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Mallory Ervin is known for exuding energy, joy, and laughter, whether on stage in the Miss America pageant or on screen as a three-time contestant on The Amazing Race. She built a platform from her passion of sharing fashion, beauty, and life, and now it’s a global lifestyle brand. But despite her public accomplishments, Mallory is no stranger to battling unhealthy attachments to performance and success. 

What did that journey look like to overcome those unhealthy patterns and find a deeply fulfilling life? Mallory gets vulnerable and real in her new book, Living Fully, and she’s on the Goal Digger Podcast with me now to unpack pieces of her story that I know we can all relate to. If you’ve ever felt like you’re living a “just fine” existence, that you’re stuck in a valley and can’t see the light, or that you’re not truly living the life that’s true to your visions, this is the conversation for you. Pour a cup of coffee and get cozy for this chat with my friend Mallory Ervin.

The Whole Story

Mallory Ervin wanted to share her story, the whole story, including the beginning that was filled with so much success in a short amount of time, but also lead to a dark period in her life. 

“Sometimes when you get to the top of the mountain and you look around,” Mallory began, “And you start feeling things kind of like, what’s next? And everybody’s watching and waiting for my next move, then begins the crumble and I literally crumbled under the weight of a lot of that success.”

After her Miss America win and her multiple appearances on the Amazing Race, Mallory really struggled. She felt the weight of expectation on her shoulders because of how much she’d accomplished at such a young age.

“My story ended up in a place where I never thought it would end up, especially in the height of all my goals. In 2010, and I ended up developing a pretty bad prescription pill addiction, and I ended up in a treatment center for six months of my life,” Mallory shared.

Mallory got sober almost 10 years ago now. Her career then moved into the space of social media, podcasting, YouTube, and creating a merchandise line. Her new book, Living Fully, shares the full story because, as she told me, “I ended up with this really vibrant life and I felt like it was finally time to tell people what got me there because I just felt like, you know, if you don’t tell the whole story, I just feel like you’re pulling the wool over people’s eyes and you’re telling them how to live a better life but I wasn’t sharing the full story of how I got there.”

Fine is the New Rock Bottom

Mallory speaks to two people in her book. Those with glaring red flags like she had, who can identify that something in their lives needs to change, and then the other type of person who believes their life is “just fine”. 

“A lot of people wanna call rock bottom the absolute lowest, and that’s the rock bottom I hit at the beginning with the drug addiction,” Mallory continued, “But the other rock bottom, and the tougher one I think to climb out of, is the one where you’re just living this mediocre life. You’re just existing in the middle. Your life isn’t bad, but it’s not good either.”

This feeling of complacency is what Mallory hopes to help people change. As she told me, “I think it’s harder to change things when there’s not a red flag blaring and glaring in your face.”

Mallory shared, “I wanna live this big, full life. I just want this big, beautiful, vibrant life and comfortable ain’t gonna get me there and neither is feeling just okay about things. So that’s why I always push myself out of that zone because I don’t believe that’s the way that we’re supposed to live.”

The Practice of Vision Boards

Mallory and I both hosted Dr. Tara Swart on our podcasts and the conversation with Tara was as transformational for her as it was for me. Mallory shared about vision boards and how she used to fill up a page with so many images because she wanted her life to be overflowing and abundant and filled with her biggest dreams and goals coming true. 

When Dr. Swart saw the vision board, she told Mallory it had too much stuff on it. Mallory needed blank space. She told Mallory to get a bigger poster board and spread out the images. It was a simple idea, but it helped Mallory visualize a year with everything she dreamed about plus blank space to just be.

Mallory has refined her vision board practice and digs into it in her companion book, All In. She told me, “My vision boards and vision boards in general are so powerful…And don’t be afraid to reassess it. I mean, I’m not treating my vision board like a grocery list where I’m like adding something on there every single day, but I do look at it and say, is this the life that I still want to live? Is this the way that I still see my future and my year? And sometimes I gotta tear something off and put something else back on it, but I think it’s powerful and can allude to a lot of the things that you want in your life and how to bring a lot of those things into your life.”

More from Mallory Ervin

Get Mallory Ervin’s New Book, Living Fully and the companion book, All In, wherever books are sold. You can also follow her on Instagram @malloryervin, YouTube, and on her podcast, Living Fully with Mallory Ervin.

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