Claiming Power In Midlife | 041

Oh, Jen, I am so excited to talk to you about elevating and celebrating other women, because you do it in such spectacular fashion. So I want to ask you, did you have strong female role models growing up? I want you to use your voice as a woman,

I did. I happened to come from a long line of strong women, so my mom was the one who told off the Catholic priests, telling her that my I have sisters that are twins, and when they were newborns, and we were getting on a plane to go visit family in Chicago from Hawaii, and they weren't baptized, he was basically telling her that they were going to go to hell. She told him off in the church. And so that is how I was raised. So we don't,

Oh, you were raised not to be afraid of anybody, anybody nothing. And

to question, you know, to question rules, to question boundaries. So, and my mom is 79 and still works today. So, and she's still working, still thriving. She's who I consider ageless, and people freak out when she say, when she says that she has a daughter who's 55 she's like, don't try to do the math, but I'm like, Mom, but um, and my grandmother was very much like that. So the through line is, you know, building the table like, Why have 50 people over when you could have 100 people over and widening circles and being accepting of everyone, questioning boundaries and rules and, you know, sticking up for what you believe in. And so that's, that's how I was raised. Yeah, and

is that where your love of words and language and writing and communicating came from as well your mom, you know, it's probably not

an accident, because it's funny. My dad's an engineer. So very much the linear and that's I that all makes me crumble. I cried through geometry class, and it took 80 people together. Oh, you have my spirit out of Ovid, yeah, but I could write an 80 page paper about it test. So that was my mom's an English major is very well spoken and very well written, and that's what I majored in in college and and I've always been a big reader, like I joke like in, you know, junior high and grade school, like I read the entire library. So I'm just and I'm still to this day of voracious reader, and I pine for those days, but when my kids are finally out the door, I'll have more time to actually sink into novels. I read a lot of everything, but I think it's one, one of life's greatest joys is to read and to put yourself in all different types of situations. And I am a really great writer, and I was actually the sidebar talking to a friend of mine who's managing some younger team, and she said, and I'm hoping this is in case that like the actual power writing and your own thoughts, it's, I'm not going to say it's a lost art, but I see kind of what my kids are dealing with in school, and I was very much writing papers and giving speeches from like fifth grade and on. So I don't know. I just, I feel like it's so important, and especially of the world of AI, like we can't AI our thoughts away. We have to be able to form arguments and be able to string sentences together and have our original thoughts, and just use that as an editing tool. And, you know, help us refine or maybe pull out some data points or something, you know, from the webs. But you've got to, you've got to be able to come up with your unique point of view. And, you know, I used to own a PR firm, and all we did was write and do positioning for clients. And so it's really important. And so I just, you know, it's like, I everyone listening to your show. I mean, I'm sure is around our age, and, you know, grew up with the same type of education we did. So I'm just, you know, I'm just always like, Go liberal arts, go English.

Oh, I'm so meeting you in that place. So you always talk about how you became an accidental entrepreneur, and you were, you know, historically, crafting messages for other people. You were inside other people's stories and and getting their messages out there. So talk me through that pivot of when you were working in San Francisco and you were championing other people with these accounts, and then you had your it does not have to be me moment,

yeah, well, the big it doesn't have to be me is the it doesn't have to be me in tech PR, which was soul killing for me, because throughout my career, to that point in time before I moved to San Francisco, I was I started my career in travel and hospitality, and I was a PR director for two tourist attractions in Hawaii, so and then I worked in Boulder, and then worked, you know, Vail was our client. It was food and wine and all the things we all love. And then we moved to San Francisco in 2000 and it was just, it was all tech, all the time, and that's where all the jobs were, and they're throwing a lot of money at you, and you're like, Sure, I'll do this. And it was soul killing. And my first, the first firm I worked at was the work was soul killing. The people I worked with were amazing. I worked at another firm where it was just all a big old mess, just so to make a long story short, and a lot of you listening, we've all done that the 12 to 14 hour days, and you're not home, and you have high stress and high responsibility and and it was nothing that I felt aligned with. And everyone was kind of crazy. But. I'd gone through a layoff with my first company because we lost multi million dollar business. That second big firm I worked at was the victim of a second layoff. Like 25 people on my team, we were all laid off because we lost $3 million worth of business. It's just how it works in an agency world. Anybody in the agency life, or if you've had that in your background, understands how it is. It's not you, it's, there's no budget, so they gotta let you go. So at that point, I was so fried. I hated the work, and I was so stressed out that I was like, it doesn't have to be me. I was actually so burned out Tess, and I'm like, I want to go work at Starbucks because I just, I just couldn't, because I just put my whole, like, heart and soul and kind of saved this client for the you know, we saved it for like, a year, and then it would they still ended up leaving, but it was so much work. And I saw my billable hours. I saw what I was making the company. I saw what I wasn't taking home, and the fact that I was never home, and I was having so much stress. I'm like, I cannot do this again. And so, you know, I contemplated we had lived abroad. I'm like, we'll go back and live abroad. I'm gonna go work in the Foreign Service. I'm gonna get in my MBA. My MBA from Thunderbird. I'm gonna do all these things. And then I ended up just randomly having, well, not randomly, a friend of mine's like, how lunch with my friend, who's a winemaker, and this is how I became the accidental entrepreneur, because he had this really cool concept black box wines. If anybody's heard it, it's high end wine in a box. And I, from my PR mind was, like, the only wine that was out there was franzia at the time, so I could see, I'm like, Oh, this is going to be huge. This is going to be huge. And he was fabulous. And I said, Let's do it. And then that's how I started my company. So I started my first PR firm in San Francisco in 2003 and Ryan out there, who started black box wines, was my full client with my first client, and we grew together. So he, Thank you Ryan. Thank you Ryan, and he, he ended up growing the business it, he merged with another company. Then that company got it. Well, he got that, got acquired, and then it was like, through mergers and acquisitions, we ended up at Constellation wines under the big Constellation Brands umbrella, and then we did corporate communications. Still worked on black box, and then a whole host of other wineries, a lot of Australian wine companies, like Hardee's and some New Zealand wineries. And it was really great. So that's how I start, accidentally started my business, you know, kind of back all in on to all the things that I love, food, wine and travel, and in the midst of it, pushed out three kids. So as the as the company was expanding, I like to say so was my waistline. Literally. I'm even thinking about how I used to have to inch my chair back from my desk because I had twins. I had my son, and two years later I had twins. So I was huge, huge,

but you were juggling a lot, yes, so a lot of clients, a lot of responsibility, motherhood, three children, a husband, a family, whoa. So let's, let's go inside of the big wake up call the it has to be me, where you were putting all of these other people first. You came last. You weren't used to taking care of yourself. I want to go inside of that shift for you, where you really learned that you needed to take care of yourself better.

So there's the whole saying that, you know, your body will, like, whisper, and then it's gonna, you know, get a little bit louder than it's gonna scream. And so I didn't listen to my whispers. So the whispers were happening when we were still living in the city, like, I think I said we, you know, we lived at the corner of Peyton, Ashbury. It was a very stressful place to live top of a third floor flat, and I had these three kids and all the clients, the husband, just everything going on. And so my stress level started to present in like the weirdest ways, like I cracked through a couple crowns. So, like, it was 1000s of dollars of dental work, and I remember my dentist going, how can you relieve the stress? I'm like, because you were grinding your teeth, grinding my teeth. So because of grinding, I cracked through four crowns and had to have all this dental work done. And I told my dentist, I'm like, you can move in with me. You could, like, meet a kid. Or I don't, I mean, I don't know. I mean, I don't see the stress level going when, anytime soon, buddy. So might as well give me some, like, really great new crowns. And then I was losing the feeling in my fingers and my toes. I started to kind of get arrhythmia. So my start harder, I kind of had this, like, heart palpitations and but what did I do? Test? I threw myself into a boot camp in San Francisco. What I really needed was yin yoga, but I decided to go into a hardcore exercise situation and carry eight pound medicine balls like up a hill, because that's kind of what we all knew. I think our generation just kind of knew that you can hardcore exercise it away, but I was completely depleted. So I know, if I knew then what I know now, I would have been in yin yoga like my whole life was a workout. But I didn't stop because, you know, I was a small business owner. I had actually my quasi business partner leave, and so I was responsible over these clients, and you're just working late nights. So I was just kind of ignoring. And pushing through, ignoring pushing through, which I probably a lot of your listeners can understand. But these, these symptoms get louder, and then how they got louder, and how this was worse is it started escaping beyond me, and I started yelling and screaming at my kids, and I started yelling and screaming at my husband. I had no tools to manage my stress. I had no tools. I felt like there was no out. Because everything when I had those three kids young and the business, I felt like if I actually stopped moving, this whole house of cards was going to come crumbling down. So fast forward, we moved, you know, we were in the city, and we just moved across the bridge just a few miles to relieve the stress. The kids were like, my son was starting kindergarten, and we just couldn't handle the stress anymore. I still had my company. I still had the same amount of stress, or physical location was different, and then my husband comes to me one day, he's like, something's gotta give, because my clients and the work part of me was getting the best of me, and my home life was getting the worst. So I had to really look and make changes. And I had a father who was very hard on me and who yelled and who yelled and screamed, and I was repeating patterns, and I worked very hard to get my children. I had to go through fertility, and it was that was a whole journey, and I didn't like who I was. I'm like, this is not the person I want to be. I don't want to be yelling and screaming at my kids because I have five more hours worth of work to do, and I just couldn't I was just done. I didn't really take maternity leave. I probably had postpartum depression. I was diagnosed with sort of adrenal fatigue when I started actually figuring out what's going on with me. Perimenopause. There's all this stuff that was going on that I didn't know, on top of being completely overworked, under resourced, like physically and putting myself dead last so after that conversation with my husband, I was like, Okay, this is going to be really tough. And so I took the steps, and within the next year, wound down. My business, referred away clients, wrapped things up, and then and then test, I was left with myself.

So what did that feel like? What? What was that

like? Oh, god. That was so hard. It was so hard. And I had gone back to a therapist that I had started working with when I was trying to get pregnant, and she was like, she gave me this analogy. She's like, you've got to be be comfortable with being so incredibly uncomfortable. And so being in that that she does the butterfly analogy of being in the cocoon and being in the muck and the goo, and to give your time yourself, time to nurture yourself. And I've worked since, like, I was a senior in high school, like, I, like, identified with it. This was, like, an I had to, like, have my ego die, basically, to come back to life. Because when you shut down a business and you're known for something, and it's what you've always done, and you're, by the way, making good money at it. And I was employing people, and I had really great clients. It was my identity that was the one I was the most proud of. And so, but you're but if there was this false pride, because it, you know, we don't even have time to talk about societal expectations and everything, just climbing, the climbing, the climbing, the climbing, and you realize you're climbing, climbing, climbing, you're like for what. And I learned I had to redefine like, what success looked like, and what was happiness. And, you know, but I couldn't even access any of that because I was so burned out and fried, I couldn't get out of bed on a Saturday morning. So you're seeing me now energetic. I'll go to a yoga I go to five yoga classes in a day now, and this that and the other. But I had nothing left. I had nothing. So how did you

rebuild? How did you connect with yourself? Get clear about what you needed. What did that process look

like? Yeah, so that process, to condense, it was, you know, a little over a year. I mean, it probably took a good two years. And we're always, we're always, by the way the healing and the journey to being your best self that sort of never ends. But this particular time was pretty acute, so I just, I was, I was having dark thoughts. It was, it was not pretty. Almost blew up my marriage. So I went back to seeing my therapist as a first order of business. Randomly, somebody had their like, did their birth chart from astrology. I had never done it, and this woman forecasted my life to 99.9% accuracy, and she's like, who's looking out for you? Who is listening to you? Because I'm this giver. So in the midst of my complete and total breakdown, I was still helping other people. I was helping a friend go through a divorce, helping another friend, you know, get a job, helping my husband with his business, still wasn't fully allowing myself to be fully supported, and so that conversation drove me to see a naturopath, and then I went to go see my regular doctor to kind of like, what is going on? Then I had severe adrenal fatigue. My iron stores was almost nothing. So I was actually having these physical symptoms, and plus perimenopause. I didn't know about any of this stuff almost 10 years ago. Yeah, and so roller coaster emotions. So there was, like, this perfect storm. So I basically had to assemble this team to help put Humpty back together again, and then slowly but surely. And I had to be like, it's okay, it's okay to do nothing. And, you know, we had sold our condo in the city, so I. A little bit of money in the bank, and, you know, we knew we were going to take a little bit of a hit, but we were having a health I was having a health crisis. Is basically what I was looking at. I was having a health crisis if I didn't fix me, I don't know where I'd be today if we didn't, if I didn't take that time for myself then. And so then one morning, you know, I woke up and I was like, Oh, I'll look at coaching. So I went to coaching training, I did yoga teacher training, and then I slowly started kind of coming back to life and doing these things for me and putting these pieces together. And that was, you know, eight ish years ago when that was happening. So it's been because I was at the lowest of the low and was ignoring myself for years. For most people, doesn't have to take this long to try to pivot and figure things out, but I drove myself to complete burnout when they talk about pouring from an empty cup, my cup was like cracked and parched and about to turn into dust. I mean, that's how low it was, and I think that's really part of the reason why I'm so passionate about helping women try to stave off. I don't want anybody to get to that place where you're going to blow up your marriage and you can't get out of bed, and you're having deep, dark thoughts because you have no idea what's going on, and you're so overworked and so fried. But I find it's it is very common because we have tended to put ourselves last. It's what we've been taught as a society, especially in the US, to just put yourself out like, Oh, mom will do it. And you know, I don't have to tell you, everybody listening, moms do 98% of everything. Even if you have supportive partners in the home, we still have that list of 1000 things that are going on in our brain, plus we're working plus plus, plus, plus plus. So I don't want that anyone listening to have to go through that. So if you're feeling any of this sidebar, please go seek help. Please go get help. There's no shame in getting the help game, because you don't want to get to where I was, where then you've got to dig yourself out of a deep, dark, kind of a scary hole. But change can happen, but you have to be able to walk through the discomfort to get to the other side. That's the biggest takeaway here, because it's scary. I went in kicking and screaming tests. I went in kicking and screaming. But thank God I did, and thank God I had the wherewithal to put together some of these people that supported me and helped me, because I couldn't have done it on my own.

Yeah, I mean, nobody can do it on their own. You know, that's why we have relationships, community, connection. So what was the, what was the evolution? Then, from it has to be me to take care of myself, and then, by extension, show up as the better version of myself. So I have greater capacity to give to others, your family to then really seeing it as your mission, it has to be me to help other women find that balance, to find their calling and step into, you know, what they really want to be doing, while at The same time taking care of themselves.

So after that sort of, that deep sort of transformation, like I told you, I was going through teacher, the yoga teacher training, coaching training, and I wasn't a yoga teacher, and I do the coaching training was very transformative. That was actually you go through your own another sort of, like it was like therapy for five months going through because you're going deep with people and really understanding and reframing relationships, too. And you know, realizing, just as a sidebar, that you realize any circumstance you have, the parents you've had experiences, they all really do, truly set you up for what you're meant to kind of do in this world. And so I realized that I exact the exact right parents, where I had this mom who is this beautiful, bright light, very strong woman. I also had a dad who comes from his military background, was very hard on me, and it was very it was hard. So that part of growing up was really hard. But then I realized with every when you put everything together, and I've been told this by psychics and by other astrologers and my human design and all of that, then I'm actually meant to sort of blossom and bloom at this time in my life. And so it's no mistake that I sort of had that first path, which was great. It was wonderful. And I slowly started adding in. So I had these whispers of, you know, gather women. Let's get women together. And I started, I started having these smaller events, and then those events grew. I was still doing some PR consulting on the side. It wasn't anything I was being big and shiny about, but I was just doing that to make some money. And then it was really during COVID, where I had a couple clients, PR clients. They were all of them were in crisis because it was COVID. So everybody was in a state of crisis. And I woke up one morning, it was early 2021 and this was the big, pivotal moment. So I've as, just as a framework here. I've always helped women. I've always been that woman like even when we all graduated from college back in the dark ages of helping women get jobs. You know, I was out in the working world in 1991 so I but I was the one who figured it out. I was the figured the one who figured out how to net. Work, how to get jobs, how to write the resumes, the cover letters. I've always done that really well, and I've done that for a million other people, and I've always been a gatherer. Since, you know, I was like the social chairman of my sorority. I was a social chairman in my high school. I just I was gathering, gathering, gathering, gathering. So it came as no surprise that I started to do this and like but then focus in on women. But that morning I woke up, it was like I was being tapped and activated. So I woke up one morning and it was like this voice from above was like, Jen, it's go time. I was 51 at the time, it is time to go all in on supporting women. And I didn't know what it was going to look like 100% I had been doing events, but I sort of went to my desk, took to Instagram and said, This is me. This is who I am. I'm 51 I don't know what this is all going to be, but this is me. And sidebar, I had been, I had been almost like, ashamed or afraid the year before to tell the world that I had turned 50. So on the background, I was walking, sorry, that's a lot of women, yeah. And so now I've been like, I just turned 55 and I'm screaming that from the rooftops, but there was a mindset shift, because I was looking out as all this was happening. My own becoming was happening. I was looking out to what was happening sort of in the world and with jobs. And, you know, there was a big discussion on LinkedIn one day too, about, Does anybody feel like they're getting aged out of the workplace, these people in their 40s and 50s? So all these things sort of collided. And I dipped my toe and talked to a couple people, like, I'm gonna go consult with people. And I was, I was getting told, basically that I was too old. So it's either you're too old, we don't want you here, or we know we can't, we can't pay you what you want, because we want somebody with 10 years of experience, not 25 years of experience. So all these things collided, and then I woke up with that, it's go time. And I thought I was having a manic episode, and I just spent that whole day. I stayed in my pajamas and just created content. I recorded a couple podcast episodes that ended up not using, and I didn't start a podcast till later that year was probably like March time frame. I ended up starting my podcast September of 2021 but it just got the ball rolling, and then I kind of spoke it into existence. And then I hired myself a business coach. I'm like, I need to have this courage in somebody on my side to help me transition. And I eventually let go of most of my clients, and then launched the podcast that year, and it's been this evolution. And then I started the agency. I've been business coaching and sort of helping women before I came up with the agency concept, which was last year, I'm like, I'm going to put everything I'm good at and focus in on all the women that I'm passionate about, which is women over 40, midlife women. And the tagline for my podcast, and my whole mantra is, you're not too fucking old. And so that came to me like, right away, you'll appreciate this story. When I was recording my intro and outro for the podcast. I was like, you remember, you're not too old. And then I did the other one like, remember, you're not too fucking old. And then I hear my girls, who are now 17, so what were they like, 14 at the time? They're like, Yes, Mom, that's the one. And so, you know, and I knew that language was going to be really provocative. You know, to say you're not too fucking old, but you're not too old, it really doesn't pack a punch. And I'm like, I'm going to say it because I don't want any woman to doubt themselves and to think they can't go for their dreams, that they're 50, 6070, whatever. Because we get messages from the dawning of time that were too old and that were, quite frankly, to something. And so we have to, like, never in the history of time has a woman ever been in the perfect place. You're like, You're too loud, you're too quiet, you're too this, you're too bad enough with it, like, just enough, and so you're not too fucking old. Is just it's our rallying cry, and it's that, you know, when people text me and send me memes, or I see them out and about and they're like, Jen, I'm not too fucking old. I went like, I did this thing, or I'm applying for that job. I'm like, No, you're not. It gives me even saying this, because it makes me so happy. Great.

Yeah, look, I feel like we're in the era of the older woman. You know, menopause used to be a taboo subject. Now, women are proudly sharing their menopause stories, their struggles, their triumphs, sharing openly what they're doing, sharing how they feel as an older woman, whether they feel invisible, whether they feel powerful and and I don't know, you tell me I don't know whether it's because I'm an older woman in my 50s now where I'm going loud and proud, and I'm in the same place, you know, a similar place to you, whether I'm acknowledging and noticing this, or whether younger people are not noticing it. But I feel like things are very different than they were, you know, even five years ago, 10 years ago, with with regards to the standard viewpoint about women in their 50s, 100%

so it's funny that I feel like when I was activated. I feel like there was this mass activation of women. And I get little esoteric. You follow all these people who are, like, hyper, sort of spiritual and like, connected to the other side in the whole, like 5d realm, and I fully believe that we are truly being activated. So there's an, you know, I'm a big proponent of women, supporting women. That's my other huge platform. Because, and especially at this age, we collaborate, we do not compete like that is so 80s like we don't do that anymore. But yes, so since, like I said that, since the dawning of time, we've been told we're too old. But who's telling us that we're too old? It's like Madison Avenue. It's the patriarchy. And I mean, if someone told me I had to stop right now at 55 and I just had to what, go knit sweaters or something. I literally would jump off a bridge. I have, I have probably five more businesses in me, and like, I've got books getting started. I am just getting started. And so there is this collective that's happening. And I think we've all found each other too, because there's all these women, I've had a lot of you know doctors and other women in menopause, and dear people who become dear, dear friends, all sort of deciding at the same time, all across the country, all across the world, to kind of go in and collectively, we're changing this whole notion of what it means to be older. Nobody was talking about menopause. I talk about menopause a lot on my podcast, too. I mean, I was just showing I just threw down my yoga pants and my yoga class two days ago because someone was like, Are you on a hormone this, this, that, and the other. I was like, well, first of all, you need to be listening to my podcast. And I just rolled down my pants. Like you want to see my hormone pants. You can't even see it. So we're kind of, we're at that level, like we're changing, we're changing the conversation. But I will tell you, as much as we think that everyone's talking about it, still so many people haven't heard the message. And so this is why we've got to keep collectively all doing what we're doing, because we've got to push it out to the masses. Because I know if you've seen the impact factor movie, but I was on two panel discussions. I've seen it now three times, and I'm always like, moved to tears because women feel like they can't they're not relevant, or they don't get to put themselves first, and they've sacrificed or put careers on hold because of family, or are suffering and experiencing burnout, or they're divorced, or this and like everybody can have whatever they want, if it's love, if it's a new career, starting a business, traveling the world, there is nothing standing in our way except ourselves. Okay, I do understand there's ageism in the workplace. That's a whole other nut we're going to crack, and I'm very passionate about that too. So I'm so Pro and entrepreneurship because we can there are more women. I think right now, I think the over I don't know if it's women or but, oh, the over 50 crowd right now is the biggest group right now starting businesses, yes. So, you know, we're smart. We've been around the block, we've been around the block. And so it's really adopting this growth mindset too, of okay, maybe I did this one thing, and again, like not having ego about it, I have a client, and she's also a dear friend who was an investment banker, took time off for kids. She's like, always loved fashion, and now she's a stylist. She just all it takes is deciding to say yes to yourself. She's killing deciding it has to be me. It has to be me. She decided it has to be me. Decided to show up. She's like, Jen, I'm ready. Let's do the thing. So we got her all sorted, and then she was out there immediately, and then immediately getting clients and helping to change people's lives, because she focuses on midlife women, and she's like, we got to look good if we're gonna go land a new job, get investment for our company, like, go find love. And so I have a million of these stories, and it just makes me so happy. So I just want everyone to know that you're not too fucking old like you get well. The other thing too, the very

term mid life means it's only half time. You're only midway through. It's not old life. It's not no life, you know. It's not end of life. So it's not right, I you know. And the other thing to you know, I really believe that menopause doesn't happen to you. It happens for you. It's an invitation to put yourself first, to really claim your power, use your voice, go after what you want. You know, once you really you just start to just not care as much about what other people think you know about these expectations, and we get to define what our life looks like at this point, you know. And also you know, when you've worked and saved money, and you know, you know, been in the workplace for many, many years, hopefully the majority of people also have more resources, more connections, more money, more tools at their disposal, more self awareness. And so we just are coming into life with so much wisdom and experience, and I love that women are really taking that for a spin. So tell me what you learned about giving yourself permission to slow down, say no more, do less in order to raise your vibration, increase your capacity to be present in your relationships, with your teenage and adult children, with your husband, with other women. What, what was? What does that feel like for you now? So, and

this is an important thing, and actually, as we record this, and I know this will drop later, um. On a podcast, I have my sort of eight steps that I that I put myself through, that I also counsel women on, so they're kind of like tried and true. And first of all, the change, you know, we talked about this change is hard, and you've got to want it, right? You've got to want it. You don't want to wake up in five years and go, God, I had that idea for a podcast. Or I really wanted to help women, like, eat better, or I wanted to, you know, start an accounting firm. Whatever it is, just act on it. Because fear. I talk to so many women, fear is the number one thing stopping everyone from starting. And so you just gotta have courage. You're not gonna have confidence. It's adopting this growth mindset and going that you're worthy and you get to do what you want to do. So it's really just believing that and just acting on it, and then also aligning yourself with amazing other women. We talked about community and connection. You've got to align yourself with the people who are going to be like, on those days when you're like, I'm just going to give up. Like, No, you're not. Jen, no, you're not. You're not going to fucking give up. You said you're going to do this thing. You're worthy. You can do it. You're amazing. Like, we all need those people, those champions in our world, and we

have to be discerning, discerning about the women that we keep in our sacred circle, because we want to be with women that are elevating and celebrating other women, not the other subset of women that have claws and fangs and are believing that if you somehow succeed, and I help you succeed that you're taking away from what's left for me when we all know that it's actually the opposite. So I do think that that we need to be very discerning about the people that we keep close to us 100%

and I will say too that adopting this attitude, and this was with everything in life, what you expect to be your experience, will be your experience. So, and I've talked to, you know, talk clients off allege about this once about, oh, everyone here is, you know, caddy or this, or women or this or that. I said, if you expect to find people like that, that's what you're going to find. But if you expect to walk into a room and find amazing women, that's what you're going to find. Now, to your point, if you do find yourself in a situation, I've had to walk away from some relationships friendships, when you do start to make changes, and especially if you've been in communities and or the kids are getting older and you've been with a certain friend group, when you start to step up and do different things, it's very triggering to other people. And so they're going to be the people that are going like, This is so amazing, and other people who might want to stop you, or might say some crappy things, or they're not going to be supportive. Just don't take it personally. Has nothing to do with you. It has to do with the other person and where they are in their life, and maybe they want to try something, and they just don't have the courage or the confidence yet to do it. But it should never stop you. So I always tell them, you cannot think care about what other people think, and you just have to have courage and really, truly go for it and align yourself. All you need is one person. Just have one person who's going to be your accountability buddy, or be like, I'm going to do this thing. And then seek out as you move along, then seek out other groups. I have met since I decided to go all in on this, and it's been, like, three and a half years since I had that first aha. I have met the most. You're one of them now. I have met the most incredible women and joined the most amazing groups, yes, and just created this whole new community where we're constantly like, what can we do for each other? How we can we? Can we support each other? What do you need? And it's a such a beautiful thing to behold, because I do know I'm not. I'm a realist. I do know, I've surveyed friends, especially in the corporate world, that some women to this day do not know what it's like to be fully supported by another woman, and it breaks my heart. And so we have to change we have to change this. So hopefully by the time like my girls are in the workforce, it will have changed like we're gonna but and I, and I have compassion for all the women, because that's, that's how we were all raised. And we were raised to be like cutthroat, like there were two seats at the table, not 10, because there's 20 total seats. So we were taught that there were this finite amount of, you know, resources for women. It's all changed, and we've got the way out of all of this is that we've got to do this together. And, like I said, when you say collaborate and elevate, or what's

your No, I loved what you said. I say elevate and sell,

celebrate. And so the ad collaborates. And then you got, like, the magic trick,

collaborate, not compete, is what you said. Yeah, I loved it. We're all about collaboration

now. So I you know, we should be able to sit in a room with 20 other podcasters who are all our age, all around in the same content, and be able to support each other, be on each other's shows, brainstorm how they can do things better. Like, here's what works for me. Like, try this. That's how this works. It's not like I'm going to hold all my secrets close to my vest because I want tests to lose so I can win. That is not how it rolls. That is not how we this is not how business is done. This is not what success looks like. And this gets to be fun. And I get giddy with excitement when I see women succeeding, like I saw somebody like, I just got, like, my second round of funding for my company. I'm like, Oh my God. It's like, you're my own baby. My own baby had this the success, and that's, that's what it takes. And. If you don't have that support, find that support like 100% Absolutely you cannot care what people think. Overcome fear by just having courage. Everything is going to be scary when you're trying something new, and we're all wanting to try something new, everything's going to be I'm scared all the time, every day. Troy, me too,

me too, me too. You know, it is so wonderful, the magic that happens when women come together, magic, you know, and the collective like you talked about before. So take me inside your collective, your group, and some of these events and the way that you are all supporting and collaborating. I would

love to, I want to address one point, because I realized I'm like, I didn't answer your question about the saying no, the saying no thing is another really important thing for all women to adopt right now, because we say yes to everyone, say no to most of this, anything that gives you, like a pain in your chest and makes you go, Ugh, say no to it, and add in things that make you happy. But we all do too much. I just have to make sure I said that point, because it's really important. No is your friend. If you want to make changes, you've got to learn how to say no so you can say yes to the right things now, regarding collectives and the groups, and I'm going all in. I've gone all in on events, but I'm going all in on events this year in a bigger and crazier way. Like, look so follow me, like, sign up for money, right, and tell me what that's gonna go so, you know, it's funny because, like, I said, like, it's been this through line for me, bringing people together. And it's I've done it since the dawning of time. I love it, and people are coming to me and asking for more events. So you know, I'm definitely going to do things in the Bay Area, but I'm looking now to expand outside of the Bay Area, to go at different points across the country. But when women come to my events, they walk away with things like, and this, oh, it just always gives me chills. Like I've met the most amazing people, like the happiest thing that when I when people go like, I met, I met a new friend, and then we went and met for coffee, and now we're hiking buddies, or they walk away feeling like I came into this event tonight thinking I couldn't do the thing, and I walked away remembering that I have worth and value. I mean, shivers, yes. I mean, because that's my goal, is, that's I of course, I want you to know you're not too fucking old, so let's get that out of the way. But so the women that come in. I mean, everyone is supportive and collaborative. I'm actually going to have a couple women on my podcast to talk about the power of community and connection, and I've talked ad nauseam about this on my podcast, but the groups that are in my world are women who are all wanting to come in and actually sort of give you give more than they receive. So that's it's just a healthy mindset to have, you know, because I think the old way of networking and being part of groups was like, What can I get? What can I get? And that doesn't mean you shouldn't ask, because we also need to ask for what we need, but to come in and going any group that I lead, because I run, like, mastermind programs, and just anything I do, even just at the group. So I imagine, just think about having this mindset of, how can I come in and it's like, how can I come in and make this a better place? Like, what can I leave everybody with? How can I be additive? Somebody said that to me. They're like, Jen, you always are, like, so additive, and you always just leave somebody with something and like, I guess that's how I've always been, and that's probably how that's how my mom is. It's how my grandmother is. And so just coming in with this sense of I'm here to give and to support. And guess what? When you're in that, in that vibration, that's what comes back to you. And then you open yourself up, and you start to get to know people on a a heart to heart basis. And that's actually when I started having events. I was intuitively going, and this was pre COVID, that women were feeling really disconnected, that no one was having these deeper conversations that we were all craving to have, like, let's stop talking about kids in handbags, like, let's get into it. And actually, at the first event that I had that I pulled together in two weeks, and I had 20 women in my home, and I had a catered dinner. We did not get through introductions until somebody said that they had cancer. Another person said that they were getting a divorce. Another one said that they were in bankruptcy because their husband lied to them. We had another woman going, I was afraid to start my business. She didn't start her business, actually, till after this event, because her mom was telling her she was too old to start her business. Her own mother was telling her that and so, and that's pre COVID, all these women were craving deeper connection. And this is part of midlife. We need to go deep. It's better to have three people in your circle that you can go really deep with than 50 people that you're staying surface level. We just it's not nourishing, it's not supportive. Nobody has the time. We got to go deep, because there's a lot, as much as everything can be really great. There's just, there's that normal stuff that's happening right now in midlife, kids can be leaving the nest. We've got aging parents. We've got there's a lot of there's a can be a lot of trauma and drama, but there's also so much beauty. It's, I call it like the it's the both end, and it's the duality of midlife. And so we've just got to cut through the. Crap. I just had a lunch with my annual holiday lunch with 20 girlfriends that we've been together for like, 20 years, and we always we go around the table and we talk about, like, the highs and lows of the year, so we can get caught up. And so we've got to be able to have those types of friendships and connections where you can hold space and go, here's a really great thing. But yeah, I had cancer, or my mom is in had cancer, or my parent passed away, or I got let go from my job, or my husband got let go from his job. We're all dealing with stuff, so the beauty and the richness and the connection, like I'm the girl who this might come as no surprise. Could be talking in the yoga bathroom to complete stranger, and we're going to go deep real quick, like we're just going to get into it. But that's, that's what I put out. I just, I love having those types of conversations, and I and I'm just going to do a caveat. I know it's hard, and it can feel overwhelming to find and make these new friendships that I'm talking about, but it just starts by having that courage again and putting yourself in situations where women are going to be, certainly, if you're in my world, come to one of my events and you know, I'll be I'm your friend and son. I'll introduce you to people like, that's how I roll. But just have courage to like, if you like, you're gonna like, go see an author speak, or just strike up a conversation at your yoga studio, or everyone, if you just start to open your mind to it, there are people gathering and women gathering other women, all across the country, all across the world. So just if it's calling to you, just have courage to go. Just go and go alone.

So speaking about having the courage to just go for it. Take me inside you rebranding your podcast. So it started at the Jen Marple show, and you, you know, decided you're not too old, and then you went, No, you're not too fucking old. And that's going to be triggering. You talked about that, and then your girl's going, Yeah, Mom, that's amazing. What was that process like for you, where you just went, you know what? It's going to be polarizing. Some people are going to be repelled by me saying, fucking old, but no, I'm doing it anyway. It has to be me. This is my message, and this is who I am. When did you give yourself permission to just go? Yeah,

you know, I did it. This is how I want to phrase it, yeah, I did it, actually, when the podcast launched, because I had gone back and forth, and then gone back with my podcast manager, and I was like, do I call it? I do I actually call the podcast, you're not too fucking old. And I just didn't know at the time, like, was that gonna ding me on Apple? Like, how does this even work? And I was working on a trademark. And so then it just became the tagline. So it was the Jenn Marple show tagline, you're not too fucking old. And, you know, coming from my whole communications background, and just the power and like knowing the power of words, and I why I needed I needed it. I wanted it, and needed it to be triggering and activating. And so I knew as much as people would run to me because of the message, there would also be people that would run away from me, and it's okay. And I counsel my clients on this all the time, and I say, the more you you are, the more your people will come to you. But it's hard Now, having said that, it's very hard to sort of peel back the layers and have the courage to do it. And depending sort of where you are in life, like where you're working, it might not be as easy for an entrepreneur. You can do whatever you want, and it's a little harder if you're inside an organization. So caveat, but it's, you've got to say, you know, it has to be me, and this is what's calling to me. And it's, it's if it's triggering, and Tess, I've had people come to me, and then why do you have to use that language? And I've had, like, some tiktoks blow up, and like, you're so foul, it's like you're missing the point. It's not about this. It's not my person. Then, you know? And it's not like, I sit here and I swear all the time for the sake of swearing. It's just, it was just this rallying cry to really wake women up, to wake us all up, and just to hang on that. It's like, you know what? I'm not too fucking old. I'm not too fucking old. So you just kind of have that in your mind, going, if you're applying for that job, you're like, you want to do a handstand in yoga, you want to ask some guy out on a date. You're like, you know what? I'm not too fucking old, and so I knew it was gonna be tricky, and I wanted to be memorable, and I wanted to be powerful, and, you know, and I've taken a hit, and I don't care, and I'm still building and growing. But you know what, the people that love it love it.

I'm sure they fucking love, fucking

love it. Yeah, I have my little Y and TFO necklace on today. So it's like, and it's now, it's a good conversation starter. People are like,

I love it. No, I I like what you're saying. Though about we cannot be all things to all people. No, we are not everybody's flavor. And trying to be, you know, we actually dilute the essence of who we are by trying to appeal to everybody. Because, as you were saying before, the way that other people receive us is informed by the narrative about how they're seeing themselves and so most often, people's responses to what. We're putting out has absolutely nothing to do with us. You know, it's from, you know, childhood stuff that's being triggered, you know, through the reflection of the way that we're presenting ourselves. So I want to ask you, with all this work that you do privately, you know, as a coach with women, helping people get their message out as as the as the the leader or the the holder of space for all of these beautiful people. You talked about, fear being the number one thing that holds women back, and the fact that we need to be saying no, in your experience, what are some of the other big things that are holding women back in midlife, besides not saying no, feeling like you got to do it all, feeling like you're too old and you know that you're not enough. What are some of the other common things that come up when you're working with people?

The biggest one after fear, is going to be caring what people think. And so the Yeah, exactly what we were just talking about. It's that judgment. And so once you can really have that courage, you know, to overcome the fear you're always in. Fear is there for you know, it gives you the jitters. It gets you going. It's fine, it's just notice. It's a normal thing, and we don't have time to talk about, like, the evolutionary reason why we have fear, but it's just to keep us safe. And just go, Hey, fear, knock that off your shoulder. Okay, so you've done that, and then you've got to really overcome what people think, and it's that's a really, really hard one, because society, like we've talked about, we've been programmed to people please and let's not make anybody unhappy. And so if you come out with your your voice or your position on something, everyone's not going to like you like you said, like, I like to say, like, we're not margaritas and, you know, avocados, not everyone's gonna like us. It's okay. Ask yourself, do you like everybody? No, we don't like everyone, and it's absolutely okay. But I think the biggest fear is these two things together. So especially women in business, who they you know, come to the agency and they're afraid to, like, take a stand on something, or take a strong position. It said, the more you take your strong position, and the more you you are, I said that, the more your ideal people are going to come into your world. So if you false present that you're one way, you're going to be attracting people that you do not want to work with, those are not going to be your ideal clients. So the people that come in like the people that come into my world are like, Jen, I love your energy and your enthusiasm and this, this, that, and the other, blah blah blah blah blah. I'm not the docile one who's going to sit there and go, Oh, it's okay, you know, we're going to take it slow. And I'm the one jumping up and down, going, we have a mission, and I'm your biggest cheerleader. And here's the steps we're going to take, and this is the messaging you should do, and here's your plan. Blah blah blah, blah blah, so just lean all the way into who you are because and this also just, it comes true too with just relationships. So if you're kind of this false self, then you're going to look around your friend group and go, they're not nourishing to me, but because it's you haven't given yourself the permission to go all the way in on your true, authentic self. And so that is the beautiful you talked about. This, this midlife menopause, I can truly state really, when you come kind of cross that 50 mark, it gets easier and easier and easier to just be like, fuck it. Yeah, this is who I am. This is

who I am in that place. And it feels fabulous, and it feels great.

And when people are like, trying to question you, and I'm not a combative person, I'll just, you know, either delete, if it's a really nasty comment, I'll delete, or I'll just say, like, you know, this is all about women, supporting women in empowerment, and so I think feel free to unfollow me here.

So I always laugh when someone feels the need to write a nasty comment, unfollowing. I mean just unfollow like, you know what? I mean? It's just so hilarious to me. You know, I don't often in a day, I don't have time to look and comment on things that I think are completely awesome. I have to go back to it, let alone leave a nasty comment to some random stranger on the internet. It's so crazy. I want to ask you about your your teenage daughters, your 17 year old girls, because there are so many other women your age, you know, and my age in their you know, 50, late 40s, mid 50s, maybe early 60s, depending on when you had your kids. Where you're a role model for these, these beautiful young women who we want to come up and use their voices and learn that they can do whatever they want to do, and all the stuff we've been talking about that in our generation, we were not taught as much, and society did not support it as much as it is. And we want them to take the torch. So tell me, on a personal level, you know how you role model and speak to your girls, because I think that's part of this, not just elevating our peers who are in their 40s, 50s and 60s, but shining, shining a hanging our shiny lanterns for these younger women, going, come, come, come and be in the light you know, and bring your other you bring your friends. You.

I am so glad you asked me this question, because this that's probably my most it is my most important work is my children, and so I also have a 19 year old son. So for him, he's he's getting primed to have a really good wife someday, because he's strong, grandma, he's got strong sisters, he's got a strong mom, and he always jokes about, like, Mom, are you doing another women's empowerment thing? I'm like, Yeah, damn right. I am honey bunny. This is how it is. But with my girls, it's, there's that whole adage. It's like, if you can't tell your kids to have self esteem and self worth, you have to model all this stuff, right? So if I could say, and I can't take credit for this, but somebody out there said, in the world, like, you know, the most powerful and radical thing we can do is heal ourselves, so we can, like, show up as our most beautiful, authentic selves, that in and of itself, it changes your home, it changes your communities, because you have this ripple effect. So if they see me starting something new, and they see me working hard and making a change, and by the way, I bring them to all my events, they're like my support team, because it's very important. Actually, I had a huge event a couple months ago, and my girls were there helping, like, give out gift bags. And you know, you know, it's all hands on deck. And other women were like, gosh, at the next event like this, I'm going to bring my daughter, because then they see women in their 40s and 50s and beyond, because all of our kids, you know, I think we all went through that quarter life crisis at 25 and they're all in high school thinking they have to have it all figured out, and they don't. I'm actually going to go speak at the high school about career day that you have this long life, like nothing has to be all figured out. And the way we do this beautiful life is by having, like we're talking about, the courage, and you have these strong role models, and you speak up for what you want, and you don't, you know, nobody puts baby in a corner. You speak up to get what you want, and you're strong. And there's, there's the ways to do it. So they see me modeling that in the home. They see me out, you know, doing my events. They see me sometimes I'm like, recording. They can hear me through the doors, and they under. They hear the conversations that I'm having. And so I know it's, it's in their it's in their DNA. And it's funny when they come to me, because, of course, then they've got girl drama, because that just happens in high school and and they're always like, oh, shoot, Mom. Are you going to try to, like, you know, over analyze this? I'm like, Well, I'm going to give you guys the tools. I'm going to explain, like, we don't want to, like, close circles. We want to open circles. Nobody wants to just drop friends. We want to I want to give you guys the tools. It doesn't mean you need to be friends with everybody, but we all have to have compassion, understanding and like that one girl who's acting out, I don't you shouldn't accept her behavior, but she has an unhappy home, so just kind of like bless and release, understand she has an unhappy home, and you're getting the worst of her because of her unhappy home, it has nothing to do with you. And so that those are just sort of like life lessons for all of us of just knowing that anybody's reaction to us has nothing to do with us. It's the it's the other person. So with our girls these days, I'm hoping, you know, with all the work we're all collectively doing, that they will experience income equality and a lot more opportunities and not have to deal with a lot of the BS that we had to all deal with when we were kind of coming up in the corporate world and, you know, getting our bona fides and all that kind of good stuff. Because, you know, I look at them and I'm like, I don't want them to have to fight like we did, not with each other, but just kind of fight the system and deal with the patriarchy and all of that. So it's really, truly, I will actually have a lot of young girls that follow me and reach out, and it's just been friends and friends. And I'm like, that's actually, like, if I'm being honest, I care most about those young women, and so they can see how women can support each other and how you can be strong. I actually had a gal, a young woman, come up to me, and she's in college, and she's like, you know, I listened to your podcast, and I just do it so I can hear some positive female voices, because she had a really hard semester and ended up having to change College. She made me cry. She was like, bagging groceries at the grocery store this summer. I was like, Okay, this is why I'm doing everything I'm doing, so these young girls can see all women like us going out and taking chances and taking risks and not accepting the status quo, and also not not complaining about anything being solution. Like, let's have solutions. Let's try to change it. Let's not complain because I'm not, I'm not a complainer, and my kids are not complainers. It's like, how are we going to change it? What are we going to do change things?

You know, for women who struggle to put themselves first and want to constantly be of service to others, which is a beautiful thing I find in our community, that seeing self love and tapping into your strength and power as an act of service to yourself and by extension, your children, your friends, your family, society, community, really shifts things for people you know, being able to get past that block and actually seeing seeing empowerment as an act. Of service to everybody. Oh, gosh, I could talk to you about this forever. I always end every episode with the same question, which is for somebody that has a dream in their heart, which is all of us, but doesn't feel like they have what it takes to make it happen, what would you say to them? I mean, we've been talking about it all, all hour long, haven't we, but, but let's, let's leave. Leave with that. I'm

gonna steal roomies quote, because I think I'm gonna do a whole podcast offer me do dedicated to this. What you seek is seeking you, like if you have it in your heart, and if you see it, if you see it in someone else, that means you got it in you. So if you feel slightly triggered by Tess or by me, because we've got podcasts or this or that, it's because you've got something in you too, so we're doing something that you have the capability to do. So I always tell people, if you're kind of triggered or you're kind of looking at someone, it's like, that's really great information, because you can't see that quality in somebody else unless you have it already in yourself. So if you see somebody out there speaking, or they're on their book tour, or whatever it is, because you can do it too, and you are absolutely 100% capable of doing whatever it is you want to do right now. You don't need another degree, you don't need a certification, you don't need to take a class. You can start right now, today. You can do it, and you're not too fucking old, of course.

Let's end with that you're not too fucking old. Thank you, Jen. I love the way that you show up in the world.

Thank you for this opportunity test. It's been like amazing to get to know you. I'm gonna have you on my podcast and we're gonna continue the conversation.

Yeah, love it. Thank you.