Sisters-in-Service
Are you a women veteran who feels unseen and unheard? Do you struggle with finding your purpose after service? Sisters-in-Service is a podcast that gives women veterans the platform to talk about those exact issues and more. Hear from other veterans, military spouses and Veteran Service Organizations (VSO) just like you that have overcome their transition from the military. Every Tuesday this podcast encourages women veterans to stand up and be counted because as a group we have a voice. From your host - Cat Corchado - The Voice Connecting Women Veterans
Sisters-in-Service
We're Not Done Yet: Discovering Purpose in Life's Second Act
What happens when life strips away your identity? At age 50, Jennifer Arthurton found herself divorced after 22 years, an empty nester, unemployed from her corporate executive role, and battling a stress-induced illness—all at once. This perfect storm became the catalyst for a profound transformation and the birth of her platform, Old Chicks Know Shit.
During our heartfelt conversation, Jennifer reveals how she navigated this identity crisis when every role she'd used to define herself suddenly vanished. "If I'm not a wife, if I'm not a mother, if I'm not a corporate executive, then who am I?" This question resonates deeply with many women who've prioritized others while disconnecting from their authentic selves.
We explore how women unconsciously minimize our accomplishments and diminish our power through self-deprecating language and thought patterns. Jennifer shares the liberating experience of challenging limiting beliefs—including how she overcame a forty-year belief that she "wasn't a good writer" based on childhood criticism about her handwriting. This breakthrough eventually led to creating her transformative platform.
The journey through midlife reinvention requires emotional release and surrender. Jennifer describes a powerful meditation experience where suppressed emotions emerged as uncontrollable tears, creating necessary space for healing and self-discovery. For a self-described "type A" personality, letting go of control became her greatest gift, opening doors to possibilities she couldn't have planned.
For women feeling stuck in repetitive patterns, Jennifer offers practical wisdom: take the tiniest possible steps forward, challenge negative thought patterns by questioning their validity, and most importantly, create quiet time to listen to your inner voice. "Whatever question you're struggling with right now, you already have the answer. It's in there."
Ready to reclaim your power and discover what's possible in life's second act? This conversation will remind you that you already have everything you need—your accumulated wisdom, strength, and life experience have perfectly prepared you for what comes next.
Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of Sisters in Service. I am your host, Kat Corchado, and today I have a truly inspiring guest for this. Her name is Jennifer Arthurton. She's the dynamic founder of Old Chicks Know Shit. Yes, I had to say it. I can't, you can't shorten that, Okay, I just have to say it out loud. It's a platform that's all about empowering and supporting women in midlife as they reinvent themselves. Jennifer's journey is nothing short of inspiring. At 50, she found herself at a crossroads divorced, unemployed, an empty nester and battling a stress-related illness. However, instead of letting these challenges define her, she used them as a stepping stone to create a mission that would help other women reclaim their power, purpose and passion. So I want to present to you Miss Jennifer Arthurton. Jennifer, welcome to Sisters in Service.
Speaker 2:Thank you, I'm so happy to be here. Well, I'm glad to have you.
Speaker 1:You know Sisters in Service is about. You know we talk about the military, but we're also women and we're all going through this stuff. Okay, and in this realm of in this world, where, if you're over a certain age, people don't want to be bothered with you, Like you know what I'm saying, Like you're not seen, you're not heard, and so that's why I love your podcast name, because it's like, yeah, I know stuff. Yeah, I do Just ask me anything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's so true. And because, as women, for like most of our lives, we are defined by somebody else's image of us. Like you know whether it's our body pleasing to somebody. Like you know, what do we do for other people? Who are we taking care of? Right, yes, and it can cause us to lose connection with who we are.
Speaker 2:And like the powerful women that we are Right. So, like the name, old chicks, no shit, I mean it's tongue in cheek, but it really is about just reminding us that it doesn't really matter what's happening outside of us, cause as long as we can believe in ourselves and in the knowledge and the wisdom and the life experience that we've accumulated, like that is our true power. But it's not easy in the culture that we live in.
Speaker 1:It's not. You know, I often reflect back. So I used to be with a women veterans group and these women have raised children and they went in the military and they did all these things. And they come out of the military and they go who am I and what am I doing and where am I going? And I think sometimes you have to look back. So if you've ever been on a map and you're like, oh, we started here and now we're here, look back at some of those events that happened in your life that were incredibly difficult, like at a point where you thought am I going to make it through this? We're not Right, but you're here to talk about it. Yeah, look at the strength it took to get from there to here. And we forget that. We forget. You know we're such and I'm going to say it out loud we're such bad asses. We just don't get a t shirt that says yes, I am, and on the back it's gonna say a badass.
Speaker 2:Well, and this is the thing. As women, we are constantly minimizing our accomplishments, right Like somebody says oh you did this.
Speaker 2:And they'll be like, well, that was just you know, or somebody else helped me, or it wasn't that bad. And we're constantly minimizing everything so that, you know, we don't appear to be, you know, too braggy or too much or any of that kind of thing that society has told us we shouldn't be. And so, you know, every time we tell ourselves, oh, it wasn't that bad, or it wasn't that hard, we're literally taking away from our own power.
Speaker 1:Yes, absolutely, I totally get that. I I just think that you get to a certain age and you know, you kind of leave behind the oh, what's this person going to think, or what are they going to think, or what's my family going to think? You're just like you know what. I don't care anymore, I'm just going to be me and do me, and, and you know there's such power in that. So, jennifer, let me ask you this question Can you share with us and our audience the story of your personal journey that led to the creation of Old Chicks? No Shit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so in the year leading up to my 50th birthday so I was 49, I found myself divorced after a 22-year marriage. I was an empty nester, my daughter moved three hours away to go to school and I got left, let go from my corporate job so Fortune 500 corporate executive in a global company, and found myself dealing with a stress related illness at the same time. And so it was as though every identity of who I thought I was in the world was literally stripped away from me. And what felt like overnight and you mentioned this earlier when I actually came to face okay, you know, if I'm not a wife, if I'm not a mother, if I'm not a corporate executive, then who am I? I couldn't answer that question. I didn't know who I was because I had been so busy doing, doing, doing and had literally defined myself by the roles that I played.
Speaker 2:And I think so many women can relate to that because, like that's who we are. Like our job title sister, mother, you know, daughter those are the titles that define us. But when we start to look beyond that, what we, what we will eventually recognize, is that you know, like you said, there is this badass woman underneath there that has so much to offer, like so many strengths and talents and gifts, you know, combined with the life experience and wisdom that we've amassed, it's a powerful force, but we don't recognize that. So I truly believed when I was you know, at the age of 50, that it was too late for me. Right? Like no, who's starting over at 50? Like I didn't see that anywhere around me. There's no book on that.
Speaker 1:There's no podcast or YouTube video.
Speaker 2:And I couldn't see possibility for myself beyond what I had already lived. That was the only thing that I saw and I kept asking myself am I too old to start over? Like what's even possible? Like where do I go from here? So you know, I want to say it was like a big lightning bolt hit me and one day I was like, oh okay, I get it.
Speaker 1:No, it was a long person Like yes, it's a long journey.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sometimes painful and often confronting journey to really get to know who I was and, most importantly, like, what did I want for my own life? Because, like for many of us, I had you know, like many of us who are given the rules of engagement like very early on I had checked all the boxes and done all the right things. Right Like go to school, get good grades, get a good job, work your way up, all the things.
Speaker 1:Probably much like the military. Check, check, check.
Speaker 2:Right, but nowhere along that path did I actually stop to say is this happy, is this actually what I want? Because, like that wasn't on the checklist, nobody told me that that was an option that I could choose Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Right that I could choose. Absolutely Right, I totally agree with that. Yeah. And so, you know, when I think back to like the last probably four or five years of my career, there was this, you know, little niggling voice inside me that would be saying like is this? It, is this all there is, you know? And I'd find myself in meetings kind of looking around the table, going, okay, is this what I really worked so hard for? For exactly. But I would tell that little voice to like sit down and shut up, because I got work to do. And the reason for that was I had invested so much to get to where I was I had checked all the boxes that I, if I had not acknowledged that voice, that meant I would have to do something about it and potentially blow up everything that I had spent my entire life creating. And the second part was I didn't know what else there was.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I just ignored it. You didn't know what your options were.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:You know, I usually tell women that you know there's a time in your life when you're young and you have all these things you want to do and then you fall in love, you get married, you may have kids, you may not have kids, whatever the thing is, the kids grow up and become empty nesters and then you're thinking, okay, now what? And I tell women to open that closet that you stuffed all that stuff in when you were younger. And you know they said, well, the door's closed. And I go, it's closed but it's not locked. Just peek open the door and peek around and say, okay, that's no longer serving me.
Speaker 2:But ooh what about this? Yeah Well and I say this all the time that this chapter of our life is really about refocusing from everything that's happening outside us to everything that's happening inside us. So, to the point that you made, it's like what do I want more of in my life? What do I have? What less of like, what's serving me, what's not serving me? And you have to go through this ruthless inventory right To cut away all the things that no longer matter to you and refocus your energy on, like, what's true and important for us and for many of us.
Speaker 2:We have never done that, and so it can be a bit of a journey to figure out. Okay, what does that even look like? Like what is important to me.
Speaker 1:And that in and of itself is a journey. Just that part, yeah absolutely Like.
Speaker 2:for me, that journey was literally, you know, spending time with myself like, like you would, you know, to build a relationship with anybody else. It's really like being your own friend right, building a relationship with yourself, so spending time with yourself, asking yourself, you know, what do you want? Some days it would be like what would you like for lunch today? And really learning to honor that little voice inside me, that intuitive voice that we all have, that most of us have just kind of shut down, shut down.
Speaker 2:yes, To honor that and you know, and really like, let go of the shoulds, because there are so many shoulds and so like it would be things like I would ask myself some questions about what do you want for lunch? Well, I should have the salad, but really, what I really feel like right now is an Oreo cookie. So I'm like, ok, you know what today we're going to is an Oreo cookie. So I'm like, okay, you know we're going to have an Oreo cookie, right, but you wouldn't want to do that every day, and that's all you ate is Oreo cookies, but sometimes that's okay, yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm a grown ass woman If I want ice cream for lunch, guess what?
Speaker 2:Right, exactly, but that's the kind of thing where you start small and start like rebuilding that, and it really comes down to building trust in yourself, right, like trust in that little inner voice that's guiding you, that is always guiding you. The question is are you listening or not?
Speaker 1:And tell me if this resonates, is that you have to get. We carry around so much emotional baggage that we stuff down in our gut, okay, and during perimenopause and menopause it starts to go like this and you push it back down. I think you have to deal with that emotion and get it out of the way so that you can focus on yourself 100%.
Speaker 2:I remember in the part of this transition it was just like I was just towards the very end of my career, so I was already divorced, I was still struggling with my health and all of this, and I was on a business trip I remember this in New York City and I felt compelled to go to this meditation class that was at my yoga studio. I had tried meditating many times before and had determined it an abject failure because my brain just was not built that way.
Speaker 2:But for whatever reason, I was really called to go to this class. So I get to the class, there's, like I think there's six people in the class you know it's a guided meditation class and we're all sitting there and the meditation begins and I feel this well of emotion start to bubble up inside me and I'm like what is that? Like what's what's happening right? And I'm trying to control it. I'm like you know, jen, get it together. Like before I know it, what happened was that well of emotion like that I could no longer control came up and out and I was sitting on the mat like not just crying, like like bawling, like ugly crying, ugly crying exactly. And you know the instructor, she just like looked at me and she nodded and she kind of slid a box of Kleenex onto my mat and I sat there the whole time like literally trying to blow my nose quietly and not so that I'm not yeah.
Speaker 2:But what was happening? To the point that you just made, I had stuff down so much that the biggest part of my healing journey and I didn't realize it at that point. But that was the beginning of my healing journey and you know, when I had that release and, by the way, I went back to that class for another four weeks and did the exact same thing. So there's a lot in there.
Speaker 1:There's a lot to deal with, yeah.
Speaker 2:But it opened. It was like somebody lifted a weight off me and it opened my. It created space within my body, within my mind, right To be able to now even consider other possibilities to begin that healing journey to figure out who I was. But you're absolutely right, you need to clear space right and allow yourself to have that experience of clearing space.
Speaker 1:Jennifer, what was the, you know, during this timeframe? It may start at 45, but somewhere in this realm age range we all deal with the same things, but some things are more challenging than others for each individual. What was the biggest challenge you faced during your midlife reinvention and what did you do to overcome it?
Speaker 2:Oh, wow, the biggest challenge. Well, I think the biggest challenge for me was for a person who had very much lived her life and I'm doing this in air quotes in control of everything. Right, I had a plan. I manipulated all the variables. You know, a lot was happening, like in my life, you know, my kid leaving my divorce and even like my physical body, like I wasn't sleeping, I had, you know, was getting injured all the time. You know, I was having heart palpitations. All of these things and all of these were things that I couldn't control, right, and all of this felt like a giant betrayal of my life, like I've done everything wrong, all right, why is this all happening to me?
Speaker 1:And because you are on course, you are on course, and that was like a plane that just goes off the path and you're like now what do I do with this?
Speaker 2:So I think the biggest challenge for me was like complete surrender. I mean, there was, it came a point and it was after that, that meditation experience where I was like okay, I, I honestly like like I obviously can't control this, so I just need to be with it, and I let go of the reins and I was literally like universe, show me the way I would hear, cause I'm at a loss, there's nothing else I can do. And honestly, as a type A person who's kind of driven, you know that right, there was the biggest gift that I could have received, because nothing was in my control.
Speaker 1:It was letting go.
Speaker 2:And even at the time I, you know, I had a personal trainer and I was the person who was, you know, in the gym at 5am before I would go to the office, kind of things. And even though all of this was happening, there was a part of me that's like, well, the one thing I can control is like I can still go to the gym. Until one day I walked in there and my trainer fired me. She's like I'm not doing this with you anymore. And I'm like what are you talking about? What do you? She's like your body is clearly talking to you and you're not paying attention and I won't participate in this with you. And that was the final piece of control that I had in my life. And I tell you, I was so mad at her, like who does she think she is? She doesn't know what she's talking about. Yada, yada, yada. Until about two weeks later I was like oh yeah.
Speaker 1:I get it, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Letting go, yeah, my former life, or who I thought I was, and that opened the door to me then being able to step into who am I and what is it that I actually want for my life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I totally get that. I was born into the military because my dad was military and then I went into the military and so my whole life was being on a base being around military people. And then I get out and I'm thinking on a base being around military people and then I get out and I'm thinking, who am I if I can't say I'm a veteran or I was military or I'm wearing the uniform Right, and it's very disconcerting, it's very kind of like like a gut punch it is. And I remember going to my husband and I was a communications project manager in the military, could not find a job. I didn't get an invite, I didn't get an interview, I got jacked. You know what? Nothing. I've been in fitness probably maybe 10 years. At that point I went to my husband. I said I think I can make this fitness thing work. Can you give me six months? He goes let's do it for a year, let's see what's happened, what's going to happen, and that was my calling.
Speaker 1:That's what I was meant to be doing. That's sitting at a desk, you know, taking orders from people. But I think that you have to take a chance on you. You have relied on you for years in everything. Yes, you were there for your kids, you're there for your spouse, and you're there for your family and your job and your boss, and blah, blah, blah blah. But you're also there for you and I think that we have to tap back into. I trust me, I trust my gut and I'm going to I think I'm, you know, I'm just going to try to. You know what? If I did this little thing and it doesn't have to be huge take a step in that direction, cause I think that's important. So, jennifer, as a coach, what's the most common struggle if there is one, because there's many that you use for women looking to reclaim their power, purpose and passion?
Speaker 2:I think there's kind of two of the most common things that I hear, and it happens in pretty much every woman who is either part of my mastermind or is part of the one-on-one coaching group, and even in the events that I run, I hear this there are women who know that there's something more for them, like they're feeling pulled. Are women who know that there's something more for them, like they're feeling pulled? Maybe they don't even know what that is yet, but they know the life that they have been living is either no longer available to them because of transition or it's just no longer serving them. Right, and they come to this place but they're like I don't know what next, like where do I go from here? I can't figure that out, and I will say, every single solitary one of us has that answer within within us, and our job is to learn how to listen, because it's in there and it's calling to us, like it's speaking to us, um, and our job is to learn to tap back in, which is why it's so important to start spending time with ourselves and, you know, start listening and then start trusting.
Speaker 2:What we hear, um, or the other thing is just like you know they might have, then start trusting what we hear. Or the other thing is, just like you know, they might have a dream or a desire for their life, but they just haven't given themselves permission to really own it Right, so it kind of stays in this. Well, that would be nice, category, right. And the other thing that I see most commonly even like okay, so they figure out that. Okay, this is my dream, this is my passion, this is what I want to do is the narrative in our heads, so that talk track of limiting beliefs and stories that we tell ourselves about what we are capable of.
Speaker 2:And I hear so often, well, I'm just this, I can't do that, or I'm just that I can't do this, exactly Because we've put ourselves in this box, right, like this is who I am. The truth is, there are so many dimensions to us, to who we are, that we have not yet explored Exactly. And when we start opening the door to possibility for our lives, it all of a sudden starts to awaken different parts of ourselves, right, which then you know, can grow and flourish into that. But you know, we hold ourselves back because of our thoughts and beliefs about who we are and when we challenge them because of our thoughts and beliefs about who we are and when we challenge them. 99.99% of every limiting thought you have in your head is plain old, just not true lies.
Speaker 1:Right, it's your ego keeping you safe. You're like, no, don't do that, because this can happen, that could happen. You know, I think one of the things that, as we get older, one of my friends, yvonne Marchese, always says you know to be a beginner at something again. And you know, maybe it's a. You know, I started coloring. I used to love coloring as a child and I started coloring. I got my pencils, I got my crayons I actually have Crayola crayons and I color and it's like it's, you know, no one's going to guard it, no one's going to grade it or anything like that, but it's just that moment where everything is quiet and I'm just, I'm just coloring. You know be. You know, go to a class, you know ceramics class, or go to something and be a beginner. You have nothing to prove anymore.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, that is so true. And the women I interview women on the podcast about their reinvention stories, and all of the women women sometimes in their 70s or 80s have said like the women who have been successful in creating amazing things in the world all say I show up to everything as a beginner. What can I learn today? Right, absolutely. And I remember on my own journey feeling very called to write and I would say to myself but you're not a good writer, you're just not a good writer. And I held myself back for a long time because I was like, well, you know, I just do strategy, I'm just this, I'm just that Right. I was like, well, you know, I just do strategy, I'm just I'm, I'm just this, I'm just that Right.
Speaker 2:And I, when I started to unpack it, I realized that that narrative in my head that I was not a good writer came from when I was six years old and I was learning how to print and sometimes my print and printing was messy it still kind of is and it would go outside the line and the teacher that I had at the time would circle it and she would write.
Speaker 2:You know, she would tell me you're not a good writer.
Speaker 2:But what she was talking about was the actual physical printing, not my sentence structure, not that I didn't have thoughts to share or you know my grammatical skills, it had nothing to do with that.
Speaker 2:But I took that and I carried that with me for 40 some odd years, believing that I wasn't a good writer. And, like you said when I was like, okay, I'm going to dip my toe into this and see what happens, right, and I discovered, wow, I actually am a good writer and I have a lot to say. And that was what led me to the beginning of Old Chicks Know Shit, which started as a blog of me sharing my experience through this reinvention journey. And, you know, what I thought was just a me problem, like something I had done and wrong in my life, I started to realize was actually a we problem and that we were all facing some you know, maybe different circumstances, but the same you know situation in terms of this needing to or not needing to being called more into ourselves, more back into who we are, as opposed to everything that we have done being more true to ourselves.
Speaker 1:We've been so used to just putting ourselves out there for various reasons, that it's time to be true to who we are and to your point about not being a good writer. Being an author or writing looks different for everybody. Like I have a book that's going to be coming out, but I didn't write it. Okay, and I'm saying that in quotes, I did not write it, I talked it, and then it was put into a transcript and turned into, you know, a book. So it's, I'm not a writer, but you can still be an author, okay.
Speaker 2:So just saying Absolutely and this is the thing, and you mentioned this earlier is like you know, we have these like little thoughts and ideas of things that we want our dreams for our lives. But as soon as we it pops into our head, we pile the 25 reasons on top of it why it can't happen and we literally kill that little seed, that little bud that's beginning to sprout. We just bury it, right? If we can have that thought and just for a second say what if right, and just allow it a little bit of space, you open the door to possibility. And the beautiful thing is, when you open the door to possibility, you cannot close it again.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, Right, Because that little thing leads to something else, that leads to something else, that leads to you meeting someone who can, and then it starts to mushroom. I just think, yeah, I love that. Yeah. So, jennifer, sometimes you know there are moments and I realize what they are now, but sometimes people feel just stuck. It's almost like groundhog day. It's like rinse and repeat. How do you help women become unstuck?
Speaker 2:Yeah, 95% of the thoughts that we think are a repeat, right? Like? We basically think the same thought every day, the same thoughts, 95% of them over and over and over again every day. We're in this, like unconsciously living our lives, just going about it, doing the things that we do.
Speaker 2:When people feel stuck and usually we're talking about they can't take action to something, they're procrastinating, they're you know, they say I don't have time, I'm too busy, all of these things. Underneath that there is a thought pattern that we need to bring awareness to right. So, if we can stop and just ask ourselves, like, okay, what am I really afraid of? Like, what is the thought that I just had? Right? So this thing pops into your brain.
Speaker 2:There's deluge of negative thoughts about all the bad things that are going to happen. If you step into it, right, if you can even just bring awareness to one of those thoughts like maybe it's well, I'm not smart enough, or I don't have the money, or I don't have the time, like, whatever that thing is, if you can bring awareness to one thought and then challenge that thought, right, is this really true? Yes, so it could be, you know, okay, if it's, for example, I'm not smart enough, right? Well, is that really true? Do you know that with 100% certainty? Well, no, and then? Well, maybe I don't know how to do this, but could I learn it? Probably.
Speaker 1:Right, are there other?
Speaker 2:things that I have learned. Yeah, so as soon as you begin to not take those thoughts as gospel truth, as soon as you learn to start challenging them, you're able to start pulling them apart to see it for what it is Like. I can't tell you how many times along my journey. You know, I'm building the Old Chicks Know Shit platform and everything where I have just said this is too hard, I can't do it. I just can't, right, and I give myself permission to quit and I will say, okay, you can quit, just go quit Right, and I will do that. And it will last for an hour, two hours, maybe 24 hours, before I'm like, okay, girl, it's not that hard, you can figure it out, right.
Speaker 1:Maybe you just need a break. Maybe you just need a break.
Speaker 2:Maybe you need to just go outside and go for a walk and just like exactly, yes, oh yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:I always tell people that me and the word entrepreneur have been dating for years and I finally just got married to the word a couple years and I thought I can't be an entrepreneur, but I can say that we just had our two year anniversary. So yeah.
Speaker 2:And the other thing I tell people too and you alluded to this a little while ago as well is to take the tiniest possible step that you can in the direction that you want to go, because it really is a bit of a brain hack, right. So you say to your brain oh well, I'm going to do this thing, and then your brain goes ah, what? No, no, no, no, no. Here's like the 59 thoughts that are you why, the reasons why you shouldn't.
Speaker 2:If you just take a tiny little step, you're like, oh, today I'm just going to research this one little thing. The brain goes okay, everybody, calm down, she's just doing this, she's just doing just a one, this one. So it's a little bit of a hack, right, because your brain's like, okay, we can manage this, we can do this one little thing. So if you do that every single day, one day you look back and you're like, oh, my goodness, look how far I've come, look how far I've come. Yeah, so the tight cause we were very much all or nothing. It's like we're doing the thing or we're not doing the thing. When the reality is, any change happens in tiny little increments, and so when we give ourselves permission to just take that tiny step in that direction.
Speaker 2:We will be in awe of how far we will go with that.
Speaker 1:Jennifer, this has been such an amazing I feel like we could add on another hour to this. Where can people find you? If they need to reach out to you, they need to be a part of your mastermind, or or they just need your help, when can people find you?
Speaker 2:shit. So that's K N O W S H I Tcom, and there you can find all of the offerings, any events that are coming up. So I run a series of events called women, wine and midlife wisdom, and it's about opening the door to important topics of conversation that we might not be having with our friends during this time. But it really is just about you know, reminding you about how powerful you know during this time. But it really is just about you know, reminding you about how powerful you are, reminding you that you have everything you need to take that next step, because I've seen it with myself and I've seen it with pretty much every one of my clients, that your life and every experience you have is leading you to. It has led you perfectly to exactly where you need to go next.
Speaker 2:And you have everything you need Maybe you can't see it now. One of the things I have on my website is the badass list, and I have all of my clients do. This is to write a list of all of the things, like the challenges they've overcome, the things that they've accomplished, the experiences they've had, the lessons that they've learned, and to put it on paper, right, and I people say this to me all the time. When I look at that piece of paper I'm like I can't even believe that's me, right.
Speaker 1:Because it's like. It's like, oh my gosh, did I do that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and when you feel stuck, when you feel like you can't do something, you go back to that piece of paper and you read that badass list to remind yourself of just how capable you are, and I just have to say that you know you had me at wine.
Speaker 1:I'm just going to say that. One last question, jennifer. You know, for all our listeners who maybe are at the crossroads in their life, what's one piece of advice you'd like to leave them with today?
Speaker 2:The most important thing that you can do at this crossroads is to like stop doing and just spend time with yourself, like literally carve out whether it's five minutes a day, whether it's two minutes a day, whatever it is in quiet, with no book, no phone, you know TV on or whatever, and just connect back into yourself, because whatever question it is that you're struggling with right now, you already have the answer. It's in there, right, and you just have to spend some time listening in order to hear it. So you know whatever's available to you. It doesn't need to be like a big meditation or anything. It can be sitting with your cup of coffee before the rest of the house wakes up, and then just ask yourself questions like how are you feeling today? How would you like this day to go? What do you need right now, right, like just ask yourself those questions and you know, if you have a journal I'm a huge proponent of journaling you know, when you get things out of your head and put them on paper, you can have a little bit of objectivity.
Speaker 1:So the question is write it down, get it off your head, out of your head.
Speaker 2:I think that's important Because I don't know about you, but my head is very, very busy. There's a lot happening out there, right, but when I can write something down, all of a sudden it's like oh yes, I see that exactly for what it is. So carve out, like, do yourself a favor and just carve out some time. It could even be a walk in nature, or one of my favorite things to do is to go out into the middle of the lake on my paddleboard and just like sit there. It's so beautiful and peaceful and I think that's the space where I can hear myself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think one of the best things I ever did was I have what. I had a client that bought me this sticker and it said Catitude. So you know, my name is Cat and so Sundays are Catitude days. Catitude days are days that I get to do whatever I want to do, if and when I feel I want to do it. Excellent, I love that. What I like to do is I'll put a pen and a pad of paper just at the side of me and I might be watching some movie I've seen so many times that I know the dialogue word for word and all of a sudden I'll go and I'll have a thought and I don't know what that thought is.
Speaker 1:But I'll write it down on the paper and then I'll just go back, you know, and do it, and then at some point in time I look at that paper and I go that's a oh, that'd be a good quote, oh, that's, that could be this, I could you know. So you start formulating all of these ideas. So I think what you bring to the table is so important. We, we have to so much still support each other as women. You know, this was women's history month, and still is I last time I it's not April yet right month, and still is I last time I it's not April yet right. But I think the more that we can help women, we help each other. Yeah, it's, it's just been amazing.
Speaker 1:And, jennifer, I want to thank you for being on the podcast today and, for anyone listening, jennifer has, I mean, I think she's got like a whole lot of other stuff in her head, because I feel like this conversation could keep going and going. And thank you, jennifer for being on the podcast and you know I will put it in the show notes of where you can reach her if you would like to. You know, find out what she's doing and what she's about for more information. So until next time, please stay safe, take care of each other. Until next time and please, please remember it's never too late to start your impossible.