358 – Starting Over at 50 THIS Time Your Way with Jennifer Arthurton

Gift biz unwrapped episode 358.

When we think about Starting something new or starting over,

and we might be in our forties or fifties,

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We're addressing a topic.

I don't hear covered much at all.

As women who've reached middle age,

we have so much to offer to others and ourselves.

It's a time when we analyze what we want for the

second half of our life and decide what's really important.

We can release the expectations that in the past we felt

we needed to live up to,

and now do things for ourselves.

Maybe it's starting a second career or picking up a past

interest or new activity that you've always considered.

We're going to talk about why now is your time,

how to reconnect with yourself and to get re-introduced to your

passions. You'll also learn about the concept of no zero days

and the details of this very important stage in our life,

the Maven years.

Oh my gosh.

I am.

So looking forward to this conversation,

I'd like to introduce you to Jennifer Arthurton,

she's the creator and founder of old chicks.

No-show a community designed to inspire and support midlife women in

chasing their dreams and creating their ass.

Next chapter,

Jennifer is an empowerment coach podcast,

host writer and speaker having made her own midlife course correction.

She is a passionate advocate of the inherent power and knowledge

that women possess at a time when they often feel overlooked

and doubt themselves the most,

like I said,

I can not wait to get into this conversation,

Jennifer, welcome to the gift biz unwrapped podcast.

Thanks so much for having me.

I think this is going to resonate with a lot of

our listeners here,

but before we get into that,

I have a question that I like to ask each guest,

because it gives us a creative and different way of understanding

who you are.

And that is by having you describe yourself as a motivational

candle. So if you were to envision a candle that really

would speak all you,

Jennifer, what would it look like by a color?

And then a quote or a saying?

Yeah, That question so much.

So my candle self is white.

She is very bright and her mantra is chase your dreams.

It's never too late.

It is never too late seriously.

And this aligns completely with the topic,

right? Do you find that a lot of people feel like

it is too late?

Yeah. I mean,

we live in a culture that basically says,

especially to women,

that as soon as you get into your forties and your

fifties, it's like downhill slope to old age oblivion,

which is simply not true.

And when I was forced to begin,

reinventing my life at the age of 50,

I actually bought into that for quite a long time,

like who starts over at 50?

Like what's even possible at this point.

Like, aren't I supposed to be riding off into the retirement

sunset, but no,

here I am starting over.

No, no,

not yet.

That is what is positioned to us.

Like if you think about it through media and advertising and

even just cultural belief,

but that's kind of the way that it's positioned to us.

And so when we think about starting something new or starting

over and we might be in our forties or fifties,

it feels like an act of rebellion.

Almost Add in people starting in their sixties too.

But I remember when I was younger,

like I would hear midlife crisis and all that.

And I'm like,

yeah, yeah,

yeah, whatever.

But then when I experienced it and I'm thinking everyone experiences

at different levels and different intensities,

I'm like,

yeah, this is real.

I get it.

And I'm sure we'll get into some of those stories back

and forth a little bit.

But before we do that,

I'd love to hear your,

So I was a corporate executive.

I had a 30 year corporate career in marketing.

I was a wife.

I was a mother.

I call myself a gym rat.

Like I was the person who was in the gym at

6:00 AM before going to work every day.

And then in the year leading up to my 50th birthday,

I found myself divorced,

empty, nested.

My daughter moved three hours away to go to school.

I lost my job and I became bedridden with a stress-related

illness. Oh my gosh.

So everything hit you at once.

Like a complete life change,

Complete life change.

It was like,

my life was going in one direction.

And then within the span of a year,

it had completely like everything that was available to me,

every identity that I had in the world was basically stripped

away. Like I had no idea who I was.

So there I was at age 50 lying in my bed

feeling very sorry for myself,

throwing huge PD parties.

Well in physically not feeling well either I'm understanding Basically I

couldn't even get out of bed like to go grocery shopping

was like an act of heroism.

Like I could not go grocery shopping and then put the

groceries away after I would have to like rest.

There was a lot of days where I couldn't get out

of bed.

My body was just saying,

Nope, we are not doing this.

And so even that part,

you know,

and I have a story about how much I try to

control and manipulate the situation that was happening to me.

But like every part of who I thought I was at

the age of 50 was no longer available to me.

And the scary part was I realized that I had no

idea who I was or what I wanted.

So there's part of me,

that's saying like,

who starts over at 50?

Is this even possible?

What's possible.

Like, how do I do this?

What are people going to think?

Right. And then there's another part of me was just like

too tired to even think about it.

Were you happy with your life before?

Like, were you satisfied in your corporate job and the way

your life was set up before the big blast of it?

So here's the thing.

When I look back on it,

it's very typical.

Like I would find myself in moments,

kind of looking around at my life and going is this,

it is like this,

all there is,

is this what I worked so hard for?

And like,

I'd be in the boardroom and I'd be just kind of

zoning out of a meeting and thinking,

wow, this is it.

And so those thoughts would come up periodically and I would

immediately push them away because I'm like,

first of all,

back to real life,

I got a job to do here.

And when I look at it now,

I was actually too afraid to even acknowledge those thoughts.

Because if I acknowledged it,

I was going to have to do something about it.

And the thought of like,

for example,

leaving a 30 year career in a global world-renowned organization,

I was paid well,

I had amazing job perks.

And for the most part I did like my job,

but there was this nagging part of me that was just

kinda like,

Hmm. I wonder if there's more,

there has to be more,

this can't be it because my whole career,

like my whole life,

basically that led to that point was me doing everything that

I thought I should do.

So go to school,

get good grades,

go to a good college,

get a good job,

work your way up through the corporate ranks.

And I did all of that.

And then I got to the top and I was kind

of like,

wow, okay.

This is it.

This is what I worked for.

This was my whole life.

This was my achievement.

And it just felt a little bit empty.

I was like,

they had to be more Interesting.

Okay. So what happens Next?

So after many months I will say of simply everyday asking.

So I started a process of like journaling.

I started meditating and after a process of daily going through

these processes of asking the question,

like, who am I like really underneath it all?

Who am I?

And what is it,

what do I want?

I started taking the tiniest little steps that I could towards

just doing anything.

So I would go for a 10 minute walk in nature

and I'd be like,

okay, that felt good.

Cause that's all I could manage for that day.

And then it would be back to bed or,

you know,

I started feeling a tug to start writing.

So I just started journaling my thoughts and writing about my

experience. And one thing led to another and I just kept

following what are the things that I'm liking like,

oh, I really liked that experience.

Let me do that again.

And I just kept following what I call following the energy.

So not with a big master plan or anything,

just taking actions that felt good to you at the time.

Exactly. Because I am a firm believer of when you follow

your joy or when you follow your bliss or your intuition,

it brings you to more of that.

And so we as humans and I think this is a

true of everybody.

We kind of get into this all or nothing thinking like

I'm this or I'm that.

And we tend to ignore the steps in between.

And for a lot of us,

those steps are tiny little things that are just leading us

towards things that we love or things that give us energy

or things that bring us joy.

And the more we do those things,

the more of those things that we attract to artists.

And we just keep following that chain until I was writing

this kind of blog,

just for myself about my own experience,

my own life,

my own process of discovery.

And then one day I woke up and I was like,

I should publish this in a blog.

I was like,

what are you doing?

Why are you publishing this for the world to see?

But I did it.

I just was like,

okay, I have this instinct and I did it.

And I published the blog and I remember like I had

to sit on my hands for three days to not delete

what I had put out there because I was so afraid

of what people would think like,

oh my goodness,

this woman's lost her marbles.

Like what's going on?

And then I don't got past the three days and I

was like,

oh, okay.

And then I felt compelled to do it again.

And so what started as the blog just kept rolling forward

into the podcast,

into coaching,

into, you know,

I am now establishing a charity for midlife women.

Like it's all of these things that have literally just evolved

in front of me by following my instinct and the things

that make me happy and bring me joy.

Well, I love your story and it's subtle,

but powerful.

Just the comments that you're making about,

just do a tiny step,

just do one activity,

one thing.

And I think that that resonates with a lot of us

who are listening here is maybe we have jobs already.

We are happy in them,

but there's something behind the scenes that saying,

oh, I want to try this.

I might like this.

And hearing your story.

It started with one blog article.

Granted, you delayed putting it out for a couple days,

but it was just one you weren't saying,

I'm going to start this big,

massive blog and people are going to loosen and there's going

to be articles like you didn't go into all of that.

You tested it to see how you felt about it.

And then it went from there.

Yeah. I'm always talking about this and that like taking the

tiniest possible step.

You think you can take in a direction of something that

you want,

right? Because again,

it's this,

like, I must take big leaps and bounds to get there.

When the reality is those tiny little steps,

add up to massive things in a much shorter space of

time that you can imagine.

But one of the things that I've been trying to do

is get back into yoga.

And so I have this thing that I called no zero

days, whereas I have to do something in the direction of

that goal every day.

And sometimes those things are okay today.

All I need to do is just roll out my mat

and stand on it for three minutes.

And then I can check that that wasn't a zero day.

Like I actually did something in that direction.

It's not a huge leap or bound.

I didn't do a one hour practice that left me feeling

amazing. Like all I feel capable of today is rolling out

my mat and standing on it well.

And likely when you take to use that example specifically,

when you stand at that mat,

you're going to do a stretcher too.

Or then you're going to say,

I'm going to do a pose or to,

you know,

at one thing leads to another,

but you start with the mindset of rolling out the mat

and standing on it.

That's it?

Because whenever we're trying to establish a new habit or a

new goal,

our natural normal human brains will try and keep us in

our comfort zone.

Right? Like it'll throw every obstacle at you and can show

every reason at you why you shouldn't do that thing.

And the way to fool your brain is to do the

tiniest little thing.

Cause like you said,

the tiniest little step leads to another tiny step.

And then you look at the week and you're like,

wow, I got on my yoga mat seven times this week.

And I actually did like a 15 minute practice.

Yeah. That's a couple hours that you wouldn't have done otherwise.

So I think this direction is wonderful.

Also for those who are listening,

who are saying,

I know I want to do something else,

but I don't know what that is yet.

How do I figure it out?

And it's not like all of a sudden you're sleeping and

in the middle of the night you wake up and you're

like, I've got it.

No, that doesn't happen that way.

But a lot of people struggle with,

well, what is it going to be for me?

And so to your point about testing different things,

doing what feels good,

dipping your toe in the water of whatever you think would

be interesting.

Not that that's going to be the thing,

but it could lead you to the thing.

And the other part of that is I truly believe that

we all have the answers that we are searching for inside

of us.

The problem is for most of us,

we have become really disconnected from ourselves.

So life is busy.

We live in the information age where we're getting a billion

pieces of information thrown at us every day,

we got all of our jobs and our obligations and our

duties that we have to take care of.

And in that process,

we become totally disconnected from who we are and what makes

us happy.

Like what's our joy.

So definitely for me,

I realized as I was lying there in my bed,

staring at the ceiling going,

I've got no clue who I am.

I have no clue what makes me happy.

And so I had to spend some time going inwards,

which is why I took up a meditation practice.

It was like in my meditation practice,

again started with three minutes of just sitting in silence and

just paying attention to my breath.

It was just a way to calm my brain down enough

to see what thoughts came out.

And it was through that process where for example,

it would be like,

okay, just go for a 10 minute walk in nature.

Okay. I'm like,

all right,

I can do that.

No problem.

And then it's like,

I had never written anything in my life other than like

a corporate presentation or things like that.

And that kind of came up in that space when I

was like,

okay, all right,

we're going to write.

And then I discovered,

wow. It kind of really like writing.

And then the podcast came about because I started talking to

other women about their experiences.

I'm like,

if I'm going through this other women have to be like,

where are all these amazing women who are creating these amazing

next chapters?

They have to be out there somewhere.

So I went in search of them and I started having

these conversations and I was like,

okay, you need to record these conversations.

I had never,

even the thought ever dreamed about starting a podcast.

And I have to say,

it's probably the thing that I do that brings me the

most amount of joy.

Like I am so lit up after I do a podcast.

I'm like floating on air for the rest of the,

I know,

are you like me?

Like after I record an episode that I know is just

going to be so valuable,

just like after I press the button so that our recording

is over,

I just get this rush in me.

Yeah. It's wonderful.

Yeah. And this is the thing.

So it's getting connected with yourself enough that you can kind

of hear that inner voice.

What do you want to call it?

Your intuition or there's bigger spiritual context to it,

but whatever it is,

it's just to quiet yourself enough that you can hear what's

coming from inside you because we all have the answers.

Well, you know,

it would be nice if we could just go to the

file cabinet.

That's titled here is your answer.

But unfortunately it doesn't work that way.

Although some of us don't get to as dramatic a place

in life as you did.

And in a way,

I guess you tell me if this is how you feel

about it,

but it was kind of good that that happened because the

intensity of it led you to what you're doing,

because what you ended up needing to do is your solution

was pretty much for your own survival,

a hundred.

I consider it probably the greatest gift I've ever had in

my life.

Because what I realized,

you know,

I alluded to this before is I was acting out of

obligation. I was doing what I thought I should be doing.

And nowhere along the way,

did I actually check in with myself to say,

is this making you happy?

Is this bringing you joy?

Is this how you want to be spending your time?

I never considered that.

I was just like,

here's the path that was laid out in front of me.

It's like,

okay, follow along.

And I truly believe that this is the power of midlife.

And why so many of us kind of have these moments

of consideration about how do I want to spend the next

20, 30,

40, 50 years of my life is because when we reach

that point in midlife,

I mean,

everything in our lives are shifting at that point.

You know,

we are experiencing menopause.

Our kids are leaving home and maybe our careers are changing.

And it really is a point where we get to,

we have the opportunity to stop and consider ourselves sometimes like

me for the first time ever in my life,

right. To say,

what is important to me?

Like what do I want my life to be?

And I truly,

100% believe that this shift in our lives,

like all of the things that are happening to us physically,

mentally, and emotionally at this time of our lives is not

just like a mother nature,

forgot about us.

It's very intentional to get us focused on ourselves,

on what our true,

authentic beliefs are,

what our gifts are,

all of that stuff.

It's to stop us like to bring us up short so

that we can actually consider these things for the first time

maybe ever.

And that's literally what it was for me.

I mean,

I was going along in my life and probably had it

not happened.

I would still be on that path.

Have you ever watched Dr.

Phil, have you seen the episodes where he talks,

you know,

it fits with different topics,

but he does this thing where he lays out on the

floor. However many number of years lifespan is.

So let's say for women,

it's, I'm picking a number.

I don't know what it is,

but let's call it 92.

Okay. And then he makes a woman stand on the age

that she is and have her look back at all the

years that have already happened,

like all the numbers on the floor and then look forward

and you get a real perspective of where you are.

And that's so powerful.

So I'm just bringing it up because in our minds,

I, even,

all of us can create our own mind and think about

where we are.

And I think as we get older,

which doesn't happen when you're younger,

because when you're younger,

you think you have forever,

right? Like,

you know,

logically, you're going to get older,

but it's so far off in the future,

it doesn't matter.

And then all of a sudden you wake up one morning

and there it is.

But the good thing about that,

I think Jennifer,

tell me what you think is it's time to act because

you can't delay any more.

Because if you look to Dr.

Phil's mine,

how much more time do you have?

What do you want to waste?

Plus you don't know how capable you're going to be for

all those years.

When you think about the span of a woman's life,

I often look at this in chapters.

So the first part of her life is the maiden years

where it all about attracting a mate,

starting a family.

Then there's the mother phase,

which self-explanatory we raise our families.

And then typically what you see is this idea of crone,

which is the wizard old woman sitting on the mountain,

top sharing wisdom with the world,

but in between mother and crone.

And like,

when I saw that definition,

I'm like,

yeah, but I'm not an 80 year old woman yet.

Like, I'm not like this old wisdom woman who knows everything.

It's like,

I wasn't relating to that.

So when I looked at the gap between when motherhood,

when your typical mothering duties are over and crone,

I realized that there is like a 30 to 40 year

span of life,

which is actually the longest phase of our lives.

And it seemed to be ignored everywhere.

I looked.

And so I returned those years,

the Maven years.

And if you look at the dictionary definition of the word

Maven, it says an expert with knowledge and wisdom to share.

So it's not like we know it all.

And we've lived this long life and we're sitting on the

mountaintop, there's this whole section of time where we have knowledge,

we have life experience and we've acquired wisdom through that,

but we're still young enough to use that,

to actually change the world.

And so this whole phase of what I call Maven hood

really is about coming back to yourself,

coming back to your truest nature,

and then figuring out like what it is that you want

to do.

What's important to you.

What legacy do you want to leave?

What's the mark that you want to leave behind for your

family or your community or whatever that looks like.

It sounds like it's really a mindset switch.

Also. It's exactly that because you could also be a Maven

in your corporate career,

you've risen the ranks.

If you will.

Now you have newbies coming in who you are now teaching

versus you in the past,

having been a student or aspiring.

Exactly. And that's actually how enabled chicks notion came to pass.

Because back in my corporate days,

when we would have new people join the team and it

was a total joke,

but one of the things we would say is just follow

us old checks.

Cause we know some shit,

right. And then when I was in that period of figuring

out what I was,

what's next,

it came back and full force.

And I was like,

oh, this has a whole different meaning now.

Well, what do you say?

And I've experienced this not too much because I've been running

my own business now for quite a while,

but I was starting to feel it a little bit.

Well, is that true?

No, that isn't true.

I do sense it sometimes out in my day to day

is that as you get older,

there are times when you're discounted oh,

a hundred percent.

So let's talk about that a little bit.

I had never,

ever experienced that before.

You know,

I come from a family where I was the youngest by

far. And then even as I was raising the ranks in

corporate, I was also the youngest.

I had a lot of people to look up to and

aspire to be also.

And then all of a sudden,

when you get to that place,

there are less people,

less paths to look up to in terms of where you

want to go.

But there's also that dynamic that your perceived differently 100%.

And this is probably the biggest reason why I do the

work that I do is because I see so many brilliant,

ambitious, smart,

like truly amazing women who are in their forties,

fifties, sixties,

and even older who are doubting themselves,

right? Like in some aspects that are more confident than they've

ever been.

And then in other areas,

they are completely doubting themselves.

And part of the reason for that is that we live

in a culture that idolizes youth,

right? And this was like,

one of my pet peeves is when I really started paying

attention to this is like every time you see a woman

who's in her forties or fifties in a television commercial or

an ad it's for things like bladder leakage protection meal,

replacement, shakes,

vitamins to keep you energized.

So you can play with your grandkids.

And I was like,

okay, that's nice.

And that's good.

And those are very necessary things for our part of the

population. But it's also a tiny sliver of who we are

as midlife women.

So I was like,

where's the representation of women starting over women,

climbing mountains,

you know,

women starting businesses and running charities,

like where is that?

And it was nowhere to be found.

And so I read a stat one day that said that

we are bombarded with something like 30,000

images a day about what it means to be the perfect

woman. And the definition of the perfect woman has served up

to us by the media is between the ages of 25

and 35 with a certain physique.

You know,

that is,

becomes what we measure ourselves up to,

right? Like very subconsciously of course.

I mean,

we know that we're older and we know that things have

changed. We've got more gray hair and wrinkles and you know,

maybe our bodies have shifted,

but subconsciously we are measuring ourselves up against what we think

or what our culture has served up to us as being

the definition of what a woman should look like.

And that then causes us to focus on the things like

are changing bodies.

Our wrinkles are graying hair and we become,

so hyper-focused on that as being our value in the world,

as opposed to our true value,

which is the knowledge and the wisdom and the life experience

that we have,

like all the skills and capabilities that we have collected along

the way.

Happy to see that a little bit of that seems to

be changing.

I mean,

we're starting to see all different body sizes in some of

the fashion,

magazines and catalogs and all as well as all different ages.

So I think there's been some progress made,

but it's still out there for sure.

Yeah. I mean,

we still have a long way to go.

And even now sometimes we'll see gray hair models and things

like that,

which I think is absolutely amazing.

And I applaud it,

but even some of those images are women who are genetically

gifted, that their hair went is the exact right of shade

of gray to compliment their faces,

that they tend to be tolerant thinner.

So we're making steps and definitely body size and body positivity

and all of that.

But I think there is still a,

quite a ways to go,

to be able to see midlife women for what they are.

I mean,

we've been taught as a culture that our value lies in

our ability to have kids and to raise kids and what

we look like.

And so when we're no longer active momming,

we're no longer able to have children and we don't look

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It can be easy.

I can see exactly how we can fall into that trap

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And now let's get back to the shell.

So what is your advice for people who are feeling less

than because of any number of the things that we talked

about? I am a huge proponent of people doing whatever it

is that they want to need to feel compelled to do,

to feel good about themselves.

But my advice is,

you know,

okay, I still dye my hair because really I hate the

shade of gray that my misses Coming in.

I'm with you.

I still go to the gym partly for health reasons,

but I also want to fit into my jeans.

Right. And I get eyelash extensions because I hate mascara.

I have always hated mascara,

but I know,

and I will do those things because those things make me

feel good.

But I also know that that is not my value in

the world.

If I did none of those things,

I am still a valuable contributor,

regardless of my age.

I have,

again, like all of this knowledge and wisdom and life experience

to share,

like with my family,

with the world,

with my community,

like whatever it is.

So being able to see that part of yourself,

as opposed to just looking at the physical aspects of who

you are.

I would agree with that because when you look in the

mirror, if you are not happy with or accepting what you

see that does something to you internally.

So whether it's Botox or lash extensions,

or the way you're wearing your hair or the color of

your hair,

I think that looking in the mirror,

it should be a reinforcement of you and your values and

make you feel good so that you can go out and

do the other things that you talk about Jennifer,

in terms of providing so much good and wisdom into the

world. It's not for everybody else to say,

oh, look at how good she looks or not know your

age or something.

It's for you.

Exactly. Justine Bateman.

Do you want me,

if you remember her from what show was it?

Yeah, she wrote that book called face 14 square inches of

skin. And it basically is talking about how the world judges

us based on our faces,

which is 14 square inches of skin and the hyper obsession

that we have with the wrinkles and why we spend as

a collective upwards of $25 billion a year on anti-aging cream

serums, this,

that, and the other thing.

And again,

like I'm a hundred percent,

like if you have something that works for you a hundred

percent, you should do it.

But again,

let's not let that be the sole judgment of who we

are as people and our value in our society.

Right? Because we've all heard about or seen people who take

it too far.

And the question goes back to who are you doing it

for? Exactly.

And then I think is sad because for me,

you know,

it's somebody who maybe doesn't see how valuable they are in

the inside.

Yeah. They're doing it for other's approval,

not their own in some cases.

So the first thing that you do,

if you're feeling that you're getting reactions,

whatever it is with regard to the stage you are in

your life,

the first thing to do is for yourself,

do whatever it is that makes you your best self,

that makes you feel good about yourself.

And clearly that's the energy that you are going to exert

out into the world is the energy that you already feel

inside. Exactly.

So what else then do you do?

Okay. So we've got that done.

We've been to the salon,

we've done our nails.

We are working out because you know,

you also want to do things that make you the healthiest,

you too,

which inevitably comes back to your mental state too.

If you can move without hurting and pain,

you're just going to feel overall better also.

So we're all put together in that way then what happens.

So I think one of the very important things that I

always encourage women to do is to carve time out for

themselves. So whether that be,

to spend time with a journal or meditation,

or simply doing something that you love,

like something that fills you up,

because when you're in the plexus of joy or bliss,

or just feeling like fulfilled into yourself,

it's a whole lot easier to step away from the comparison

game about,

you know,

oh, I don't look like I used to,

or, you know,

this is the way that it used to be or whatever

it is like when you're in that state of joy and

bliss, you're filled up and you're less likely to see yourself

as having lost anything.

So again,

whether it's you love reading and you spend 20 minutes a

day reading a book,

like whatever it is you do like carve time out for

yourself to do that thing.

And it doesn't need to be anything that anybody agrees with

or allows you to do.

This is like personal time for yourself to do what you

want to do to do what makes you happy to bring

you joy and to really connect in with yourself.

Because when you get into that state of being in your

joint and your bliss,

it attracts more things to you.

Well, in this,

We're living the life for our own experience.

So you want to not always be working or always pleasing

others, which we spend so much time trying to do,

but you want to feel good about the life that you're

living for yourself.

Exactly. This time of our lives is all about,

like I said before,

making ourselves happy,

what feels authentic and joyful for me.

And like one of the things I realized in my own

journey, it wasn't,

you know,

like I got a lot of great things out of my

corporate career,

but it wasn't a hundred percent aligned with who I am

as a person,

right? Like I had kind of squeezed,

molded myself into fit into various different places of my career

that just didn't align with who I am on the inside.

Whereas what I do now is a hundred percent with aligned

with who I am as a person.

And sometimes we have to be able to carve out those

spots, that time for ourselves to connect in or to do

those things that we love in order to get on that

path. Yes.

And good point that you bring up too,

is that sometimes within corporate also,

you're kind of bracketed because depending on your business,

there's a way you're doing things.

There was a way you're presenting.

If it's a product or how you're supposed to market to

kind of take it back to you,

there's direction,

not just you.

So when you started your own business,

you then are running the ship.

And we talked a little bit in the pre-chat about this,

but there are a lot of people who are listening,

who are considering starting their own business probably for the first

time in their own life to get a little bit of

traction going.

So it can bridge the retirement.

It can become a second career for example.

And what you've been just talking about now is bringing you

fulfillment and you joy is what you're able to accomplish in

your own business.

Exactly. I mean,

there's so much talk about finding your purpose in midlife.

And honestly,

I believe that your purpose is what brings you joy.

Your purpose is what makes you excited to get out of

bed in the morning.

So whether that is a business or whether it's just doing

something as a hobby,

because you love it,

or maybe it's spending time with your kids,

whatever that is,

that is your purpose is to find your joy because that

is the pathway to just about everything else.

Yes. I agree with you.

So I feel like to round out this conversation,

it would be helpful also to talk about what you do

when you encounter people who make snide remarks about your age

on social or minimize you in a boardroom meeting,

because you're either a woman or you're older.

Do you have any suggestions or guidance when we're faced with

those situations?

Obviously we can't control the reactions or the comments of other

people, but I think one of the most important things is

to not take that on to not internalize that because it's

so easy,

especially waiting to be feeling a little bit uncomfortable with kind

of what's happening to us mentally,

physically, emotionally,

we might be in that spot.

And then somebody says something and it literally kind of drags

us down.

So I think the important thing is to just know that

that person is reacting from like,

whatever it is that they're reacting from,

but it absolutely has nothing to do with you.

So they're reacting to your age because they're afraid of getting

old, that has nothing to do with you.

And just being able to stand in the fact that you

are a strong,

vibrant Bard kick ass woman.

Like that's where we kind of need to be,

is to really ground ourselves in that as opposed to being

taking on what's coming in from the outside world.

Yeah. I agree and recognize that it's not just you personally,

that people do this.

What's the saying hurt people,

hurt people,

Both. Or what people think of me is actually none of

my business.

Yeah. Ah,

there you go.

Love that one too.

And I think the another thing that I know is helpful

is if you have a community of people who you've called

on for support,

I'm not talking about like a life coach or something,

but even like a Facebook community who also makes candles are

knitters or my community of makers anywhere where you have a

group of people that you come together and inspire each other.

This could be a place to go and just show your

newest creations of what you're doing or something like that.

To get affirmation about the value of the work that you

do or to say,

Hey, I'm really having a down day.

Here's what happened and get everyone else to say their responses

that are going to be uplifting and get you back to

a good spot.

Exactly. I am a such a huge believer in the power

of community.

I know that my own journey would not have been what

it is without having the support of like-minded people.

So whether that be like you said,

a community related to what it is that you do or

your age,

or like whatever it is,

but you need people,

everybody, and we're human.

We all need people who can see us for what we

are, who can hold our beliefs when we're struggling,

who can see our gifts when we're not seeing them.

And to be able to reflect that back to us.

And it's one of the reasons why I run the midlife

Kickstarter mastermind,

which is like an intimate group of women all coming together

who are on a journey to create something for their next

chapter. And like the support that I see from these women

in that group,

in that community,

it brings me to tears half the time because it's just

women supporting women.

And I truly believe that we have the power to not

only lift ourselves up,

but to lift each other up.

And when we do that as a collective,

we're actually changing the paradigm of what it means to be

a midlife women.

So each of us stepping into our power and helping another

woman step into her power,

he's actually raising the tide for all of us and us

stepping into our power and to show people what's possible in

midlife is actually,

what's going to change the paradigm about how we are seeing

Absolutely. So who is the right fit for your masterminds?

So Basically it's any midlife woman who is on a mission

to create something new in her life,

whether it's finding her purpose or starting a business training for

a new career,

whatever that looks like and wants the support and encouragement of

like-minded women on the same journey.

That is the community that I bring together.

So I bring together eight women at a time and we

spend four months together,

basically helping support each other and raising each other up because

the journey,

especially if you're moving from corporate into self-employed or you might

be leaving a relationship and relocating somewhere like that journey can

be difficult,

right? And it can feel very,

very lonely.

And having women who can help you in the two going

gets tough.

And when you're just not feeling it,

when you just want to curl up in a ball and

hide away from the world,

like having that community who will hold you accountable,

who will encourage and support you is gold,

absolute gold.

Like I belong to various different groups for probably more than

five years and I will always do it because I see

so much value in that.

I, I love what you're doing with the masterminds.

I love that it's a smaller group where women probably feel

very safe in an environment of a fixed number of people.

And I can only imagine the relationships that develop even after

the masterminds are over just the solid connections that you're forming

in that group.

Like I said,

it's the most beautiful thing to watch because I see women

just giving their perspective on another woman and the way she

sees that woman,

that woman would never seen herself that way.

And the more I hear that,

and the more we see that,

and the more we have that reflected back to us,

it allows us to be able to believe it.

Absolutely. And what about your podcast?

Tell us about the content there.

So the Ultrix podcast is all about sharing stories of real

women who have reinvented their lives,

who are tackling things.

They never thought possible,

whether they be physical,

mental, or emotional challenges.

And the whole reason I created this podcast is because when

I was trying to figure out what was possible for my

life, and I couldn't see it anywhere.

And then I went searching for it and realized there are

so many women who are doing so many amazing things in

the world.

And I wanted to make sure that I could share that

with everybody so that other women could see themselves in those

stories and feel empowered to be able to create the life

that they wanted regardless of their age..

Well, I know you're going to pick up some listeners from

my community for sure.

One final thing I want to ask about you brought it

up real quickly and I made myself a note cause I

wanted to come back to it.

What's going on with the charity that you're creating.

I haven't named this yet.

It's very early in the stages.

And honestly,

I'm still figuring out how this whole thing works.

But I read a research study that said that women are

80% more likely to be impoverished in retirement than men.

And when I started to dig into this study,

it said,

I mean,

there's a number of reasons why that is,

but some of the key reasons work,

the fact that first of all,

women earn less from the get-go and that on average women

reached their peak earnings at age 44,

and men reached their peak earnings at age 55.

And their peak earnings are 40% higher than women's speaker innings

the whole way Through the Whole way through.

And so men having 10 more years to kind of get

money under their belt,

it leaves a lot of women kind of left behind.

And then you consider illness,

divorce, death,

whatever that might be.

So many women who are interested in creating this amazing next

chapter might be struggling to put food on the table.

So the charity is going to be all about scholarships to

help women start businesses or to retrain for new careers on

all kinds of different things like that,

that will support the women.

And I really want this to be a women supporting women

charity so that the women who donate will be able to

sit on a board,

which will decide where the money goes and who the money

goes to.

So Dylan it's very,

very early days,

but when I realized,

and the number of women over 50,

who are living below the poverty line,

another staggering number,

I was like,

wow, we again have to give back like all of us

midlife women need to be like supporting each other to be

able to do that because no woman should have to live

below the poverty line over the age of 50.

That just blows my mind.

Absolutely. I agree.

Well, two things here first off when the charity is established,

I definitely want you to reconnect with me because I want

to put the link in the show notes of this episode.

And this may be an interesting topic for another podcast.

You're actually establishing a charity,

the steps that you went through,

and then we can get eyes on the charity as well.

So two things to think about in the future,

Jennifer, For sure.

This is definitely a passion project for me.

And I'm still figuring it out one tiny step at a

time. I mean,

it might take awhile the tiny steps like you were just

talking about before in the very beginning,

that's how we get big things done is taking tiny steps

forward. And it started with the research article you found that

gave you the idea.

So there you go.

All right,

where online could people go to find you?

You can find me on Facebook on Instagram and my website,

which are all of the same name,

old chicks.

No shit.

And I also have a Facebook group as well,

too. All of the same names.

So you can find me there.

Perfect. Well,

Jennifer, this has been a really inspiring enlightening conversation.

Thank you so much for coming on the show today.

Thanks for having me.

I really enjoyed our conversation.

The more we do things that we love,

the more we attract and discover similar activities that also fill

us with joy,

regardless of whether you've reached your Maven years yet or not.

I think this is one of the most powerful episodes I've

done to serve you.

It can empower you if you're at this point or prepare

you. If it's in your future as women,

regardless of our life stage,

we should stand tall and proud.

Thank you,

Jennifer, for focusing your work on this important topic,

I'll be back next Saturday for a discussion about website set

up where you'll learn the single biggest mistake people make when

they create an e-commerce site.

Meanwhile, you can also tune in on Wednesday morning for my

special tips and talk show.

Thank you so much for spending time with me today.

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Next time on the gift biz unwrapped podcast.

I want to make sure you're familiar with my free Facebook

group called gift is free.

It's a place where we all gather and our community to

support each other.

Got a really fun post in there.

That's my favorite of the week.

I have to say where I invite all of you to

share what you're doing to show pictures of your product,

to show what you're working on for the week to get

reaction from other people and just for fun,

because we all get to see the wonderful products that everybody

in the community is making my favorite posts every single week,

without doubt.

Wait, what aren't you part of the group already,

if not make sure to jump over to Facebook and search

for the group gift biz breeze don't delay.