Reinvent Yourself

#49: Reinventing because you no longer believe (Tova Mirvis)

Imagine turning 40 and being afraid to drive on the highway. Being afraid of the freedom that might bring. Afraid of breaking with a strict religious tradition in which you grew up. Tova Mirvis did just that. Married at 22 to a man she dated for just 12 weeks, Mirvis knew she risked leaving everything behind—including her identity as a mother and a community member-- if she walked away from her tightly knit Orthodox jewish community. But she did it and wrote the book, “The Book of Separation” (https://amzn.to/2C3yGuE).  Mirvis explains to CoveyClub founder Lesley Jane Seymour:  “What happens when you reach a change moment—it feels like you’re jumping off a skyscraper,” she says. 

#48: When disruption forces you to reinvent (Bonnie Levison)

Bonnie Levison was a tall, "very shy," suburban mom. Then, after 18 years of marriage, her husband came home one day and said he wanted a divorce. After wallowing in self pity, Levison sat down at the computer and asked herself what she really needed more of in her life. The answer: humor. She typed “comedy classes” into Google and launched a career of writing and producing and performing  stand-up comedy.  Levison started the Nantucket Comedy Festival (still going today) and now travels the word for The Moth, teaching veterans, the elderly, prisoners, public school students and company executives how to tell their stories so they can connect better. Levison talks to CoveyClub founder, Lesley Jane Seymour, about her secrets to success. “In a world of perfection, lower your expectations.  If you just try something, you’re a success,” she says.  “It’s about the experience.” 

#47: Resetting to slow life down (Rachel Lightfoot)

Rachel Lightfoot was flying high at Google and YouTube where she learned digital marketing from the ground up and taught it to Nike and Coca-Cola, even to celebrities like Will Smith. “I was living this fantastic life. I was on the fast track. I had a beautiful home, a husband. Before I had kids I thought, ‘My God, I’ve done it!’”  Once her children turned one and three, however, the feeling wasn’t joy and excitement, but “deep sorrow” because Lightfoot says her mind was "always on the job and the company’s clients.” Lightfoot , the family breadwinner, "decided what I needed was a reset.” Lightfoot speaks with CoveyClub founder Lesley Jane Seymour about how she prepared (by saving six months of living expenses and putting a moratorium on shopping) and took the leap into Catchfoot + Run (https://www.catchfootandrun.com/) , a brand-building consulting company.  One year later she is “100% more present in my life” and has "almost replaced my corporate salary.”   Episode notes: Lightfoot’s top inspirational tips: 1) Start before you’re ready. 2) Create a mailing list—even if you have nothing to sell. 3) Read. Her most inspirational book: Playing Big by Tara Moore (https://amzn.to/2tdVOl8)  “which discusses two types of fear. One is true fear but another is excitement or awe when you go outside your comfort zone. I was excited and scared."

 

#46: Reinventing through “subconscious surviving” (Tashyra Ayers)

She was a single mom at 14 and became the caregiver to her younger brother shortly after that when her mother passed away.  Yet Tashyra Ayers managed to create a career in the health care industry and start in a radio show on the side.

At 38, she is about to be an empty nester (Davon is off to college in the fall) and so will be reinventing again. Join CoveyClub founder, Lesley Jane Seymour, in an incredibly honest discussion with an amazing lifelong learner who says “Reinvention takes shape over a period of time at different points in our lives.” When times are tough, sometimes you have to go through “subconscious surviving” to get to the other side. Says Tashyra: “You can’t evolve if you’re not real with yourself.”  

#45: Moving out of stuck (Julien McRoberts)

Julien McRoberts took decades to discover the common thread behind all of her reinventions.

 

“It was that I’ve been producing my whole life!” That was the ah-ha moment that stitched together her early years in L.A. as a casting director, a decade of running animal shelters, and 12 very successful years as a top-flight print photographer (check out her website at JulienMcRoberts.com (https://julienmcroberts.com/).

 

McRoberts tells Lesley Jane Seymour, founder of CoveyClub, that as print publishing fell apart, she had to pivot again, investing $3,000 in a coach to find “internal change”.  “Once I changed my mindset, I got control back,” she says. Now McRoberts markets her photography and producing skills in a new way to create packages for all kinds of clients with visual and content needs. “Being stuck meant I wasn’t pushing myself or trusting in myself,” she says. “I’m packaging the producing and becoming more vertical.” 

 

#44: Reinventing to find your place in the world (Gretchen Rubin)

Gretchen Rubin didn’t become The Happiness Lady by accident. She was clerking for Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor when she realized that she was not really interested in the law, but in “power, money and sex.”  She went to the library and took a book on how to sell your book proposal, followed it, and never looked back.

 

Today Rubin is the author of “The Happiness Project” (https://amzn.to/2Us6uJe) and now, “Outer Order, Inner Calm: Declutter and Organize to Make More Room for Happiness” (https://amzn.to/2Tpvvs5)  and the founder of the podcast, Happier with Gretchen Rubin. In a high octane chat with CoveyClub founder, Lesley Jane Seymour, Rubin reveals the steps she took to transition from one lucrative profession to another.  How to find that “thing” for yourself? “Start by asking yourself who do you envy? Envy is ‘I want that’ but in a painful way."

#43: The simple phrase that reinvented my life (Susan Hyatt)

“What if you spent all that time on growing your life instead of shrinking your body?” So asks Susan Hyatt, author of the new book Bare: A 7-week Program to Transform Your Body, Get More Energy, Feel Amazing, and Become the Bravest, Most Unstoppable Version of You (https://amzn.to/2TVSx5U).

In an energetic discussion with CoveyClub founder Lesley Jane Seymour, the Indiana native reveals how she ditched real estate (which made her miserable) to follow her heart into life coaching where she now runs a multi-million dollar business. Along the way she discovered the phrase that became the secret to her life-time weight loss and her 7 step program.

Program notes: Hyatt says reading Dr. Martha Beck’s “Finding Your Own North Star” (https://amzn.to/2U3GGTd) started her on her path and that “women need to drop the transactional relationship with their body, i.e. saying things like, 'I’m only going to workout if brings certain results.’ "

#42: Finding time, money, freedom, happiness ("Downsizing Ninja" Rita Wilkins)

Rita Wilkins was an interior designer with 11 closets and 9 rolling racks of clothes. But it wasn’t until she traded her 5000 square foot home for a 867 square foot apartment that she found what she was really looking for: time, money and freedom to travel.

 

Wilkins talks with CoveyClub founder, Lesley Jane Seymour, about the year that changed her life and what made her realize that stuff could not fill the loneliness she felt.  You can find Rita at Design Services, LTD (http://www.designservicesltd.com/) and her TedX talk (http://www.designservicesltd.com/2018/06/11/ritas-tedx-talk-downsize-your-life/).

 

Her Youtube “The ABCs of Downsizing” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTwvspn30RI)

gets you started with practical tips. Her favorite, inspirational book is "The Stories We Leave Behind" by Laura Gilbert (https://amzn.to/2WxhK8f) and her favorite blog is Joshua Becker’s “Becoming Minimalist” (https://www.becomingminimalist.com/). 

#41: Reinventing after taking down your boss (Gretchen Carlson)

Every night her mother put her to bed, telling her she could be anything she wanted as long as she was willing to work hard for it. That support created a girl who knew how to stand up and speak for herself—even in grammar school when she was put into the wrong (remedial) reading group; speaking up got her moved.  So when the former Stanford grad, Miss America and CBS and Fox anchor found herself suing her boss for sexual harassment, it was that “ability to know I worked very hard that carried me through it.” Listen to CoveyClub founder Lesley Jane Seymour’s intimate discussion with the woman who gave others the guts to launch a thousand #MeToo lawsuits. Carlson explains why making the leap over 50 made it even harder to reinvent and offers solutions beginning with the observation that "women need to stop being so damn nice.” 

 

Episode notes: Help Gretchen keep the pressure on members of congress for passage of the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Harassment Act of 2017 (https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/2203/cosponsors) by writing or calling your member of congress to get him/her to sign on. (Arbitration is what keeps harassment secret and abusers in power).  Follow her leadership tour (https://www.gretchencarlson.com/) and find her on facebook (https://www.facebook.com/GretchenCarlson/?fref=ts) and twitter (https://twitter.com/GretchenCarlson) and instagram (https://www.instagram.com/therealgretchencarlson/). 

Carlson also suggests “developing a passion for reading about others who have reinvented.” Her personal reading list includes: Daughter of Destiny: An Autobiography (Benazir Bhutto) (https://amzn.to/2MP7X9g), Can’t Is Not an Option: My American Story (Nikki Haley) (https://amzn.to/2GpeI0v), Becoming by Michelle Obama (https://amzn.to/2GbfxuA), and her own two books, Getting Real (https://amzn.to/2t2BKlU) and Be Fierce: Stop Harassment and Take Your Power Back (https://amzn.to/2t9xWz2). 

#40: When the birth of a daughter forces you to reinvent (Mary Beth Ferrante)

She’d worked in corporate consumer strategy at banks. But after giving birth, she noticed how unsupportive her company became when she was looking for flexibility, how suddenly she was seen as less committed and less likely to be promoted.  This “millennial feminist” created LiveWorkLead.com to instruct both companies and individuals on how to bring working mothers back into the workforce in a logical, supportive manner that will make them productive.