Reinvent Yourself

#89: Dr. Cecilia Dintino and Hannah Murray Starobin (How to reinvent during a pandemic)

“Women 50,60,70, 80 have already experienced so much uncertainty, have already had so many rugs pulled out from under our feet, that [we]  know how to recreate and reinvent,” says Dr. Dintino, co-founder of TwistingThePlot.com (https://www.twistingtheplot.com/), a website and podcast that employs techniques borrowed from theater and art to help women answer the question of “What’s next?” In fact, Dintino and her co-founder Hannah Murray Starobin—who met each other in college and have been friends for 40 years--believe the coming "reboot, will require innovation…and getting out of the normative curve.” They are encouraging women to take on uniquely creative projects during the pandemic to bust out of the sense of invisibility and discover their true, inner-selves.  “Be an outlier,” they tell Lesley Jane Seymour, founder of CoveyClub.com in this conversation.  “Do something that wasn’t possible before." 

#88: Amy Giddon (Helping others connect and belong)

*NOTE: This episode was recorded on February 17, 2020. Any upcoming events mentioned in this episode have been postponed until further notice. For information on our upcoming virtual events over Zoom, please check https://www.coveyclub.com under the “Attend” tab. Thank you so much and I can’t wait to connect with everyone in person soon. Stay safe!

 

“I’m learning how much we need to feel not alone,” says Amy Giddon, co-founder and Chief Connection Officer of Daily Haloha (https://dailyhaloha.com/), a mobile app that allows people to connect more deeply and compassionately to themselves through a shared experience of reflection. "We’re wired for connection. It’s poignant that a two minute ritual can make people feel belonging.” Each day the app asks users to answer a simple question or fill in the blank, such as “I’m becoming __________”; shared answers create a kind of group connection. Through her work in strategic and financial planning at Bain & Company and women’s leadership development at Barnard College, Giddon discovered how the voices of “women and others can be marginalized and not heard.” After the 2016 election she sensed people “felt silenced and separated.” She says Daily Haloha became “like a calling” and was birthed at her kitchen table.

#87: Terri Bryant (When a disability forces you to reinvent)

“Until I was open and honest [about my Parkinson’s Disease] I couldn’t unlock my reinvention,” says Terri Bryant, makeup artist and founder of GUIDE BEAUTY, a company that is rethinking the ergonomics of beauty tools and products for all users. Bryant, who had done makeup for fashion runways, films, print ads and cosmetics got her diagnosis five years ago and found herself having to sit on her shaking hands during television interviews. And when she could no longer hide them, she decided to rethink and redesign the beauty tools that she used on her job. Gone is that pesky eyeliner brush that requires perfect small motor skills. In came a Precision Tip applicator that looks like a surgical tool that allows anyone to create a perfect cat eye in seconds. “The opportunity to embrace [your disability] is the opportunity to find your community,” Bryant Says. "Then you are not alone.”  

#86: Deborah Jackson (In this new world, where are the opportunities?)

Deborah Jackson, Founder and CEO of Plum Alley investments, had a father who worked for IBM (often jokingly called I’ve Been Moved). And so, as a child, she moved every few years to another place in the US. “Moving made me resourceful and adaptable,” she says. “I realize in my 60s, it is a good skill set for navigating change.” After business school, Jackson “stumbled” into investment banking at Goldman Sachs in municipal finance. After 20 years, she retired, found her way onto five non-profit boards and even explored her bucket list. “I flunked retirement,” she laughs.  Jackson had been mentoring entrepreneurs and investing when she decided to create a business out of it. “I wanted to change the experience of how investing is done,” she tells Lesley Jane Seymour, founder of CoveyClub. “How do we get women excited about investing? How do we create joy beyond the financial transaction?” Plum Alley, a private membership that gives investors “access to influence innovation and shape the future by investing in private companies” does just that — and has already invested in 19 companies in 24 months.  “Wise women over 60 have so much to give back,” Jackson says. “Age and wisdom are really significant together.” 

#85: Barbara Paldus (Reinventing from science to beauty)

What do you do when you’re raised in Canada and Europe with a father who is a professor of applied mathematics and chemistry who hobnobbed with the most famous scientists on the planet? What do you do when you have a PhD in electrical and electronics engineering from Stamford and have already helped make health treatments available to kids with muscular dystrophy and own a handful of patents? And when you have created and sold a company and now invest in others as a VC? Why, you tackle the beauty business of course—using your scientific eye to create a range of totally sustainable products (you can eat them)—that are good for your skin and beautiful to use! Join CoveyClub founder, Lesley Jane Seymour, in this enlightening conversation with one of the most innovative beauty (and beautiful) minds on the planet, Barbara Paldus, CEO at Codex Beauty (https://codexbeauty.com/). 

#84: Joan Lunden (How to pivot into your next life)

“It’s been 20 years since I left Good Morning America,” says Joan Lunden, author of the new book, “Why Did I Come Into This Room?: A Candid Conversation About Aging” (https://amzn.to/39rNtxV).  “I have an incredibly robust career in health. This is my new reinvention.” Lunden speaks with CoveyClub founder Lesley Jane Seymour about her three keys to happiness: 1. Staying engaged in life; 2. Keeping social connections well beyond the family; 3. Cultivating a sense of purpose—"that can be as simple as planting a garden".  Lunden believes that with 76 million Boomers at this pivot point we need to have open discussions about reinventing. To have a “life well-lived” Lunden says we need “to let go of things that don’t matter. Ask yourself: ‘Am I kind? Am I there for people?’ That will let you pivot.”

#83: Dana Rubin (Turning intellectual curiosity and research into $$)

Journalist Dana Rubin had been writing speeches and op-eds and coaching executives on how to present themselves at conferences and commencements. One client was struggling with how her voice sounded on stage and Rubin “wanted to give her speeches as inspiration.” She climbed out of bed and grabbed one of the 102 speech anthologies on her bookshelf and noticed that every speech in there was from a man: from Cicero to Lord Asquith to Lincoln, FDR, Martin Luther King. “My head exploded,” Rubin says because she realized that women’s voices are “not valued.” That’s also when her new job as "advocate for women’s speech and voice" was born and her web bank, SpeakingWhileFemale.co , with 1800 speeches was created to support it. “I reinvented myself and this is what I do,” she says, noting that she funds the bank with speech writing and speaking fees. 

#82: Suzanne Frank (3 simple steps to reinventing your health)

“Neither of my parents exercised; they were both functional alcoholics,” says Suzanne Frank, CEO of Frank Wellness Health Coaching, who had her first drink at age 10.  “I don’t think of myself as an alcoholic. But I wasn’t my best self and I was just following in the footsteps of my family.” One night, after her son entered the 4th grade D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) program, Frank decided she had had enough and quit her bad habits. But she realized she needed to replace them with things that still helped her relax and focus. Running a marathon had been a lifelong dream. So when a friend asked her to join a Super Sprint Triathlon — her career as a 50+ triathlete was born. “It took me one year of training to run 2.2 miles,” she laughs. Frank says getting unstuck is as simple as these three steps. 1:  Let go of something old. 2. Try an intellectual challenge. 3. Try something totally new. “Just do it!”

#81: Chip Conley (Reinvent yourself by mak[ing] age your ally)

“Change is a given,” says Chip Conley, author of “Wisdom at Work: The Making of a Modern Elder” (https://amzn.to/2SDjkG2) and founder of Modern Elder Academy (https://modernelderacademy.com/), “the world’s first midlife wisdom school".  “You need to adapt to it and be resilient.” Conley who sold his first business (a boutique hotel brand) and went on, after age 50, to become a mentor/intern at Airbnb speaks with CoveyClub founder, Lesley Jane Seymour, about how to use your accumulated wisdom and connections to create a leg up in the job world. “Become an SME: Subject Matter Expert — the librarian, the person who knows how [an industry runs] and who is in that industry,” is one of his pieces of advice. Conley says women adapt better to the modern workplace than men because we have “less sense of entitlement…and know how to do the work.” And it all begins by asking yourself: “What mastery can you offer to the world?” Now ask it 5 times until you get a real answer. 

#80: Indrani Goradia (Interrupting your family’s cycle of violence)

Goradia says she grew up with yelling, screaming, and physical violence at home and thought that was the way it was. Then she got pregnant and "realized I didn’t want to hurt this 6 week old baby.” She tried six therapists until she found the right person to help her implement the “dream of the way I’d like to be parented.” To share her learning, Goradia created the global foundation Raftcares.org (Resilience for Advocates Through Foundational Training) so that anyone can listen to her free classes and break these terrible cycles.  Or you can start with “The Power of a Positive No" by William Ury (https://amzn.to/2SoCi1G), one of her “favorite tools".