Latest / Butterfly Days w Tami Jorden / Courageously Authentic®: Midlife Is an Opportunity with Brenda Hukel

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Courageously Authentic®: Midlife Is an Opportunity with Brenda Hukel · Butterfly Days w Tami Jorden

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  speaker-0 (00:00.12)
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  Today I'm gonna speak with Brenda Hookel. You're gonna love it because it's like listening to your gutsiest girlfriend talk about she has this amazing career. Over 50, she realizes that the company she's with really isn't in alignment with her values. And she's gonna double down on being authentic to herself. She's a multi-award-winning author of a book called Courageously Authentic. I encourage you to check it out. Her leadership and her writing have been featured in USA Today.
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  You may have seen her in an associated press piece, Vanity Fair, New Literary Society magazine, Women's Thrive. She's been on NBC, ABC, Fox, CBS. She's also been featured in New York's Times Square, and she's a marquee who's who twenty twenty five honoree. And through her signature programs and her online presence, we'll give you the link for that later. You can find out more about her. But she's a joy to listen to. She's very wise.
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  And that's the thing I think that will really touch you today. She's truly a woman figuring out how to live courageously and authentically. And you know how we are. We love to hear somebody else's story so we can be inspired by that. Join me for this conversation with the wonderful Brenda Hookel.
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  Welcome to MyReal. I'm Tammy Jordan, and this is Butterfly Days, the podcast that proves you're not past your prime. You're living in it right now because women don't have expiration dates. Butterfly Days is a celebration of the extraordinary potential of Gen X and Boomer women. Throughout history, women have shared wisdom to uplift and empower one another. And you're about to learn hard-earned wisdom and best-kept secrets.
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  From interesting, inspiring women. So if you're ready to embrace your butterfly season with confidence, find joy in the present, and create a legacy that matters, you're in the right place. No more holding back. Let's spread our wings now. Here we go!
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  speaker-0 (02:11.414)
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  Welcome to my realm. This is Tammy Jordan, and you're listening to Butterfly Days. Today, we're gonna speak with that girlfriend who was so brave and so true and so able to figure out how to do life and not compromise the best of who she is. We are gonna speak with the courageously authentic Brenda Hookel, author of a book by the same name. Welcome to the show, Brenda.
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  speaker-1 (02:40.13)
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  Thank you. Thank you.
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  speaker-0 (02:43.018)
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  It's super exciting to have you. I was impressed by your story because you're a woman who is at the top of her game. You crest fifty, and what happens?
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  speaker-1 (02:55.342)
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  Well, at fifty five I walked away from my executive job. And there's many reasons why, but you reach a point in your life where what you're doing, even though you're extremely successful, you make a lot of money, you travel all over the place, make you know, win awards, but it's not fulfilling. And then when you've reached that point, you think, What happened to me? Who am I? Why am I not happy? And that's where it takes courage.
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  To be able to walk away because your soul is screaming for something else, Tammy. Your soul is screaming for you to tear away all these inherited belief systems and expectations and everything that you were told who you had to be in in a society dictating what is success, and you return to yourself and you go through this awakening. And when you go through this awakening, it's a radical change. So I had watched women through my career, I've coached women.
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  almost forty years. I was an HR executive. I was in organizational design development. I worked from frontline all the way up to the CEO, worked with doctors. And it's the same pattern. And I just finally reached a point where it's I just had to I wanted to reach a broader audience. And that's so I walked away. And I left a lot of money on the table, which was risky at the time because my husband was very sick. We didn't know if he was going to make it. He was on social security. And I put a room together
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  I worked off a massage table for two years and my neighbor threw a couple of tables away. I dug them out the trash and I made a room and I went to the dollar store and I got poster boards and post-it notes and started laying out everything. And I wrote courageously authentic. And that was in 2025 that it was published and it's gone global. I've won seven awards. I've been in the reason I share this is because when you follow your heart, everything aligns.
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  And my work in women's empowerment, I opened up my own business, awakening the consciousness within, because I wanted women to have a chance and the have the courage to do the same thing. And my book and my work has been in USA Today, Associated Press, Vanity Fair. I'm gonna be on the cover of Millennium Magazine that's coming out later this month. And it's gone it's over 200 news outlets all over. It's been published in one magazines.
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  speaker-1 (05:22.668)
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  So that is great and I'm very grateful for all the recognition. But what matters to me is when a woman reaches out and tells me, Your book saved my life. I'm finally gonna change. I'm gonna take my life back. Choose me. Encourage over fear and authenticity over conformity. And that
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  speaker-0 (05:38.978)
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  Yeah. Yeah.
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  speaker-0 (05:47.118)
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  That's huge. Yeah. That's huge. It's everything. I love so many things about yourself. I love about yourself. I do, but what I meant was about your story. I love that when you stepped away and decided to do this, you did it at 55, completely in the fair way of what so many women are telling me right now. That the story that I got and how I feel about where I am right now are not lining up and I need to pivot.
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  And figure something else out. But you just did it homemade. And any woman listening to this, take note you had the courage. I'm gonna guess that it was blind scary to step off the diving board. Of course. And try to do this.
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  speaker-1 (06:35.63)
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  Course, because you don't know if your business is gonna take off. You don't know what's gonna happen with the book, if people are even gonna like it. I mean, talk about vulnerability. You're putting yourself out to the world. Yeah. And it's sharing your expertise. So it could go one or two ways. You can fail miserably and be, you know, publicly shamed, which I was okay with that because I just knew I was meant to write this book. And I wanted to reach women across the globe. And that's what I'm doing. So when I wrote the book.
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  I wrote it for the women. I didn't write it for me. So I take them on this spiritual transformational journey of healing. So they understand every component, what happened throughout their life and why they feel the way they feel. From, you know, why we fight change, our belief systems, you know, imposter syndrome, fear, why we don't forgive, our energy, our soul contracts. And I take it through the whole awakening process. And when I was writing the book, Tammy, my
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  Good friend and who lives in Sedona, she's such a great coach, but she said, Brennan, you just came out one of the worst dark night of souls I've ever is you know, seen someone. Now you're gonna write about consciousness. So when you write about consciousness, the universe is gonna test you. I'm like good luck. No problem. I had no clue. And every chapter I wrote, I was tested to the core up into the awakening process.
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  speaker-0 (07:52.094)
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  Yeah.
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  speaker-1 (08:00.438)
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  The last chapter is aligned with Christ's consciousness and I had to make the decision to give my husband permission to live or die.
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  And that girl. And when I realized that was the final test, I remember sitting at my desk negotiating saying, I'll burn my manuscript. I'll go back into corporate. Don't take my husband. He's my best friend. I had to make that decision. He lives out guys. But it just shows you what you can do when you set your mind to things. And when you follow your heart and you follow what you came into this world to do.
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  Your purpose, 'cause we all have a purpose.
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  speaker-0 (08:41.9)
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  Yeah. Tell me about that.
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  speaker-1 (08:45.706)
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  Each of us are born with a purpose, right? It doesn't make a mistake. So what happens is we come into this our life and we come in with a purpose, but that gets clouded because as children, we as we're growing up, when we're children, we operate from our subconscious mind up until the age of probably five or seven, right? Because our conscious mind isn't developed yet. So we don't have the discernment.
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  speaker-0 (08:48.598)
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  Yeah.
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  speaker-1 (09:13.432)
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  To determine what is beliefs and what are facts. So what we do is we observe and absorb our parents' beliefs, their beliefs, their biases, their likes, their dislikes. This is not about blame. This is about awareness. Okay. So that forms us as we move into adult world because we pine for their attention, their move, right? Their recognition. So we learn how to navigate through that to get all that. So depending on what type of environment you grow up in.
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  really depends who you are as an adult because you're operating off their belief systems. So if you grow up in an environment that is, you know, dysfunctional and toxic, let's say you deal with a lot of criticism, that child's going to internalize that negative self-belief, self-image. So as an adult, they're going to feel powerless. Right? If you grow up in an environment where love is conditional, then as an adult, you're going to look for external
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  To be validated. And that's what causes people to become people pleasers. Because they feel like the only way I'm going to be loved and valued is if I do everything for everyone else. Right. I've coached a lot of women who were extremely successful in their career, doctors, you know, attorneys, lawyers. They grew up in an environment where their parents set very high expectations. They expected them to excel at everything, sports.
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  speaker-0 (10:23.531)
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  Right.
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  speaker-1 (10:42.85)
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  Whatever they got involved in, they expected them to go to Ivalley schools. It then carried down this generational conditioning because our parents had no awareness. So they're expected to you know, the father was a doctor, so they got to be a doctor, right? So it's breaking that. And so they end up doing as an adult is they don't want to take risks because they're so fearful of disappointing their parents or disappointing someone else. So because they're driving so hard to make their parents proud.
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  And to be accepted and to be validated, they often struggle with imposter syndrome.
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  speaker-0 (11:18.115)
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  Yeah.
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  Don't you think midlife is that place where even I just think developmentally and maybe even hormones support us in having a space, if you want to, to shift from caring about what everybody else said, thought, or told you was important, and deciding for yourself what's good about me, what is my potential, what matters.
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  That there's such a space for that, even in the declining hormone phase, that that sort of sets us up to take a deeper look if we have if we want to.
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  speaker-1 (12:06.136)
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  Yeah. And you know, women go through so much. They go through so much. But what a lot of women don't realize is that the life of living right now is based on someone else's belief system. Yes. Right? It's their inherited beliefs. It's not theirs. So then they go through menopause, which is challenging enough. Right. You know the harmony. Yeah. And you think you're losing your mind. And you're not losing your mind. What you're doing is
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  speaker-0 (12:28.494)
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  That's true.
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  speaker-1 (12:34.25)
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  all these roles that you have played all that your whole life, mother, wife, daughter, caregiver, problem solver, you've attached your identity to those roles. So when those roles are no longer there, you know, because life changes. You know, relationships change or children grow up and they can move out of the house. We experience loss. We experience career changes, job loss, divorce. So when you don't no you no longer have those roles,
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  You ask yourself, Who am I now?
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  speaker-0 (13:06.572)
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  Yes.
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  speaker-1 (13:07.832)
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  Right. And that's where that confusion comes in. So yeah, I I get that. I get that. But really it's peeling back all those layers and coming back to your true authentic self. And when you return to your authenticity, your core, who you are at the core, and have the courage to say it's me, then everything shifts. Everything.
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  speaker-0 (13:32.942)
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  Agreed. A hundred percent. How do we? I love what you're saying. I wonder to myself, okay, you know, how do we begin shifting from for well, there's two problems here. One is that part where you actually go, I actually am so many different levels allowing society or my parents or you know, my community, my education.
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  To tell me what's important for me or what's good about me, or worst, what my value is. So how do we shift from realizing, okay, I want to be a fully, you know, a woman in full, right? But how do I shift to really get to find me? Because to be honest, I kind of lost me in trying to meet everybody else's external. Like, how do we?
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  How do you move the locus of control from external to internal? Like practically, how do you look at that?
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  speaker-1 (14:36.728)
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  When you stop attaching your value to different roles. And when you stop attaching your value to different roles and the expectations, what everybody else wants you to do and be, then you have to start tearing back sitting there and really going through your belief system. What you believe, is it really yours or is it your mother's? Was it passed down generation to generation? Right.
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  speaker-0 (14:48.014)
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  Yeah.
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  speaker-1 (15:03.446)
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  And are those beliefs really aligned with who you are today and who you want to be? And that's not an easy exercise. That that's something I walk women through all the time when I coach them. Because once we clear away all that, it's not about blame our parents. They're just repeating what their parents did. Yeah. You know, but you'll reach a point where you have more compassion for yourself. You remove the judgment, you remove the blame. You're no longer the victim, right?
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  speaker-0 (15:30.03)
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  Like that's better.
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  speaker-1 (15:31.51)
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  Some people are unconscious victims because it's easier to tell their story and to stick with their story so that it than it is to say, I'm ready to change because it's going to cause disruption. Yeah. What I tell my clients is be comfortable with being uncomfortable. Yeah. Because once you start setting those healthy boundaries and you're saying, I'm going to choose me, I'm going to start living my life, because the life that you're giving everybody else to make everyone else happy
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  You're finally going to bring allow yourself into that same life. Put yourself first. So the people that you've been overextending yourself to, they're gonna feel the change. So they're gonna try to bring you back under their control. That's where the disruption comes in. So expect people to be taken out of your life and that's okay because the right people will come in because you're shifting your energy.
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  speaker-0 (16:21.324)
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  Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. And I I also like what you said. I think about the idea that what seems like a good pattern and always felt safe to you can eventually become a rut. And then God help us, the problem you don't see coming is that it becomes a prison cell. Right. And you don't want to be to realize you're all alone in this role that you so perfectly fulfilled, but you're not you.
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  You know, I'm an end of life doula. So I I've sat with a lot of people at the end of their their walk here, right? And I've never found anybody who said, I'm so glad that I did everything the way everyone thought I should. I have yet to. People talk about that they have regret that they did that and they wish that they would have been true to what mattered to them earlier. So
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  Part of the reason I do butterfly days and I think you do your work is that there's still time now to make changes that exponentially get bigger. Is that how you see it as well?
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  speaker-1 (17:32.726)
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  Yeah. You're absolutely right. And what a lot of women, they don't make the change until they experience something terminal. Right. Don't wait. Because our emotions actually our unhealed emotions actually they can cause an illness.
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  speaker-0 (17:41.134)
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  Don't wait.
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  speaker-0 (17:50.424)
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  And that's proven. Yeah.
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  speaker-1 (17:52.504)
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  Right. That's been proven. So it's you when they are diagnosed with cancer or they experience a death or they experience, you know, a divorce, then they reevaluate their life because they're so exhausted, you know, emotionally, spiritually, on every level that they can't go on. So they have two choices. Either they take themselves out of the darkness and start over, or they stay the victim and then just let their life go by them.
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  And that's really sad.
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  speaker-0 (18:25.004)
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  Yeah, but you have a choice in that, you know? And a lot of times that seems to just get glossed over, but it's not true. We remain able to decide do we want things to be different? And I think a lot of women think, well, I don't know how to do that. I don't think you need to know how to do that. I think you need to know that you want that. That the journey of a thousand miles has begun with that single step to pivot to say,
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  speaker-1 (18:33.166)
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  Correct.
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  speaker-0 (18:54.026)
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  I'm gonna choose to live courageously authentic. And I don't even know what that means, but I'm open to finding out what it might mean. Just to even begin to with an open gate, you know? Do you think that's reasonable?
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  speaker-1 (19:10.712)
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  Yeah, it's choosing again. It's making a different choice and having the courage. And it sounds easy, Tammy, but it's not. Because you're you've lived under this veil of expectations and roles and responsibilities all these years. Yeah, generational conditioning, cultural conditioning. And it did feel safe until it doesn't feel safe. Mm-hmm.
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  speaker-0 (19:25.366)
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  Leaves it felt safe.
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  speaker-0 (19:33.272)
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  No, I think that's right. You made my brain do a loop frog, and I apologize here. But no, I was thinking about what you said and about how that sort of also connects into imposter syndrome. That in order to let go of all these structures of who we are and who we've been told we are, we have to face that we're good enough. And that for many of us feels like imposter syndrome. What does imposter syndrome tell us about?
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  Who we are about beliefs that we're carrying.
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  speaker-1 (20:04.886)
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  Imposter syndrome is this debilitating psychological pattern that makes you feel like you're a fraud, an intellectual fraud, right? And everyone experiences at some point in their life. 82% of the world's population goes through it. And it doesn't matter if you're a CEO running a billion dollar company or you're a child and graduating from high school going into college. But the real question is what belief or what experience put into your mind that you're not enough?
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  So in my book, what I share is Dr. Clantz and Dr. Imes and Dr. Valerie Young's work. Now, Dr. Clantz and Dr. Imes back in the 70s coined the term psychological phenomenon. And what they did is they did a research on these highly successful women, highly successful, highly credentialed, and over 150 of them suffered from severe imposter syndrome. Now, these are women with advanced degrees. They had
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  Exceptional scholarly achievements, right? They were well respected in their community and their field, but they suffered from imposter syndrome because they felt no matter how hard they work, it was never enough. And Dr. Valerie Young, she wrote the book Successes of Women. And she is a renowned authority, global authority on imposter syndrome. So in her book, she talks about, and this is in my book, five competence types.
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  For women. Okay. You know, my experience that there's three that women really struggle with the most. The first one is perfectionism. And that's a person, me too, who feels like everything has to be flawless. If it's not flawless, then shame sneaks in. And shame is one of the lowest debilitating emotions someone can struggle with. Because guilt is I made a mistake. Shame is I am the mistake.
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  speaker-0 (22:00.812)
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  Right. Yes.
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  speaker-1 (22:02.296)
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  So the second one is superhuman. And superhuman is when a woman has the belief that she has to manage multiple projects at one time, multiple things in her life, and she has to do it successfully. So right. So that concept or that competence emerged on the cultural construct of when women, the traditional mother stay-at-home mother, went back to work. Mm-hmm. Right.
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  Because the expectation was in order to have it all, they had to do it all.
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  speaker-0 (22:38.562)
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  And that hit our generation particularly hard.
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  speaker-1 (22:41.696)
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  huge, huge. And then that the third one, there's five, is the soloist. And that is someone who believes who's worked for years, believing that they have to do everything alone independently, because if they don't, then s people are gonna question that they don't have the expertise or the talent to be able to do it. So they work themselves to exhaustion.
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  Because they don't feel they can ask for help or they don't feel that they can get the coaching that they need. So imposter syndrome it it is heartbreaking. And I can relate to all of them. But once you accept the belief that you are enough and you can figure out where this experience came from, where it originated from, then you can start healing that. But imposter syndrome, i it can just be so debilitating.
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  speaker-0 (23:14.786)
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  Heartbreaking.
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  speaker-1 (23:35.478)
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  I've seen women who are so successful, but they wanted to apply for another job, but because they didn't check off all the boxes, they wouldn't apply. Or they got they got a promotion, which they were highly qualified to do, but they couldn't enjoy the promotion because they were so afraid of being exposed as intellectual fraud. Right. They worked themselves to death.
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  speaker-0 (23:57.612)
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  Right. Yeah. And the bizarro thing about it, when you get logical, is if you could do that job entirely right now, you wouldn't be learning a new job. You know what I mean? Like, of course you have to learn. And men are so much more likely to, you know, shoot for a job and say, I'll grow into it. I've got the capability. And I hope that we're encouraging our next generation behind us.
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  To think about that a little bit differently, I don't know where we developed the understanding that you had to be perfect before you could try, but our generation has struggled mightily with that.
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  speaker-1 (24:38.802)
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  So I was born in 65. I'm 16 one years old. So my generation was that women had took care of their family. They took care of their family. They didn't complain. They worked hard. They solved all the problems. They made everybody happy. So you didn't talk about your feelings because it made other people uncomfortable. Self-ex you never complained. You worked yourself to exhaustion, which means that it showed resilience and how much you loved your family.
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  Perfectionism or showed that you were enough because you're doing everything perfect. So these are, you know, these are generational conditionings and beliefs you when you grow up. So that's why I said if you grow up in a f a family, depending on your environment you grew up in, your imposter syndrome could have started at a young age. You just didn't have a term for it. You didn't understand.
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  speaker-0 (25:32.002)
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  Damn the bus. It's like the water in the fish tank and you're just a fish in there. You don't even
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  speaker-1 (25:37.602)
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  You don't understand until you reach a point in your life where you're asking, Who am I now? When all the roles and everything you've done for all these years and kept performing, kept achieving doesn't matter anymore. Mm-hmm.
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  speaker-0 (25:50.562)
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  Yeah. Especially, you know, by our age, and you and I are the same age. By our age, we know that there are a lot of seasons that we go through. Like, how do we begin shifting our sense of value from what's happening around us in these seasons to what do we know within ourselves? You know, like how do you it's that whole thing of being able to find your
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  poor truth so that no matter where the ship goes and how the waves go, you stay the course for you, you know?
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  speaker-1 (26:30.036)
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  It's, you know, we attach our value to our roles. So when we don't do that anymore and we realize that we don't need our roles and you know, because our roles change, our circumstances change, but what doesn't change is our inherent value. That's what we were born with. So that's what we have to reconnect with. Right. And the other thing, you know, what a lot of women do is
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  speaker-0 (26:54.359)
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  Yeah.
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  speaker-1 (26:58.658)
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  They think that somewhere along the way, they learn that being agreeable, helpful, and needed is the same as brought them their approval, their acceptance. And it hasn't. You know, the love, it hasn't. What it what it brings eventually is resentment and exhaustion, burnout.
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  speaker-0 (27:18.828)
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  Yeah. People please and don't kill ya slowly.
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  speaker-1 (27:20.366)
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  So it's not
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  speaker-1 (27:24.0)
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  It will. It's not about the role. It's about who are you at the core? What's going to make you happy? What are you in l aligning with? So the real question is, are you ready to put yourself first? Are you ready to say, I'm ready, I'm gonna choose me and and do something I've never done before, even if you're so afraid, like I did when I left at fifty five, you know, my family thought I was lost my mind. The doctor said I was just going through a midlife crisis. I wasn't.
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  I wasn't. And I talk about this in my book. You know, you go to the doctor because you're not feeling well and they're gonna give you a handful of pills because of your age. Yeah. And you you're don't understand why you're unhappy. You're trying you're searching and searching. You feel like you're under a spiritual attack. Every time you turn around, something else happens or is thrown your way. Right. Right. So you're not losing your mind. What you're going through is a spiritual awakening. It's your soul screaming for something different.
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  speaker-0 (28:17.751)
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  Yes.
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  speaker-0 (28:23.596)
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  Yeah, I think that's incredibly beautiful. I think about how they do. When we go in now, you know, we're offered pills and creams and all these things so that, you know, you will feel better. But part of the discomfort is actually super helpful if you want to grow and have a more robust, interesting, deeply fulfilling next chapter.
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  I don't even have a judgment on the idea that the first part of our lives we really live trying to be the roles and accomplish the things. From my perspective, that is now water under the bridge because it built in you, right, wrong, or indifferent, it built in you a particular type of wisdom that's unique to you. And you can mine it for this next.
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  chapter in a way that's just like I I look at you and I know that you are happier and more fulfilled than you may have been at any point in your life. And yet you have a grown and flown in your life, right? I think it's a niece, not a child, but
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  Same deal here. I'm assuming that you may or may not have parents in good health, may have lost them. We have been through so much, but this is good. It's birthing us into something bigger if we're open to that.
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  speaker-1 (29:57.832)
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  It's shifting your perspective of er everything that happened to me versus everything that happened through me. That's a huge distinction.
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  speaker-0 (30:07.768)
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  Tell me about that.
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  speaker-1 (30:09.08)
• 2:43
  So when we are living everything happened to me and we all have our challenges, right? List them off, then we stay the victim, conscious or unconscious. Right. And then we stay in a state of resistance and fear. That's why we don't change our life. Right. So we push everything away because it's just not safe. But when we shift our perspective and we realize
• 2:44
  It's not happening to us, it's happening through us for our soul growth. That's a whole different thing. Because to your point, Tammy, then you can take all those years of experiences and then you can put them to good use. I know women who went through tremendous trauma, horrible, horrible things. Instead of staying the victim, they opened up a nonprofit. And now they're helping women all across the globe. Right.
• 2:45
  It's like I could have taken all my experiences in state and corporate being miserable and with everything that was going on at the time because I when I did go through the dark night, so my whole life was turned inside out and upside down for like ten years. It wasn't just a couple of months. But if I didn't go through all those experiences, I couldn't have written my book. Right. I wouldn't have been inspired to write this book because I got so tired of so many women suffered needlessly because they didn't understand. They didn't have the awareness.
• 2:46
  speaker-0 (31:16.611)
• 2:47
  Course.
• 2:48
  speaker-1 (31:32.526)
• 2:49
  So that's what I mean by allowing it to go through you and what can you do with your experience? Right.
• 2:50
  speaker-0 (31:40.554)
• 2:51
  Of that is that what you have in your backpack, your tank, and what I have are not the same. Figuring out what you have learned and what became beautiful and meaningful and important to you, so you can leverage that and really creative. You know, most of us don't have to make money quite as we did prior to 60, right?
• 2:52
  So you got a little space there to add in, to pivot for a career, to add in a volunteer, to do something on the side that really opens you further into the being courageously authentic.
• 2:53
  speaker-1 (32:26.966)
• 2:54
  Even if you volunteer at a dog shelter, animal shelter, does that make you happy? And if it does, then do it. If you're doing something, you're saying yes to things that you don't want to say yes to, then you're going against your authentic self. You're not aligned. And that's when I'm I talk about you live in fear and resistance because you feel like you have to. You don't have to do anything. We got free will. Right. It's having the courage to say no.
• 2:55
  And not having it feel like you have to explain yourself or justify your answer. It's just saying that I'm not gonna do this. Yeah. But y you have to feel w if it warms your heart and really inspires you, then do it. Even if something's small, it doesn't matter.
• 2:56
  speaker-0 (33:12.13)
• 2:57
  It all counts it all counts.
• 2:58
  speaker-1 (33:15.694)
• 2:59
  You know, there I'm working with so many women now who want to write a book. And so and because a lot of women suffer in silence, I thought when they write about their memoir, they write about their experience, there's gonna be layers coming up. Yeah. So to make it easier for women, I designed a whole program about how to write a book. All the everything from starting the writing to publishing. And I don't edit.
• 3:00
  But it gives them the tools that they can work in silence, you know, by themselves, because a lot of women don't feel comfortable telling their family what they're doing. So then I I went for the emotional piece of it. I designed the journey back to you bundles. And it takes every chapter of my book and you go deeper. There's a meditation, there's music, there's inspirational music I wrote myself, there's a workbook. I mean, everything you need that you can work through by yourself.
• 3:01
  Because if you want to write a book, if you feel inspired, I don't care if you've got a degree or you don't have a degree. It doesn't matter. Your experience is your experience. So there's somebody out there. They will the people when you find your book will find it. Just think of the legacy you're leaving behind to show other women that it's not just your accomplishments you're leaving behind. It's honoring yourself. Because your daughter, your grandchildren, your other women, colleagues, people are watching you.
• 3:02
  speaker-0 (34:24.899)
• 3:03
  Yeah.
• 3:04
  speaker-1 (34:41.634)
• 3:05
  So that's really a legacy is when you can choose yourself, honor your boundaries, and do what you love, and then other women's gonna say, I can do that too. Mm-hmm.
• 3:06
  speaker-0 (34:53.452)
• 3:07
  Yeah, we're inspiring each other by just having the guts to try it and to push it a little bit further. I was thinking about your title, Courageously Authentic. I love it so much. But I thought about how the root word of courage is core. Yeah. And the French speakers and the Espanol speakers, and you know, how it means it's about the heart. And the heart being the deep, true center of us, you know. And then like
• 3:08
  It's not the absence of fear, but it's just the willingness to act from what is truly important to you. That's the authentic piece. There's a woman listening to this who's like, I kind of know my authentic truth, but I feel like, how do I know for sure what it is? Like just practically.
• 3:09
  I got lost in a lot of the roles. I want to find my way back to me. You know, what counsel can we offer her?
• 3:10
  speaker-1 (35:56.6)
• 3:11
  When you live from your heart, you're aligned with Christ consciousness. You're aligned with your authentic self. Because you're living in the present moment. When you aren't living from your heart, you're living from your head, which I have a very strong mind. I struggle with this too. When you're living from your head, you're living from your ego. Mm-hmm. The ego wants to keep you safe. So in our it confuses safety with familiarity.
• 3:12
  Okay. This is why a lot of women don't change. So the ego, whenever you go to change, it's going to bring up an experience to justify why the change is not warranted. Yep. Because the ego keeps you in the past, which is your story, your trauma, or the future, which is filled with disappointment because you're always hoping, wishing, wanting that once you get it, you're going to be happy. Right. So that's the difference.
• 3:13
  So when you can understand that your ego is driving it. So it's it's really having the awareness and acknowledgement that where are you living from? Are you living from your heart? Are you living from your head? 'Cause when you live from your head, it's full of justifications, excuses, you know, victimism. And the ego is driving it. If you're questioning how to return to your authentic self, you've got to do the healing. And that takes courage and vulnerability.
• 3:14
  It's examining your belief systems and all the cultural and generational expectations and conditionings that were passed down. Do you have the courage to break that ancestral lineage, knowing it's gonna cause disruption?
• 3:15
  I did that and it did cause disruption.
• 3:16
  speaker-0 (37:44.886)
• 3:17
  Yeah, that's what I wanted to ask you about. What do you think about I think that there's a thing, generational conditioning, and I think most of us are not aware of it. Do you concur and what would you say about that?
• 3:18
  speaker-1 (37:59.874)
• 3:19
  Parents are passing down what their parents did with no awareness of the impact it's having on their children. They think they're doing the right thing. That's why I said it's not about blame. So my generation, when my niece was born, I already made the decision I was going to break that because I wanted her to be independent. I wanted her to have the life that she wanted. I want her to work hard, her earn her college, and earn her way in life, but be able to take care of herself, not have someone have to take care of her.
• 3:20
  And so when I broke that ancestral lineage, fully knowing what was gonna happen, my family turned against me. Friends turned against me. And a lot of people were taking on my life. And I was okay with that. Because my niece is very successful. She's strong. She's independent. She's happy. She's married to a great guy. She's like a mini me. So I'm proud of that. So I know I made the right decision. I just I dealt with the fallout, but that's okay because I broke it.
• 3:21
  If I didn't, she would have been conditioned just like everyone else in the family. And I didn't want her to grow go through that.
• 3:22
  speaker-0 (39:03.116)
• 3:23
  Yeah, and to find a new place. You know, something in what you were saying strikes me that if we're really going to make the changes that bring us more fulfillment to be more open and happy and really allow this midlife period to expand, we're gonna have to consider that the story that we've told ourselves about our life.
• 3:24
  About our background, about what happened to us, might not be full. That if we saw it at over 50, the story that we have been telling maybe isn't as full or as accurate. Maybe we penned ourselves as a victim, and maybe we were, to be honest.
• 3:25
  But what got bigger, you know. But look what I went on to do. Sometimes we forget that part, you know? And so I'm intrigued by how we pivot into the bigger version of ourselves by being honest that maybe the story, well, that's just what happened, is it?
• 3:26
  speaker-1 (40:21.238)
• 3:27
  We're the author of our lives, so change your story. Rewrite the chapter. What do you want in life? What do you truly want? You know, I had a woman one time I coached that she was a doctor, very successful, but she was never happy. She was fulfilling the generational expectation because her father was a doctor, his father was a doctor. And once we peeled everything away, I said, What do you really want? She said, I want to be a baker.
• 3:28
  And eventually she left her physician, position, and she opened up a bakery and she was very successful. Her family wasn't happy. But this is what I'm talking about is having the courage to return to your authentic self, even when it causes disruption. And be comfortable being uncomfortable. It will happen. But when she opened that bakery, she was so happy. Before then, she was exhausted. She had all these health issues.
• 3:29
  She was unhappy, even though she was extremely, extremely successful. But she looked like a completely different person. It is crazy. Yeah, I had an attorney who, a criminal defense attorney, really very successful. She didn't want to do that. It wasn't in line. It took her a while, but it wasn't until her parents passed away that she finally resigned. Yeah. And she opened up her yard shop.
• 3:30
  speaker-0 (41:23.958)
• 3:31
  Isn't that crazy?
• 3:32
  In the best way.
• 3:33
  speaker-1 (41:45.208)
• 3:34
  She wanted to, you know, she wanted to do yarn and crafts. And she was very successful at it.
• 3:35
  speaker-0 (41:53.206)
• 3:36
  Yeah. And she's probably happy.
• 3:37
  speaker-1 (41:56.022)
• 3:38
  they were yeah. It's it's stepping Tammy, it's stepping away from what society dictates, what we have to do, who we have to be. And when you're when you stand in your authenticity, that means you stand it so strong in your core values, your inherent values, that even when the world asks you to change, you stay no. You do you.
• 3:39
  speaker-0 (42:16.438)
• 3:40
  You do you. Yeah. I love that. And listen, no judgment if you work in corporate America and you do amazing things and you find your fulfillment there, rock on. Yeah. I mean, that's all good. We're talking about pivots and moving away from it, but not in a way that disparages that there's a lot of paths that people can take to get to a better place. I kind of
• 3:41
  One thing I love about what you're saying too, and you you mentioned it earlier. You said something about creating legacy. And my take has always been, you're building it right now, and it's going to be handed likely to at least Gen Zers or maybe millennials or Gen Zers. But we're front-loading that bad boy by what we're doing now. Do you concur with that? Or how do you see that?
• 3:42
  speaker-1 (43:10.808)
• 3:43
  I do. But the decisions that we make, how we live our life, how we honor ourselves, the boundaries that we set, what we tolerate and don't tolerate, that's building legacy. Right? Right. So everyone's watching. So if you have a mother, and this is not about judgment, if you have a mother who's
• 3:44
  speaker-0 (43:22.626)
• 3:45
  Yeah. Right now.
• 3:46
  speaker-1 (43:33.506)
• 3:47
  Condition to work herself to exhaustion has to be perfect. Everything you have to go and join all these sports and it's we have to keep up with the status. That child's gonna repeat that. At what expense? Right? Are they really happy? Yeah. Children today are there's too many of them on social media. You know, I would love to see the children get lost in a book series.
• 3:48
  I love to see them outside in their own community, learning about nature, putting it in gardens, understanding how to grow food, understand how to bounce a checkbook. Get away from social media is so dark. I mean everything has its place, Tammy. Don't get me wrong, everything has its place, but the children, they need to be outside in fresh air, running, exploring, living.
• 3:49
  speaker-0 (44:21.614)
• 3:50
  Living. Taking risks, developing a little grit, having the thing. But you think to yourself, part of how that gets inspired is that we've got to be willing to live it, not just talk about it. That's important too. But to make brave choices, to you know
• 3:51
  speaker-1 (44:28.046)
• 3:52
  Yeah.
• 3:53
  speaker-0 (44:48.728)
• 3:54
  Do the thing that's true even if it's not popular. Because when you're a young person until you see somebody else do it, you may not conceive of it, right?
• 3:55
  speaker-1 (44:59.054)
• 3:56
  Right, because children, regardless what kind of environment they grow up in, they pine for their parents' attention, their approval, their love. That's just a child because that's how they they relate to safety and love, right? So they're watching their mom and dad. They're watching their aunts and uncles. So if the aunt and uncle do it, it's us instilling the right principles into the child. It's not about giving them everything they want. It's about responsibility, accountability, and respect.
• 3:57
  And unfortunately a a lot of that's missing today.
• 3:58
  speaker-0 (45:32.994)
• 3:59
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 4:00
  speaker-1 (45:34.826)
• 4:01
  It's just you know, there are many us, so
• 4:02
  speaker-0 (45:39.704)
• 4:03
  We need we must be aware. Yeah. Well, you know, I look at Gen X and Jen Jones, which is the micro generation that will come born around nineteen fifty-seven-ish to go to 65. And the difference in we're the first generation of girls told that we could be anything we wanted to be. Right. So our moms likely didn't not teach us how to do this part because
• 4:04
  they thought it was wrong, bad, or whatever. They equipped us to live what they knew about from their mothers. Correct. We're just in a totally different world. We went analog to digital in our lifetime. This is a space where Gen X can really, I think, expand what women who are younger than we are, how they can frame midlife, how they can think about it.
• 4:05
  It's sort of beautiful that the choices that we are making are becoming the legacy for the women behind us, you know?
• 4:06
  speaker-1 (46:46.87)
• 4:07
  Right. It's instilling the right spiritual principles and values in these children and giving them the freedom to spread their wings. Let them choose, you know. And I'm not saying not to discipline and things like that. I'm I'm a firm believer in respect, accountability, and responsibility, like I said, but it's about what's gonna what's their alignment. They came in with a purpose too. There's eight billion people in the world. There's one of us.
• 4:08
  So instead of us influencing our children to say, you have to do this, you have to, you know, be a doctor, you gotta be this, figure out what they want. Maybe they wanna be an artist. Who cares about status? If you're really truly happy and you're fulfilled, you can't take that away. And that's what's missing in so many women, so many people today. Yeah. That's you know it's just so many of us
• 4:09
  suffer from low self esteem. Why is that? Eighty five percent of the world's population, all the way down to adolescents, suffer from low self esteem. That's pretty telling.
• 4:10
  speaker-0 (47:57.326)
• 4:11
  You know, it is pretty telling. And I you know, maybe we didn't come up in a world that was particularly supportive of us being able to figure ourselves out. And maybe there is something to the understanding that you have to come through a process where you get information about you could be this or this and do this. But by midlife, the gate is beginning to open. It's opening emotionally, physically. That gate is gonna lead.
• 4:12
  To really bad knees, probably. But, you know, despite that, it's such midlife is an opportunity to come into ourselves and to find deeper fulfillment in ways that we haven't before. And
• 4:13
  speaker-1 (48:43.758)
• 4:14
  I agree.
• 4:15
  speaker-0 (48:45.548)
• 4:16
  Man, having the courage to be true to what you're feeling. Like I have friends who have a girlfriend who volunteers in the garden at the children's hospital near her. Not something she ever thought she would be doing, but she loves to play in the dirt, as she puts it. And she has found that she can go in, do what she loves, and it adds to something in ways that she never imagined. When you're courageously authentic,
• 4:17
  I think maybe that there's opportunities to do things. Your mom couldn't have told you to prepare for this 'cause it's your journey.
• 4:18
  speaker-1 (49:22.718)
• 4:19
  Exactly. That's exactly right. So that's why we all have free will to choose. So either right? So we can stay the victim or we can choose the like them. And midlife is the perfect time to really look at that and say, What do I want to do? What would make me happy?
• 4:20
  speaker-0 (49:40.642)
• 4:21
  Yeah. Yeah. And how can I layer it on thoughtfully? Younger me may not have had the skills, the stamina, the life experience to know I have been through hard things and I got it in my tank to get through Because the stuff I've lived through I did not see coming, but it has made me somebody who's gonna figure this one out because it's for me.
• 4:22
  speaker-1 (50:09.408)
• 4:23
  Right. So everything that you experienced, Tammy, was not for nothing. Because you wouldn't be doing this podcast, right? You wouldn't be influencing women through Middle Eye Crisis, Gen X, Gen Y. So you had to go through all those experiences to get you to this point. That's why I'm saying is shifting your perspective. Are you the victim? Are you empowered? What are you gonna do with those experiences? How can you influence other people?
• 4:24
  Whether it's children, women, men, doesn't matter. There's somebody out there waiting to hear your story so that they can change their life.
• 4:25
  speaker-0 (50:46.082)
• 4:26
  Yeah. Yeah. I keep thinking when you say that, I had a I knew a guy and he always said he saw all of us like that everybody broadcast a signal about who they are or about what their gifts, talents, and abilities are. And that the key is to find people that are tuned into your signal. Don't worry about the people that want CBS if you're ABC.
• 4:27
  speaker-1 (51:13.848)
• 4:28
  Right. That's right.
• 4:29
  speaker-0 (51:15.544)
• 4:30
  Find the ABC people and rock that.
• 4:31
  speaker-1 (51:19.63)
• 4:32
  So what he's saying is you don't need external validation or approval. All you need is your approval. When you accept yourself and love yourself, really love yourself for everything that you've gone through, all your scars, all your things that you know you fought, and you think, you know, I'm pretty awesome because I did survive all that, right? And you approve yourself outside of anybody else of what they think, feel.
• 4:33
  speaker-0 (51:42.21)
• 4:34
  Yeah, yeah.
• 4:35
  speaker-1 (51:49.27)
• 4:36
  When that doesn't give you an emotional trigger, it doesn't trigger you anymore, that's when you know you breach authenticity. Because authenticity can be more to you than anything else, anybody's approval or disapproval, society, world events. It won't matter. What matters is I'm doing me and I'm happy. And I have the courage to be vulnerable and put myself out into the world just as I am. That's true authenticity.
• 4:37
  speaker-0 (52:14.54)
• 4:38
  Yeah. And that's so crazy beautiful because, you know, working with people at end of life, that gem of I love me and I'm proud of me, when you lay down to give your breath back, that is going to matter to you immeasurably. And you can aim towards that now.
• 4:39
  speaker-1 (52:44.504)
• 4:40
  Right. Right. Because working with people at the end of life, a lot of them have regret that they didn't do something different, right? Mm-hmm. That they didn't love themselves more, that they didn't go, you know, follow the path they wanted to follow. We have the opportunity now to make a different choice. Choose differently. That's all.
• 4:41
  speaker-0 (53:00.504)
• 4:42
  Yeah.
• 4:43
  speaker-0 (53:07.01)
• 4:44
  Yeah. Yeah. Midlife is not loaded. Before you didn't live much longer past retirement, right? And there's a lot of political that goes on that. But we do now. And we live longer with better medicine, better health, all the things. And what I love about what you're bringing into this discussion and your contribution to Gen X and Jen Jones here is that.
• 4:45
  If we choose to be courageously authentic, to find the best of us and give it into the world, not only will the world be better, which is a beautiful and amazing thing for legacy, but we leave with our hearts full. How extraordinary. Like I'm so grateful for you, Brenda Hookel.
• 4:46
  speaker-1 (54:00.462)
• 4:47
  They'll be dying it with peace and peace instead of regression. Yeah. That's huge.
• 4:48
  speaker-0 (54:07.296)
• 4:49
  It's huge. You know, people always think, that's later, that's later. It is later. But we have a hundred percent mortality rate here. It's gonna be you're later. Right. You're gonna lay there. Where do you wanna be? So you know.
• 4:50
  speaker-1 (54:21.614)
• 4:51
  The question is this, Tammy. Here's your question, you can for your viewers. If the doctor told you you had six months to live, what would you do? Well, what would you do in those six months? So why wait until you get a diagnosis? Live your life. Yes. Make a different choice. Yes. Choose you. Say I choose me.
• 4:52
  speaker-0 (54:45.737)
• 4:53
  Mm-hmm. Just start with that.
• 4:54
  speaker-1 (54:47.566)
• 4:55
  Start with that. And what does that mean? That could just mean that you give yourself ten minutes a day to journal. Whatever it is. Remove the definitions, remove the judgment, remove the expectations. If the doctor said you got six months to live, what's one thing you really want to do? Make a bucket list. Just do you.
• 4:56
  speaker-0 (55:10.808)
• 4:57
  Do you? And it's not to choose yourself is not against anybody else. You don't have to buy into the negativity and the anger and the screw all of you, I'm gonna do me. Maybe that's your vibe. If it is, go ahead. But for those of us who, you know, are not wired that way, you don't have to be against anybody else to be for you. Correct. You know?
• 4:58
  speaker-1 (55:39.342)
• 4:59
  Choosing ourselves is not selfish. We were raised to believe it was selfish. Many of them were raised to believe it was selfish. Choosing yourself is self honoring. It's self love. Right? Yeah. And don't worry about what everybody else is doing. It's not your business. It's not your their business. They're doing right. Right. It's about once you honor yourself and make a different decision.
• 5:00
  speaker-0 (55:57.144)
• 5:01
  Yeah.
• 5:02
  speaker-1 (56:06.786)
• 5:03
  Then the right people will come in because they're gonna align with your frequency. It's gonna everything you'll go through this radical shift and they'll just dr you'll be drawn to us. So the people that no longer can align with your frequency will be taken out. Just bless them and release them with love. Doesn't have it's it's our society in the fear base judgment. That's why I won't watch the news, right? I just won't watch the news because I don't want that energy.
• 5:04
  speaker-0 (56:10.988)
• 5:05
  Yeah. You will draw them.
• 5:06
  speaker-0 (56:24.6)
• 5:07
  Yeah.
• 5:08
  speaker-1 (56:37.186)
• 5:09
  So the people I'm guarding it because I'm not gonna be living in a pool of energy that's fear, resistance, anger, all those low level emotions are very toxic to the system.
• 5:10
  speaker-0 (56:38.614)
• 5:11
  Guarding it.
• 5:12
  speaker-0 (56:52.792)
• 5:13
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 5:14
  speaker-1 (56:54.254)
• 5:15
  Choose joy, choose love.
• 5:16
  speaker-0 (56:57.752)
• 5:17
  You're preaching to the choir on that. And I just I appreciate that you're challenging us to think about whose belief system runs our life now. Because none of the people that you would list are gonna leave this life with you. You are gonna take you out. So whose belief system runs your life now? It's a critical question.
• 5:18
  speaker-1 (57:25.486)
• 5:19
  This is such an important topic that I dedicate a whole chapter in my book and I give it away for free. Who owns your belief? wow. So it's it's on my website. You can sign up for it. It's Who Owns Your Belief System? And I walk you through and in my book I have like five different women that I've coached and I carry their story all the way through. So and the women and I have men who re read my book too, and they're it doesn't matter. It's just I had to pick a target group. But they have the same feedback. It's just it was that
• 5:20
  speaker-0 (57:31.598)
• 5:21
  Well tell me.
• 5:22
  speaker-1 (57:54.59)
• 5:23
  It's so packed with information. So I give that chapter away for free because after every chapter there's exercises. And it really drills down on your belief system. And then you look at your life now. And if you're not happy, you're not fulfilled, then have the courage to start exploring that. Because guaranteed 90% of the time, the belief system that's running your life and cause and making you make the decision that you're making.
• 5:24
  speaker-0 (58:26.102)
• 5:25
  It was interrupted. Isn't that the craziest thing? It's my but until you see it for yourself, and then once you see that, you cannot unsee it. Right. Like you've just shifted in the middle of that. Yeah. I I love that. I love that. I and speaking of shifts, I was so fascinated when I when I heard this. I know you've you had this great career. You went on, you wrote a book, you speak.
• 5:26
  you've become kind of a a powerhouse encourager for women, but you just did something that speaks to me of you really being courageously authentic about what you want to put out in the world. There's a new project. Do you want to tell us about that?
• 5:27
  speaker-1 (59:11.562)
• 5:28
  Yeah. So I got inspired to write a children's chronicle. It's a trilogy. It's called The Whispering Willow Tree. And it's about this little girl who loses her grandmother and she is devastated. And she meets another little girl who her best friend moved across state. Well, they go on this mystical journey. I won't give it away, but they go on this mystical journey. So through these three books, these spiritual principles that I
• 5:29
  teach about are in those books at a much lower level. So the children learn how to deal with fear and courage and loss and self-worth. And they go through all these different phases under this underworld in this magical tree. And then there's a magical dragonfly and an owl Oliver. And they are keepers of the tree. And then they at the end they meet this monster which in it's a metaphor for bullies, people who bully
• 5:30
  And how they handled that. And how they survive that with love. Yeah. But it's I just kind of had my whole beta team read it. People I had probably had like fifteen people. And they're just like every chapter has a cliffhanger. So it's like they want to read the next thing, but it's just this very sweet trilogy about this journey that these children go on.
• 5:31
  And what they learn on their journey. And then the end is who they are. They're, you know, completely different. But yeah, we're hoping it's gonna should have it out by Christmas, by November.
• 5:32
  speaker-0 (01:00:43.778)
• 5:33
  That is a beautiful legacy piece. Keep us posted. I will put the information on my social media when that happens. People can find you at Brendahookel.com. The link also will be in the show notes if anybody is looking for it. And they can learn about your book. They can learn about your programs. If they would like you to speak to their group or organization, you're available for that. Correct? Yeah. I love.
• 5:34
  speaker-1 (01:01:10.222)
• 5:35
  Correct. Yep.
• 5:36
  speaker-0 (01:01:13.678)
• 5:37
  That your voice is here and that you're you're standing up for us to be authentically true to who we are. Because in this generation, there's just not enough of us yet. I see you as one of the warriors in the front, in the vanguard, helping Gen X begin to stand up for us, living authentically from our truth. And I think it's so beautiful. And then
• 5:38
  Then writing this children's book, you've actually now you're taking it down to another generation and leaving the legacy in there. And I all I can think is, Brenda Hoogle, I'm rooting for you. Just keep going, girl. You know what I mean? Because we need sisters who are willing to share their journey and how they are finding their way to live so that when they get to the end, what they look back on, they're nothing but proud.
• 5:39
  And I I I feel like you're encouraging us to that place. I'm so here for it, girl.
• 5:40
  speaker-1 (01:02:17.976)
• 5:41
  Yeah, thank you. Yeah. I just life is so short. So I just want women to know they have a choice. They just need courage.
• 5:42
  speaker-0 (01:02:27.458)
• 5:43
  They do. They do. And you're doing a a rather brilliant job of highlighting that. I think you have a for our guest, you have a little something, something on your website. Would you wanna t we'll put the link in the show notes, but do you wanna tell us?
• 5:44
  speaker-1 (01:02:42.424)
• 5:45
  Well, what I put together is a little lead magnet and it's it goes through everything we talked about today. And then it has little questions, some reflections, just so it you can walk away with having all the knowledge that we talked about today and the wisdom we talked about. It's all in a little package. So we talked about imposter syndrome, we talk about the value that we place in ourselves or belief system. So download that, download my free chapter on my website.
• 5:46
  Brenda Hughes, H U K E L. There's no C in my name. And then I have a blog there and I have a lot of free resources in there. I just want to reach women to give them the inspiration that they, you know, just take it slow. And if there anyone's interested in coaching, I do offer coaching. But you can just contact me through my website.
• 5:47
  speaker-0 (01:03:30.862)
• 5:48
  Perfect. That's perfect. And I love that if this subject matter sort of struck a chord in you, that's probably not an accident. Maybe you're listening to this. Maybe I think for sure. You're listening to us have this conversation because it's being brought to you and offered to you as a choice right now. And I love that she's made it something clean and simple and easy that you can.
• 5:49
  Ask yourself some critical questions. Expose yourself to this kind of deeper and important thought. It's just beautiful. I'm so Thank you. I'm really grateful that you and I got to connect, Prent.
• 5:50
  speaker-1 (01:04:09.292)
• 5:51
  Two. I know it took a while, but thank you.
• 5:52
  speaker-0 (01:04:13.004)
• 5:53
  But we made it, girl. We made it happen.
• 5:54
  speaker-0 (01:04:19.276)
• 5:55
  I'm so grateful you listened to this episode. I hope it was a real value to you. If there's a sister in your life who needs this message, please share it. Just like women have done to lift each other up over the centuries and across cultures. Women lifting each other is so important. It's why I do this work. And to avoid FOMO and keep up leveling your own life, make sure you don't miss the next episode.
• 5:56
  You may be losing hormones, but your life has given you powerful perspective. And I believe you have something to give that no one else does, that the world needs. So remember, I'm rooting for you. Let's go.