Latest / Motherhood Uncut / When the Body Finally Says Stop — Lori Pine on Ambition, Motherhood, and Learning to Choose Love

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When the Body Finally Says Stop — Lori Pine on Ambition, Motherhood, and Learning to Choose Love · Motherhood Uncut

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Motherhood Uncut podcast, where we talk honestly about the reality of motherhood.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Kate Kripke.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: This is a space for mothers to feel seen, heard, and understood, especially those navigating the intersection of raising young kids while also maintaining passions, purpose, and work outside of motherhood.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: And it's called Uncut because we do not hold back here.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: Through expert conversations, personal stories, practical tools, and honest reflection, we explore what it means to care for ourselves, stay connected to our kids, and remember that we can feel hard things and still be okay.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so glad you're here.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: So many of us have spent our lives becoming incredibly good at achieving.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: We know how to set goals, to solve problems, work harder, earn recognition, and keep moving forward.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: Those strengths helped us build meaningful careers, meaningful lives.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: But then motherhood arrives and suddenly we're faced with something that can't be mastered through planning and productivity and performance.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: In this episode, I sit down with executive coach and former Fortune 500 executive Lori Pine to explore the hidden pressure so many high-achieving women carry into motherhood.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: Lori had just finished presenting to senior executives in New York City.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: She walked into a deli for lunch, and then the next thing she remembers is waking up in an ambulance after suffering a grand mal seizure.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't a neurological mystery.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: It was a body that had spent years carrying more than it could hold.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: In this conversation, Lori shares the remarkable journey that led her there, from a lifetime of achievement, perfectionism, and proving herself to becoming a mother, navigating divorce, and learning that the greatest transformations don't come from trying harder.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: They come from learning how to slow down, trust yourself, and stay present in the moments that matter most.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: Together we explore why so many high-achieving women struggle when they become mothers, why the skills that make us successful at work don't always help us build the relationships we long for at home, and why learning to slow down, tolerate uncertainty, and stay present may be the most important work we will ever do.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: If you've ever felt like you're succeeding everywhere except the place that matters most, I think you will see yourself in Lori's story.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: The women I work with are often deeply thoughtful, capable, ambitious mothers who care tremendously about their children and also about the work, passions, and purpose they hold outside of motherhood.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: But somewhere along the way, anxiety, guilt, overwhelm, and pressure begin pulling them out of the present moment and away from the experience they long to be having.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: The Calm Connection Accelerator is my 12-week experience designed to help mothers move from survival mode into greater calm, confidence, steadiness, and connection, both with themselves and with their children.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: If that resonates with you, I'd love to invite you to book a call with me.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: We'll talk through what's feeling hardest right now, what you most want for yourself and your family, and whether the Calm Connection Accelerator feels like the right next step for you.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: You can find more information and the link to book a call in the show notes.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: I wish we were sitting in the same room.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: Me too.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: I would hug you.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: I would hug you too.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: Are you at home in New York City?
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: I am at home, yes, and happy to be here.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: Two puppies sitting at my feet.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think where I just want to start, and then I'll we'll dive into your story is um you and I met at a um retreat.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: We were both um participants at a retreat for women entrepreneurs.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like I like beeline to you because I don't the New York City in me knows the other New York City girls in the room.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: I just know it's something about you.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, oh, and we just like found our way towards each other.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: It was like before everything started.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: Do you remember that in the kitchen?
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: Our souls were connected, is how I like to say it.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: I can't, my soul knew your soul.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: I feel the same way.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: And while I haven't lived in New York City for a very long time, um, I do feel like um it is part of who I am.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I think we are gonna probably get into some of that today about sort of what what does what is what is the quote unquote type of woman that New York City attracts, especially in the kind of career-based realm.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so we'll probably jump into that.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: But um, yeah, it would be nice to be sitting on your sofa in New York City with you right now.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: For sure.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Lori.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna put you on the spot and just say, you and I talked about a couple of places to kind of enter into this conversation, but where do you want to start today?
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: What feels like a helpful way for our listeners to begin to understand you and get to know you a little bit and what you stand for and who you are?
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think I know your listener.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing she there's nothing she could tell me that would shock me.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: I've walked in her shoes, I've done all the things, I've thought all the things.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so I just want to say to whoever's listening, I hear you, I see you, I feel you, and I love you.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: So let's just let's just dive in.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: Let's just dive in.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: You are um sort of a quintessential high slash overachiever, maybe recovering from that, but certainly at the earlier part of your career when you had young kids, you were on a mission.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: Will you tell us about that?
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: Tell us about your earliest years in your professional career and early motherhood.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: What was happening for you back then?
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe even a little bit before then.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: Great, go for it.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I grew up in this very small one traffic light town.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: Never quite felt like I belonged, always felt a bit like a fish out of water because I had all this ambition and wanted to go and do and be.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I had this lovely grandmother who would take me to the big city, to Boston.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: We I grew up in Maine.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so she we would drive four hours and she would take me to shows and to shopping, and and I couldn't get enough of it.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, at the age of eight, I'm daydreaming about leaving, running away from home.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know, how can I get out of here?
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it would take me another 10 years, but you know, off I would go and really never look back ever.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: Can I ask you just a clarifying question?
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: Please.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: How would you define ambition?
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: Uh what does that word actually mean to you?
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: Like, not dictionary definition, not word for, but like literally, what does ambition mean to you?
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: What does that word mean?
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's this burning desire inside of you that is something you really can't control.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's either there or it's not there.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: Because I've met people who clearly don't have what I have.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: And it and it's a driving force.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's a driving force that propels you to things that you don't even know are possible, but you have some sort of bandwidth to dream that they might be.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: I love a few things about that.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: Number one is you you said it's it's not even within your control.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's inherent in you to this thing, this desire, this burning for something is sort of inherent in you.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I also think you're talking about something that kind of exceeds the life or the experience you're currently living in.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: So here's this eight-year-old girl that's living in Maine.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: Your grandmother takes you to Boston, you get this experience of a city and the arts and things that are sort of beyond your immediate experience in Maine.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: And that's that's that pushing for greatness or something beyond reality as it is.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: Amazing.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so your grandmother takes you to Boston.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: You're like, ooh, I gotta get out of this little town.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: I have things to do.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: Then what?
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: Then I start fast forward.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna apply to colleges, I'm gonna go Ivy League, I'm smart, I've got the grades.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: And crushing blow.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: My dad says if you want to go on to law school, which I really thought I did at the time, the math does not add up.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: So hold on there, Toots.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: No Ivy League.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna go to state school, you're gonna stay in Maine.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I cried all the way there.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: Devastated.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: So, what did you tell yourself about that at the time?
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna be a failure, I'm gonna end up a loser, I'm not ever gonna get out of here.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm none of my dreams are gonna come true because dumb people go to state school.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and then they never leave Maine.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so that that was really what I was telling myself.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the kind of wink that happened for me was I was a really good athlete for my little corner of the world.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so my athletic director called the field hockey coach and said, Hey, we have an incoming, but you might want to take a look at her.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I walked on the team and I started in the very first scrimmage, in the very first game, and I never once sat the bench in four years.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: And that changed my experience.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm struck by something, which is, you know, potentially gonna take us down a little rabbit hole, but why not?
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: I'm struck by something.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: So you back when you were 18, give or take, whatever, around that age when you were applying to colleges, and probably preceding this, actually, because you clearly were an athlete in college, but you sort of had this idea that you had to be exceptional.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: And you just use this kind of belief in your head, this little voice in your head that said, you know, uh, I'm too smart.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: I going to state school isn't exceptional enough for me.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: You said dumb people go to state school.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: Now, again, because I think there are probably lots of people listening that went to state school.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: We know that that's not a fact.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: But what not at all.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: Not at all a fact.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: Of course.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: Of course.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: But what we do know is that there was a little birdie inside of your brain that already was pushing you to be better than, to prove yourself, to be exceptional beyond what we might say the norm was.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: Does that feel true for you?
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely true.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: So then your coach calls the state school and says, hey, we've got this great athlete.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: And then sure enough, you're able to be exceptional on the field hockey field.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then I was able to be exceptional because I was a scholar athlete and I got awards for that.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: And yes.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: So you're describing this very achievement-oriented, uh ambitious mindset that was constantly saying inside your head somewhere, if I'm not X, then I'm not good enough.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: If I'm not being, you know, starred out for something, getting the awards, getting the extra field time.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: If I'm not standing out, I'm not good enough.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: Something inside of you that that sounded something like that was running the show.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: I I'm guessing a lot of our listeners can raise their hand to some version of that.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I really didn't want to be ordinary.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: Can you say more about that?
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's not that I thought that people who were at state school were dumb per se, but I was at the top of my class, and there were people at the bottom of my class who were going to state school.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so I equated that with, well, it can't be that hard to get into if, you know, number 100 is getting in.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: So you're doing this thing that so many of us do where you're assessing your worth based on comparison, right?
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'm at the top, numbers, right?
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's all analytics.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's very, it's what I would call strategic.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: Deep intelligence, data, measurable.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's measurable.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: I got this score, they got this score, therefore I'm smarter, they're dumber, right?
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: Again, I'm I'm I'm simplifying terms, but okay.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so we we're getting the picture here.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: Many of us can relate.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: You go to state school, you play on the field hockey team, you're an athlete scholar, scholar athlete, then what?
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then I get two degrees, not one, I get two degrees, of course, right?
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then I leave Maine and head straight for Tampa, Florida, where I land my first role working for Anheuser-Busch.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: And it it that was a family connection, it was that we knew, and it landed me my four first corporate job.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: And right out of the gate, I had something to prove.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and let's, I mean, I can't help but like giggle a little bit.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's not like your first job wasn't like the little small business in the corner of your town.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: You went to work for frickin' Anheuser Busch.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: So we can see this sort of all or nothing mentality that's driving a lot of your behavior and your decisions.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: When you say I started and I already had a lot to prove, what do you mean?
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: What was that like for you to start in that corporate environment?
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it was um, it was exciting.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: My first week, they flew me to Atlanta, they put me up in a hotel.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I was still a really small town girl who'd been pretty sheltered.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: So this was like, whoa.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, they they really rolled out the red carpet, and I was I the role I took was a part-time role.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it was a decision to say yes, to get my foot in the door, to prove myself.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: And within and within six months, I proved myself and I got the full-time role with the benefits and you know, all the bells and whistles.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: And that lesson I often parlay when I go and speak at colleges or I'm mentoring young people, and I talk about, you know, yes, did I want the the full package?
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, but did I take the smaller piece, the the the part-time role just to get my foot in the door?
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: You bet I did, because that really worked.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so, but there was some proving I had to do.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: There was some, and so what did that look like?
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: I showed up at everything.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: I my productivity was on a scale of one to 10, it was a 20.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I mean, I was your I mean, you're you were really good at proving yourself by that point.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: You had, you know, you had a lot of prove yourself muscles that had been strengthened.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: You knew how to do that.
• 16:51
  unknown: Yeah.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's sort of a side question, but what what do you remember?
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: What was that like for you?
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what did it feel like to be you during those first six months when you were proving yourself at Anheuser Busch?
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: What do you remember about that time?
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing was in my body.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: What do you mean by that?
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like, um, I remember being so concerned what everybody else was doing, and where was I in a pecking order that if you had asked me to self-refer, I wouldn't have even known what that meant.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: Which is again, I think not unusual for this sort of temperament of woman, of which I can totally relate to.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: And again, I know lots of our listeners can.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: To be so in our heads, to be so in your head, to be so solution focused and solve the problem-oriented and goal-oriented that you're not really in the moment.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: You're not really feeling what it feels like to be in the moment because you're preoccupied by the planning and the problem solving and the strategizing.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: Is that accurate?
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: 100%.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I wasn't really that fun.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I was working for a beer company and I wasn't that fun.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, to be honest, what you're doing doesn't sound that fun.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: So it doesn't really surprise me that you weren't that fun.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, now you're very fun, Lori.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, we we you you've unhooked from that.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, okay, so what happens next?
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I get promoted to the full-time role, and then I manage a group of people, and then I get promoted again, and now I manage a region of teams.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm managing from Atlanta to Puerto Rico, and I just make the rounds.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: I just fly to different cities every six weeks.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm in a, you know, I make the rotation um throughout Atlanta, Florida, and Puerto Rico.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: And um I I'm good, I get noticed, and then they promote me and I move to Washington, DC and go into a whole different part of the business, learn something new.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'm not in where I'd started, I'm in something new.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: And it was in Washington, D.C.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: that I met my first husband in a bar.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: Shocking.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: In a bar.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: You are fun.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: You are fun.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: Apparently, I was very fun.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um and that marriage would be a an absolute disaster, but it would give me my two boys.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's the blessing.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: But along the way, in in my Florida, Georgia, Puerto Rico days, I was being mentored by somebody.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: And he had left Anheuser Bush and gone to the Coca-Cola company.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh about three years into my stay in DC, I got a call from him and he said Coca-Cola is opening up a training program.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: They're recruiting about 15 people.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: I think you'd be perfect for this.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: So I applied for this job.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: Uh they had over 400 applicants.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: I was one of 400.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: They flew me to Atlanta.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: They put us up at the four seasons.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: Little did I know really the magnitude of it.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I was one of the 15 chosen for this very elite training program that the Coca-Cola Company was hiring for.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of the people in my training program had those Ivy degrees.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I did not.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so that really turned up the heat for me of I have to prove, I have to uh overwork, overdeliver.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh, there's so much in this.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so first of all, there's that word.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: You said the mentor calls you and said, I've got the perfect opportunity for it.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: There is that word, perfect, right?
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's like all of our nerve endings perk up and we're like, perfect, perfect.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: I want to be perfect.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, yeah, give me the shiny perfect thing.
• 21:14
  unknown: Yes.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: Amazing.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then I'm really struck by how you're really describing and very palpable, like I can feel it in my body ways, how this, whether you were conscious of it or not, Lori, but this sort of sense of I'm not good enough, or what if I'm not good enough, or a fear of not being good enough was really propelling a lot of this all the way up till you get this grand offer to come join this elite community.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm the only one that didn't go to Ivy League school.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: See, now I have to prove myself again.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like it really was motivating you the fear of not being good enough, of being ordinary, of not being acceptable, the fear was motivating a lot of the Overachieving behavior.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah?
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: Did you like your job?
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: Did you enjoy what you were doing during all this?
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that was never even a consideration.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: Never even on the radar to even ask that question.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: I can answer it in hindsight.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, maybe possibly there were moments of it, but that wasn't even an option.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: Kind of like, did I even like my ex-husband when I met him?
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: That wasn't the question then either.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: It was, did he like me?
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: Can you just pause?
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: Just I want to pause on this for a minute.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: That is so profound because there's a difference between admiration and love.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: And admiration is performative, right?
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: Love is like authentic being with someone, but there's a difference, isn't there?
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: And you really you are more focused on whether he liked you than whether you liked him or loved or desired or fill in the blank, right?
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: All of it.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_01: Ah my heart kind of hurts for that young girl.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: Same.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: Same.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: Sounds so exhausting.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: Could we scoop her up and just love her?
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: Let's we're going to.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: I am, we are scooping her up and loving her.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: She she's right here with us in this conversation.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so what happens next?
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: So the deal to the deal that we made to go to the Coca-Cola company was we are going to move to Atlanta and live there for six months, go through this again, elite.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: That was the word they kept using, training program.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: And at the end of the six months, we could be placed anywhere in the United States.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so we did that.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: We went through the training.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: We had a tremendous experience.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: And as we're approaching the end of the training, our anxiety, my anxiety, is amping up.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: Where am I going to be placed?
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: Who am I going to be working with?
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: Am I going to the West Coast?
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: Am I staying on the East Coast?
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: And this video pops up that they do in our training class of this gentleman and he's petting a golden retriever and he's talking about how he's been in the Coca-Cola business for almost a hundred years.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: And he was just very inspiring.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I I asked about him at the end of the video.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: It was all almost like he was talking to my my soul again.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: And it turns out that his family owned one of the bottling operations and had for almost 100 years.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: And the person who managed that territory had just left the company.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: And that position was, in fact, open.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: And they said, Do you uh have any willingness to move to Mississippi?
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, maybe.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so I did.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I moved to Mississippi and learned from this gentleman who to this day is a dear friend.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: He's in his 80s.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: He ran the Boston Marathon over 30 times.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: He's just a tremendous human being and a dear friend.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I learned and a high achiever.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: And a high achiever.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: Never started running until he was in his 40s.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um but I learned the business from him and he really took me under his wing.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: And he was wonderful.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I lived there for five years, and both of my boys were born in Mississippi.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, good.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: Because I was gonna ask.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: So you moved there with your first husband and you became a mother in Mississippi when you were working at this branch.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna hold pause a story here just for a moment because I am, you know, as you know, uh a big percentage of the women that I work with are uh success-oriented women on a career path who have young kids.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: They're in what we would call early motherhood, right?
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: They're they're anywhere from birth to let's say age five, you know, many of them.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I just wondering if you could describe to us in a if only we had a million hours, because this is a longer conversation, but what was it like for you to become a mother, maybe with your first son, during this season of your life?
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: Can you reflect for us about what maybe the first year of becoming a mother was like for you?
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it was absolutely terrifying.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: It was like nothing I could have ever prepared for.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing could have, nobody could have ever told me what I was about to encounter.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: And and this is coming from someone who's really good at preparing for things.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_01: So it's worth just noting that.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: But you see, I um I didn't plan for this.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: This was a bit of a surprise.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and um all all I really had planned for was to become a vice president.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh huh.
• 27:44
  unknown: Okay.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden, here comes a baby.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: And um of course I was excited once the shock wore off, but I was so nervous.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: You could put me in front of 10,000 people and I can deliver a keynote with almost without breaking a sweat.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: But this human in my arms and I didn't want my mother to leave.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: She she stayed with me for the first six weeks, and I begged her not to get on a plane.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know what to do.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I had a C-section, that was a surprise.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like all of it was a surprise.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: My body hurt.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: He, in hindsight, was likely colicky.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: I just didn't know what to do.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, one night my dad had arrived.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: So she and my dad said, Why don't you go out for dinner?
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, I will only do that if you promise not to put the baby down.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like you have to hold him the entire time I'm gone.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like I was frantic.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna take the opportunity to sort of paint a picture of what I have learned to believe what happens for mothers like you in this situation.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm curious to know whether or not this resonates for you.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, obviously, I cannot speak for everybody, but I think you're actually painting, you're telling a very universal story.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: And even in the way you said, I didn't know what to do, even those, that, that set of words together fits to what I believe is happening for women like us, like you, in this situation.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_01: You had spent your entire life uh moving from what I call your strategic brain, right?
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_01: Strategizing, planning, problem solving, optimizing, controlling the uncontrollable.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: You got really good at making the unpredictable predictable and the uncertain certain.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: And that is not bad.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: That those are amazing skills.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: In many ways, they're what got you invited to this elite group of people, right?
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: But I think this thing happens in early motherhood where motherhood is not a project to solve, it's a relationship to have.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: And there is no uncertainty and unpredictability.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh there's no lack of uncertainty and unpredictability in motherhood.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: There is no motherhood without that.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: And if the only thing we know how to do in moments of uncertainty and unpredictability is fix and problem solve and optimize and control and plan, we don't actually have the space, or it's actually a nervous system thing, the sense of safety to be able to feel and slow down and be uncertain and deeply connect because those things are terrifying to our nervous system, right?
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what I call relational intelligence.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: Relational intelligence is really, we strengthen our relational intelligence as we learn to feel all the feelings and trust that we're okay and not have to run away from them.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_01: As we learn to like settle into uncertainty without having to know the answer.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_01: All these things, as we slow down and pause, that are deeply uncomfortable for our high achieving, ambitious, you know, doing busy selves suddenly show up in motherhood.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_01: And the more we try to plan in Prabhasambhas and fix, the farther away we get from what we're actually looking for, which is that sense of safety and slowing down and peace and connection.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_01: How does that concept land for you as you think about yourself and what might have been going on for you back then?
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: That is so deeply resonant.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: True.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's, I want to say two more things and I'll see where you go with this.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: I want to really make sure we're not villainizing achievement and ambition and strategic intelligence.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_01: Those things are amazing.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: They're important.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_01: But if we defer and deflect to those things because we don't know how to feel emotional discomfort or uncertainty and trust that we're okay, then we kind of miss the moment to connect and to build relationships with ourselves as new mothers and also with these little balls of emotion.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: And your kid had colic.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, balls of emotion.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like we can't think and problem solve and fix our way through colic.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_01: We just can't, right?
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I wound up with a beautiful, wonderful therapist who's still in my life today.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: And she she said, you know, the universe is gonna put a squeeze on you until you stop, until you stop to learn the lesson.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: What a statement.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: Love it.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: So here's what ended up happening.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: My oldest was 14 months.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm exactly as you're describing.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know, trying to fix everything.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: My marriage is a disaster.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like everything's a disaster.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: I live far away from my family.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm juggling a corporate job.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm back to work.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm he's in daycare.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: And one night he's running a high fever, this baby of mine.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't really know what to do.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like most, like most mothers.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: I am not even trusting my internal.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: And he goes into a seizure.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: And my uh husband at the time doesn't call the ambulance.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: He calls the neighbor.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: The neighbor comes, takes us to the emergency room.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: Long story short, our son is airlifted from this small town in Mississippi to Memphis.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: And we spend three days at the children's hospital for them to rule out every horrible, scary thing that you can imagine.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: I um felt so indebted to walk away with a healthy child that I didn't at that moment learn how to connect to my child.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: I went on to found a charity program for St.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: Jude's and raised a half a million dollars.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I did.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_00: That is what I did with a girlfriend, and together we, you know, gave this big fat check to St.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: Jude's.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then if you fast forward a little bit further, you know, I went on to have his brother.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: And then there were two.
• 34:54
  unknown: Yes.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then I'm really spread thin.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: But then once my second child arrived, I really knew my marriage was done.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then it was just a matter of an exit strategy.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: And that's how the move came about to get to New York.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: And when I got to New York, it was July of 2008.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I was in a new city and a new job, and even a new Ann Taylor suit.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: And my whole team, the business, everything was new to me.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: And we had just presented to our senior vice president.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, I had to crush it.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, I had to be on top of everything.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: And we all went to a deli and I ordered this chicken sandwich.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: I remember it vividly.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted it grilled, plain, lettuce and tomato only.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: Lady gave me a huge attitude, and she proceeded to hand me this deep fried thing dripping in coleslaw.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, oh my God, I'm not gonna eat this.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_00: But I went and paid for it anyway.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_00: And the next thing I know, my VP Jack from Connecticut, very preppy, pink polo shirt kind of Jack with bow chicken.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think I know Jack.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_01: Uh-huh.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: Jack is standing over me in an ambulance.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know what just happened to me.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: I had had a full grandma seizure.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like my body gave out on the side of the Delhi sidewalk in New York City.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: And my problem was that I still didn't know how to be in my body, much like that younger version of myself.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was saying yes to fixing everybody else.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, you don't want to get divorced?
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, great.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_00: Let me figure out how to get promoted, get a new job, and relocate all of us to New York where your family lives.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I have small children, three and five.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: Let me figure out how to get them a new school, new pediatricians, new daycares, new after school, new nanny, all the things.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: Never once, considering that I was starting a new job with a new boss, with a new team, with a new culture.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: And never once, Kate, did I stop and think what any of this would do to me.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: And then my body was like, you're done.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_00: You're fried.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_01: I I want to make sure that we're saving time to talk about what happened after that, because I think your life really, you really shifted as you kind of continued after you learned from that and continued.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_01: I want to make sure we have time for that.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I want to, I want to pause here for a couple of reasons.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, first and foremost, I I do think it is likely that if if we don't if we don't take the initiative to start paying attention to what's happening for us and feel all the hard feelings and learn the wisdom that comes from them and slow down, our body will shut us down for us, right?
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_01: Your grandma seizure is one example.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_01: It could be that someone, you know, falls asleep at the wheel and gets in a car accident or, you know, trips because they're not paying attention and breaks their femur.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm making things up, but something, there will be some impact if we're going, going, going through in towards burnout without slowing down to actually pause.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_01: I'm struck by this fairly small part of your story in the grand scheme of your life of when your baby had a seizure and you ended up at the hospital ruling out potentially scary causes of that.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_01: Like you went from that to raising money for the hospital in service of other children.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_01: You're your the immensity of uncertainty and unpredictability, the immensity of normal human emotions that would come from that did not get any airspace for you.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_01: You went straight, your knee-jerk reaction was to go back into strategy, which I think is the case for many people, right?
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't, we're not going to get into your whole childhood here.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_01: We don't have time.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_01: It also doesn't really matter.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_01: But I do think many of us who end up as sort of overachieving, uber ambitious people, men and women, but many of us were not taught when we were young that feeling emotional discomfort was okay.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_01: Many of us were taught that if we weren't happy, there was a problem, right?
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_01: So then at the moment of normal human emotional response to things, we feel all that discomfort, whether it's anger or frustration or disappointment or sadness or fear or whatever, we jump out of the body and into the head to strategize again our way out of that, which is really what you were doing back in these early years of being a mother, right?
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, absolutely.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_01: So my guess is there are a lot of heads nodding out there as we're kind of painting this picture.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_01: So you ultimately you moved to New York, you ultimately got divorced.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_01: Is that accurate?
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_01: Got divorced.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_01: When your kids were how old?
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_00: Three and five.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_01: So now you were a single mom raising two kids with a corporate job in New York City.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_01: Is that accurate?
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_01: Just in a nutshell.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_01: Tell us what that stage of your life was like.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_00: I think that there's a blur around a whole decade.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like I've somehow blocked it out.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't know how I did it.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_00: I had to hire people, hire a nanny, hire aftercare people.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I moved around the corner for my sister-in-law.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_00: She was a tremendous help.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_00: I I joke, I joke that I kept his three sisters in the divorce.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm beautiful.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_00: So so very close to them.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, in fact, in a couple of weeks, we'll all be on vacation together for Cousins Week.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I adore them and their children.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_00: But um it was hard.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_00: He was not a participant, financially, emotionally, nothing.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and then in the midst of that decade, my mother died very suddenly.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so, like, the wool just came out from under me.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so it was this therapist who said, Listen, things have to change for you.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like you have to stop finding ways to look at everybody else and caretake everybody else because you've got no oxygen.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I ways that I was enabling others and like, what if you just stopped?
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_00: Just stop, stop everything you're doing.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_01: When she said that to you, I know it was a long time ago, but when she said that to you, what did you feel?
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_01: What was that like to receive that from her?
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, first it was almost like shocking.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what?
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like, that's even possible?
• 42:09
  unknown: Uh-huh.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because I had a whole identity wrapped up in that.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_00: And and you're so very spot on.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_00: I, you know, I grew up in a family where I there was no real emotional bandwidth or support.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_00: So my validation came from achievement.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so, not certainly not from feelings.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody could identify with my feelings.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_00: My sister had all the feelings for the whole family and the whole neighborhood.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I really wasn't allowed to have any.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_00: So I I at first it seemed impossible.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like what she was saying wasn't even available for me.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, this idea of being the good girl would be jeopardized.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then what?
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_00: Who would I be?
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so it was four years of sitting on her blue couch every single week and journaling my ass off, you know, to get in touch with whoever was on the inside.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_01: Do you remember the point when you began to be able to relate to her or even identify her?
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_01: Do you have, do you, do you remember when that started to happen for you?
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there was one particular moment the boys had gone to see their dad, um, and they were staying in a hotel, and I was bringing groceries to the hotel.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_00: And she was pointing out to me how absolutely ludicrous that was.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, but if I don't, then maybe they won't eat.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_00: And she said, Oh no, he'll find a way to feed them.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_00: You need to stop.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_00: Just stop.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so the next time it happened, I didn't bring groceries and they ate.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_00: Shocking.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_00: They were okay.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_01: So you know, I there's that.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: A question I ask myself all the time.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I really commit my clients to asking this of themselves as well.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_01: And the question is, what part might I be playing in the things that aren't working for me?
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not, I want to, I want to differentiate between how is this my fault and how am I to blame?
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_01: That's not the question we're asking.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_01: We're just saying, what's my part in the thing that's not working for me?
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_01: And this is a great, very simple example of this, right?
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_01: If we're saying my husband never gives the boys what they need or he never participates, and we're like, what part might I be playing in this?
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, well, I'm continuously doing it for him, right?
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_01: Or whatever it is.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_01: That's essentially what she was asking you.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm making it so easy for him not to do it.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, that's profound.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_00: So learning that, learning lots of that and and to stop.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_00: And kind of this framework that I've come up with as a result of all of this for my clients is my hula hoop.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like what's in my hula hoop?
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what was in my hula hoop at that time was I could stop doing that.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_00: And my children would still be okay.
• 45:14
  unknown: Yeah.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_01: So if what's in your hula hoop is I can stop doing that and my children will be okay.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_01: And what I hear is, you know, an active agency-based choice you can make.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_01: What's outside?
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_01: What was outside of your hula hoop?
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_01: Just to get clear on your the way you talk about this.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_01: If that was inside your hula hoop, what was on the outside of your hula hoop?
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_00: His responsibility to feed them during his weekend time.
• 45:42
  unknown: Yeah.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_00: That wasn't mine.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_01: No, not yours.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_01: Not yours.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_01: So um at some point in your journey, you choose to leave your corporate career as it was standing.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_01: Can you talk to us about that a little bit?
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_00: I did.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um I it was COVID.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_00: I was managing a billion-dollar business.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh in all honesty, I loved, loved my job.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_00: I was having a great, I was having a great time.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_00: Which is bait, which by the way, is a different answer than the earlier part.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_01: So at this point, you're actually enjoying what you're doing.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_00: Things, things, I mean, it was a crazy time.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_00: COVID was a crazy time, but I really did like what I was doing.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um but my youngest son was really struggling.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it just wasn't something I could throw money at anymore.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_00: I had already moved him from a large public high school to a small private high school.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't something I could hire therapists over.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I had a real like moment on my front yard where if you drove by, I probably look like a schizophrenic.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_00: But I was just like talking to the universe.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I need a sign.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what to do.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_00: We are at a critical crossroads.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_00: And what I do is going to matter.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_00: And the sign came and I resigned.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I became a stay-at-home mom for 18 months to get him through high school.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_00: And whatever he was gonna decide next, that that was up to him.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't have a point of view, whatever it was, but really to just support him and love him on to his next chapter.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_00: He did go to college, but he did uh get an NCAA signing to play lacrosse, which was part of his kind of like come back to himself, feel good about himself.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_00: I I always say esteemable acts build esteem.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_00: My job was just to help him find his esteem so that he could feel good about himself in that time.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_00: And um, that's what we did.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_00: And today he is thriving.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_00: He is amazing.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_00: And our relationship is so good.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_01: I have the chills, and I'm gonna tell you why.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_01: First of all, I am I I'm a I am a filler, a feeler, I feel things profoundly.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_01: And you just said something that really is kind of the the the nutshell, is that the right term?
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_01: That's really what we're talking about today.
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like if we could, if we could put it in a nutshell.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_01: Is that the term or I just make that up?
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, no, you're good.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um you had your your son had been struggling and you had been strategizing your way through his struggle.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_01: You'd been, what does my son need?
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_01: I what doctor can I get him?
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_01: What school can I send him to?
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_01: What coach can I get to talk to him?
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_01: What team, like strategy, strategy, strategy, fix, fix, fix, using that part of your brain that has always gotten you what you've wanted, that's always helped you reach your goals.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_01: And it sounds like you came to a point where you're like, I can't strategize my way out of this.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_01: I actually have to relate to him.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_01: I actually have to shift from strategic brain to relational brain, strategic intelligence to relational intelligence.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_01: Now, you know, I work with a lot of women who have high-powered jobs.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_01: I happen to believe that when we are taking care of ourselves earlier on than you did.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I know this is a lot of what you coach women on now, so people don't have to go through what you went through, but when we do that early enough, we don't have to choose between working and you know, kind of showing up in the way we want to with our children.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_01: And you had a moment where you're like, oh, my kid needs me, my kid needs the relationship.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_01: And you said, all I gave him, all I did was support him and love him.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_01: That's about you.
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_01: That's relational versus strategic.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_01: And it worked, right?
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_01: It worked, and it's the thing that I think many of us ultimately feel scared of because loving and relating is also really painful.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_01: And if we don't know how to feel discomfort, it's gonna be really hard for us.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_01: Go ahead, Lori.
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it really required me to be present in a way that I had never been present before.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_01: How would you describe that?
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_00: So nobody was, you know, clapping because I did the laundry or got groceries.
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_00: And the only quote-unquote strategy I had was I just made dinner every night.
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_00: And something magical happened around the dinner table.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_00: And that started to unlock conversation and what was happening in his day, and what was happening with kids, and it was an invitation to let me in.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, uh being present is not easy when you are when you are very accustomed to being busy, to being on your phone, to being on your computer, to having 20 things going through your mind about what you need to do, who you should have called.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, don't forget the email before you go to bed, right?
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_00: And all of that was removed.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_00: I turned all that in laptop, phone, car, all of it got turned in.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so then I was just left with me and him.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_00: No distractions.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_01: You you know what's else presence requires, and then no distractions.
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_01: I think at the point you were in your life was imperative, right?
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_01: Because you were, there were so much, such a habit around your brain focusing on all these other achievement-based things.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so removing them is really what you needed.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_01: And what's required to actually be present, and this is something I hear all the time from my clients, I just want to be more present.
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to be so distracted.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_01: What's required to be present is a willingness to feel emotional discomfort and be in it.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes it's our nervous system's sense of threat, right?
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_01: If I'm bored, let's say, or if I'm irritated because I'm depleted and my kid is calling my name over and over, right?
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_01: Or if I'm disappointed.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_01: And if my nervous system believes that those emotions or those feelings are bad, I am going to jump into my head and distract myself with something else because that's actually easier than feeling the feeling.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so, in many ways, the distraction is a coping mechanism if my nervous system believes that emotional discomfort is bad or dangerous or wrong.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_01: So that is what you probably, when I heard you say it was really hard.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_01: In some ways, you removed the distractions because you didn't have to check into your email the same way, but you're still left with the emotional discomfort that comes with sitting with a kid who's struggling.
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_01: That is not comfortable.
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_00: No, it wasn't comfortable.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_00: And um, how could I just get curious about it?
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_01: So oh my gosh, I wish we had like four hours.
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_01: I I wanna, I don't know how you're gonna answer this question, but what helped?
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you had a therapist, you were aware that this was the right decision for you and your family and your son.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_01: He obviously is thriving.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_01: So he got it was so beneficial for him to have you to, you know, mother him in those ways.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_01: But how what helped you move?
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's a very different life than the one you had.
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_01: So, what how'd you take care of yourself during that time?
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_01: How what helped you get through that year and a half when you were home full-time with him?
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, a couple of different things.
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_00: One, I had remarried and I had entered into a really healthy partnership.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um unlike anything I'd ever been in before.
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_00: So for the first time in my whole life, I could count on somebody, you know, financially, emotionally, spiritually.
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_00: And that was really new for me.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you know, my husband was the one who said, just burn the ships, Lori.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_00: Just do whatever you have to do to save our son, you know, because he loved Bryce as much as, you know, as much as I do.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_00: And um, so he was all in it.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_00: And and I don't, I mean, I I couldn't have done it without him.
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_00: So certainly that.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then a whole lot of faith, a whole lot of trusting myself.
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like that sign I got, that intuition, you know, it would have been really easy to say, nah, nah, that that's not what the universe or God or whomever wants me to do.
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_00: No, I'm just gonna keep being a vice president and I'm gonna make SVP and EVP.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_00: But that wasn't it.
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_00: It my intuition, like the insides of me were so loud and so clear.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so really trusting that and having faith that whatever this next chapter is gonna be, it's gonna be better than even I can imagine.
• 55:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that is so powerful.
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_01: If there's a woman listening who can relate to some of your earlier experiences, right?
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_01: But before, maybe before you had that grandma's seizure or before you left your job to be home with your son, but is really feeling as you're talking, like, oh my gosh, she's talking about me, right?
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'm burning at both ends.
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_01: I am so happy and excited to now that I've gotten my head wrapped around it, or maybe they wanted a child, but I'm so happy to have this baby and to be a mom, but I am, I don't know how to do this.
• 55:57
  SPEAKER_01: I'm feeling stretched.
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_01: What kind of words of wisdom or thoughts, or what do you say to women?
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_01: Because I this is your work now.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_01: So what do you say to women in that situation?
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think the worst thing that we can do is isolate.
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's the absolute worst thing that we can do is go in our corner and say, oh, I'm gonna figure it out all by myself, and then I'll come out once I've got it figured out and miraculously have appeared.
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_00: It requires us to actually do the opposite of that.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_00: Find somebody who can help you.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_00: You, Kate, are an expert.
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_00: If you had existed, you know, 24 years ago when my Jackson was born, I would have needed you, I would have hired you, I would have welcomed the help.
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_00: And then find a community.
• 56:45
  SPEAKER_00: Find a community of women, like-minded women who know what it's like to have your ambition, to have your drive, to want the things you want unabashedly without shame, but who also understand the other side and can support you and see you and cheer you on.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I just think that that's so important.
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't have that for a long, long time, but I won't live without it today.
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you won't live it out without it today.
• 57:19
  SPEAKER_01: You're also can you're also creating it for us women like this.
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_01: So could you tell us a bit about the work you're doing now and how people can find you if they're interested in learning more?
• 57:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, absolutely.
• 57:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I I do I create a community of women just like you, just like this, ambitious women, leading, doing amazing things who have dreams and goals and the kind of ambition we talked about at the beginning that's just this inherent drive for good.
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_00: And it's remarkable.
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I it's community, it's retreats, it's masterminds, it's hot seats, it's how can we just do better and be better?
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_00: You can find out more at lauriepine.com.
• 58:01
  SPEAKER_00: You can follow me on LinkedIn, Lori Pine, or on Instagram.
• 58:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 58:07
  SPEAKER_01: That is amazing.
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, anything you think we've left out that you want to make sure our listeners hear from you today?
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_00: I think that the work that you bring to the world matters and that most of us are probably suffering from some sort of deregulation in our nervous system.
• 58:33
  SPEAKER_00: And what was so profound when I met you in Nashville and what I walked away with is how if that goes untreated, it will impact our children, potentially for their whole lives.
• 58:49
  SPEAKER_00: And had I known that, I mean, I I would have done things differently, but I didn't know that.
• 58:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, we we can only make amends and do things differently with what we know and what we can do.
• 59:03
  SPEAKER_00: But if anybody's listening and their babies are little or they're thinking about having a baby, you know, get with Kate because wow.
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 59:14
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate that.
• 59:15
  SPEAKER_01: And um I think that uh it takes hearing stories like yours and hearing women like me and you and other women who are very committed to achieving great things, right?
• 59:28
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's one of the things that we were saying in the beginning.
• 59:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's being a wanting to do amazing things is not bad.
• 59:33
  SPEAKER_01: But when we when we focus on the performance-oriented kind of ambitious and goals at the sacrifice of our own relational intelligence or health and well-being, uh, we will get off track very quickly, especially if we're not paying attention.
• 59:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's a risk for all of us who have big dreams out there.
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_01: So um I appreciate that.
• 59:56
  SPEAKER_01: And it does take a village.
• 59:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I have just loved getting to know you, Lori.
• 1:00:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm grateful you were here today.
• 1:00:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I hope people um look into your work as well.
• 1:00:06
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you for your time being here today.
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for having me.
• 1:00:11
  SPEAKER_01: A pleasure.
• 1:00:16
  SPEAKER_01: All right, listeners, if you found this episode helpful in any way, or if there's someone in your life who you think might benefit from hearing it, I would be so grateful if you take just a moment to subscribe, rate, review, or share this episode with a friend.
• 1:00:31
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, it does feel good to know that the podcast is resonating with you.
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_01: But honestly, the bigger reason I ask is because the more subscriptions at the ratings and reviews the podcast receives, the more accessible it becomes to mothers who may really need this kind of support and conversation.
• 1:00:48
  SPEAKER_01: And as we all know, motherhood was never meant to be done alone.
• 1:00:51
  SPEAKER_01: But it really does take a village to raise a mom or two.
• 1:00:54
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you for helping us grow this community one conversation at a time.