Holly Madison Launches ‘You Wish’ With Trisha Paytas Getting Real About Flop Eras

Trisha Paytas has been speaking things into existence for nearly two decades—long before manifestation had a name or a hashtag. Since 2007, she’s built a YouTube career from scratch, landed a Broadway role, survived more than a few public flop eras, and somehow come out the other side with a memoir on the way and a genuinely happy life. 

Holly Madison, who manifested Paytas as her very first guest before her brand new podcast You Wish even had a name, sits down with her to talk about what it actually takes to believe in yourself when no one else does, how to find the upside of rock bottom, and why posting the cringe thing might be the most powerful move you make all year.

Below are the highlights from the conversation adapted from the episode.

Did you always know you were good at manifesting?

“I didn’t really know what it was. You know what I mean? Like, I feel like I would just say things. Because my logic, even from, like, 18, is if you say something, somebody will see it. So I would always just say, and then, like, hopefully people will see it…I guess I didn’t know it was manifesting. I just thought, well, somebody will see it, which I guess is manifesting. The universe will see it or something like that.”

What self-belief did you have to let go of to get where you are?

“I think I was the biggest self-sabotage person without even knowing it. I always wanted to be famous and this. But in my head, I was like, ‘ugh.’…I didn’t go to college. I thought I was very pigeonholed…until I started being like, ‘No, you are talented. You have talents. You can do this. You can do that.’ I think it’s just like self-doubt in general.”

What’s the number one rule of manifesting?

“When you order something in the mail, right? You don’t doubt that it’s coming because you ordered it. It’s coming. So you don’t even think about it. So that’s what they say with manifesting is you think about something you want and don’t even doubt it’s going to happen. Be like, ‘Oh, it’s on its way already because it’s been ordered.’”

How do you deal with negative comments?

“When I was reading comments, maybe I was getting a lot of positive comments, but I was only focusing on the negative. And I feel like I was like, ‘Everyone hates me.’ Maybe it wasn’t even true. Maybe it was. I don’t know…I’m kind of careful about where I read comments. Like I know on TikTok, it’s usually good. So I’ll watch those. But sometimes I’ll post something—like I was making fun of the Taylor Swift and Blake Lively texts because I just don’t think it’s that crazy and people were losing their shit over it. Oh yeah. And I knew people were going to fight about it in the comments. I’m like, I’m not looking at the comments.”

What do you actually do every morning?

“I love an affirmation…I would always wake up feeling a sense of doom. I was like, ‘Oh my God, what, what is the internet saying? Like what bad news is going to be on my texts?’ So I never even check my phone in the morning. I just kind of wake up and do some affirmations…I do my gratitude before the day starts. Like, ‘Oh, today I’m going to get great news. The best opportunity is coming my way’…and then I just, I love a journal. Like I journal every—I try to do it every morning, every night, just even like a page, like a short little page.”

How do you pivot after a flop?

“I’ve had like maybe 15 podcasts in the past like eight years and they’ve flopped. Like I tried to do like a Lost podcast where I recapped Lost episodes. I did like a mental health one called My Chemical Imbalance…Like I tried so many podcasts that have flopped…I think it’s like, you’re just, you just try a lot of things, you know? And the flops kind of make you, right? Like right before Just Trish, I had one where I co-hosted it with another YouTuber and it was like a flop. It was like an epic flop, but it’s like part of your story, right?…

…But my idea was…like, I need a podcast where it’s like just reliant on me because all my other ones have [been] like a flop basically if I had anyone else.”

What’s your advice for someone who feels too far gone?

“You’re just never too far gone. I think that’s the best actually when you’re at a rock bottom because like you can only go up, you know? I feel like I was in a flop for such a long time and like you can only go up, and like being okay with going back there. I think there’s like some peace in flopping, you know? There’s some peace in like, ‘Okay, nobody cares right now.’ So whatever I do, you know, it’ll either be better or it’ll be where I’m at.”

What changed right before you met Moses?

“I think what changed was me being like accepting of a good person coming into my life. I think I always was like, I just date toxic men because I’m chaotic and I’m crazy. I think I started doing therapy. So I thought, ‘Oh, I’m getting more mentally stable’…I think I was in the position where I was taking steps to heal myself and being like, oh, I deserve someone good.”

How was postpartum for you?

“In an ideal world, it would be a requirement for a woman to talk to a therapist while she’s pregnant. So she knows the therapist. She knows she has somebody to reach out to…I feel like it’s way more common than people think. Just the hormone fluctuations are crazy. And nobody wants to think they’re going to get it because there’s such stigma with mental health. But I truly believe that should be just like a routine part of prenatal care.”

What’s your biggest piece of advice for protecting your peace?

“The hardest thing for me…but it protects my peace, is like just not reacting…I’d rather just let people believe whatever than having to defend anything…I just don’t give energy to anything that’s not worth it. And it’s hard, especially when people talk about you or say something that’s not true and you just want to so badly react to it. But I think no reaction is the best way to keep your peace.”

What do you want to say about your memoir?

“I think I’ve been doing a lot of self-reflection too and everything because it’s like, you have to like retell your whole life…retelling it all has been such a therapeutic [experience] because you can like look back at things and be like, ‘Oh.’ You can look at things with a healthy eye and know where you went wrong and like own up to it rather than like if I would have wrote it 10 years ago, I would have been like a perpetual victim in it.”

To hear Trisha Paytas’ full conversation, listen to You Wish wherever you get your podcasts.

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