Transcript for Episode 01

00:00

Hi good peeps. Today is a special day. This is the first episode of the flexible, neurotic. I'm Dr. Sarah Milken, a flexible, neurotic. I have one of my absolute favorite people in the world as my first guest. She's gorgeous, smart, kick ass accomplished. And just flat out. Fabulous. Say hi to my friend and major role model. Angela Nazarian. Angela is the best selling author of four books. Yeah, I said four books. It's truly insane. She's a fellow pretty nerd. Yes, this will be a term pretty nerd that we use a lot on the show. One who looks good, exudes confidence and interest in the world, while displaying all traits of being a scholarly Angela's books include life as a visitor, pioneers of the possible, celebrating visionary women of the world and visionary women, and a newly released book on its second printing called creative couples. Can you even believe this craziness? Angela is the co founder of visionary women, a nonprofit women's leadership organization in Los Angeles. That brings together some of the most dynamic thought leaders in the country for in depth conversation. I have the honor of being there from the beginning and serve on their advisory circle. And for fun, as a side hustle. She's an avid flamenco dancer, it's serious. I went to one of her birthdays, and she performed I went home thinking, oh my god, should I learn to pull down she's the woman who literally does so. So Much to make the world a better, more meaningful and prettier place. She lives with her husband in Los Angeles and has two grown sons. Here's Angela. Hey, Sarah. Good. Me too. Me too. And really, thank you for that really generous introduction. It's all true. I don't know about that. Yes, I'm kick ass. nerdy, and then the rest. I don't know what I am. So let's talk about how we met. I remember that I had heard of you. I had seen you and I thought, oh my god, I want to meet her. And I think I reached out to go to a book launch event. For your second book. I stood in line with my book copy that I had just purchased waiting for you to sign it and we became instant friends. And since then, I'd call you my friend or mentor friend. Who's a mentor? I love that. You know, it's so funny. I remember that evening, I remember it clearly. And I remember a few other occasions that where we met at like school functions. And I always said to myself, okay, here's someone that I'd like to know better. And can you believe it? I think 10 years have passed and oh, my God, and we've built on this friendship. And I'm just this zest for life that we both have. So we met around 10 years ago. Wow. That's a lot of Botox for me. I know when you look at photos on the internet, I see photos of us on the internet and I'm like, Oh my God, my face was so much fuller than Oh my god. As a matter of fact, yesterday, somebody sent me a picture of me this Saturday. It's so hard for me. I'll talk about it in this podcast with you. But how as we grow older, certain things fall to the wayside and you just have to make peace with it in some way, some form or another, where everything is going south. It's going south for sure. gravity gravity is doing its work and I go, thank God, I never base my identity on just being pretty. Totally. I agree with you. If that was the basis of how I would have identified myself, I would have had such a harder time now.

04:28

That's why you have to be a pretty nerd. Exactly. That's what I try to teach my 14 year old daughter. I think she's accomplished that in her pretty nerdy bit of good. Okay, so my intention for this episode is for us to dig deep with our golden ship shovels to have an edgy conversation about how you me all of us have tried to find the sweet spot between chaotic and chill. So whatever I mean by that is we can all live in this chaotic frenetic world with all this information coming at us a million different ways this expert that expert this person, but then at the end of the day, we have to take what we hear and what we see, break it down into little golden nuggets and try to live a little more flexibly and what we call chill. Today I want to discuss with you and how you have embraced your golden shit shovel and how it's helped you find balance in your family, yourself internally and externally and your community. So today we're going to uncover some of those golden nuggets and secret sauce. So listeners out there Take out your golden shovel, because we are going to start digging. Hopefully at the end of this episode, we will come away with at least these three overarching themes gets number one Angela's journey of her soul's purpose, her strengths and passions. Number two, basically in the second half of life with strength, beauty and creating inspiration. And three, how we can try to recreate ourselves in the second half of life. You ready, Angela? I'm really. Okay. So this is a triple part question. It's, first of all, do you know what your soul's purpose is? How does it relate to your passions and strengths? And have you always known it or it's something you evolved over time? I mean, you start with the most profound question for us. Oh, my God. I actually think that I mean, just for me personally, that there's many layers to one's purpose. I don't think I have one. purpose in this life, and that that purpose may change from one of my life cycles to the next. I think that when I was raising my kids, the number one purpose that I felt in my life that I'm raising two human beings that I want them to be good citizens of the world compassionate, honest with integrity. I wanted to nurture their curiosity. I think that's not my purpose. Now they're grown. And I've always had another layer of purpose, which is, what am I here to do? And I do think that it's taken me a while until I felt that I'm on mission. I think I really felt most myself when I turned 38 or 39. So believe it or not, it was a long road to figuring out what that is. And some of it is related to my passions, of course, because when you do have a passion for something, I think it allows you to expend more energy, more resources towards it, you'll have more resiliency when challenges come up. And somehow, I think the passion is there, but you also have to line it up with the timing in your life and what you want to achieve at that moment. So do you feel like there are a few steps that a woman could use to try to figure out what those passions and strengths are?

08:39

So I always talk about it. And I think on one of our walks, we were talking about this, how I really believe that the first half of our lives, we come to rely on our strengths. As for me, I'll give myself as an example, when I was growing up, being intelligent was one of the most important things for me. And that meant that I was exceedingly good in school. I was always getting the top grades and scores. I wanted to go to graduate school, I wanted to spend so much of my energy on being intelligent. And then there came a place even after I was teaching at the university, that suddenly that fell by the wayside. I think sometimes when you are overly dependent on one trade in itself, you kind of lose interest. And for me, it was back to basics. What makes me excited, what were the things in my own childhood that I wanted to approach that I never did? And believe it or not, in my 30s, I went back to studying art, which I never did. I started dancing which led to my flamenco. Amazing. I started writing. I mean, that was something that I had never done and I never thought I was a good rider. So I was actually reaching out to things that I had not done. And this whole pool surge of energy came back into my life. Because these were all untapped sources of energy that I chose to really explore. And that exploration took me to another stage in my life. So I remember on that walk, you said to me, Sarah, I have to buy this book by James Fowler, finding meaning in the second half of life. And I think when I got that book from Amazon, two days later, it started me on this force of what's next for me, what can I do? So I remember that being as the first step from you, then I think the second step was, do something that makes you feel a little uncomfortable outside of your comfort zone, and you said that you would take in a really hard writing class. Right in Los Angeles and I thought, Okay, well, not going to take a writing class right now, what could I do that pulls me out of this comfort zone of mine. And for me, it was another suggestion of yours was finding a life coach, who could not necessarily tell me what to do, but help me dig through all of my layers of shit. Like all of the stuff that's about me, what makes me who I am, what are my strengths? What can I capitalize on? What am I good at? Because sometimes we don't even know what we're good at. And I think for me, I was just like you like a performance based nerd. Everything was about, you know, what were my grades, what classes Could I take, went to an Ivy League school, getting a PhD, that everything was set up for me In this performance driven way that wasn't necessarily from my parents, but it was mine. It was my way of measuring myself. And I feel like you can relate to that.

12:11

Absolutely.

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And then when I got to this stage where I'm 45, I'm thinking to myself, okay, well, if I put the performance driven stuff aside, because that's almost easier because you fall Okay, I got an A on that I got my degree, but it's harder when you start looking in, rather than those measures from the outside. And that's been sort of the beginning of this midlife journey for me. Well, and what a great beginning you are having my friend, you know, I'm watching you. And I think about how we met up right before the pandemic. And then afterwards, you know, six months later, the projects that you're doing and I can actually sense yourself sense of aliveness. And I've always said that in my women's groups is that happiness is not a sense of, Oh, I'm so happy. It's about the molecules in your body vibrating with a lightness, and what makes you feel awake and alive. And I also had that feeling when I started doing something new and saying, Oh, this is a good challenge. This is something that is out of my comfort zone. And if I'm not tied to a grade, if I'm not tied to a performance, and I think about this as a journey, where's it gonna take me this is kind of exciting. I don't need to think about the end result. Just do it. And one of the things that you were talking about in terms of taking steps, I think how important it is to actually take one step first. What I see with a lot of women and I used to have one Men's groups for close to a decade is that people can talk about change. They can talk about their feelings. They're actually even very clear about things that they need to do, but they never have the courage to take that first step. And for me, what's really interesting is that during our walk when we were talking about James Hollis, which I have actually gone through three of his books with my women's groups, is that you actually took the initiative to read it. I would tell people, and they would say, Oh, yes, that's interesting. And maybe three years later, they'll come to it when they're really stuck. So, to me, I think it's really important and having a mentor, so I myself had a mentor, she gave me those books. She told me, I'll check out this class. And I think if you're going through the trouble of asking someone, are you truly open to change That's the first question you need to ask yourself. Some people get so used to being stuck, that they wear it like their uniform. How open are you to make change? Because when you make change, you may not recognize yourself after a little while. But maybe that's what you're up for.

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Right? If I could encapsulate our walk into the three steps that I took away, it was buying the James Hollis book, meaning in the second half of life, then it was finding a mentor and obviously you are my friend and mentor, but you meant someone that I could actually dig with on a weekly or bi weekly basis. And the third one was stepping out of my comfort zone and doing something like taking a class, you took an art class, you took a writing class, you've been flamenco doing something just that's a tiny bit uncomfortable. for you. And what I find fascinating is I make my kids do this shit all the time. I'm like, oh, Marin, you fell off the horse. Oh, you're going to get back on again. Oh, Jake, I scheduled surfing for you tomorrow. And I just expect that they're going to do whatever new comes their way, no problem. But then when it comes to me, I'm like, Oh my god, I'm not going to learn that new software program that's too hard. And so then I started realizing that the standards of embracing newness and flexibility that I put on my children I had to start putting on myself, right? Because I was so stuck in my routine of I'm a mom and I wake up and the kids get ready for school and then we take them to school and all of these things that I actually had to stop and look inside and go, Okay, I have my routines down. How can I disrupt that routine? Right, and like you said, it's These tiny, tiny steps. I think sometimes people feel like, Oh my god, I'm looking for change, I have to go on a 10 day Silent Retreat, turn my whole life upside down and move. But it's not it's about that tiny step. It's about ordering the book that someone tells you to buy, listening to that podcast that gives you three little nuggets. And it's the tiniest, tiniest steps that can get you to the next stage. And my life coach, she said to me, Sarah, your control freak, you want to know what the next three months are going to look like the next six months, every single thing, but you only have to think your one job is to think of what that next step is not what the rest of the day is or the rest of the week. Just what's your next step. I love that and I I have another analogy is that if you are the pilot of your own plane and if you change the reasoned terms of direction by 2%, you can land in a different continent, just 2%. So sometimes people think of change as something very radical. But I think that all of us every seven years go through a cycle of change. And that change makes us reorient ourselves and our identities in a different way. We find it in a different way. And sometimes these things are very subtle, but then yield very different results. So that's the important thing to know. And I think that my having a really strong mother with a very strong sense of herself, identity career, having friends like you, has really helped me feel like expanded that this person can do this so I can do it too. This person's doing this so I can do it too. And I know That Lacey Phillips which is a podcast that I love. She has a definition for an expander. And I want to actually read it to you. So Lacey Phillips is a psychological manifester. And she coined the term expander. lacee defines an expander as meetings criteria, that person is in the exact place that you are now or they were in that place. Number two, they've gone on to be successful in own or what you are calling in. Number three, their success track seems attainable to you. And number four, they give you an aha moment. And when I heard this term, I immediately thought of you Angela and I told you that and I sent you a text and I said, You are my expander. And I thought she was going to be like, What are you talking about? And I said, you know, you're almost A few years ahead of me in the self recreation journey, and I want to find what's next for me. And then the next week we went walking, you told me that you told your husband, he said, I were expander. And he was just trying to wonder what that meant Exactly.

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But what a beautiful compliment to be giving a friend and, you know, it goes to the truth of why it's important, how you choose friends and the people that you spend time with. You know, when I had gone on tour with my other books, and always said, I mean, research shows this that we are the average of the top five people that we spend the most time with. So I choose my time in a very conscious way. How do I spend it for my board of directors in terms of my life, if you had to just not think about your husband or family members Who's on your board? Like if I had to contemplate an important decision for those people that I would rely on for their honest feedback and their wisdom, and they will elevate me as a result of their emotional tone, and the way they approach life, and how important it is for us to build that network within our own lives of people like that, of expanders. I just got the chills because that's such a great way of putting it. I actually serve on a lot of boards, and I meet amazing people, but I've never really thought about, I always call it my inner circle, like my five super close friends who know everything about me and they are my board of directors, and I would put you on my board of directors and you would be on my expander list.

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Good and you're on my list.

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But good news. That's good to know at least we have each other's backs. Now we all know that in this journey of life, our childhood, our formative years impact us, they impact our grit, our resilience, our ability to adapt to change, which we sure as hell needed at a time like this with a pandemic. And I know you have a very incredible childhood story. Do you want to spend a couple minutes telling us about that, and a few of the things that you have pulled from that? Yeah, I think this story is important in the fact that what I learned from it, and I always say that, you know, an experience isn't good or bad. It's the meaning that you derive from that experience. And for me, you know, I was born in Iran. I came to the states when I was 11 years old, right at the time, where my country Iran was being pulled apart by the revolution at the time. father didn't think anything would happen to the country, and thought that I could come and join my two older brothers who are already studying here for a two week visit with my sister and my mom. And shortly thereafter, things got so bad that I never went back. And my mom had to go back to you, Ron to liquidate assets. And my parents had to think about how are they going to support five kids that were now living in the States. Needless to say, I didn't see them. And I had very little contact with them until I was 16 and a half when my parents escaped the borders of Iran and came back. So what are the things that I learned from that experience and the themes that I had to struggle? Honestly struggle with until I could find peace with it? One is that I felt myself as an outsider. You know, in Iran, we were a minority because we were joking. I came to Beverly Hills, which was largely Jewish, but now I was a minority in terms of being Iranian. So I had to struggle with that the outsider status. And then the other part is the feeling of helplessness when you're young, and how do you deal with it? When you have trauma? There's this sense of ambivalence with life. How do you deal with that? So I've come to see that I have become a very self reliant person because of my experience, because I found that although my mom, my sister was like a mom to me, I came to a new country, new language, new school, new friends, and I found my way through. And there is no other feeling than this sense of self worth and competence that can take you through the other stages in your life. And the outsider status is really interesting because I capitalise on it. For one, you know, I remember joining boards and they would say, oh, you're the first female Iranian woman. And I don't even define myself as an Iranian or American or anything. I'm just Angela. And I feel that I have so much in common with people of all different backgrounds. So it's really interesting when you expand your identity to fill up so many other identities. I don't particularly find myself different. And I actually use the outsider status we're having out of the box thinking, because I'm not so concerned with constant approval. And it's really interesting, Sarah, because in one of my books when we were talking about pioneers, pioneering people are not concerned about being the first or what happens what kind of reactions They get, as a matter of fact, they use it as a privilege to change the status quo in some way. Right? And I did, in some ways have to deal with some of my maybe feeling abandoned, although my parents didn't abandon me, but as a young child, feeling that, you know, you don't have the exact support that you need, right, you were living with siblings, not parents, right. And I think those things kind of

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really resurface in my life when I became a parent myself. So speaking of motherhood, it's been not only a very fulfilling journey for me, but it has also in a very candid way, been a challenging one, because I had to renegotiate what it means to be a mother and what kind of Mother I want to be and how am I dealing with the residue emotions that I had from my childhood and not bring it into the mother's day. child relationship that I have with my kids. It's big stuff. It's a lot of work. It is big stuff. I know that for me, I grew up in a house where both my parents were, my mom had a PhD. She started the largest nonprofit in the country for special needs children. the year I was born. And I had very present parents. And I always thought that I was going to have a full time job just like my mom dead. So for me, after I got my PhD, and I was teaching at USC in the Graduate School of Education, I was pregnant with my son. And in my mind, I just planned on continuing to work and figuring out my career. But once I had Jake, my firstborn, he's 16. Now, I just put it leave, and I had no plan. have that. And it was not what I had expected. I think my husband always thought I was going to work. But there was just something inside of me that said, No, Sarah, you're going to stay here. And you're going to be with Jay. And I never looked back. And it seems so strange to me, because for so long, I had this one plan, and then it all changed overnight. And I remember telling my parents and they were like, wait, why? And I'm sure there was judgment in there in some ways, because, you know, my mom was a working career person, and I think she thought that I would too. And why would I go through the hassle of getting a PhD and going to an Ivy League school if I was going to stay home with my children, but I think that for me, if I think about my soul's purpose, like you were talking about earlier with you, I feel like my soul's purpose to now has just been to Trying to be me, no matter where I am confident enough and being nice. So in elementary school I was Sarah like to do better did well in school, you know, middle school, high school, the same thing, but I was always me. And it didn't mean that I didn't notice what other people were doing around me or any judgment. But I was really strong with myself and just say, this is Sarah, this is who I am. And I'm not going to let anyone around me change that. But for me, being a mom was a number one. And now my kids are 16 and almost 14. And now I feel like I've cultivated these children who are really good people. And it's my turn to flip the switch and say, okay, Sarah, this is about you. Now. What can you do in the world to show your Sara. Right.

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And it's interesting because I think that the speakers that you have on your podcast will be all the different dimensions of Sarah represented and all the Explorations that you want to do. And it's really interesting, Sarah, because my reaction also, you know, I came from a very, very traditional family where women weren't really working outside of the house. So I just assumed after my graduate degree, I'm going to stay home and be with kids. And shortly after my first son, Philip was born. Six months later, I just noticed I was itching. I was itching for outside stimulation, and I just didn't know how to go about it. And I told David, you know, I think I need to do something outside of the house, just so that I can be a more vibrant person when I'm around my kids. And I used to be a part time Professor while while I was a graduate student. So I was teaching a class in graduate school. And I thought maybe I'll reapply for the position again. And I did, I got the position. And so I was teaching a class every semester. And it was my way of having a little bit of outside world still inside me. And to tell you the truth, I mean, being a professor, you're really teaching three hours a week and one hour of office hours, and the rest of the time you can spend it at home. So it was an easy way of having something interesting happening in my life that made me connected to the outside world. But shortly after my kids were in middle school, I felt like that route had taken its course, that although it sounds really good To say, Oh, I'm a professor at a university and I was teaching upper division psychology courses. It didn't excite me anymore. And if it's not exciting me, I'm not doing it anymore. And that's when I completely just stopped and went into a different direction. Yeah, I can understand that completely. But for some reason with me, I think being such a neurotic, perfectionist in my mind, it was all or nothing, right? In some ways, I wish I had kept a little something, but I don't have any regrets. Right. But for me, it was like, I was all in on being a mom and trying to quote master that whatever that means, in my flexible neurotic way of gathering information on raising a baby and psychology and education and really trying to have a space in my house. My kids could really figure out who they were, you know, letting them paint my friends used to always joke like how old you let your kids paint in the house, you'd let them make such a mass. And I just felt like, you know, painting with liquid fudge brownie and making a mass was, especially for my first kid Jay. I felt like that's what he needed. That's what he wanted. And I felt like me being home and being present for all of that was important to me at the time. And it didn't mean that I didn't have any help. And it didn't mean that I was, you know, the only person you know, in the house doing house things, but I just wanted to be that person that he woke up to from a nap,

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right? It's beautiful.

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And so here I am now going okay, what's next? What's going to be our next thing? And so for me, I think what I I tried to do especially after our walk as I tried to think, okay, what's my skill? What's my strength? And when I think about it, I kept going back to sort of school related things. And I'm like, wait, that's not Sarah. Maybe trying to perform at the highest level and Sarah, but that's not a strength of showing Sarah is as a person. And then I had this interesting thing happened where my daughter I think got this idea from Pinterest or something maybe Tick Tock for a birthday gift for my 45th birthday. And she actually reached out to you I know that because I have it. And she asked all of my friends, how do you define Sara? What is Sara make you think of? I must have 20 of them and this golden box. I mean, I have almost have tears even thinking about it. And she tied these little tags, two bags of my favorite candy and they were notes from Each one of my friends and what was so fascinating about it is that every tag said the same thing loves to ask questions she's my problem solver. She's my solutions person. She has such a great sense of style if you want to see glitter or leopard go to Sarah if you want to have a question answered go to Sarah, loyal friend would give her inner circle her kidney. And it made me think like, Wow, my, my string, according to my daughter, and her project is asking questions, and asking people burning questions that we all have, until I feel like I've gotten the answer that I'm looking for, or I feel satisfied. And then I thought, Okay, well, if my strength is asking people questions, what's my vessel? What is my vessel I love to write but writing is really solitary. And my husband was like, Sarah, you're not going to work. To sit in an office or home, writing a book by yourself right now, I know you you like to interact with people, you like the exchange, you could talk to people for hours, strangers, everyone. And so in thinking about it, I was like podcast. It's perfect. I get to talk to other cool smart people like yourself, and I get to ask questions from experts and collect information that we all want. And then we got a flexible neurotic podcast. So what are some of the top questions that are on your mind that you want to take your audience through?

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I think the general overarching topic is this idea of self recreation. Because I think that we all grow up, not all of us, but there's an idea of, you're going to grow up and you're going to be a mom or you're going to grow up and be a doctor. You're going to grow up and be a dentist, there are these sort of like life long decades, upon decades of doing the same thing over and over again. And I think for me, it's about asking questions about the journey of self recreation, like having nine lives. You know, I'm a kid, and then I'm a teenager, and I'm a college student, and then I'm a mom, and then I'm a board member, and then I'm in this identity phase of creating a podcast. And so I think it's the self recreation, along with the ideals of parenting and the myths behind it, and trying to dig up information from experts and rad moms on you know, what did I do, right? What could have done better? A little bit of the shoulda woulda coulda not with judgment or guilt, but you know, looking back on it, maybe I wouldn't have pressed my kids to take 20 AP classes so that they could go to an Ivy League school. Not me personally, my kids aren't there yet, because they're quickly coming up on that bell, unfortunately, or fortunately, empty nest syndrome. So I think it would be, you know, digging into the sugar water cutters of parenting. Looking at neuroscience, there's so much insanely amazing information out there on how our brains work, neuroplasticity how we train our brains to do certain things, how we can, you know, instill ideals of meditation with our children, so they aren't so stressed out in a competitive school environment. And I think a few beauty treatment things maybe along the way. I mean, are you always asking your friends what their favorite things are to do, Horace

39:00

As the being the whole package.

39:03

Yeah. So I think it's sort of just being an information gather into golden nuggets of information that we can pull away. And like we said earlier, it's taking these tiny little steps each day toward self creation, not huge earthquake type changes, because I think like you said, when we look at huge change, we all get paralyzed, and we don't know where to start. And you're like, Oh, my God, like, I can't lose 30 pounds in a day? No, of course you can, but you can make better choices for that particular day.

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Yeah, or that meal,

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or that meal, for sure. And I also think, in creating this flexible neurotic podcast and having conversations with people like you, it creates another sense of community. Oh, there's other people like me normalizing it, and I think The goal for the podcast is really normalizing this want and need and search for answers in the journey of self recreation. I love that. And speaking of community, I know that community is very important to you. And that's why you created your nonprofit visionary women. Can you tell me about that? I mean, I know it from me being from the advisory circle, but will you tell me why you started it and what it means to you? Sarah? It's really interesting because I think building community is everything to me. I when I think about when I came to the States, it was my group of friends that pulled me through many life situations and changes. And I survive in an environment where I feel supported, that I feel like I'm doing learning and grows with people with my partners in life. And that could be friends. And colleagues and all kinds of people. And I felt that slowly as I was writing these books, how important it would be, for us women to have a community of like minded people that could come together, even for a short time for two hours, once a month for important conversations where we get to not only meet each other, but be in front of thought leaders and changemakers and get inspired by them. You know, I think of it as a different way of you doing the podcast. It was me doing this nonprofit. And I remember going to my husband, David's YPO groups, and I always felt, oh, this is a great model. But you know, there's like three women out of 100 men, what would it look like if it were all women, and we set the standard, not about if you're a CEO of a Company. But if you're the CEO of your own life, and you want to make shit happen, that you want to be a positive force in this world. And I think it's really beautiful because it's turned out to be some sort of tribe, or sisterhood. And with this, their membership is 100% going towards women and girls initiatives. And I get to learn from the best in the world. I mean, the speakers that we bring in to visionary women, whether they're Nobel laureates, or big entrepreneurs, I feel like I'm in front of people. And it's a continuing education for me and my tribe. So it's a win win situation. And it's a real privilege to feel that I'm relevant, that I'm growing, that I'm making an impact. And just by founding a nonprofit, I've learned so many things. I mean, I'm the CFO at this point who thought I was would be working with numbers. But this is what I'm doing. I'm in front of people, I'm learning things, and I'm also learning how important it is for me to feel like a connector. One thing that I have learned this past decade and I probably wouldn't have known in my 20s or 30s. And now I'm in my early 50s is that I thrive on connecting with people. I thrive by building bridges and making connections and introducing people to each other and collaborating with others. There's a certain quote, it says that if you want to go somewhere quickly, you go alone. But if you want to go far, you go with people, and I want to go with people. I want to go with my tribe of women towards the destination somewhere around the future. I love that and I love watching visionary Women Grow From its inception, it really has been an experience of seekers being with other seekers, seekers for personal involvement and self recreation. And I have to say, going back to that tiny next step, every single time I went to a visionary women event, I met someone that I connected with email, we went to lunch, and it just opened another door. Because once you start opening doors, there's that law of synchronicity that things just keep happening and happening and connecting and the things that we're kind of calling in, start appearing all around us.

44:43

Right? It manifests itself once you're open and you are actually conscious that you're fully paying attention to the present and what it's offering to you. And if you're so aware, then you grab the opportunity And you know, when I started it, I had no idea what it would end up as. And funnily enough, the pandemic has been one of the catalysts regrowing visionary women because now we're on an online platform. So with our last salon, we had people from Hawaii, from New York, from Miami from Seattle, from Aspen joining in. And I said, Well, once you go virtual, isn't it so much easier to build that platform? So you know, I'm growing every year and asking myself new questions and new finding new strategies. The thing that you said, that really just resonated with me as you said, you were looking to be relevant, to be growing and to be impactful. And I think those three things are the same things that a lot of us are looking to find, but we can't necessarily define it. But I think that to anyone listening to really, you know, sit down and write down, okay, relevant, growing, impactful, and what is my vessel for doing that? For me, it's the podcast for you. It's been your books and visionary women. But for some people, maybe it's a book club. For some people, maybe it's writing a blog. For some people, maybe it's, you know, picking up tennis with a friend. I don't think that everything has to be such a big deal or a blockbuster right from the beginning, but it's just finding again, that tiny next step of, like you said, feeling relevant, growing and being impactful. The other recommendation that I would offer to your viewers that really helped me was the book The artists way and I read that in my mid 30s. The premise of the book, first of all, every chapter deals with a whole neurotic thing that we all suffer from, which is great because it normalizes all of our own neuroses. Absolutely. We all need to know that we're not the only one. Absolutely. And I, we went through this book with a group of friends, so talk about a book club. But the premise of the book is that we are all creative beings. So we live to create, and what is your brand of creation? Is it about fixing a nice meal? Is it about writing a book? Is it about creating experiences for people and yourself, but tapping into your creative nature to make things happen? And once you have that space to create, all kinds of things flow out from it. But for us, it's not always being about productive, right? I think if we just right away, put that measure Production and all of the other trappings with it, we kind of freeze because we get so overwhelmed. But if you just say, I'm doing this for fun, I'm going to test out the waters. I'm going to be creative and see how it feels to me, you're much more likely to take the first step. Right. And do you feel like the female role models that you wrote about in pioneers of the possible had elements of that creative secret sauce? Absolutely. And what was it? This is a great question. And I think it comes to the point that you know, you and I are both psychologists, and we're both neurotic. I'm a proud, flexible, neurotic. I'm trying to be very flexible. So one of the things that was very apparent, I mean, you're seeing just a little background of my library. probably have 2000 books and maybe 700 of them on various philosophy, religious, spiritual and self help books.

49:09

And that doesn't even include all of your podcasts too.

49:16

So one of the things that has happened since, like 2000 years, I think the past 20 years, most of us women have been striving to be the perfect woman. So that means being a super mom being unusually successful at work, having the best body, having volunteer work, we're like we have so many standards of excellence and we want to reach all of them. And these self help books also are all a means of trying to figure out what your weaknesses are and working towards fixing it or adapting to it. My decade long research on successful women have shown that these women really don't even care about their wing weaknesses they know about it, they absolutely are aware of what their weaknesses are. But contrary to popular opinion of working on yourself, they actually decided to tailor their lives on their strengths. So they actually knew better what their strengths were. And they tailor the life around their strengths. That way, they were able to push through many things and they surrounded themselves with people that could actually come in and help them with their weaknesses. So, you know, it's not about being perfect. It's about being enough. Yes, if I'm enough, then I can go on with my life. Not feeling that Oh, if I could only improve this, I will do that. No, you don't need to improve anything. Figure out who you are, and go from a place of strength. Can you give us an example or I'm sure you have a million favorites from your book, the pioneers. Can you give us an example of a woman doing that?

51:18

Absolutely. One of the examples that I'll give you is the Nobel laureate, Lima, Bally. Lima, Bally was a battered wife, with four kids with a high school education. Her country of Liberia was wracked with civil war for 13 years. How could a woman like that who was so disenfranchised feel that she could actually stop the war in her country? I mean, this is someone with limited education, no resources, nothing and actually is self worth That was below average, because she was giving the space to her husband to be abusing her on top of everything. So this is a story of transformation and it's a story about digging deep and going back and feeling like what is the reserve inside you what is that you want to tap into? And Lima shortly after deciding that she would leave her husband and take her four kids back to Liberia started taking classes where her parents were supporting her. But her biggest strength was courage. And she was smart. She had a lot of courage. So after working with people who were victims of crime and war, she decided that she's going to build a coalition of women that are interfaith, Muslim, Christian Buddhists. And bring them all together and say, We are the women of this country, we need to stand up for peace. We need to stand up for our kids, we need to stand up for our husbands. So she not only leveraged her own skill, but she was able to leverage the voices of all these other women to become one strong person with a voice. And the kind of things that she did is just you say that she had chutzpah, but it wasn't because she had education that she had financial backing. She just had the backing of her sisters. She was willing to take a risk to put herself on the line. She was not intimidated by the Prime Minister. She wasn't intimidated by people harassing her. And that's the other research result that I can tell you from this is that the most successful women, the visionaries are first of all, seeing things that haven't manifested yet, and they can go towards that vision. But they're also ready to take some heat for it. Right? So if you are so involved with being liked at all times, you're not going to make change happen. The interesting thing is that intrinsically, these women or changemakers are likable people to begin with. That's how they can gather a group of people behind their vision leadership. Yes, that's called leadership. But they're not about approval at all times. Yeah, it's such an interesting thing, because in this day and age with social media and 24 hour news, I think a lot of people are afraid to put their opinions out there because of judgment. And I think as women we need to support other women trying out new things and you know, embarking on new endeavors and really hold each other up. I agree with us wholeheartedly. And I always feel that women are bridge builders. And one of the things that I'm very concerned about right now is this canceled culture. And I understand that we need to have a moral high ground. But how do we build common ground so people can have productive, meaningful conversations with people that they have differing views on? And that's something that we're going to be exploring together as women and visionary women for our next salon, because that's the question I asked myself, Sarah, you know, people are afraid of posting things they're afraid of, you know, even talking in their own family unit about politics, because it has become such a mega identity, when something small becomes the only thing that defines you if your political affiliation is the only thing that defines you. We're in trouble.

56:01

What happened to just being a person? Exactly. I know I agree with you. I mean, I told my kids and my husband was, you know, we talked about a dinner is, sometimes we don't know the right thing to say or the right thing to pose. But what I we as parents keep going back to it, in terms of my children, just make sure that everyone you're with either on zoom or in person, that those people you're with feel psychologically and physically safe with you.

56:31

Absolutely.

56:33

And that's the bottom line. It doesn't matter the political view or the cultural view, it's just do I feel psychologically and physically safe in this environment? And just meeting that basic thresholds just seems so important right now? Absolutely. Well, I know we have to wrap it up, but I'm gonna rapid fire eight to 10 quick questions, just say the first thing that comes to mind. Okay, okay. I know you're an overachiever, so just blurted out. What's next on your bucket list? getting two Nobel laureates in a discussion with me. Could pretty nerd Angela. I know number two, anything that you have learned is on your bucket list after quarantine.

57:24

Not eating carbs.

57:28

So you're eating carbs. You're not eating carbs. I am eating carbs. I'm having pasta. sourdough bread. No white bucket. I other things that I can be concerned about. Okay, secret pleasure. Mine is Dunkin Donuts, iced coffee with artificial flavors. What's yours? Oh my god. You know, for 10 years. I would have a doughnut every morning. Every morning for 10 years. How random I know. That is a chocolate glazed doughnut. Oh, I died for that. favorite beauty treatment. So, since I've been in quarantine, I really don't do my hair. But I have this blow dryer with with a brush in it. So I'm doing my own hair now. Wow, me too. All right. I know. It's amazing how good we can get things right. Okay, whoa, whoo whoo things do you do?

58:26

What is the woowoo thing?

58:28

meditation crystal? Oh, I see. Okay, you know what I do? There's this app called calm. I listen to it as a way of like a guided meditation. I've found myself so distracted lately. So that has been really helping me. There's another one called headspace. So meditation is one thing that I do. Of course, I have a gorgeous crystal in my office, because I feel like we are all vessels. And we're all vibrating something.

59:03

What kind of crystal is it?

59:05

It's Amethyst, a huge and that's my first stone. Oh, I love and you know it just brings peace, love purity. So that's what I have.

59:16

Okay, what was the last thing you ordered from Amazon?

59:20

You don't want to know because it's like this plastic leg cover because David just had surgery. That's funny because your mind was isn't the head ice wrap for my daughter's wisdom teeth? There you go

59:33

as caretakers. Exactly.

59:35

I've been home for four days managing that nightmare. And I also order a desktop fan because I feel like I'm like, I don't understand why I'm sweating when I'm putting makeup on in the morning. You know why? Why? Just kidding. I know. I know. I I'm trying to avoid it with the fan. Now was intuition natural to you or did you have to work at it? I think it was always natural to me, it's just that I suppressed it and discounted it. And, you know, intuition is just not something that pops in your head. Again, another piece of research is that intuition is about your brain neurally accessing lots of experiences, both in breath and in depth at the same time. So something comes up really fast. So intuition, isn't that you have telepathy? Is that neurally you're connected to so many different things and experiences, and it'll give you an answer quickly. And I believe in that I'm a believer in intuition. Me too. Okay, what's the smallest thing we can do today to start our shift toward self recreation, looking in the mirror and saying I forgive you for everything you did today and start new. I put makeup on because I always wear makeup but you know that What would your bottom line advice be on finding the sweet spot in the second half of life between chaotic and chill? First of all, number one thing is embrace who you are. embrace who you are and start from there. And don't take things so seriously. I agree with that. Is I've gone from performance driven to I gotta just loosen up a little bit. I can't I wouldn't agree, I don't think. Okay, Angela, I love you. We've shoveled for today. My hope you all loved Angeles, golden shit life nuggets as much as I do. We all want you to think about what we can start doing today. I want to thank you, my beautiful friend for giving me the courage and inspiration to continue to recreate myself. And hence this podcast. Thank you Angela in the Zarya. Thank you, my friend. Kiss I blew it over. Love you talk to you soon. Love you. Bye.