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What Happens When You Never Stop Betting on Yourself: Resilience, Reinvention, and a Whole Lot of Heart · Kind of a Big Deal

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: Hi everyone, welcome back to Kind of a Big Deal.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_02: I'm your host, Kristen Belden, and I have someone very special for you today.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_02: Gina is my former executive coach, and honestly, I didn't know how to introduce the GOAT.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_02: She came into my life through Leap Academy, and working with her was one of the most transformative experiences of my career.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_02: She has that rare ability to speak directly to the core of who you are in a way that makes you feel seen, not called out.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_02: But Gina's story is so much bigger than coaching.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_02: She came to the US from Venezuela with$300 in her pocket, a toddler on her hip, and not a word of English.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_02: She built a career in retail from the ground up, eventually leading a team of 600 at Victoria's Secret in New York City.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_02: She navigated breast cancer, and now she's launching a nonprofit called Own Your Next, a coaching program for women rebuilding their identity and confidence after cancer treatment ends.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_02: Because here's what's not being addressed.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_02: The moment treatment is over and everyone expects you to just go back to normal is often when women need support the most.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_02: We also talk about intuition, what it actually means to lead from the inside out, why so many women hit a ceiling and don't know how to break through it, and what it looks like to keep saying yes to your own life, even when it asks a lot of you.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_02: I've wanted to have Gina on the show since the very beginning, and I'm so glad we're finally here.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_02: Let's dive in.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_02: Hi Gina.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, Kristen.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's so good to see you.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_02: I am so honored to be here with you.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, well, round two.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_02: So we'll disclaimer in full transparency.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_02: Gina and I tried to do this a week ago and there were storms happening in Florida.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know what was going on with my desktop, but like we kept trying and we figured, you know what?
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_02: We're just gonna try again.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_02: So here we are, and I'm so glad that the weather is cooperating and that it seems so far like my computer is cooperating, so we'll just continue to cross our fingers.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so thank you for coming back.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I I shared this with Gina in our last conversation, but it took me a minute as I was sitting here trying to think about how to introduce her because my my reflection was like, How do you introduce the goat?
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_02: and it really still continues to feel that way to me.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_02: She is just this like really incredible human.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_02: She's an executive coach, a keynote speaker, but she's just so much more than that.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_02: She was my coach during my time at Leap Academy, which I've shared about on this show before.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_02: It was transformative for me for so many reasons.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I'm just really personally forever grateful to her for her wisdom, and just she has this like really uncanny ability to pull things out of you that you need support with.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but she's strong, kind, and she's able to speak into the core of you in a way that makes you feel seen but not called out, which I think that is a really unique gift to have.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_02: And she's also lived more of a life in her years here on earth than most people will in a lifetime.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I was actually sharing that with my husband this morning.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_02: He's like, What are you guys gonna talk about?
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, I don't even know.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_02: There's so many different things we can talk about.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_02: So my life is better for having worked with her, so I'm forever grateful and just so happy to have her here with us today.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_02: So thank you, Gina.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: You're just so kind, Kristen.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna I'm gonna save this clip for those days where I need some pumping up and some motivation.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_02: Well, kind only kind only because it's all true and real.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I was reflecting on there was that moment where you were able to share with me that there were some habits that I was kind of falling back into that were not great and they were getting in my way.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_02: And it was said in this kind, like, we may want to do some digging into why there's some external validation needed.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, yes, we should do that.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_02: But it was in a way that I felt so held and safe.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, this kind of work, I didn't understand anything about executive coaching before we started working together.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_02: I'd never really, I didn't understand it was like an incredible life hack that so many people work with.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_02: Like ever ever since I told people I worked with the coach, they're like, oh yeah, I work with the coach, or I worked with the coach.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, well, nobody, why didn't anybody tell me that?
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't know.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like, where have I been living?
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Under a rock?
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, that's how it felt.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_02: That's how it felt.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, what the heck?
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't find coaching until I was in my you know 40s, late 40s, like 46, I think, when I first found coaching.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I know exactly what you mean, right?
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: And and I was like, wow, where have I been?
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: I think I might have been a CEO if I had coaching when I was in corporate.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_02: You know?
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_02: That's what I'm saying.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, this is like this a secret world.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_02: Like, okay, now that I know about it, uh, let's go, right?
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_02: I had a friend, I was telling her about it.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_02: It's so funny to say this now in reflection because now that I understand the power of it and what it can do for you, I I laugh when I think about early days of even having conversations with Leap about is this the right thing?
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_02: Do I do this?
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, I don't know, is it like kind of weird to need this support in this way?
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_02: And which I don't believe in the slightest anymore, but you know, rewind a couple years ago is in a different headspace.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_02: And she's like, Look, you take your car to the mechanic when it's broken, you don't try and fix it yourself.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_02: You go to the gym, you work with a trainer, right?
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_02: Somebody that's helping you to get healthy.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_02: Like, why wouldn't you work with a professional to help you with your career?
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, Oh, damn, yeah, that's what a great way of saying it.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: Great way of putting it, right?
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um so I think I'd love to start, you know, you have so many incredible stories to share, and I've had the pleasure of hearing them over the course of our time together and in your incredible keynotes.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I realized that I have not heard a whole lot about young Gina and kind of who you were when you were younger.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_02: So um maybe just give us like a little snapshot of who you were as a kiddo and what you were drawn to.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love it.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: I um it's so funny because I think in a way, I was kind of like a nerd, you know, was a little nerdy.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh well in politically correct nowadays.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: But but yeah, I think I was well behaved, bookworm, you know, love to get myself some straight A's.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was it was a way for me to kind of balance.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: My my sister was a troublemaker, and she would always get a beating from my mother.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I would be like, let me behave, let me have the straight A's so that I can get the positive recognition.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, it was it was kind of something I enjoy, you know.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: I think back, I enjoyed achievement from the moment I remember, you know, and I think sometimes we go back and we think about where our adult tendencies come from.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I go back and I'm like, wait a minute, I was I was striving for achievement even when I was little, but anyway, my dad was a big believer that um, you know, we should always be engaged in something that was stimulating to my brain.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: So instead of Barbies, I used to get Lego sets, you know, those were my Christmas gifts.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I was big into Legos, but you know, I also had the opportunity because I grew up in a third world country where it was still safe to go out and play on the streets.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember in my neighborhood when I was in like, you know, six seven, eight, there was uh probably like ten of us in the neighborhood.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: And after we came home from school, did homework, whatever, we will go down the street and we had one bike.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: And we would share that bike among all ten of us, play on the street and just have fun, and it was the good old times, you know, and you were out there until your mother called you at like seven o'clock to come back for dinner.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so there was that part of me that was playful and that really enjoy um you know hanging out with my friends.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: But it was a beautiful time to be growing up because it was so it was so different, right?
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: And and you can really enjoy the outdoors and and your friends in a very different way than we do now.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's so different.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, maybe share with folks where you did grow up.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I'm from Venezuela, okay?
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: South America.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: And my mom was, you know, she was a single mom for most of my my life.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: I think my dad and her separated when I was about nine.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: So she was a hard worker, you know.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, talk about having three jobs to raise two daughters, and it was just me and my my sister.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: But it was a great culture, really enriching culture, and we had a family nearby.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so it was it was great growing up, it was really awesome.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_02: And then I mean I might imagine, right, like even having that influence of your mom as a hard worker, too, right?
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_02: Like how that shapes us, and when we get to see strong female presence in our life, how that can also, I'm sure, feed into the ambition a bit.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um so maybe then, what age then did you come to the US?
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, it's so funny because I came to the US at 18.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: But before I tell you about that, so I happened to fall in love with someone that was older than me, and I was only 14.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: Met someone at a party and fell in love and got pregnant.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I had a baby very, very young, and um ended up having to do school, kind of like you know, I had night school to finish my high school, and then I had a job full-time, and I was trying to do all of these things, and then when I was seven, I think I was like 16, 17, I met someone else because obviously, you know, whatever happened to that first person didn't work out, but I met someone else, and we fell like madly in love, and after being a year and a half together, we were trying to kind of form a family.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: I was raising my daughter and working hard, but it was tough in my country, you know, it was a time where politically it was really tough to raise a family, to to make it on your own.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: And he said to me, He's like, you know, I have an aunt in the US, why don't we why don't we move to the US?
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I was 17 and a half in love, and I was like, Okay, you know, let's do it.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: And we did all of our paperwork, got everything together, and about 14 days before it was time to leave, I told my mother.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, and she was, you know, she was helping me raise my daughter, she was helping me take care for her while I was working, and she was like, No, no, no, no, no, you know, you can't.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, Yeah, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna try this.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: And she's like, Well, leave, leave a lady.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: My daughter's name is a lady, and she was like, Leave a lady behind, I'll take care of her, and you come back for her when you're ready.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, No, no way, I'm not leaving my child.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what's gonna happen, I don't know when I'm gonna come back.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: And my mother was really, really upset, but I was like, you know, adamant not want to leave my child behind.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: So at the age of 18, actually, it was 17 and 11 months.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: I came in August, and um, yeah, at the age of 18, I came to the US.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: I ended up having like$300 in my pocket to start a new life, and that's how it began.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: And we started a life here with pretty much nothing.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't even know how to speak English.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_02: That's incredible.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_02: I remember you sharing your little dictionary that you carried around with you, and what a beautiful image of what it takes to start something fresh.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that the level of um fortitude and resilience that it requires, I imagine, to number one, have it such conviction in your body to say, I'm not leaving my daughter behind, right?
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, to know that in your being, I think is such a I I never heard that part of the story.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, to to come here and to build a life, to have a small child, you know, I mean, it's it's a story of of so much that's bigger than just even your story, I think, and what we're looking at with the political climate now and how we think about what it means to be here.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I it that's a whole other, I think that's a that's part two.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: It is.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's so funny because I I I often think, you know, I go back sometimes and I think about the decisions I made at like 18, you know, 19, and I to this day I'm like, oh my goodness, I was so courageous, so fearless.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, at times I'm like, I don't think I'm as fearless now as I was before, right?
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: But I do remember having that conviction.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: It was I think you know, for me, it's so funny because I I feel like for me, intuition and gut has always been so present, even as I was having a baby alone in a delivery room at 14 years old.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like I knew exactly like the day I was gonna have the baby, I knew the baby was coming.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like there is there's just something for me that I think listening to my gut has always been there and it's always been so present.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember when I told my mother, no, I'm not leaving her.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: I just knew, and you know, the decision was incredible because it took me years to be able to leave the US.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: So for me to become legal to have all of the paperwork that I needed, it took many, many years.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I would not have seen my daughter.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I didn't see my mother for five years until she could come here.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, so uh it would have definitely changed the direction of my relationship with my daughter and where I was.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm super grateful for that decision.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: But I think I can't stress hard enough how important it is to follow your intuition, to learn to really listen, because there's always you always know best.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, I think so many this con this theme kind of comes up in so many of my conversations.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_02: Some women who are just kind of rediscovering their intuition or had tried to silence it for so long in order to kind of navigate the world in whatever way that they thought would serve them at the time, others who have kind of had that as part of their decision making throughout their whole life.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I wonder, you know, when you're working with people, do you have any kind of advice for anyone on if they're a little untethered from that intuition, like how to start listening to it again, or is it kind of something that just takes time and practice, you think?
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's a little bit of both, but by the way, we all have those moments because I remember times in my life when I didn't listen to my intuition.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, of course, yes, yes, so I think it's gonna happen just because life gets in the way.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we get caught up with what's happening around us, and almost at times I feel like we let circumstances make decisions for us, you know, in a way.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that is always gonna happen where you're gonna lose, you're almost gonna maybe lose the frequency.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I you lose that frequency, and I think what's important is being present.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's a reminder, and I and I often remind myself of that when I'm experiencing stress, when I'm experiencing worried, is you know, a lot of times it's hard to listen to your intuition if you're not really present.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I think practices such as like grounding, breathing, even you know, listen, I'm not a meditator.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: I love the fact that I could give myself space, but I'm not consistent at it.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm not gonna sit here and say, oh, go meditate.
• 17:02
  unknown: Thank you.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I do believe in space and reflection.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's very important.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I think we don't give ourselves enough space.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_02: I totally agree.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like it's everybody has to find the thing that works for them, right?
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't, the mechanism can change, whether it's breathing or meditation or activation, right?
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_02: There's so much input all the time, there's so much information being thrown at us all the time that it can feel almost impossible sometimes to like just tell it all to shut up.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_02: You know, like just be quiet, let me listen to myself for a second.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_02: I think, you know, I have realized over time that when I'm feeling really off, it's generally when I'm going against what my intuition is trying to tell me.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_02: That is actually when in my body I feel so much stress and so much strife because it's like it feels like there's something in my body going like, hello, hey, over here.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: You're me, Kristen.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm here.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_02: My husband always says he trusts my intuition more than anything.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: For me, intuition, there's just such a connection to your physiology.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know, for some people it's the gut, for some people it's the heart, right?
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I think that the more, and as women, right, it's so important that we're attune with our bodies.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that the more we can be attuned with our bodies, the more we understand our nervous system.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'll give you an example.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: I bet that if it comes to, like, if you're a mother and it comes into something that is, you know, maybe your child is in danger or something that has to do with your child, I bet you're gonna go all in and your intuition.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna not second question it.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: But I totally right, but I think it's a lot of times is when it comes to us, but I think it's because we're second guessing, and women tend to second guess themselves a lot more than men, right?
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: You know, men is like, oh, let's go, and then they'll figure out later the consequences.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: We're always thinking, like, oh, what about this?
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: What about that?
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that you know, when you say the judgment piece, right?
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's because we second guess our intuition a lot more than we could.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of times intuition is also about decision making, right?
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's also about am I really making the right choice here?
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's so funny because most of my life I had to make really big decisions on my own.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: I always say, you know, I didn't really have my dad.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: My dad passed away a year or two after I had moved to the US, and I really didn't have that guidance when I was growing up.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: So when it came to big decisions like finances and buying a home and stuff like that, I never really had the guidance.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I had to learn to really think about how I was going to make the big decisions on my own, right?
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: And at some times it worked, sometimes it didn't.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_03: Sure, yes.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: But I think we just need to get out of our heads.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's it.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: Get out of your head, get into your body, listen, feel it, right?
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: And then you can go about really tapping into your intuition.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: But I think it's all about this pace I was talking about.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_02: You've built just such an amazing career for yourself, and it has touched so many people in different ways and in different containers.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_02: You've led hundreds of people in high-pressure environments, and you've been in retail and in coaching.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm curious if you um like so you you come here to the US, you don't know a lick of English, you are learning how to still be a mom, how to build a life.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_02: How did you find yourself in those early years navigating, you know, looking for work?
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, I did it all, Chris.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: I did it all.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's so fun, you know, is um it was it was very difficult at first because I didn't speak English.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: For the first, I'm gonna say year, year and a half, like year and a half, it was really difficult to communicate.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I did a lot of different jobs.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: I was a waiter, I cleaned buildings, I I did everything.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: I even vacuumed funeral homes, I did it all.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: So you can think of uh just about every entry level job I did.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember I landed, um, it's so funny, I got pregnant with my second daughter, and it was just turning 21.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: There was a place that I used to go to and in the in the town where I was living in New Rochelle, New York, and I ended up getting higher.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I was just like probably about like four or five months, and the person in the store needed it someone part-time, and it was one of those copy and print shops, but you know, pop pop, you know, there forever.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I had a boss that will drive me crazy.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Crazy because he will correct every single thing I will say.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: But it was that job that gave me, I think, the first of all, it gave me the knowledge to really understand the operations of a store because he trusted me.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I had the keys, I was doing all the functions.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, it was that leader that helped shape my language and you know, helping me nail the language going forward.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: I remember somebody came in and said, um, you know, we want 500 copies on yellow paper.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I went to him and I said, Hey, young, this client wants 500 copies in yellow paper.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, What do you mean?
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: We don't sell yellow here.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, Well, come on, John, it's yellow.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: And it was stupid, right?
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: But it would annoy the heck out of me.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, yellow.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like I now that this is like what 30 years later, I still say that I wouldn't also think that would be happening now.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_03: I don't think that that would be allowable behavior now.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: But it was so fun because you know, he cared and he helped me really master the language in a big way.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: So that enabled me to speak and communicate much more clearly.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: So, fast forward, I had my baby, we moved to Florida, and I was able to, I, you know, my daughter was probably like two, and I was a stay-home mom for a while because we had just moved.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: And my daughter started going with like little play days and stuff like that, and I met someone that sold Tupperware.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: And believe it or not, I started selling Tupperware when my daughter was two and a half years old, and I started going to homes and doing the Tupperware parties.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: But of course, I've always been so driven and such a high achiever that I ended up building a career out of Tupperware.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I drove a free car, a free Dutch caravan for like three years because of my sales and the people that I recruited.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: I recruited over 25 people to sell Tupperware under me.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: So this became a business.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: Not surprising.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_03: Not surprising at all.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: I went from being a stay-home mom to now building a business.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: And the fun part is, you know, I'd be home doing cold calling because you had to book your parties, right?
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: And while my kids were in school, I'll be doing cold calling.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then when my husband will come home at six o'clock, I'd be okay, here's the kit.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to a tupperware party.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: It was crazy.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I had, you know, had a lot of sales experience in my country, so it kind of helped me launch the business.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm doing Tupperware, and I end up separating from my husband.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: And in order for me to now go on my own and support my kids, I now need three jobs.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I end up having to have brought my mom to help me with the girls, and who were like five and fifteen at this point.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: Five no five and like thirteen.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I now have three jobs, and I'm going crazy.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: I am doing three jobs for a period of about six months.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: I remember coming home and I didn't know where I was going next.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it was crazy.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: It was crazy.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like running around trying to figure out where I was going next.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: I remember it was so tough to start over.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: I was 26 at the time, and I was starting over.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: I remember my bed used to be one of those full like little pots because I couldn't afford furniture.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: So my kids had the furniture they had, but I didn't have anything.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, long story short, the same lady that got me into Tupperware, now three and a half, four years later, tells me Victoria's Secret has an opening for a key holder and that I should interview.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: A great job for me.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: So fast forward, that's how I started my leadership career.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: Getting a part-time key holder job at Victoria's Secret in Coral Springs, Florida.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where my career began.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it sounds like your career began much earlier than that.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, talk about all of the things that were built as a foundation for you, right?
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_02: As you are navigating all of that, and to know, I mean, what a testament that is also to the power of our relationships.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, to say fast forward three and a half, four years later, this woman who still obviously respected you and saw your talent to reach back out and reach back to you and say, hey, look at this opportunity.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's incredible.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_02: I think we forget that sometimes, right?
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_02: That we have people in our life that can be champions and that we're champions of, but we can and they come in and out of our lives.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_02: But it's such a, I think, uh, an important point in what it means to treat people well and to you know, because you just never know when they might show back up.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and yeah.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I think, you know, when I remember when she recruited me into Tupperware, I was like, I just moved to Florida, I don't know anybody.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: Who am I gonna sell to, right?
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because I was literally walking a mall with my kid in the stroller, and I was like, I don't know, she's like, No, you can do it.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: And to know that I build that from not knowing anywhere to recruiting 25 people to driving a free car, I took it to the extreme, I think.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: But that's because that's who I am, right?
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like when I do something, I I do it really well.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think I'm old.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: To go all in.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: I want to do it really well.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: But to your point, I think you know, Linda, I remember her name was Linda.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: I owe her a lot because you know, getting hired there enabled me to quit the three jobs that I was doing for six months and enable me to, of course, now start a different career.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_02: That's so huge.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_02: Do you remember Marnie Mandel from Leap?
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_02: Did you ever know her?
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes, yes.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_02: Do you know her story about Tupperware that her grandfather was either the president or CEO of Tupperware?
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_02: And she's actually been on a listening tour of all of these women that came in to leadership because of their time at Tupperware because I didn't know this, but they had a whole ethos and mandate around women becoming business owners and going.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_02: They say, I think the quote was like milk made to millionaire.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_02: It was this idea and concept of you do get to build within the, you know, kind of construct of what we've created.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_02: And I think she said, I'd have to go back and listen because it's been some time since our conversation, but it was for those that were married, the husband, they like asked many of the husbands to quit their job so that they could then deal with the operational side of the business so that the woman could be out selling and building.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: They did incredible.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: No, it was incredible.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: I remember because the way Tupperware was built, by the way, our commission was incredible back then.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, now you you know, even if you have a business like this, you don't make the same money you did.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: But I remember they had distribution centers.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever you wear locally, you would be working out of that distribution center, and those distribution centers were owned by women who started right.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember my distributor, I think her name was Maxine.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, that was a long time ago, but I remember her name.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: But her husband would support the business because she was driving, you know.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: If you think about it, I had 25 people under me, and I was driving a certain amount of money to maintain the car, so that added to her sales.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'm assuming, you know, those were like at least half a million dollars to a million dollar month for her.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, this was like it was an incredible business, and it was for most of the part women driving the business.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't know that history, and now I'm waiting for her book because I think it's fascinating.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_02: And she has all these incredible conversations with these women who are near the end of their lives but get to share all of these incredible stories.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um so you land at Victoria's Secret, and you've shared some incredible stories just about how much you learned about yourself and your leadership while you're at Victoria's Secret.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_02: So maybe give us a little bit of background on kind of how you evolved there, and then, you know, kind of what you really took away from the importance of how you show up as a leader when you're working in those kind of high-pressure environments.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, do you know?
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: I always tell people that I feel my time at Victoria's Secret was almost like the university of retail.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: The company was incredible, and I learned a ton.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it was all about when I look back at the times that I was working at Victoria's Secret and I think about my own career.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: If you work hard, you were recognized for your work.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if you had the capacity to not only show up, work hard, be creative, but also really embody what the company was about.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that you know, when I was at Victoria's Secret, there was a time where we were establishing a lot of the processes that now are practices when it came to merchandise flow, when it came to how we ran stores, how the stores were structured, how we did sales and all of that.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I think during my years there, I learned just about every single piece of the business because as store managers, you were responsible for pretty much every single piece, even your payroll, right?
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: And to a certain point, you even had visibility.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: There was positions where I had visibilities to my PL.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: So which you don't have a lot of that in other jobs, right?
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: So it was almost like you were, in a way, you were a business owner.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: But I think that was op I would say that was operational, but I think you know, through my years there, I think the most important piece is understanding who you are as a leader.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I think for me as a leader, one of the motto I always had was lead by example.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: And that was a thing for me throughout my entire retail career, is like lead by example.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: Don't ask people to do things that you're not willing to do yourself.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: And that was always, I think I learned that from my very first store manager.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: My very first store manager was a hard worker, she had been in the store for like 10 years, and she was such such a hard worker, right?
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: And she would always teach, but she would always be hands-on with you doing the job, and that was incredible.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that people work for people, right?
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: And to see leaders that are able to do the job themselves, I think that was huge, and I think that to me was also important, even when it came to driving the business.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: When it came to Saturday, I was on the floor.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that we used to sell the Victoria's Secret credit card.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, no, Gina will be on the floor, she's opening 10 credit cards today, and that was it, right?
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: I would spend four days focused on the operations on everything else, but they knew Saturday, I was on the floor, I was opening credit cards, I was measuring for bras, and I was doing the job like them.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I think for me, there were fun times, but there were a lot of hard work too, because retail is not easy.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: Retail, there were times that I didn't leave my house and I didn't leave the store until one in the morning, two in the morning, you know.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: So it wasn't like a 40-hour week.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: I was at Victoria's Seeker for I'm gonna say five years when when, you know, and I had at that point I have held in the first five years, I had held like maybe I'm gonna say probably like at least four different jobs because I got I used to get promoted every single six months.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: And then we went through an organizational change, and I got recruited by guests.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I run my first, I went to run my first outlet store, and that was crazy.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: It was 10,000 square yeah, it was 10,000 square feet, it was crazy, but it was an incredible career.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember as I continued to go up the ladder, I think the biggest challenge as a leader is how every next position is challenging you to stretch yourself into a different way.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that for me the biggest threat throughout my career in retail was there was always every two to three years, there was always that need for sprout, like that that need for the next level, the next level to come, right?
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: The next level of leadership.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um and you know, wish I would have had more mentors, but I did have some significant mentors to help me throughout.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: But I think I have so much that I've learned from my retail career, and we can be talking all day.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my god.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's so true though.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like you know, we talk about this a lot where so many people are trained to be good at their quote unquote job, but we don't train people how to be managers, how to be leaders, typically, right?
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_02: That's not always everyone's story, but I hear so much from people that are like, and then I became, you know, a leader of a hundred people, and no one told me like what to do or how to do it.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, everyone has their own leadership style, but there can be these really intense reckonings around what it means to be a leader in that way.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I remember when I went from my chief of staff role to COO, and I remember my manager at the time saying, like, girl, be ready, because everything that you've become really good at over here, the execution, the doing, the building, you know, something out of nothing, like all of that's going away because you are now in charge of a massive part of the organization, and you are gonna be blown away at how different it feels.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, Oh, come on, yeah, like I love people, it's fine.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_02: And she's like, No, girl, I know you like to cross your to-dos off.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_02: And she's like, You're gonna get to the end of your week and you're gonna be exhausted, and you're gonna have worked your ass off, and you're not gonna have any idea what you did, because ultimately what you're doing is holding people and you are creating space for them to be amazing at what they do, and you're yes, trying to track and make sure, but truly to be in leadership in that way is a very different and I'm so grateful that I had somebody say to me outright, just have your eyes open, you know, because you you can it can be kind of a shock when you're go from the doing.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, quick pause before we get back into it.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_02: If you're listening to conversations like this one and something keeps nudging you, like I know I'm at some kind of turning point, I just can't quite see it clearly yet.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_02: That's actually exactly what I do.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_02: I work with women leaders who are in the middle of something a career shift, a business that's ready to evolve, a moment where what got you here just isn't cutting it anymore.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes what you need most isn't a whole program or a big engagement.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_02: You just need a few hours with someone who can help you see what you're too close to see yourself.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_02: That's the clarity session.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_02: It's a focused, one-on-one conversation where we dig into where you are, where you want to go, and what's actually in the way.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_02: You walk away with real direction, not a list of homework, but genuine clarity on your next move.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_02: If that sounds like what you need right now, I'd love to talk.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_02: You can find all the details at Beldenstrategies.com slash clarity.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_00: It is, and you know, Kristen, the thing with a lot of organizations, and I think back then and even now, it's like especially retail, there was no time for development.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_00: There was no time for development.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_00: So we always had the bigger responsibility, the bigger job, but there was never training that came with it, very, very seldom.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: So you're right.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think many of us have the opportunity for someone to tell us exactly what to expect or how to even do it.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and yes, and that's a big challenge, and there's a time, right?
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: Because what made me very successful at Victoria's Secret, I was so operationally sound, so like you said, right?
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like by the book, doing everything.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: But I was also doing a lot by myself.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_00: And there is that shift when you go into a bigger team.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: I remember I went from managing maybe 25 to like a hundred, right?
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: And now you have to shift what you're doing, like you just said.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: You just now your job is not executing with them.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_00: Now your job is okay, how do you make sure that people are executing below you?
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: And they're actually excited to execute.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_00: Your people challenges become even more cumbersome.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot more challenges, there's a lot more.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness, I remember as I continued to move up the ladder.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_00: My left guest, after after seven years, went back to Victoria's Secret, and now is at Victoria's Secret in the city, in New York City.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: And we had a team of 600.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_00: And let me tell you, I spent more time with HR than I spent with my people.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when you're at that level, oh my gosh, if my share the amount of difficult situations are so real, yes.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_02: God bless HR, by the way.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know how they do it.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_00: I got HR in the house because once you have a certain amount of people, you know, um it's incredible.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_00: The complexities that you're dealing with, culture.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's so fun when you have 25 people in a team and you can just impact the culture right away.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_00: But once you go into these big machines, big operations, it is so hard to have culture and to ensure that your culture is representative of the organization, but also of what your leadership is and the challenges they just get bigger and bigger as you go, right?
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's so important, you know, when I think about everything I've learned, it's so important for us to have mentors and coaches.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like I mentioned earlier, I think I would have gotten so much farther in my last role if I would have had that when I did it.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because at a certain point you hit that glass ceiling, right?
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_00: Which happens to a lot of us.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you had the opportunity to have great leaders that got you to the C-suite, which is amazing in your performance.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_00: But so many women hit that ceiling, and it's hard for you to even know how to break because at the end of the day, also the feedback that you get is often not the feedback that you need.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, say more about that.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_00: Well, think about women who sometimes get the message that they're coming up too strong or they're coming out overconfident, or that they don't have enough executive presence, right?
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_00: So you get all these messages, but you're not, you don't even know what they really mean.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_00: Because a lot of times, if you think about even you know the development process for a leader, you're lucky if you get to speak to your boss every week or every month or once a month, and most of the conversations are about business, they're not really about development.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_00: Totally.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of us are held accountable because of numbers, because of efficiencies, because of your team, but you're not giving the type of feedback that's really gonna move the needle, which is your own leadership behaviors, how you can improve those.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_00: Because a lot of times you're even being led by leaders that don't even exemplify those those behaviors.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_00: When I say you might you don't really get the feedback that you need, because people are not as invested in you.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, this is a blanket statement, right?
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_00: Because we do organizations that have great leaders, but I think you always need people that are outside of that circle because they are oftentimes that I work with a client and I hear all the stories they're saying, and I can catch that there's a disconnect, right?
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, and that's what happens.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of times women don't realize because you're in it, your boss is trying to tell you something, but you're quite not getting it, right?
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, and they might not have the right examples to give you.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_00: But when you have the opportunity to visit that conversation with a coach, you can be enlightened about what's really happening behind the scenes, what's really behind the message that you're being given, and then giving the guidance to say, Hey, next time, how about you try this?
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_00: What do you think?
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_00: What are your thoughts?
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_00: And okay, let me see what I can do, right?
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_02: So you need that type of guidance and support, otherwise, it's very hard to get to the I love the point about having the view from the outside because I think that's something that's such an important point that when you are ensconced in the business and the day-to-day, and the you're you're your head's down, you're overwhelmed.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe overwhelmed is not the right word, but you are all consumed by what's happening, right?
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_02: And so, yes, and so to be and there it always, always, always in some way comes down to people and relationships.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_02: And there can be drama, there can be the like politics of what it means to navigate the internal movement of an organization.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_02: So to have somebody, I say this with women all the time.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_02: They're like, Well, does it work if you're not in my industry?
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, it works better because I don't know anything about what's happening with the dynamics of the drama of your particular industry.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_02: I'm focused on you.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_02: It's a different view, and the way that you're able to catch the patterns, I remember that about our work together.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_02: You would bring patterns back to me that I hadn't even remembered from conversations ago, right?
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_02: And so to have that, to have somebody bring that to you in a way that feels not terrifying, but like, okay, okay, I can see that now differently.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_02: What a beautiful way of thinking about women really climbing the ladder.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_02: I hate that term, but you know, finding the way to where they want to be and building and continuing to act.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_02: Actually, make those strides.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's something that you are also just uniquely talented at.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm curious if you I mean, I know I knew this was gonna happen.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_02: This happens with everybody, but I knew especially with you, we were gonna run way out of time.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_02: And so I wanna let we still have some time, but I'm my head is like in all these different directions.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, do we go here?
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_02: Do we go here?
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I know you had a bit of an evolution post-retail where you had to kind of navigate stuff around identity and career.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_02: You navigated intense health scare, you have navigated so many different all of these elements I think obviously get us to where we are today.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_02: And I want you to share what you're comfortable sharing, but maybe just to to start this phase of it, what drew you to coaching when you knew that it was time to move into a different season?
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_02: You said you didn't find coaching until later in life.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_02: So what was like the the door opening for you there?
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, I I love that you brought us here because there's two big significant things that happened that I think are worth exploring.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the first one is losing my job.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_00: In 2019, I lost my job.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_00: And it was a tough time because I've been a high achiever my whole life, and it was I had been going for like 20 years and to all of a sudden find myself without a job.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_00: It was very difficult because as high achievers, we tend to tie our identity to our career, and I think that's something that I teach our clients is like you have to figure out who you are, right?
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_00: Without the career.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_00: Who is uniquely Christian?
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_00: What about you is what you bring to the world because we have that tendency to be that person, and the beautiful thing about losing my job is that it enabled me to have a career coach.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_00: That was the first time I experienced a career coach.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'd also been following a life coach on LinkedIn, and I was like, okay, let me hire a life coach too.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I had like pulse shebang, I had the life coach, the career coach.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and through that journey, I really started realizing what I love doing the most, which was coaching, training, helping my team exceed.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, over 20 years, I promoted hundreds of people, and and I just enjoy that.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember one of my coaches said to me, they're like, Um, have you ever thought of being a coach?
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, nah, not really.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_00: I said, but I always dream of being a motivational speaker.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_00: That was my dream.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_00: I remember it was in a 1990, I don't know, 1990, 2000 cover of a People magazine.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_00: It was Tony Robbins, and it's his story about how he became who Tony Robbins in.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, wow, I'm gonna be this person one day, right?
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_00: Hell yeah.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I was like, okay, could coaching get me closer to being a motivational speaker?
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, I fell in love with the idea of becoming a coach, and that's when I got my certifications and I started my business.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_00: I still had to get a job because of course I was at that point I was the breadwinner and I needed to stabilize myself.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_00: But eventually I was able to build my business on the side until I was able to launch and become a full-time coach.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, so that's how I came to coaching.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_00: And then fast forward a few years in in 2021, I was diagnosed with breast cancer.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it forced me to slow down, it forced me to take time off to take care of myself.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_00: It was a challenging journey.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think I was in treatment from somewhere in between like 12 to 14 months.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_00: I was doing a little bit of coaching when I could, but uh, for the most time I took time off.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then once I got better in 22, I relaunched my business and got back on the horse.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_00: But there was another identity shift there, you know.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_02: I was just gonna ask that.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like I kept in my head, I'm like this through line of maybe I've shared this with you before, but the CEO of the company that I was last with during COVID, it was, I think, about a year in, and uh things were happening in folks' lives that were so difficult.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember she held this all staff and said, you know, you all are building a muscle that you don't even know you need yet.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_02: And just by being in this challenge and by navigating all of this, like, and she couldn't have been more right, right?
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_02: I think about that all the time.
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_02: Anytime I'm facing a significant identity issue, a challenge, it's like, okay, wait, I've got a little bit of this muscle has been built up.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_02: So, like to know, I mean, you have had it sounds like such a through line, not just in those years, but just all the way rewind back to becoming a mom at a young age to coming to the United States, like each of these is a moment where you are navigating what it means to have a question around identity and who you are and what you're doing in the world.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_02: I'm wondering if when you with the job loss and then with navigating a cancer diagnosis, was there anything that was really surprising to you that you learned about yourself in those moments that you were like, oh, like either you knew it was there, but it was highlighted by going through that, or something that just totally blew your mind that you weren't even aware of.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know, two different things.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they they both impact your who you are, your identity.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_00: I think for me, when I lost my job, I think I was at a place in my life where there was a transformation already happening.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you get to that, and I don't know if it was because I was in my mid-40s, you know, like there was the I was at a place where I've always been a very positive person throughout my life, very upbeat, high energy.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_00: But there was something about becoming so much more comfortable with who I was and almost like coming into myself, right?
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I spent so many years trying to make relationship work and trying to look for that outside happiness where I feel like I was at a time where I was so much more in tune with who I was, with my some sort of spirituality, whatever I was going.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I think having lost the job gave me the opportunity to almost be in a place where I was ready to redesign my life, redesign my career, and that felt really good.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_00: When I think about going through cancer, what surprised me about myself was I knew I was resilient, but I didn't know that my body and my whole being could be so resilient.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_00: But it was a different level.
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_00: I always think about how I will show up to a chemo with no hair because I became completely bald, and I will be happy, and I will be like, good morning, and I will be like putting it through, and just even as I was going through the journey, doctors will say, I don't know how you're so lively and positive, and you know, and and doing all of this.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_00: And there was just something about me that was as scared as I was, because I remember the scariest day wasn't so much the day that I heard you have cancer, the scariest day was the day I went to Google and I decided to put in my diagnosis and go down that rabbit hole.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember that day.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_00: I was sitting in a parking lot coming out of a facility where I had some tests, and I sat there and it was like such a horrible feeling.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was so horrible.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember in that moment making the decision and saying, not because it happened to them, it means that it has to happen to me.
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_00: But I also knew that if it wasn't, I was just gonna do everything I could to just go through the journey.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I learned a ton through that journey about resilience, about being present.
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, I had stage three cancer and I had double mastectomy, 31 lymph nodes removed.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_00: I had three months of chemo, I had five weeks of radiation, uh, you know, multiple surgeries.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_00: It took a lot to go through where I was.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_00: And for me, I don't know.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_00: I was doing it in a way that I just don't know that that many people that go through so much can do it.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I think I've learned a ton about who I am as a person, and I think I'm truly resilient.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_02: No, I mean, wow, yes.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_02: That there needs to be a bigger word than resilient.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know what it is.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sure there's someone smarter out there than me that knows what the word is.
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_02: I make I mean like that feels like a small word for everything you just described.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, there's so much about what you just shared.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_02: I think this idea of coming back to ourselves.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_02: Someone asked me what I think being a badass woman means, and I literally said, I think it means being able to come back into who we actually are.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_02: Not the person, not the version that we thought we were supposed to be or that we morphed ourselves into in order to like navigate the systems that are, but just being okay, literally, with the foundation of who and what we are and what we contribute, I think to on the navigating what it I'm curious actually, when you say you are, you've always been energetic, you know, joyful.
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_02: Do you have a sense of where that comes from?
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_02: Or is that just innately who you are?
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I think that comes from I think that comes from there's this deep sense of love that's always been within me from oh my goodness.
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_00: I remember this from even growing up.
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what it is, but it but it I think love has always been constant.
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not talking about love, romantic love.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about love of life, love of people, love for others, love for myself.
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I think at times as I was navigating my 20s and my 30s, at times maybe I didn't love myself as much as I should have, right?
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because you prioritize other people, but I think when I told you like getting to that meet 40s and realizing that it was about me and that I needed to prioritize myself and love myself first, I think that that has been for me my driver my my whole life.
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's love, and if you think about it, even from a very young age, I was responsible for a child.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_00: I love that child, right?
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_00: So there was always this this presence of unconditional love for my children, and I think also even as you face challenges, because there were so many times where I faced so many dark challenges, but just honing yourself in gratitude and in love, there's no room for other feelings.
• 55:21
  SPEAKER_02: Wow, yes, I think it's so gratitude is a huge one.
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_02: Gratitude allows for a level of presence too, and the presence allows for gratitude.
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's kind of you know, what what did they say, one side of the same coin or two sides of the same coin?
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_02: I know when I'm coming from a place of like I'm present in my everyday, I can see much more clearly and feel gratitude for those things that are in front of me.
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I think some people there's a bit of a misconception that there's this like toxic positivity movement happening, and like, oh, you're just supposed to be, you know, with the big smile on your face all the time.
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, no, that's not the point.
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_02: The point is you get to then receive what's happening in the world and in your day differently.
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_02: You get to, you get to then choose how you're gonna react and engage with these things versus them constantly happening to you.
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_00: And that's it.
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_00: And that's it.
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that that's the other piece when I think of recurring in my life, is I knew there was always a choice.
• 56:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that positivism and energetic and all of that is always about choosing, choosing how you want to react.
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_00: Despite the challenge, despite what's coming to you, you still have the power to choose.
• 56:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that that is something that for me, I've always been in that position to empower myself to say, okay, all of these things are coming to me, but like, how do I want to react to them?
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_00: How do I want to experience life?
• 56:44
  SPEAKER_00: And being courageous enough to make the choices when you have to remove people and situations from your life, right?
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_00: Having the courage to say, How long am I gonna tolerate something that doesn't serve me?
• 56:58
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not just about the positivism, it's so much about choosing yourself.
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yes, which is really hard for I think women in particular to do until you reach your mid-40s and you're like, F it.
• 57:11
  unknown: I don't care anymore.
• 57:13
  SPEAKER_02: I love it.
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_02: I really I remember someone asking me, I've shared this story before, but I turned 40 and they were like, but how do you feel?
• 57:21
  SPEAKER_02: And it was with this like, oh god, are you okay?
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, I feel amazing, I feel better than I've ever felt.
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_02: I have way less shits to give.
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like I'm finally understanding myself or like getting to know myself in a way that feels authentic and real.
• 57:34
  SPEAKER_02: It's a beautiful time.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, what do you mean?
• 57:37
  SPEAKER_02: How do I feel?
• 57:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like the funny thing now that you talk about age is so funny because I'm 52.
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_00: I don't feel 52.
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's crazy.
• 57:46
  SPEAKER_00: You are not.
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_00: Are you serious?
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm gonna be 53 in September.
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember because I had my children so young, I spent all of my 20s telling people I was in my 30s.
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, funny.
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_00: Because I remember I look like an au-pair walking down to New York with two little kids, right?
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I was a baby.
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember people would ask me, Oh, you know, how old are you?
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm and I would say I was 21 or 22 or 23, and I here I am just getting so then I had to give the whole story.
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I got tired, and I was like, I'm not giving the story, I'm just gonna tell people I'm older.
• 58:23
  SPEAKER_00: So here I was 22, telling people I was 32.
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, at the end of the day, age is just a number.
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's about how you decide that you want to feel.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_02: I agree with you.
• 58:35
  SPEAKER_02: Do you have five more minutes or do you need to go?
• 58:37
  SPEAKER_00: Oh no, I am good.
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_02: I am older.
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, good.
• 58:40
  SPEAKER_02: Phew, phew, because we uh there are a few things that we cannot end without talking about.
• 58:45
  SPEAKER_02: First of all, that that's an actual there's actual scientific research that says mentally, if you feel and believe that you are younger, right, than your biological age, you literally live, you're healthier because you're the way you are.
• 58:57
  SPEAKER_02: Like it's a again, someone else smarter out there probably has the actual research here, but it's it's really true.
• 59:02
  SPEAKER_02: It's like if you feel younger than you are, then typically your health benefits from that.
• 59:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so in uh the the piece that I want to make sure we do not lose here is because of your cancer journey and what you navigated, you've now had the opportunity to build something really incredible in the world.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_02: So I'd love for you to share about the new nonprofit.
• 59:26
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 59:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes, so happy we get to talk about this.
• 59:30
  SPEAKER_00: So, as I was going through my journey, I remember sitting there saying, Wow, I want to help women one day, right, that are going through cancer.
• 59:38
  SPEAKER_00: And as I was saying to you that I feel that there was that moment of identity impact through my cancer journey, there was, it was a huge moment because as a woman we go through breast cancer and we have all the support.
• 59:52
  SPEAKER_00: You got your family, you got your doctors, you got appointment after appointment.
• 59:57
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully, you have some groups that are supporting you, you know, social worker, therapist, whatever.
• 1:00:02
  SPEAKER_00: But then you get to the end of treatment, and then it's almost like you're you're cutting ties with everything, right?
• 1:00:10
  SPEAKER_00: All of a sudden, you have less appointments, hopefully, you're done with treatment.
• 1:00:15
  SPEAKER_00: And then people expect you to bounce back, like nothing happened, right?
• 1:00:19
  SPEAKER_00: So you're in this place where like, wait a minute, I just went through a major life-changing event.
• 1:00:25
  SPEAKER_00: I thought I was gonna die.
• 1:00:27
  SPEAKER_00: My body's different, I feel different, my relations are different, my my physical, my mental state, it's all different, right?
• 1:00:34
  SPEAKER_00: And you also lose a lot of your confidence because for some women, they either left work or for me, I had to pause my business, I had to restart the business.
• 1:00:45
  SPEAKER_00: So you go through like a huge identity crisis, and what I noticed is there was no real support to help women at that stage.
• 1:00:55
  SPEAKER_00: I later on, you know, I shared with you that I joined NYU.
• 1:00:59
  SPEAKER_00: I was accepted into NYU for a master's degree.
• 1:01:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'll tell you about that story at another time.
• 1:01:04
  SPEAKER_00: But through my studies at NYU, I really started telling people that I was gonna have an organization to support women, reintegrate back to work.
• 1:01:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I started, I think the first day that we were all introducing each other, I shared this idea.
• 1:01:17
  SPEAKER_00: And sure enough, I kept on building the idea.
• 1:01:19
  SPEAKER_00: And over this last seven months, I have been working with some of my peers to create On Your Necks.
• 1:01:25
  SPEAKER_00: So On Your Necks is a coaching program that helps support women from the minute they finish treatment.
• 1:01:34
  SPEAKER_00: It could be from the minute you finish treatment to about one to two years after cancer.
• 1:01:39
  SPEAKER_00: And the idea is we help you pretty much redefine your identity, your values, regain your confidence, and then the clarity of what you want to be doing next.
• 1:01:52
  SPEAKER_00: Many women don't want to go back to work, many of them want to shift what they're doing.
• 1:01:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, there's just so much, right?
• 1:01:59
  SPEAKER_00: I've had some of my fellow survivors that had high-profile jobs in Wall Street and said, you know what, I'm not going back to that.
• 1:02:07
  SPEAKER_00: So there's so much that happens, and there hasn't been that type of support.
• 1:02:12
  SPEAKER_00: So we are a nonprofit organization.
• 1:02:14
  SPEAKER_00: We're launching our first cohort in June.
• 1:02:17
  SPEAKER_00: We just recruited a ton of beautiful coaches that are going to be supporting the mission, and it is an eight-week program completely free for breast cancer survivors.
• 1:02:27
  SPEAKER_00: And we're hoping, my dream is that this organization becomes a global organization that continues to support women beyond my time.
• 1:02:36
  SPEAKER_02: Oof, talk about chills.
• 1:02:38
  SPEAKER_02: You can hear the passion behind it, and it's incredible to me that this hasn't been addressed.
• 1:02:45
  SPEAKER_02: This is such an important idea to your point.
• 1:02:47
  SPEAKER_02: There, this idea that you're meant to just go back and not recognize and navigate and do the healing work that needs to happen in order to move forward, and especially if there's a community around you and you have this like support system.
• 1:03:00
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, what a beautiful experience for people that so desperately need that kind of container.
• 1:03:08
  SPEAKER_02: I just think this is so amazing.
• 1:03:10
  SPEAKER_02: And if we've heard again anything from your story, we know it will be a global.
• 1:03:16
  SPEAKER_02: This this is like bound to happen.
• 1:03:19
  SPEAKER_02: I can't imagine it wouldn't.
• 1:03:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, is there a way for people to get involved if they're interested in supporting?
• 1:03:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and you know, we're establishing our website.
• 1:03:29
  SPEAKER_00: We're still in the development, but I do have a company page that we can share.
• 1:03:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they can get a hold of me.
• 1:03:36
  SPEAKER_00: And right now, what we're doing is so how to get involved.
• 1:03:41
  SPEAKER_00: You can either come and, you know, if you're a certified coach, you can come and volunteer with us.
• 1:03:47
  SPEAKER_00: You can also help us spread the word for women who are survivors and send them our way so that they can take part of the program.
• 1:03:54
  SPEAKER_00: So, ideally, this is a cohort-based program, and we it of course application only.
• 1:04:00
  SPEAKER_00: So we will be launching usually one cohort a quarter to support to start with, and so yeah, and then eventually, of course, you know, donate because we will need some funds in the future, right?
• 1:04:14
  SPEAKER_00: But um, yeah, I think for us right now it's really about spreading the word and and letting people know that we exist because there are a lot of groups for women, there's a lot of organizations, they're group for women's, but not a program design coaching journey that is gonna help them in a way that's very different than what a therapy will do, like what of course this is just helping women redesign what's next.
• 1:04:43
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I love that.
• 1:04:45
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my gosh, I love it so much.
• 1:04:46
  SPEAKER_02: It's so needed in so many ways, and to add this additional important layer around health and how you navigate what's next.
• 1:04:54
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I think societally we are just not, we're not built this way.
• 1:04:58
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, look at this is a terrible parallel, but truly, like post-COVID, it was like, okay, everybody, like, just go figure everything's back to normal.
• 1:05:07
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, no, there's been like no collective healing.
• 1:05:10
  SPEAKER_02: We just went through a massive trauma, and we're all expected to just be like, well, okay, here we go, without any kind of awareness or intention around.
• 1:05:19
  SPEAKER_02: And so many folks had life-altering things happen during that time, too, that do have you question identity, that do have us think differently about what's next.
• 1:05:30
  SPEAKER_02: A little bit of a side note, I don't know if you've been following.
• 1:05:32
  SPEAKER_02: Did you listen to Zach Cass's interview with Ilana on the Leap uh podcast?
• 1:05:37
  SPEAKER_02: So he was the first go-to-market guy for open AI.
• 1:05:41
  SPEAKER_02: And he and Tony Robbins is now saying this, and they have this whole kind of what they're pushing, their narrative right now is we are not necessarily headed for an economic crisis as a country.
• 1:05:55
  SPEAKER_02: We're headed for a crisis of identity.
• 1:05:58
  SPEAKER_02: Because to your point earlier.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_02: We do hold so much of our pride in our work and our output.
• 1:06:04
  SPEAKER_02: And so when we go through this massive evolution that we're all about to face as a world, that we're not prepared to navigate what it means for people, what does it mean to talk about your identity outside of what you do?
• 1:06:18
  SPEAKER_02: It's such an American thing, too.
• 1:06:20
  SPEAKER_02: Like you meet someone, oh, what do you do?
• 1:06:21
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 1:06:22
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 1:06:23
  SPEAKER_00: You're right.
• 1:06:24
  SPEAKER_00: There's a whole nother conversation here because if you think about AI and how it's impacting people's careers, people's job, what I'm seeing is that there's there's three types of people.
• 1:06:38
  SPEAKER_00: There's those people that are all in going home, I'm gonna go and and and explore.
• 1:06:42
  SPEAKER_00: There's some of us that are like, no, not at all, I'm not even gonna go.
• 1:06:47
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's those that are in fear, this is gonna take my job, right?
• 1:06:50
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm gonna still try it.
• 1:06:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I feel like there's so much mix around the feelings and embracement of AI.
• 1:06:56
  SPEAKER_00: But what I do think is important, tied to the identity.
• 1:07:01
  SPEAKER_00: We have to go back to who we are.
• 1:07:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I have an article on inner intelligence because I do feel that the future is for those that are gonna continue to harness their self-skills, their inner compass, they're gonna continue to work on their leadership so that you could be that right human to manage the technology.
• 1:07:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think that technology is advancing, we have to master and advance our own leadership and our own behaviors to match that velocity.
• 1:07:34
  SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, we're gonna get be left behind.
• 1:07:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that when you think about how fast this is changing, it will impact.
• 1:07:43
  SPEAKER_00: It will impact people's way of working, way of living, way of communicating.
• 1:07:47
  SPEAKER_00: And you're right, we're not ready for this.
• 1:07:49
  SPEAKER_00: So this is probably the most important time to invest in your development, in your growth, in doing the work, and in really hankering in and what makes you truly human.
• 1:08:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yes, I love that.
• 1:08:04
  SPEAKER_02: That's a perfect, perfect segue into the last question that I ask every woman on the show.
• 1:08:10
  SPEAKER_02: And that is with this recognition that all these transitions, all these evolutions, these conversations around identity, what we're doing every day, it's all in service of building towards a legacy.
• 1:08:23
  SPEAKER_02: And I always say with the caveat of like legacy to me is not the big thing that you leave behind and the tranches of wealth.
• 1:08:30
  SPEAKER_02: It's this light, beautiful thing that we're building towards every day.
• 1:08:33
  SPEAKER_02: So I like to ask everyone, um, Gina, what does building a legacy mean to you?
• 1:08:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:08:39
  SPEAKER_00: I think it all comes down to how you make people feel.
• 1:08:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:08:45
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's what it comes down to because I've been in so many different situations and and places in my life.
• 1:08:51
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, yeah, I could build this beautiful nonprofit, and I could leave a legacy with the nonprofit, and I have my two kids, which that to me is my legacy, right?
• 1:09:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like when you leave two kids behind.
• 1:09:04
  SPEAKER_00: But I think it's really at the end of the day, is how you show up as a human, how you engage people every day, how you treat people, how do they remember you when they walk away from you?
• 1:09:18
  SPEAKER_00: That is the legacy, and you don't have to think that far.
• 1:09:21
  SPEAKER_00: You don't even have to think when you die, you're leaving a legacy today.
• 1:09:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, this very moment we're creating, right?
• 1:09:31
  SPEAKER_00: You and I are both walking away from this conversation, feeling a certain way, and leaving a legacy behind with each other.
• 1:09:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, hopefully a good one.
• 1:09:42
  SPEAKER_00: I had a lot of fun, and I'm like, oh my goodness, I've told people my entire life.
• 1:09:47
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, oh, there's two more, but that's what it is, right?
• 1:09:51
  SPEAKER_00: I think that we sometimes focus way too far out.
• 1:09:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I agree.
• 1:09:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I think that to me, building a legacy is how I'm showing up every day for the people I interact with.
• 1:10:05
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I know firsthand what it means to interact with you and how to feel just genuinely seen and loved, and all of the things by you.
• 1:10:16
  SPEAKER_02: And I I know that's how you just show up in the world, and we're just so lucky to have you leading in that way and showing people, like you said, lead how you want others to be.
• 1:10:27
  SPEAKER_02: You show up, and you are a leader in a way that you want others to also show up, and so I know that it's having a massive ripple effect, and we'll continue to just go wider and wider, especially with this new endeavor.
• 1:10:41
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm excited to share more about that with folks.
• 1:10:43
  SPEAKER_02: We'll put all of that in the notes.
• 1:10:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but just thank you for everything.
• 1:10:48
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for being you.
• 1:10:49
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for helping me during a time that was such a massive, massive uh moment and evolution in my own identity.
• 1:10:57
  SPEAKER_02: So um, yeah, I'm just gonna say thank you a million.
• 1:11:00
  SPEAKER_02: I could just end this this ending is gonna be as awkward and weird as the beginning because I just can't say enough about how much.
• 1:11:07
  SPEAKER_02: I love you.
• 1:11:08
  SPEAKER_00: I love you too, and you know what?
• 1:11:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's just it's been such an honor to have been able to be a little bit of support in your journey and to really watch you come from a place of questioning what you wanted to share with the world to now using your voice and allowing other women to tell their stories.
• 1:11:31
  SPEAKER_00: This is beautiful, Kristen, and just to see that contrast and how you're showing up for the world and the work that you're doing is so impactful.
• 1:11:39
  SPEAKER_00: You're letting women feel heard and express themselves, and that's beautiful.
• 1:11:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm just so honored that you allow me to come today.
• 1:11:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you've been on the top, you've been on the top ten since this whole thing began.
• 1:11:51
  SPEAKER_02: So it just it took being at a dance party and a glass of champagne for me to be like, so you ready?
• 1:12:01
  SPEAKER_02: All right, my friend.
• 1:12:02
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you again.
• 1:12:03
  SPEAKER_02: So good to see you, and I'll see you soon.
• 1:12:05
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 1:12:06
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 1:12:07
  SPEAKER_02: Bye.
• 1:12:07
  SPEAKER_02: Bye.
• 1:12:11
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for listening and spending some of your time with me here.
• 1:12:15
  SPEAKER_02: I hope our conversation sparked some new ideas for you.
• 1:12:18
  SPEAKER_02: If you enjoyed the episode, please make sure to hit subscribe so you don't miss what's next.
• 1:12:23
  SPEAKER_02: And if you're ready for even more tools and stories, head on over to Beldenstrategies.com slash newsletter.
• 1:12:32
  SPEAKER_02: I share fresh insights, stories, and tools for women leaders every week.
• 1:12:36
  SPEAKER_02: Until next time, keep building, keep evolving, and remember that you are kind of a big deal.