. Oh, did you know she used to strip? That's some kind of interesting part of your identity.
0:31:31 - (Lana Chairez): And it's funny because I'm like, of all the things, I've been funny my whole life. But I was stripping for three years, probably like five years in total. I was stripping for five years. Three years. I was doing it like, mad. Seriously. And it's like, I was in the nurse in the medical field for nine years. No one ever calls me a cardiology tech. No one ever calls me a nurse ever. No one ever calls me medical field something. It's always the stripper.
0:32:04 - (Lana Chairez): I am an ex stripper. And I'm like, I don't mind the title. Don't get me wrong. I love my stripper life. It was one of the most amazing experiences that I've ever had. But it's still one of those things when you call me a stripper, it makes me sound uneducated, and I'm educated. I'm like, I went to school for psychology, and I went to school for medical field, but I'm still just a stripper. And then I get on my podcast, and people want to be like, oh, this stripper has a fucking platform.
0:32:36 - (Lana Chairez): And I'm like, how about a cardiology tech who has a fucking platform, bitch? What the fuck?
0:32:40 - (Tawni Nguyen): Do that anymore.
0:32:41 - (Lana Chairez): I don't do it anymore. But it's like, I still see, that's the thing. I don't do it anymore.
0:32:46 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah, that's the same thing.
0:32:48 - (Lana Chairez): So everybody forgets about the cardiology tech. I don't do it anymore. You don't do it anymore? But I don't do stripping anymore. But they're like, well, you're still a stripper.
0:32:56 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah.
0:32:56 - (Lana Chairez): You still took off your clothes.
0:32:57 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah. I have a lot of respect for that. That you said you stripped so that you can pay for your own platform to start podcasting.
0:33:04 - (Lana Chairez): I got here.
0:33:05 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah. That's the equivalent to me telling people I wanted to quit bartending, but I had to because I went back to college, and college was expensive, and I had to pay my way through somehow without stripping. Right. But to people, I was still stripping because I was in the bikini.
0:33:18 - (Lana Chairez): Yeah, right?
0:33:18 - (Tawni Nguyen): Same shit. I would have just made more money. I can't dance for shit. So that's not a skill I'm willing to learn. Let's not make people uncomfortable, okay? I make people enough comfortable just with my clothes on. I'm good.
0:33:31 - (Lana Chairez): I don't need to do it naked.
0:33:33 - (Tawni Nguyen): I don't need to get naked for people to be uncomfortable by the time I open my mouth. But people only remember that. They're like, oh, so you do real estate now? You have a podcast now? Like, how's your bartending? I'm like, I haven't done that in five years.
0:33:47 - (Lana Chairez): I see.
0:33:48 - (Tawni Nguyen): That was, like, 2018, and I picked up a couple of gigs a few years ago. We needed money just to, like. I was like, I kind of miss it. Like, the people. I love having conversation with people and just that it makes the transaction so much more fun.
0:34:04 - (Lana Chairez): Right.
0:34:04 - (Tawni Nguyen): Because if you go to corporate events, sometimes it's really boring, girl. Everyone is so polished, and everyone is so resume ready until they get drunk. And that's my favorite part of people. It's because that's the real them. But it's sad that they have to get that drunk to be themselves.
0:34:24 - (Lana Chairez): Be themselves.
0:34:25 - (Tawni Nguyen): And that's the kind of world. And that's so sad.
0:34:28 - (Lana Chairez): So crazy.
0:34:29 - (Tawni Nguyen): People like, tawny you cuss too much. Tawny, you say too many inappropriate things. I'm like, but I can do it sober because that's what I mean. And I carry the weight of my integrity, of my personality, through the character that I show you, sober or not sober. But you happen to wait until you get ten shots of tequila in and almost dancing on the table for you to be a fun person because you're so suppressed.
0:34:53 - (Tawni Nguyen): Like these poor people. They're so suppressed with the amount of pressure they have. And that's what I witnessed as a bartender. Like, girl, don't show him. You've probably seen some shit.
0:35:04 - (Lana Chairez): Oh, girl. Yeah, it's crazy because as a stripper, I've learned that people with a lot of money fake the funk, in a sense, where they're always so polished when they walk into a room. And this. I'm so the CEO and my suit and all this bullshit. And then they hire me and I see the real real, like, your boss. Your boss has hired me. And I saw the real real of your. I was stripping for, what do they call not the CIA. It was the security of Trump when Trump was president.
0:35:45 - (Tawni Nguyen): Oh, shit.
0:35:46 - (Lana Chairez): CIA? Is it the CIA?
0:35:47 - (Tawni Nguyen): Homeland Security.
0:35:48 - (Lana Chairez): Homeland Security.
0:35:50 - (Chase): Secret Service.
0:35:50 - (Lana Chairez): Secret Service. There you go. Secret Service.
0:35:52 - (Tawni Nguyen): We about to get arrested after.
0:35:55 - (Lana Chairez): Fuck them. I have videos. They can't do shit. I was stripping for the Secret Service. It was for Trump's main motherfuckers, right? These are people that I'm like. You dress up like a female. You supposed to be securing our president, motherfucker. You dress up in lady thongs. Shut the fuck up, bruh. I'm telling you, the shit that I have seen because I was a stripper, I'm like, just because you got money don't mean you're normal.
0:36:32 - (Lana Chairez): And most, more than likely, because they have money means that they're willing to pay for the freaky, weird shit that they're into. And everybody's into weird, freaky shit, like every single person. I can't sit here and say, I don't know, what am I? I'm into midgets. I like midgets.
0:36:48 - (Tawni Nguyen): I even have to ask you, I think I asked you with my eyes.
0:36:52 - (Lana Chairez): Because I'm, like, trying to find an example. I'm like, everybody into something weird. And I'm like, what am I into? I like pegging dudes. I like transgenders, and I like midgets. I like watching them fuck. It's weird, but it's interesting. I would pay to see if I had money. I would pay two midgets. That's what I'm saying. Like, rich people be doing stupid shit with their money. If I was rich enough, I would pay, like, four or five midgets to have, like, an orgy and then just watch.
0:37:20 - (Lana Chairez): But people would pay for that. Yeah, I would have the time of my fucking life.
0:37:24 - (Tawni Nguyen): I think the weirdest I've gone, it's actually more normal because you said all the ceos and all these people that are so kept together, for me, I see them at doing the keynotes, doing all these things, doing the grand opening for their companies worth, like, millions and billions and whatever dollars, right? At night, they're like, hey, we need this amount of coke. We need all of these things. All the strippers and all of these things that we hire for them. And we throw the after parties.
0:37:51 - (Tawni Nguyen): And you see, what happens in a penthouse is like, we have to sign NDAs for literally for me to bartend those parties. And I see the way people let loose. I'm like, damn, we're all fucking degenerates. Because I came from the teens and 20s under mountains of substance abuse and alcoholism or whatever, and I see the way people live and how they. Holy shit. That blew my mind, too.
0:38:14 - (Lana Chairez): But it's a beautiful life. Yeah.
0:38:16 - (Tawni Nguyen): But they can afford way more drugs than we can.
0:38:18 - (Lana Chairez): They can afford way more drugs for.
0:38:20 - (Tawni Nguyen): More strippers, more midgets than we could afford.
0:38:24 - (Lana Chairez): I love midgets, bro. Are we even allowed to call them midgets anymore?
0:38:30 - (Tawni Nguyen): Okay, what's the pc?
0:38:31 - (Lana Chairez): Can we fucking talk about it, bro? Wait, I just need a vent. Girl to girl. Yeah. Can we talk about the fact that. Oh, my God, I don't want to get your show canceled, but the fact that we can't say retard no more. Bleep this out. We can't say retard no more.
0:38:46 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah.
0:38:47 - (Lana Chairez): Now we got to say special needs. And I feel like if we give it ten years, we can't even say special needs no more because then that's going to be considered retard too.
0:38:55 - (Tawni Nguyen): Everyone's going to be in the gray zone.
0:39:00 - (Lana Chairez): You can't even call people gay now. I feel like gay is an offensive term. And I'm like, bro, you gay. If you take it in the ass, you gay. You're gay. But then it's like, no, that's an offensive word.
0:39:10 - (Tawni Nguyen): Every straight woman, Cis.
0:39:13 - (Lana Chairez): I am not a cis, bro. I'm a fucking girl. And it's fucked up that that's offending me. Yeah, I'm offended to be called a straight woman. Now what the fuck, bro? Everything is so fucking offensive. I can't call a midget a midget. That's what you are. You got to call them small people or little people. That whole evolution of what the fuck?
0:39:36 - (Tawni Nguyen): We are offended. Yeah, I saw someone sent me a TikTok of. I don't want to say. It's like probably a young person. I don't want to get more than likely that was like getting offended because of the whole vegan and the meat emojis. Meat, meat emojis. They're like, apple and Android needs to take off the meat emojis because it's offensive to vegans like me emojis. And they're like, how do you feel about, you know, I had a moment of being impartial. I was just like, let me think on it. Let me think on it, right?
0:40:12 - (Tawni Nguyen): And it was a video of this person. Like, guys, you have to stop. And I get the emotional drives behind it. I don't, but there's a free will. And then there's a point of just absurdity right there.
0:40:25 - (Lana Chairez): Yes.
0:40:25 - (Tawni Nguyen): That I was right in between. I'm trying to really understand the logical processing behind it while I'm absorbing and observing the emotion through this person of feeling how much pain they're projecting outward, bro. For emojis, I'm like, what? Are we going to stop selling me? It's your choice.
0:40:50 - (Lana Chairez): I made a whole fucking segment or clip off of this. I feel like if you are that sensitive in the world, that should be a mental issue. Being sensitive should be a fucking mental issue. Because for you to sit there and completely process something that someone else said, process it in your brain to the point where you get offended because you took it so personal that this person said something out loud and you took it so personal that now you're like, probably online, you're venting to someone or whatever the fucking case may be. Now you're probably even protesting because a lot of people protest now because they're sensitive, because their bitch has got offended.
0:41:37 - (Lana Chairez): People are protesting nowadays. Then I'm like, how is you being sensitive? Not a mental issue?
0:41:44 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah, like, I'm hypersensitive on an emotional level, but that makes me just more aware. But it doesn't make people, or it doesn't make me take you personally. I used to be that way when I was more into my ego, the performance ego of just keeping the polish, that version of me. Because being in hospitality is kind of different because you're pretty much a fucking ass kisser. That's what I am. When you're hosting events, when you're doing all these things, when I'm in my dress, I have my clipboard, I have my Karen smile on, and it freaks me out.
0:42:14 - (Tawni Nguyen): It freaks me out because I'm walking around, I look like a fucking. I just got Botox. I'm like, hi, how's it going today? Hi. Are you okay? Is it fine? Is the water to your liking?
0:42:26 - (Lana Chairez): You don't give a fuck.
0:42:27 - (Tawni Nguyen): And I'm just like, wow, who did I become? What kind of money turned me into a person that values everything else? I love the field. I love keeping people happy. But at the root of that, when I found that out, I'm like, man, that's just unresolved childhood trauma that transcribed me. You transgressed me into this field of people pleasing, but for money, did I abandon my needs that much to where I made it a career for a couple of years?
0:42:57 - (Lana Chairez): I'm dead.
0:43:00 - (Tawni Nguyen): And I sat there and I'm like, oh, my God, I'm so unhappy. But it's because we were shaped right into this role of this identity of perfectionistic tendencies, of overachieving, of doing all these things that are socially acceptable. But you realize you sit at home and you're just by yourself and you're like, wow, I'm unhappy. What have happened to my life that I'm so unfulfilled to, where these are the coping mechanisms that I choose, which is drugs, alcohol, all of these other things.
0:43:31 - (Tawni Nguyen): And I think that's like, a really hard identity to even realize. True, because I think.
0:43:41 - (Lana Chairez): I have a coping mechanism to joke about my trauma, for sure, but I genuinely don't see the problem with coping with drugs because I know a lot of people have told me people tend to cope with alcohol and stuff like that. And I'm like, if I'm having a hard day, I'll probably do, like, a little shroom trip and I'll shroom a little bit. But it makes me feel so much better and not in a bad way, but it's like, I'll take some shrooms.
0:44:13 - (Lana Chairez): It helps me process and think clearly. And then to, when I'm sober up, I'm like, all right, when I was shrooming, I was thinking, this, this, that, and the third, this is what I needed. Because I know you've done shrooms. You've done shrooms before.
0:44:26 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah.
0:44:26 - (Lana Chairez): So when you do shrooms, it actually does put you in this headspace of, like, what am I doing wrong? And I call it a shroom check. Like a shroom check. So I'm like, all right, what am I doing wrong? What do I love in life? What can I appreciate more? What am I grateful for? What can I do better? What can I change and stuff like that. Shrooms always has done that for me. So when people tell me, you should be able to do this on your own without the shrooms. And I'm like, well, the simple fact that I can't.
0:44:52 - (Lana Chairez): I can't process things sober, obviously, I'm angry, very unhappy, a little bit of sad when I'm sober, but when I do a shroom check, it kind of, like, balances me out, and then I actually do get happy.
0:45:06 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah.
0:45:07 - (Lana Chairez): Is that a problem or why is.
0:45:09 - (Tawni Nguyen): This such a no, because shroom and now MDMA, like, part of MDMA and ketamine, is now being used in a clinical setting for complex trauma. Right? So CPTSD is actually really different than how I was abusing, let's just say ketamine. Shroom, like, a bunch of other drugs back then, but they were harder drugs. Back in the rave days, it was MDMA. A lot of mollies, a lot of cocaine. And it's just like you're buried under mountains of ketamine. And we were just, I think, misusing it before now that in micro doses, now it becomes therapeutic because it keeps your body still, but it opens up your mind, which is exactly what you're saying, because you can reach a space of not abusing the drugs not to take, like, an eight hour trip, but you can do it for, like, 2 hours just to kind of lighten your mind up a little bit and actually go inward and reflect, rather than taking a full trip to where you leave your body and go into outer space and go into a spaceship and not come back.
0:46:18 - (Lana Chairez): But those two, those are fun tubes.
0:46:21 - (Tawni Nguyen): I think I was doing that before I was aware of my capacity, because it was a choice to abuse versus now to.
0:46:29 - (Lana Chairez): Very true. Very true. Because I've noticed that I don't like when people make it seem like I'm a drug addict, because I'm like, if you want to call me an addict, that's fine, then I'm an addict. But when I do the shroom trips, I don't even do shrooms as much as people think I do. I feel like people think I do shrooms probably, like, once a week, maybe even more than once a week, probably. But I do it, like, once every three weeks, once a month, maybe.
0:46:57 - (Lana Chairez): But when I do do them, it's more than likely. Oh, my God, I feel like my world is crushing, crumbling down. I really feel like my world is come crashing down on my shoulders. I do a shroom trip, and all of a sudden I'm like, there's that one blanket that I had when I was, like, five years old. And I'm like, thinking of that one fucking blanket and how comfortable I felt with that stupid ass blanket. And then I'm like, how did that blanket smell?
0:47:25 - (Lana Chairez): Why? Didn't make me feel comfortable? And then I'm thinking of the dumbest shit in my childhood of this one fucking weird ass blanket. But it used to keep me comfortable. And then I'm thinking like, damn, my mom bought me that blanket. Where did she get me that blanket? At the swap me. Damn, that swap me was fun. And I started thinking of, like, I had a good childhood. My parents are still alive. I still have the ability to talk to my parents, and my mom and my dad are still together.
0:47:51 - (Lana Chairez): I start thinking of little shit like that, that when my world does come crashing down, I start thinking, my world's crashing down, but it's all fixable. Are my parents still here? Yeah. Do I have that blanket? No, damn it. That blanket. But I start thinking of, like, who got me that blanket? Why did I love it? Why was I so happy when I was little? And I started thinking of the dumb shit like that that people are always telling me, like, oh, my God, you're high off of drugs. You're high off of drugs. Like, you're just a drug addict. You're just a drug addict. And I'm like, maybe so.
0:48:29 - (Lana Chairez): But even if you could call me a drug addict all you want. But I'm genuinely happy on the inside.
0:48:35 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah.
0:48:35 - (Lana Chairez): And you guys are like, some people are like, alcoholics, or some people are sober or addicted to going to the gym and shit. And I'm like, but are you mentally okay? You talk a lot of shit about me doing drugs because they're a drug. Because it's not legal yet. People call it a drug. And I'm like, nah, bitch, that shit is. That's robotussin.
0:49:00 - (Tawni Nguyen): No, I could legally call myself an addict when I was an addict because I was drinking every day, I was doing some form of drug as an abuse, as a coping mechanism. That's a choice of being an addict, right?
0:49:11 - (Lana Chairez): Because you can't. Is that weed for me?
0:49:14 - (Tawni Nguyen): I don't know. I quit weed. Like, I've quit most things. I did shrooms when we went camping a couple of weeks ago, but it's in smaller doses, and it's just to feel connected to nature.
0:49:24 - (Lana Chairez): Yeah. You're not an addict.
0:49:25 - (Tawni Nguyen): I'm not an addict. Let's just say if I have hard moments. And that's when I realized I was an alcoholic last year. Because anytime I'm triggered by something, I just need a drink. It's like 11:00 in the morning.
0:49:35 - (Lana Chairez): Nice.
0:49:36 - (Tawni Nguyen): Like, oh, my God, maybe I am an alcoholic. Because I wake up, something happens in between my 09:00 a.m. And my 10:00 a.m. I'm like, I'm going to go drink.
0:49:47 - (Lana Chairez): You're like, damn it, there's no toothpaste. Fuck, I need a drink.
0:49:51 - (Tawni Nguyen): My toilet paper ran up. I'm having a meltdown at college.
0:49:55 - (Lana Chairez): Damn it. The toilet paper is on the wrong side. God damn it. I'll be getting mad at that.
0:50:00 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah, but it shows you how much or how little patience you have on yourself, too, because we are so wired to be, I don't know, like, living these perfect lives, right? And for you to even have the awareness that you're choosing to do something to alleviate your pain.
0:50:16 - (Lana Chairez): Very true.
0:50:17 - (Tawni Nguyen): And when you say, like, are people even mentally stable? That's why I joke. Like, one of my favorite jokes that I joke about a lot for my coping mechanism is being mentally unstable. Because if I can sit here and tell you, like, I don't know if I'm mentally unstable today, it kind of shares that I have some sort of issues, whether that's, like, social anxiety, my depression is kicking in, or whatever. But now I'm able to tell people because they're like, hey, you want to hang out? I was like, oh, no. I feel like being under my rock today. That's just my way of telling you I'm depressed today.
0:50:44 - (Tawni Nguyen): I don't want to leave my house. And that's how my friends check in on me, and they're like, when'd you leave the house? I'm like, five days ago. It's probably a good time for me to leave the house and talk to some people, and that's how we share. And I feel like that's true intimacy because I'll text my friends. I'm like, hey, I need to get out of the house. Like, I'm getting weird.
0:51:03 - (Lana Chairez): I'm getting weird. And I saw that.
0:51:07 - (Tawni Nguyen): I'm like, hey, I need to leave the house. Getting weird in here. We're getting weird. Sometimes you introvert so hard that you realize, like, little human interactions probably could be good for us.
0:51:19 - (Lana Chairez): There are times where I'm in my house and I have to think and I'm like, did I leave my house today? Did I even smell fresh air today? Because sometimes I will be locked up in my room. I'll go to the kitchen, I'll go to the living room, back to my room, and then I'm like, it's like 8 hours later. Yeah, it's getting dark a whole day later. I was like, damn, I didn't even go for a walk. I didn't even check on my truck. Like, fuck yeah, introverting is a real problem, but I don't like being out.
0:51:54 - (Tawni Nguyen): That'S more normalized now that we're more open to talk about mental health platforms. And for us it's through jokes. Not a lot of people can. And I understand that.
0:52:08 - (Lana Chairez): This is not to shit on anybody, but it's just like a few podcasts that I've seen come in here. Who? There's mental health podcasts and people that are trying to promote mental health, not you because you just started, but trying to promote mental health. And these are the same people that when they come onto the podcast are like, oh, my God, how do I look? How do I look? What are people going to think?
0:52:34 - (Lana Chairez): What do I say? And it's always about what other people think. And I'm like, how are you promoting mental health? And you care so much. Like, you don't. You genuinely don't because you just do. You.
0:52:48 - (Tawni Nguyen): Chase is yelling at us and we're still laughing.
0:52:51 - (Lana Chairez): Tawny is tawny, bro. Tawny is 100% tawny. 1000% of the time. What you are on camera is what you are off camera. There's no difference. But some people, they care about, we're girls, we're always going to care about how our hair looks. Oh, do we look okay? Yada, yada. I even had to change my fucking vest. Okay.
0:53:13 - (Tawni Nguyen): Like I was trying to get a floss.
0:53:15 - (Lana Chairez): Yeah, there's that normal human, normal human. But then there's people who will sit here and genuinely constantly look at themselves on the screen. Constantly, oh, my God, how does my hair look? I need to get the lighting right, I need to do this. And I'm like, how is your mental health? Be fucking for real. Yeah, and it makes me think, I'm not going to say it to them, obviously, but I'm like, how is your mental health if you are that insecure in even how you look?
0:53:50 - (Lana Chairez): Because if you're promoting mental health and people seeking therapy or taking the right steps in the direction of getting your mind to where you're mentally stable, I feel like when you're mentally stable, you stop giving a fuck to me when you're mentally stable, you stop giving a shit about what other people think. That's when you're mentally fucking stable. Are you happy or are you happy that your mom's happy?
0:54:26 - (Lana Chairez): There's a difference between being mentally stable and being a people pleaser. And you think you're mentally stable because society tells you mentally stable means this. Okay, you know what's funny? Okay, this is a perfect example. People will consider me crazy and mentally unstable because I talk to myself, I sing to myself, I dance by myself. Like, if I could be here at the studio by myself, and if you run the cameras back, I'm talking to myself.
0:54:54 - (Tawni Nguyen): Me too.
0:54:55 - (Lana Chairez): You see? And other people would be like, this bitch is crazy. Or, like, I'll be in the car and I'm dancing, singing.
0:55:02 - (Tawni Nguyen): You're externally processing. That's an actual communication strategy.
0:55:05 - (Lana Chairez): Yeah.
0:55:06 - (Tawni Nguyen): There's external processors. There's internal processors.
0:55:09 - (Lana Chairez): There's processors.
0:55:10 - (Tawni Nguyen): Unless you're, like, doing some weird twitch, like, okay, I was walking my dog and there was a fly, right? Okay, you can see where this door is going. And I was literally on the phone. I had my headphones on, and I was like. Because there was a fly. And I was walking at the park by my house. And I swear to God, there was eight people total that walked by me. And they took, like, 18 steps into the grass because I was fighting a fly. And I was talking about. And I was on the phone, but they didn't see me because my phone was in my pocket and I just had one fucking earpod on.
0:55:50 - (Tawni Nguyen): And then I didn't really have that social image together. I was in my sweats. Like, no one looks like this while walking their dog. I look like a raccoon lady.
0:56:00 - (Lana Chairez): Like, going through.
0:56:02 - (Tawni Nguyen): I'm in my sweats, big sweater, my hair is, like, in a ponytail. I look pretty crazy. Like, normal crazy, right? And for you, I know you're laughing, but when you're saying there's people that are still caring with what society expects of them, because I think the validation that they give themselves isn't coming from an internal place. It's not intrinsic. Because they still carry the weight of everyone's opinion on such a high pedestal that they don't feel validated for anything that they do or who they are until the world outside of them tells you, like, hey, you're doing a great job. But if you're just honestly a good person, if you're a kind human being, whether someone's looking at you or whether you're posting that you're doing something kind on Instagram or not.
0:56:46 - (Tawni Nguyen): You should still be a good person.
0:56:49 - (Lana Chairez): Yeah.
0:56:49 - (Tawni Nguyen): And it's just so hard for me to even hear that, that people, I get the whole image and Persona, like how we mentioned in the beginning, the digital Persona, how we look online and all that stuff. But a lot of that doesn't really register into authenticity because I know so many women that are living such inauthentic lives that it kind of hurts me. But I had to kind of cut them off because I'm like, I can't have you around me because your energy is bleeding into the way I live my life because you're judging me based on your perception of yourself.
0:57:20 - (Tawni Nguyen): And I can't have that for my growth.
0:57:23 - (Lana Chairez): Right?
0:57:24 - (Tawni Nguyen): I can't have your judgment based on where you feel your lack is to bleed into my own self worth and to bleed into my own self acceptance.
0:57:32 - (Lana Chairez): Right.
0:57:32 - (Tawni Nguyen): And that when you say, are you okay? Sometimes I want to ask people, because they're crumbling, they're so anxious, they're so unhappy, but they have perfect facebook. They're posting how great their relationship is, and they know 100% they're cheating on their husbands, vice versa.
0:57:50 - (Lana Chairez): Oh, my God.
0:57:51 - (Tawni Nguyen): And I know them online and offline. I'm like, these are like two different people.
0:57:55 - (Lana Chairez): It's completely two different people. That's embarrassing. And it's sad to say because I'm like, sometimes people could be, like, the best person that they know how to be, but they still are being the best person that they know how to be that is still going to people please the society or their parents or their family or something like that. I've noticed. I'm genuinely happy because I make me happy.
0:58:28 - (Lana Chairez): But some people are genuinely happy because they think that what they are doing is what society expects out of them. If you're 25 and you're married with kids and you have a career, that's like, oh, my God, you must be so happy. You have to be happy because society says if you're 25 and you meet a rich man and you have kids and you have a career, you're living the perfect life. When in reality, I had all of that.
0:58:58 - (Lana Chairez): I was 25, married, had a house, had a car, had the perfect husband, and I was fucking miserable. But on paper, I should have been happy. On social media, I was happy. On paper, I'm happy. But in my life, I was like, I'm so unhappy. Me personally, as soon as I get out, and I'm like my life to the regular Joe my life is a mess. I'm a stripper. And you've lived a lot of life. You have a lot of trauma and all this bullshit. I'm like, I have a lot of trauma, but I'm so happy on the inside. Why? Because a lot of the trauma I brought upon myself, but I still brought it upon myself making the decisions that I wanted to make.
0:59:40 - (Lana Chairez): It wasn't like, but it's your responsibility.
0:59:43 - (Tawni Nguyen): To heal the trauma too, and not bring that hurt, to hurt other people.
0:59:47 - (Lana Chairez): No, fuck all that. No, my trauma makes other people laugh, but it's like, the thing is, I just don't want to repeat that cycle of what other people thought. When other people thought I was happy, I was actually miserable. But I just looked so perfect. I had a husband. I had a fucking brand new house built from the ground up with whatever I want. I got to choose the cabinets and the flooring. Oh, my God, you must be living the perfect life. And I had a husband who was a cop.
1:00:21 - (Lana Chairez): I was living the perfect life. I was miserable. Miserable. But even Persona, you go to the family get togethers, and you're just like, yes, I'm married, and I have kids, and I have the perfect house, and I have a career, and everyone's like, oh, my God, you must be so happy. And I'm like, I hated wiping people's asses in the hospital. I hated that. But everyone was like, but you're getting paid $25 an hour.
1:00:51 - (Lana Chairez): I'm like, guess what? Stripping pays $1,500 an hour, bro.
1:00:57 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah.
1:00:58 - (Lana Chairez): I take my clothes off, and I make a lot more money than these educated doctors do in an hour. I'm like, I made a lot of fucking money. And I was happy because I was partying and doing drugs. I was fucking happy as shit. And that was the thing is, I would love more than anything to just promote for people to just do them. Live your fucking life and live it the way you want to live it. Not how society says you have to live it or not how your parents tell you how to live it.
1:01:31 - (Lana Chairez): You got to live it the way you want to live. I'm a stripper, and people call me an escort all the time. I agree with every fucking negative comment everyone ever says about me. Positive too. Like, if you think I'm great, cool. If you don't.
1:01:44 - (Tawni Nguyen): None of your business, actually, what people think about you.
1:01:46 - (Lana Chairez): Change your mind. Yeah, with none of my responsibility to change your mind of your opinion of.
1:01:52 - (Tawni Nguyen): Me, that I feel like we've unlocked that. People hate us so much because they can throw shade all day. And I'm just like, if you want to think one plus one is five, I agree with you. I'm going to walk away. I'm going to let you think what you want. I'm not here to serve my mental peace and give you a piece of that because I just don't have that tolerance anymore.
1:02:10 - (Lana Chairez): I'm like, one plus one equals five. You know what it equals five squared, bro. It's five times ten. It sure is five. It sure is five. We're going to force it to be five. I don't give a fuck. One plus one is going to equal motherfucking five. And that's how I am. Like, when people call me a ho, I'm a ho. You want to call me stupid? I am still. I'm uneducated. I'm uneducated.
1:02:32 - (Tawni Nguyen): I think they're just trying to aggravate that part of you. To bring out a part of you that's no longer there is to fight with them. They want to put you in a place to where you become someone that you used to be that you're no longer are. Because that doesn't serve you. No.
1:02:47 - (Lana Chairez): Yeah, it doesn't work. And it's funny because when you agree with people who are trying to fuck up your day, they a either end up being your best friend because they can't get to you, and they're just like, all right, my bad. Now they just want to kiss your ass. Or it pisses them off so bad that I'm like, why are you still hating on me? If you ask a hater why you're hating on them, they're going to tell you that they're not hating on them, and then you're hating on you. And then you're like, well, then what was the point?
1:03:16 - (Lana Chairez): If you ask a hater, what was the point? Why are you trying to ruin my day? For what reason? Oh, well, this is that and third, okay, well, what was the point, though? Why are you trying to bully me? Because when you tell people, why are you bullying me? The first thing they tell you is that they're not.
1:03:38 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah.
1:03:43 - (Lana Chairez): The face that makes me so mad. I'm like, why are you hating on me so hard? I'm not hating on you. It's just that you're a fucking ho. I'm like, I'm not.
1:03:52 - (Tawni Nguyen): But just be like, why would you say that?
1:03:54 - (Lana Chairez): Why would you say that?
1:03:55 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah.
1:03:55 - (Lana Chairez): And you question it and be like, okay, lord, let's go down the line.
1:03:59 - (Tawni Nguyen): Part of the inappropriate questions that I talked about in the beginning that you're like, give me some context. It's stuff like that when people say stuff like that. And it's funny because I feel like the similar energy that we have now that we share this platform. Right. I understand completely how not to wear that mask anymore is because when you brought up haters, someone's like, oh, aren't you afraid of haters? And all that stuff? I'm like, I'd rather be hated for who I actually am than be loved for who the fuck I'm not. And like you said in your fucking miserable, yeah.
1:04:31 - (Tawni Nguyen): Oh, you're in this relationship. You have a college degree. You have a sex band. I'm like, all of that means fucking nothing to me. I wanted to die. I was so fucking miserable that people don't understand being successful and having status on paper means fucking nothing. If you wake up and you're so unhappy with your life, like longevity of relationship, longevity of jobs, anything doesn't really matter.
1:04:54 - (Tawni Nguyen): It's how healthy you are. Are you actually carrying joy into the process of living a life that you wake up happy to every single day?
1:05:03 - (Lana Chairez): Very true.
1:05:03 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah, I think I caught that out of all the loops that we kind of went around. I'm, like, marinating in them. But I think that it's something that people should truly seek for is fulfillment. Even though, yeah, now people are probably like, oh, their life's falling apart and all this stuff. That's cool. You think what you want to think. Everyone is entitled to their own free will of opinion, right?
1:05:32 - (Lana Chairez): Even if it's hating on me. If your opinion of me is different from my opinion of me, I'm not going to care about your opinion of me if you don't pay my bills. Even if you paid my bills. To be fair, even if you paid my bills, if your opinion of me was negative, I would still be like, then just don't pay my bills, bro. I'm not going to change for you. I'm not going to change for anybody. I don't see the point in it.
1:05:58 - (Tawni Nguyen): Right, Chase?
1:05:59 - (Lana Chairez): Right, Chase?
1:06:00 - (Chase): That's right.
1:06:03 - (Lana Chairez): Our mystical man Chase, for letting me borrow this cool ass vest.
1:06:07 - (Tawni Nguyen): Guys, we're having a little fashion dilemma before.
1:06:11 - (Chase): This looks a bit better on you than on me. What's wrong?
1:06:14 - (Lana Chairez): The models.
1:06:15 - (Tawni Nguyen): Hey, Chase, do you have any haters?
1:06:18 - (Chase): Yeah, I definitely do.
1:06:20 - (Tawni Nguyen): Does that make you feel like you've made it?
1:06:23 - (Chase): It doesn't necessarily make me feel like I've made it.
1:06:25 - (Tawni Nguyen): I'm waiting for my first hater.
1:06:28 - (Lana Chairez): That could be your hater.
1:06:30 - (Tawni Nguyen): Do I have to pay you? No, I got, like, $3 in my purse.
1:06:34 - (Lana Chairez): I do it for free. You could tip me $3.
1:06:38 - (Tawni Nguyen): I'll pay you with this Tesla half drink.
1:06:41 - (Lana Chairez): Oh, shit. Stephen. Stephen. She don't have this on here. Okay, Steven from millennial millionaire. That's his tequila bottle.
1:06:51 - (Tawni Nguyen): He's going to see it. Like, what the fuck?
1:06:53 - (Lana Chairez): Oh, no. He's fucking cool as shit.
1:06:55 - (Tawni Nguyen): This is how frugal I am. I have to borrow.
1:06:57 - (Lana Chairez): Prop him on your show.
1:06:59 - (Tawni Nguyen): Prop?
1:06:59 - (Lana Chairez): Oh, my God.
1:07:01 - (Tawni Nguyen): Is there any last thing that you really want to share that we haven't touched on today? That you feel like it's a really important message not to put you on the spot, but I feel like we also have crawled through the weeds of trauma, past identity, through revelation, through reintervention, and creating who we are as women, as.
1:07:26 - (Lana Chairez): Oh, you know what? I think I would want people to ask themselves the question of when you feel that you have to do something to better yourself, are you bettering it for yourself, or are you bettering yourself for society because there's a difference? Are you bettering yourself to make you happy, or you're bettering yourself because you think that's what society wants or needs out of you, and there's a huge difference. And just like I said, just be happy.
1:07:58 - (Lana Chairez): You yourself need to be happy. Don't please other people, because that shit, you're going to live a fucked up and horrible, miserable fucking life.
1:08:07 - (Tawni Nguyen): Damn. I'm just going to let it end there because that was too good. No one ever shuts me up. What the fuck?
1:08:14 - (Lana Chairez): Lana and I did it with no dick in your mouth. I.
1:08:21 - (Tawni Nguyen): All right, guys, thanks for tuning in to the fit and frugal podcast again. I'm Tawni Nguyen. You can find me on ig at Tawnisaurus. You can find my girl at Lana laughing with Lana.
1:08:31 - (Lana Chairez): At Lana Chairez comedy. Yeah, Lana Chairez comedy on Insta and TikTok. Cool.
1:08:36 - (Tawni Nguyen): Thanks for tuning in. See you guys next time. Bye.