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What the iPod and Martha Stewart Teach Us About Building a Life That Lasts · University of Why

0:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the University of Y. I'm your host, Dr. Sonya Chopra, a board certified end-adownist, educator, side-hustler-turned-business owner, mother of three, and devoted wife.
0:12
[SPEAKER_00]: I wanna show the world that it's possible to have a thriving career, loving family life and a sense of personal wellness and fulfillment without over complicating things.
0:21
[SPEAKER_00]: You see life isn't just about what we do, it's about why we do it.
0:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Together we'll explore the core motivations behind our choices, the purpose behind our pursuits, and the beliefs that shape who we are.
0:32
[SPEAKER_00]: So we can redefine success on our own terms, and build a life full of health, confidence, love, and vitality.
0:39
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll welcome back my beautiful friends of the universe.
0:43
[SPEAKER_00]: You are listening to University of Wai and today it's just going to be you and me.
0:48
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, I'm hanging out a bit before I head off to the office and I wanted to sit and reflect with you today.
0:55
[SPEAKER_00]: I wanted to talk about something that's been coming up a lot for me lately.
0:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Both in my business and my life and even in my conversations with my own children, especially my 13-year-old daughter.
1:06
[SPEAKER_00]: It's this idea that we think we need to know where we're going before we even get started.
1:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Like we have to have everything all figured out.
1:16
[SPEAKER_00]: We want the plan, we want to know what the career is going to look like, where we're going to be, where we grow up, especially for her.
1:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Some people need to know what the next 10 years are supposed to be, and we all feel like we kind of need some kind of reassurance
1:36
[SPEAKER_00]: it's the right thing.
1:37
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just don't think life works that way.
1:40
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, when I look at almost everything meaningful, I've built in my own life.
1:45
[SPEAKER_00]: None of it started out looking anything like what it eventually became.
1:49
[SPEAKER_00]: And honestly, I'm starting to think that might actually be the whole point to life.
1:54
[SPEAKER_00]: So today I want to talk to you about version 1.0, starting before you know,
2:04
[SPEAKER_00]: and knowing when to change something, and knowing when to let go of something, and trusting that you do not need the entire map before you take the first step.
2:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I think so many of us get stuck thinking, we're supposed to know what version 10.0 looks like before we even willing to make version 1.0, and that's just not how life works.
2:28
[SPEAKER_00]: It's definitely not how business works, and it's not how we figure out who we are either.
2:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Honestly, I don't even think coming up with the idea of doing something is the hard part.
2:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Ideas are everywhere, they're endless.
2:43
[SPEAKER_00]: The first hard part is getting that idea started.
2:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Actually putting something out into the world before you're totally ready.
2:50
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, once you do that, there's a whole different challenge, which is how do you sustain it?
2:57
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you keep that idea interesting?
3:01
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you keep yourself from getting bored?
3:03
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you let it adapt as you change?
3:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I think that ability to evolve is one of the keys to having a long, happy career.
3:13
[SPEAKER_00]: And honestly, probably a long, happy life.
3:16
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's the part
3:19
[SPEAKER_00]: If you think the thing has to stay exactly the way it started, rather, eventually either the thing dies or you start dying inside of it.
3:29
[SPEAKER_00]: iteration is the key.
3:31
[SPEAKER_00]: It's what keeps you alive.
3:33
[SPEAKER_00]: It's what keeps it alive.
3:35
[SPEAKER_00]: I was actually having this conversation with
3:39
[SPEAKER_00]: My daughter recently, again, she's 13, and she's at that age where people start asking you that those big questions, what do you want to do?
3:47
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you want to be when you grow up?
3:49
[SPEAKER_00]: What am I going to study?
3:51
[SPEAKER_00]: What is college going to look like?
3:53
[SPEAKER_00]: What is my future look like?
3:54
[SPEAKER_00]: And some of those conversations have been frustrating conversations because you know mom and teenage daughters, you know how that conversation can sometimes go I'm saying one thing and she's hearing something completely different I'm trying to tell her hey keep your mind open I think sometimes she hears you're making the wrong choice.
4:13
[SPEAKER_00]: and that is not what I'm saying at all.
4:16
[SPEAKER_00]: What I'm actually trying to tell her is you do not have to have this all figured out from the beginning.
4:22
[SPEAKER_00]: You just have to start somewhere, try something.
4:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever you start with may become the thing you do for the rest of your life or it may become something completely different.
4:34
[SPEAKER_00]: And both are okay.
4:36
[SPEAKER_00]: And when I was trying to explain this to her,
4:40
[SPEAKER_00]: the iPod.
4:41
[SPEAKER_00]: And this brought me back to such a specific memory for me when I was living in New York City.
4:46
[SPEAKER_00]: And the iPod really started to become a thing.
4:50
[SPEAKER_00]: And I remember being on the subway, the New York City subway, and looking around, and suddenly everybody had these like white earbuds in their ears.
4:58
[SPEAKER_00]: They're still here today.
5:00
[SPEAKER_00]: but you'd be sitting on the subway and on that train and there would be all these people with these little white cords hanging down completely in their own world jamming to whatever music they had loaded on to that little device in their pocket.
5:14
[SPEAKER_00]: And at the time I felt so cool, I felt so new, it really was the thing and it was revolutionary.
5:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Apple had created this incredible little device where suddenly your music could go everywhere with you.
5:26
[SPEAKER_00]: And then
5:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And when Apple introduced it, one of the things they were essentially putting inside this new device was an iPod.
5:37
[SPEAKER_00]: But now it was also your phone, it was your email, it was your internet, it was your camera.
5:42
[SPEAKER_00]: And over time it became a million other things.
5:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Today I can literally sit on my phone and run my entire business and even have a conversation with AI.
5:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Think about that evolution for a second.
5:55
[SPEAKER_00]: And the thing I love about the whole thing is that the iPod didn't have to remain the iPod forever to have been a brilliant idea.
6:03
[SPEAKER_00]: The iPod wasn't a failure because we eventually stopped needing a separate iPod.
6:08
[SPEAKER_00]: It was just part of the evolution, part of the iteration.
6:13
[SPEAKER_00]: It solved a problem, and it taught Apple something.
6:16
[SPEAKER_00]: It changed our behavior.
6:18
[SPEAKER_00]: It got us used to carrying our entire music library around in our pocket.
6:22
[SPEAKER_00]: And that idea then got absorbed into something bigger.
6:26
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the iteration that I'm talking about.
6:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think our lives are like that.
6:33
[SPEAKER_00]: We keep thinking everything we create has to be permanent and it doesn't.
6:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes version 1.0 is there a really to teach you what version 2.0 needs to be.
6:45
[SPEAKER_00]: And I can see this so clearly when I look back at my own life.
6:49
[SPEAKER_00]: First, I became a dentist, then I opened a practice and at one point in my life, I really thought that was it.
6:56
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought this was the pinnacle of my career.
6:59
[SPEAKER_00]: I built the practice, I did the thing, this is what I'm supposed to do, this is what I'm going to do, this was the only thing that I thought I knew how to do.
7:10
[SPEAKER_00]: except it wasn't, because then I created eSchool, my education platform, and for a while I thought maybe eSchool was the thing, but even eSchool itself has gone through so many iterations.
7:22
[SPEAKER_00]: The first thing I created was eSchool with my mentorship included with it, because I thought everybody would want that type of coaching.
7:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, they would want access to me.
7:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, they would want an endodontist or somebody with that skill answering their
7:39
[SPEAKER_00]: No, and other people are like, girl, just just give me the information.
7:43
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm good.
7:43
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't need you.
7:44
[SPEAKER_00]: And they wanted to learn on their own.
7:47
[SPEAKER_00]: So then I listened to my audience and East School independent was born.
7:52
[SPEAKER_00]: And then after that, I realized, okay, there's other things that I can create.
7:56
[SPEAKER_00]: So I started creating hands-on experiences and other versions of East School and different ways of teaching.
8:02
[SPEAKER_00]: There have been things that I created that have stuck around and there have been opportunities that existed for a season and then simply disappeared.
8:11
[SPEAKER_00]: And the East School that I teach today is not the East School that I taught in the beginning, not even close, because I changed.
8:19
[SPEAKER_00]: my students change.
8:21
[SPEAKER_00]: I learned what they needed.
8:22
[SPEAKER_00]: I learned what worked for me.
8:24
[SPEAKER_00]: I learned where I was giving too much of myself.
8:27
[SPEAKER_00]: I learned where students actually needed more for me.
8:31
[SPEAKER_00]: And that to me is sustainability.
8:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Sustainability doesn't mean finding one formula and repeating it forever.
8:39
[SPEAKER_00]: It means staying awake enough to notice when something needs to change.
8:44
[SPEAKER_00]: It means asking yourself, is this still working?
8:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Does this still feel good in my body?
8:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Does this still serve the people I'm trying to serve?
8:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Does this still fit my life?
8:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Because if the answer is no, but doesn't necessarily mean you quit.
9:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes it means
9:03
[SPEAKER_00]: You iterate, you change the model, you change the delivery, you change your role inside of it.
9:08
[SPEAKER_00]: You make it interesting again, you make it sustainable again.
9:12
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm probably most importantly through all that shifting, like I realized that I became a better teacher, and I needed that whole process.
9:21
[SPEAKER_00]: I actually don't think I was a great teacher when I started, I mean, I knew and don't.
9:26
[SPEAKER_00]: I knew how to do a root canal for me, but knowing something for yourself and knowing how to teach it to others are two completely different things.
9:36
[SPEAKER_00]: And I could never have learned how to teach Endo at the level I teach it today by sitting in my office, perfecting that curriculum.
9:44
[SPEAKER_00]: I had to teach it.
9:45
[SPEAKER_00]: I had to watch people.
9:47
[SPEAKER_00]: I had to stand beside the dentist while they were treating a tooth and literally watch every revolution of that rotary file.
9:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Because when you do that, you start seeing things.
9:58
[SPEAKER_00]: You start seeing hesitation.
10:00
[SPEAKER_00]: You start picking up on their fear.
10:02
[SPEAKER_00]: You can feel when somebody doesn't trust themselves, or doesn't trust what's happening in their hands.
10:08
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't say it out loud if they're holding it in, but I've seen enough dentists reach that same moment and have this same hesitation that now I know it's there.
10:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And now my question becomes,
10:22
[SPEAKER_00]: How do I unlock that for them?
10:24
[SPEAKER_00]: How do I get them to trust me?
10:26
[SPEAKER_00]: How do I get them to trust themselves?
10:28
[SPEAKER_00]: There was no way for Sonya version 1.0 as an educator to know that.
10:34
[SPEAKER_00]: I had to become the teacher who could create the next version.
10:39
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think sometimes that's what we forget.
10:42
[SPEAKER_00]: you are waiting until you are ready to create the thing.
10:46
[SPEAKER_00]: But sometimes you have to create the thing in order to become ready.
10:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Because that experience is what changes you.
10:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Another reason I think we hold ourselves back.
10:57
[SPEAKER_00]: We think somebody else already had the idea.
10:59
[SPEAKER_00]: I was literally just talking to my daughter about this.
11:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Like there are millions of people who have similar ideas.
11:06
[SPEAKER_00]: There are a lot of endodynamic practices.
11:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Mine was still different.
11:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Why?
11:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Because before I was ever an endodonist, I worked in my dad's restaurant.
11:16
[SPEAKER_00]: I grew up around customer service.
11:18
[SPEAKER_00]: I understood hospitality.
11:20
[SPEAKER_00]: I understood what it felt like to take care of somebody.
11:23
[SPEAKER_00]: So when I opened my endopractice, I wasn't only bringing dental school and endodonic residency into that practice.
11:30
[SPEAKER_00]: I was bringing the restaurant with me, and that was part of my special sauce.
11:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Somebody else can have the exact same business idea as you, but they don't have your life.
11:41
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't have your experiences, and they don't have your personality.
11:45
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't have the things that you learned at 12 years old that you don't even realize are going to matter when you're 42.
11:52
[SPEAKER_00]: That's why there can be a thousand different cooking shows, and they're not all the same cooking show.
11:58
[SPEAKER_00]: you bring yourself to the idea.
12:01
[SPEAKER_00]: And when all those seemingly random experiences start stacking on top of one another, you create something that nobody else could create exactly the same way.
12:12
[SPEAKER_00]: And this brings me to one of my most favorite people, ever.
12:17
[SPEAKER_00]: The one and only Miss Martha Stewart.
12:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Martha, if you are out there listening, I just want you to know, I love you.
12:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Please call me.
12:26
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that this woman is such a boss, and I say that with so much love and admiration, I don't know.
12:32
[SPEAKER_00]: There's something about the word boss that I don't love, but at the same time, like, I love what Martha Stewart has done.
12:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Because if you actually look at the evolution of her career, she didn't start out with this giant Martha Stewart universe completely mapped out.
12:49
[SPEAKER_00]: First, she was a model.
12:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Then she worked as a stock broker.
12:52
[SPEAKER_00]: then she started a catering business outside of her home.
12:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Then she published entertaining.
12:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Then Kim Martha Stewart living, then television, then products, and on, and on, and on, and now there is Martha Stewart everything.
13:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Cooking, gardening, entertaining, home, bedding, cookware, crafts, stationary, do that bitch, has stationary.
13:17
[SPEAKER_00]: And I
13:21
[SPEAKER_00]: my favorite notebook is a Martha Stewart notebook.
13:24
[SPEAKER_00]: It is so brilliantly designed and it's elegant.
13:28
[SPEAKER_00]: The other day I went to home goods because I'm still buying things for my new house and I really want to learn how to set a beautiful table and I found this plastic dinnerware that looks stunning.
13:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I want to have people over outside, but I'm also like I don't need somebody dropping fine China on the patio.
13:46
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course Martha has thought about this.
13:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course she has beautiful things that are functional and usable and accessible.
13:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you think that when Martha Stewart first started that catering business out of her home, she was sitting there thinking, one day I'm going to create plastic dinnerware?
14:04
[SPEAKER_00]: No.
14:05
[SPEAKER_00]: She just did the next thing and then she learned and then she did the next thing and she kept following her curiosity.
14:12
[SPEAKER_00]: She kept learning, she kept paying attention, she kept building, she kept iterating and maybe that's part of why she's had such longevity.
14:22
[SPEAKER_00]: She didn't force herself to stay inside the first version of who Martha Stewart was supposed to be.
14:29
[SPEAKER_00]: She let the thing grow.
14:31
[SPEAKER_00]: She let her self grow.
14:32
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that is such a cool way to live.
14:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Because what happens if the first thing you choose isn't right?
14:41
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't even know if I believe in that anymore.
14:44
[SPEAKER_00]: If I really look at my own life,
14:47
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know that owning a practice was ultimately the right thing for me.
14:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Because there were parts of that chapter that were so incredibly hard for me.
14:57
[SPEAKER_00]: But would I change it?
14:59
[SPEAKER_00]: No.
15:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Not one thing, because that road led me here.
15:03
[SPEAKER_00]: I personally believe that all roads can lead us toward the same destiny.
15:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you take a different road.
15:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe one road has a ton of traffic.
15:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe one is potholes everywhere.
15:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe one has a beautiful scenic drive along the way.
15:18
[SPEAKER_00]: And maybe one makes you say what the hell did I do?
15:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Why did I go this way?
15:24
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think the experiences along the way become part of what you need for wherever you're going next.
15:31
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm actually in a season of my life right now where I'm having to practice that.
15:36
[SPEAKER_00]: There are chapters that I built with everything I had.
15:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Things I gave enormous amounts of myself too.
15:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Things that at one point I thought were going to be my entire book.
15:49
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm realizing they weren't.
15:51
[SPEAKER_00]: They were chapters.
15:53
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's grief in that.
15:55
[SPEAKER_00]: There really is.
15:56
[SPEAKER_00]: I think we sometimes talk about
16:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Next level, I made it!
16:03
[SPEAKER_00]: No, sometimes moving into the next version of your life means letting go of a version that you loved, or a version that you worked really freaking hard to create.
16:12
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm learning that I can love a chapter.
16:14
[SPEAKER_00]: I can be grateful for a chapter.
16:17
[SPEAKER_00]: I can honor everything that chapter gave me without requiring that chapter to continue forever.
16:23
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to change what I had to experience.
16:27
[SPEAKER_00]: all of it was part of it and maybe something can be exactly right for who you were then and still not belong to who you're becoming now.
16:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Right now what I find interesting is that the things pulling me forward aren't necessarily bigger businesses or more work.
16:45
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm actually making room for less of that.
16:48
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm letting go of my workaholism, I want more connection, I want to have fun, I want a garden, I want to cook, I want to learn how to set a beautiful table and have my friends over, I want to meet new people, I want to experience new things and I don't know where any of that is going to lead, maybe nowhere, maybe somewhere I could never predict and that's the point, I don't need to know yet.
17:16
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know what?
17:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Neither does my 13-year-old daughter.
17:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And neither do you.
17:21
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to figure out what the next 30 years are going to look like.
17:25
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't even have to know whether the thing you're starting is going to work.
17:29
[SPEAKER_00]: You just need one idea.
17:31
[SPEAKER_00]: One little baby version, one point no.
17:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Start there.
17:35
[SPEAKER_00]: And stay curious enough to let it change.
17:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Because starting matters, but sustainability matters
17:43
[SPEAKER_00]: and sustainability does not mean white-knuckling that same thing for 30 years because you decided at 25, that this was what you were going to do.
17:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe a long, happy career or a long, happy life is built by allowing yourself to keep evolving.
18:00
[SPEAKER_00]: To keep noticing, to keep adapting, to keep asking yourself what fits right now.
18:06
[SPEAKER_00]: What am I curious about right now?
18:09
[SPEAKER_00]: What gives me energy right now?
18:12
[SPEAKER_00]: What am I done with right now?
18:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Put the thing into the world.
18:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Pay attention.
18:18
[SPEAKER_00]: See what works.
18:19
[SPEAKER_00]: See what doesn't.
18:21
[SPEAKER_00]: See what people need.
18:22
[SPEAKER_00]: See what you need.
18:24
[SPEAKER_00]: See what makes you feel alive.
18:27
[SPEAKER_00]: And see what makes you feel like, oh, I never want to do that again.
18:31
[SPEAKER_00]: How does all of this feel in your body?
18:35
[SPEAKER_00]: That information matters.
18:38
[SPEAKER_00]: and then iterate.
18:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I really do believe that when you start moving, the universe just starts sprinkling more ideas into your path.
18:48
[SPEAKER_00]: But you have to move.
18:50
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't stand at the beginning demanding a map of the entire journey before you're willing to take the first step.
18:57
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't know yet who you're going to meet.
18:59
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't know what experience is going to become part of your special sauce.
19:04
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't know what you're going to create.
19:06
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't even know who you're going to become.
19:09
[SPEAKER_00]: And maybe that's not something to be afraid of.
19:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe that's the fun part.
19:15
[SPEAKER_00]: So, to my daughter.
19:17
[SPEAKER_00]: And to anyone else listening, who feels like they need to have their whole life figured out, you don't just pick something, begin, let yourself be version 1.0.
19:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't be afraid to change it, don't be afraid to outgrow, don't be afraid to make it fit the person you're becoming, because when it's time for version 2.0, you'll know more
19:46
[SPEAKER_00]: And before I let you go, I want to leave you with one question.
19:51
[SPEAKER_00]: What are you waiting to begin?
19:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Because you think you need to know how it ends.
19:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you don't.
19:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you're only job right now is to make version 1.0 of yourself.
20:03
[SPEAKER_00]: And let life show you what comes next.
20:06
[SPEAKER_00]: If this episode resonated with you, my friends, I really would love to hear from you.
20:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Leave a comment or a review wherever you listen to the show, or maybe share this episode with someone you know is ready for this kind of conversation.
20:20
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you're enjoying the University of Wyoming, make sure you follow the show so you don't miss what's coming next.
20:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Because if there's one thing I know, it's that I'm still iterating to.
20:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for spending this time with me today.
20:32
[SPEAKER_00]: My beautiful friends in the universe, keep asking why, keep following what feels aligned, and give yourself permission to become whoever you're becoming next.
20:42
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll see you next time.
20:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much for tuning into the University of Y.
20:46
[SPEAKER_00]: The podcast that's meant to be a reflection of you.
20:49
[SPEAKER_00]: I hope today's episode inspired you to think a little more deeply about who you are and realign with your own why and take steps towards creating the life you've always dreamed of.
20:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't forget to subscribe or share your thoughts by just leaving a simple review and follow me on social media for further insights on leadership, finding fulfillment in your work, family and community.
21:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Until next time, keep pursuing your purpose with passion.