Episode Summary:
Join us for an inspiring conversation with Cecile, who shares her journey from a demanding corporate career to a fulfilling life in retirement. This episode explores the intersection of mental health and career transitions, highlighting Cecile's challenges and triumphs. Discover how she navigated the complexities of grieving, found joy in unexpected places, and redefined her sense of purpose.
Key Themes:
- Embracing Change: Cecile's decision to leave a successful corporate career and the pivotal moments that led to this choice.
- Navigating Grief: Personal stories of loss and how Cecile coped with the emotional ups and downs.
- Finding New Passions: How Cecile discovered a love for olive farming and its therapeutic effects on her mental health.
- Redefining Productivity: Challenging traditional notions of productivity and finding value in new, unexpected activities.
- Mental Health Awareness: The importance of addressing mental health openly and the impact of work-life balance on overall well-being.
Memorable Quotes:
- "There is a way of being fulfilled and happy in your work."
- "My sense of satisfaction from making olive oil is a hundred times more than I felt at work."
- "We don't do grieving right in our modern society, especially in the Western world."
- "Redefine what productivity is. To me, being productive was reading nine books, and that's okay."
Connect with G-Rex and Dirty Skittles:
- Official Website: Learn more at Goes On In Our Heads
- Social Media: Stay updated and engage with us on Facebook and Instagram
Participate & Support:
- Newsletter: Join us for exciting content, exclusive giveaways, and regular updates here
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- Donate: If you love our content, consider supporting us here
Engagement & Advertising Opportunities:
- Advertise: Reach our engaged community by promoting your products here
Acknowledgments:
Audio editing by NJz Audio for top-notch sound quality.
3 Other Podcasts to Check Out:
- Beyoutiful Legacy | Abiigal Gagnon:** an excellent podcast for your mental health
- CK & GK - For Adults Who Need A Grownup | Jenny GK and Caitlin Kinded:** an excellent podcast for adults who need help adulting
- The Nope Coach | Suzanne Culberg: A great podcast that helps with setting healthy boundaries
Tune in and be inspired by Cecile's story of resilience, passion, and the quest for a balanced, happy life. Whether considering a career change, dealing with grief, or looking for ways to enhance your mental well-being, this episode offers valuable insights and encouragement.
#MentalHealth #CareerTransitions #GrievingProcess #FindingHappiness #WorkLifeBalance #PersonalGrowth #RetirementLife #OliveFarming #RedefiningProductivity #LifeAfterLoss #InspiringStories #EmotionalWellbeing #MentalHealthAwareness #SelfDiscovery #LivingYourBestLife #MentalHealthPodcast #GRex #DirtySkittles #STGOIOH
00:00:00
So we were gone for more than six
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weeks and the time difference just so
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you know is between 12 and
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13 hours the next day and so the first few days were like gosh I feel great
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we're just so tired we didn't sleep so I literally woke up three to four minutes
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ago and I'm like oh normally it's like an early riser and all this I never set
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an alarm and all of a sudden I was I was like,
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oh my God, I gotta be on right now.
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Well, welcome. I'm gonna have a sip of coffee.
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So you are retired as well, and you're doing this.
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Well, I'm sort of retired, but not really. So I went back to work for a small
00:00:46
consulting firm, and they found out that we had a podcast, and they really loved the podcast.
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And so in August, they're like, why are you working full-time?
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I'm like, because mama needs insurance.
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And so they offered me 30 hours a week with full benefits.
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And so I get to do that job, which it's totally the dream job.
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And then I get to do this. And I love doing this.
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Yeah. No, no, that's, I can tell you do. So how did you all decide to do this?
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She took me up on a joke. I was like, we should record a podcast.
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This would be funny for other people to hear.
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And she was like, let's do it. And then the next thing I knew.
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Yeah. You don't mess around. You don't joke with.
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I know. And I had like mentioned my husband records like music and stuff.
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So he had all the equipment.
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Yeah. And then the next thing I knew, here we were. Yeah.
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You both seem super, super natural though about it. It seems really great.
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It's great. I don't. I'm just living in the supernatural.
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It's very, it's really cool. I, I'm, I'm very happy for you.
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Because it does seem like it's a lot of fun.
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It is. And, you know, we get as much out of it as our guests and our listeners do. You have to.
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Yeah. So, like, if you see Skittles taking notes, it's because it's probably
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a book or something we're going to buy.
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Yeah, that's perfect. Perfect. Yeah. Because we leave the 10th to go back to
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France for a longer period of time.
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So there's, this will get into the whole olives, olive growing,
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you know, the fact, I'm an oléoculteur, which means I am an olive producer.
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Officially, I have a card.
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You are like living what I, when I try to fall asleep at night,
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I will think of like really beautiful things.
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And I'm like, Oh, I have an olive farm. Like you're living my dreams.
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And the best thing is it's not actually an olive farm.
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It's enough of an olive grove that we made eight liters of olive oil last year.
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Which is like our goal is olive oil subsistence and maybe being able to share
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it with family which we did last year but if you have an olive farm then it becomes work again yeah,
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gotta watch that you gotta watch okay all right fine line i'm gonna tweak my
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dream and we'll it's not a whole farm because then you're like i was trying
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to pick olives and well we can talk about that but it is pretty funny at one
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point here but it is pretty funny you have to have just the right amount so that,
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because it does become an obsession if you, well, I guess with just about anything or a passion.
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Some people call it obsession. I call it passion.
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It's the positive spin on passion, on obsession, but you wake up,
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there's a period of time when the olives start to ripen.
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I sound like one of like either Ernest or Julie O'Gallo, we will pick no olives until it's time.
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But there's a point at which they do start to mature.
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And that's like, you don't want them to go too far.
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You don't want a windstorm to come and like take too many olives off the tree
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because once they're off the tree, you have to take them to the press within
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basically three to four days.
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And so there's like, you start picking, you know, Chris at some point, he would be like,
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Don't look at the trees today, Cecile, because we've got something to do.
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So, you know, I'll go in and have my coffee and I start walking around the trees.
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We have 150-year-old trees.
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Oh, maybe like two of them are just these beautiful, massive trees.
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And so I'm like, you walk around and you're like, there's enough olives to start picking.
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And you start taking some or some have fallen on the ground.
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So you want to start gathering. and pretty soon it's like four hours later and
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you've got this meditative walk around your tree.
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You've picked enough olives to take over that's enough for a liter of olive
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oil to the community press.
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Wow. This is very, very different. I mean, Gretchen, you got to be laughing
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because I mean, you know what my job was like. It was hell.
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It was nonstop. It was like, all right, what city are you going to be talking in this week?
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You know, and here I am walking around my trees and my PJs, having some coffee
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and like, I think we have enough now.
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We'll pick some tomorrow. That sounds... Take them to the press and we'll come
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back with all of... I will send you to some photos just afterwards to give you
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a sense of like the shit eating grin on my face.
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The first time we picked up four liters of olive oil is like,
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I loved what I did at work. Don't get me wrong.
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I love the the people I worked with, but the sense of satisfaction,
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I guess, from like four liters of olive oil is a hundred times more than that.
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Oh yeah. Yeah. I still actually get people like, don't you miss it?
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Don't you want to get in? You know, don't you want to.
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Keep in touch with everything. I'm like, it's HR stuff.
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Like I get, yes, I was passionate about everything. I never lied.
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I cared about what I did, but I'm like, when is enough?
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Like, yeah, I actually got into, I actually applied for a job.
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I started going through a process and I stopped short of talking to their HR
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where they're like, ah, the HR person, you've got to talk to the HR person.
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I was like, what am I doing? and at one point yeah it's
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like sweetheart you've done enough and people
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are like you're too young to have retired I'm like
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too old to be working like why and
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there is this sort of thick sense that we have to keep going which is why I
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asked you Gretchen you love what you're doing you have a particular I'm like
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and the other thing is when we live in France like this is not going to be a
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a thing on American lack of health care and everything.
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But we just talked to some like a tax person in France and they're like,
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oh, no, you're always going to pay taxes in the U.S.
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Because you have American citizenship. But I also have French citizenship.
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And so for health care next year.
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So, you know, I'm still on the reduced health care plan from a very good retirement
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package and, you know, the early retirement package where I get healthcare for
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two years at a reduced rate.
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But they're like, so, which again, it's great, but it's still $1 a month.
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And next December, it'll become 2024 or 2040.
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And in France, our healthcare is going to be $25 a person.
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Oh my goodness. France rates higher than the US in healthcare.
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Care. That's not to say it's always easy, but I mean.
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Yeah. So, so I do have that extra ability to not have to need healthcare,
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which makes a huge difference.
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But even if I just became a resident of France, you don't have to be a,
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you don't have to be a citizen.
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If you're a resident of France, you can get that healthcare.
00:07:58
Wow. So anyhow, it was one of those things where I'm like, maybe somebody should
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hear about this sort of grind.
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It's like, because I do think that in some cases, it's never,
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we believe it's never enough.
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So if you're doing something that you love, absolutely.
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But yeah, and I work, so we were supposed to go hang out at a market or do something.
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And four and a half hours later, I'm like, no, I got to pick the olives, got to pick the olives.
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It's a little different, right and it's seasonal and you
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know it's because I want to do that and I
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think that we are so conditioned to think that if we're not doing what we did
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before then we've fallen off the face of the earth I can't tell you how many
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people were even like but your brain is going to go soft and I'm like yeah I
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read the stories and everything but I don't know I read nine books who knew that
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I loved science fiction space operas.
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I never was into that genre.
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And all of a sudden, like... I didn't know that existed.
00:09:05
Anyway, so yeah, that's kind of why I was like, maybe it would be worth talking about this.
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Because I think that it applies even to people when we work.
00:09:19
Music.
00:09:35
Three two two one one welcome back to another episode of shit that goes on our
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heads today we have an amazing guest cecile welcome thank you thank you thank
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you for doing this thank you for having me. I'm super, super happy to be here.
00:09:52
I love this. I already have.
00:09:55
Listening to you talk already, hearing what you've said, it doesn't even matter,
00:10:00
right? Because you seem so happy.
00:10:04
So my first question is, and I don't know if you've ever thought about it,
00:10:08
but you said you were passionate about your career. You were really happy to
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be doing what you were doing.
00:10:13
You were in it. You're traveling. What I remember of knowing you was seeing
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you up on a stage, talking, very well-spoken. I was like, wow.
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Because there's good speakers and bad speakers. I was like a fan,
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but I would see you everywhere.
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Either if it was on the company page or if I was there in person watching you talk.
00:10:31
And having that corporate happiness to the happiness you have now, how did that...
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How did you adjust? Did it ever become like, oh shit, I'm actually really happy
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and not having this job that I was passionate about?
00:10:47
And I absolutely was passionate about what I did.
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I felt like I had the best job in the world.
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I was fulfilled.
00:10:58
I had wonderful people that I worked with and all of that.
00:11:02
But interestingly enough, I did know that at some point I was going to,
00:11:09
I mean, I was running on empty anyhow.
00:11:12
And when COVID hit, I know everyone has sort of their COVID moment,
00:11:17
but when COVID hit, I realized that I had not spent more than, I don't know.
00:11:24
I was like, I don't think I have spent a whole month sleeping in the same bed
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with my spouse house in 15 years, like on a straight, on a straight,
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for a whole month that I hadn't traveled.
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And I realized that was a little nuts.
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And because I actually really liked him, I actually, you know, I didn't just love it.
00:11:47
I actually liked hanging out there. I'm like, wow, this is awesome.
00:11:51
So, so it's interesting because that was a turning point in some ways for me
00:11:56
in realizing something Something probably has to change.
00:11:59
And then, you know, post-COVID, our company changed in a lot of ways and became another company.
00:12:11
I was still out there speaking. All of those things were positive,
00:12:15
but I kept in the back of my head that there was something kind of unsustainable about that.
00:12:20
And so there is a way of being fulfilled and happy in the work that you do.
00:12:25
But in your work life, there's always whether you feel perfectly,
00:12:32
whether you have a dream job, whether you feel perfectly content with what you're
00:12:37
doing, whether you trust everyone around you or not, there are outside forces
00:12:42
that can come and turn things upside down.
00:12:45
And when you don't have that level and I'm by no means a control freak but when
00:12:52
you don't have a level of being able to say well those outside forces aren't going to mess with.
00:13:01
Like with my happiness not with what I'm doing necessarily but with the happiness
00:13:05
part of it yeah then I think it's a different level of happiness I just saw
00:13:10
a couple friends of mine who are both working, who I had worked with before.
00:13:14
One is still working in the same place. Another is not. And they're just like,
00:13:17
you look younger. And I'm like, younger?
00:13:20
It's like two years since it's like, no, you actually look younger.
00:13:23
You know, and I'm like, let's see how that's possible.
00:13:26
And it's like, it's gotta be that you're just so happy.
00:13:30
And I think, you know, for the, I'd say that the transition was probably six
00:13:36
months of kind of, maybe even a little less.
00:13:39
I think I got lucky because I had somebody that I was living with,
00:13:43
this spouse of mine, who had decided to retire six months before and helped my father transition,
00:13:52
which was probably one of the most earth shattering experiences of my life,
00:13:57
which was losing my mom really suddenly when I was still working.
00:14:02
And so, and that was another sort of precipitating factor.
00:14:06
So he helped my, my dad kind of get back on his feet, move to where he wanted
00:14:12
to be and everything after losing somebody he had been with for 62 years.
00:14:16
So it was, you know, so there's a lot of joy and also a lot of like devastation,
00:14:22
but that when my mom died and again, it was sudden because we didn't know that
00:14:28
she had lung cancer and had five weeks to live when she was hospital.
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It was during Omicron. I couldn't go and see her in the hospital. She's hard of hearing.
00:14:38
I was trying to advocate for her talking to nurses, calling them in tears every
00:14:43
night, say, what is going on with my mom? What can, you know,
00:14:47
all of this sort of thing.
00:14:49
So I had this event and I decided that when I retired, that would be the time
00:14:55
because it was six months after my mom dying that, or actually even nine months
00:15:00
after that I actually retired,
00:15:01
I decided that would be when I would truly start to heal.
00:15:06
Because no matter what we say, we don't do grieving right in our modern society
00:15:13
and definitely not in the Western world. We don't do grieving right.
00:15:17
So nine months where, you know, and I did have a moment, I'm going to be honest,
00:15:23
you know, I'm not going to name names, but I had a moment where it's like,
00:15:26
I had someone who I worked for say, take all the time you want,
00:15:31
but are you going to meet with X next Friday?
00:15:34
And I was like, that's not all the time I want.
00:15:37
My mom and I were super close. She was my hero.
00:15:43
She and I were very much alike. And I was completely knocked off kilter.
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So the last nine months of my job, I was like,
00:15:53
Nobody knows what's going on inside of me and nobody could.
00:15:57
And people were amazingly wonderful and supportive. But I checked out,
00:16:02
which I think many of us do, but we have to keep going anyhow.
00:16:08
So, and I also, my brother is a childhood diabetic who I also adore. He's my older brother.
00:16:15
You know, I remember sledding down a hill when I was eight years old to impress
00:16:19
him, crashing into a tree and he felt really bad, you know, I would do anything.
00:16:25
If he said, my brother, Chris said, still do this. I would do it no matter what.
00:16:30
Like I was his agent. I would knock on doors. I'm like, do you need your lawn
00:16:33
shoveled? You know, and I was the person who'd do the talking.
00:16:36
He'd do the grunt work. He'd give me 25 cents and then teach me how to play pinball later on.
00:16:40
I mean, we were super tight and he had been on and off. No, he'd gotten progressive. It's harder.
00:16:46
He was a diabetic from the time he was seven and he was going to be 60.
00:16:53
He actually turned 60 last year.
00:16:56
And so I was like, well, if I didn't, you know, and if I didn't spend enough
00:17:00
time with my mom at the end, and honestly, I did spend a lot of time with her.
00:17:03
We moved into the same building to make sure, you know, my, yeah,
00:17:07
Emma really kind of, so we were close by, but all of this was like,
00:17:11
I'm going to, I'm going to heal.
00:17:13
And then I'm going to spend more time with my family, with people that I love
00:17:18
that I haven't been able to because my job has been so crazy.
00:17:20
I spent so much. I'm actually going to spend time with my husband.
00:17:23
I'm going to do these things. And that was kind of my plan. And I did.
00:17:27
And then December of this year, or of last year, we lost my brother suddenly again.
00:17:33
So I was like, thank God I had that time.
00:17:38
That's like my only consolation because it's been four months and I miss him
00:17:42
every day. And I miss my mom. It's like the one-two punch.
00:17:46
So in a way, I had an odd transition because I had tremendous loss.
00:17:52
I was so grateful I got to spend time with my brother.
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And I had my partner who was like, when is enough?
00:18:02
So you had a lot of people who thought you were going to burn out because you worked so hard.
00:18:06
Because you're so... Here's another big reveal.
00:18:11
I have ADHD, undiagnosed. full-on
00:18:14
ADHD, which I paneled into being a workaholic who never did enough.
00:18:19
So who could never do enough.
00:18:23
So like through all of that, I feel like my transition, because it's a totally
00:18:27
fair question. I think we're getting back to your actual question.
00:18:30
No, I love it. But in a way that to me, my transition was maybe easier because it's not like I went from.
00:18:39
Being full on at work. My mind had been in a different place about nine months anyway.
00:18:46
And I was looking for the space to actually be able to, and I didn't even know
00:18:52
what like what grieving is.
00:18:53
Everyone's like, well, you need time to grieve. I'm like, I don't know what
00:18:56
it is. All I know is that it keeps welling up and you don't really know how,
00:19:00
and we're certainly not taught how to do that.
00:19:03
And so for me, that transition had like mentally, I was in a different place anyway.
00:19:10
And then when I left work, people are like, what's next?
00:19:14
I'm like, what's next is I'm going to think for a while and maybe grow some olives.
00:19:20
And I sort of said that tongue in cheek and it turned out that's exactly what I was going to do.
00:19:26
I'm going to start reading like my mom did because my mom would read like a
00:19:29
book a day or whatever. ever.
00:19:31
I'm going to do something totally different.
00:19:35
But for some reason, that's not considered enough in a way. Yeah.
00:19:39
In this society, it's not.
00:19:42
So like when I semi-retired, they're like, what are you going to do?
00:19:47
And I'm like, I don't know.
00:19:49
But for me, I was fortunate enough that I'm
00:19:52
a unicorn in my field and I was
00:19:56
able to land a dream job and do my podcast and I you know we did do some fun
00:20:01
things like we spent three weeks in Europe we've done some traveling but I also
00:20:06
healed a lot like I similar to you like when the depression like started to kick in,
00:20:15
I was pretty much checking out when I got that email that said,
00:20:19
hey, you qualified for VP.
00:20:21
I was like, deuces, bitch. I'm out.
00:20:24
That's so it. I know. People are like, well, you're not. I even was,
00:20:28
somebody was like, you're not actually going to do that, though. I mean, you're young.
00:20:33
I'm like, if I qualify, I've done some years.
00:20:36
And by the way, I've been working since, like I told you, I was peddling my
00:20:40
brother's services when I was eight years old.
00:20:43
Right. I've never not worked.
00:20:46
And I think there's this idea that there isn't you're never enough and you're
00:20:52
not going to be enough if you're doing if you're not doing what it was that
00:20:56
you were doing and that I think there
00:20:59
are actually a couple of things and I know here's the speech giver in me three
00:21:03
points I'd like to make here but I mean I want you to leave this with three
00:21:08
important points honestly Do you have a PowerPoint?
00:21:12
No PowerPoint, I'm coming.
00:21:15
Did you put a deck together? I'm like, hell no, I'm not going to put a deck
00:21:18
together. I've been doing that way too long. Not a chance.
00:21:22
But there is this idea of like being productive.
00:21:26
And so if you can't redefine what productivity is, and I don't,
00:21:30
and everyone's like, oh, you're just going to scale it back and you'll do less.
00:21:34
I'm like, no, it's different.
00:21:35
It has to be different. it because otherwise you're just doing,
00:21:40
you know, kind of the same thing.
00:21:42
And it's like depression do come back.
00:21:45
They can, they crawl back in because you're not actually radically changing your patterns enough.
00:21:51
We are conditioned individuals, but I think there is this idea that,
00:21:55
you know, we've, if we're not productive, then we're useless and we're not serving society.
00:22:00
And, you know, we kind of have to rethink like, who am I being productive for?
00:22:06
To what end am I being productive? And then redefining what productivity is.
00:22:11
To me, being productive, it was so funny.
00:22:13
I was like, I told my kids, I was like, I just read like nine books,
00:22:18
maybe 12 books. And they're like, seriously?
00:22:21
Mom, how long has it been since you actually had to sit down?
00:22:23
Because I'm an obsessive reader. If I start a book, I have to finish it.
00:22:26
So like reading is a full-time engagement for me. I can't half-ass a book because
00:22:32
I can't sleep. I'm obsessed.
00:22:33
And I'm going to be like, oh my God, I'm dreaming about the people for like all the characters.
00:22:38
I'm like, I can't not do this. And so they were like, that is the coolest thing
00:22:43
ever, mom, that you just like nine books.
00:22:46
I know I feel kind of lazy. And they're like, why?
00:22:50
Your brain was engaged. You were doing something. It was just not working the
00:22:55
way that you did, you know?
00:22:56
And the other thing is, we all know work doesn't end when you leave work.
00:23:01
If you're somebody who even cares a little bit about others,
00:23:06
which we all are or we wouldn't be.
00:23:11
There's the after calls and then the after calls. And then at nine o'clock,
00:23:14
somebody who's in tears or somebody who's like, you know, you got to talk them
00:23:18
off the ledge and everything.
00:23:19
And so that, it's like, it's so strange.
00:23:23
And yet I can guarantee to you or anybody listening, I have not one moment been bored.
00:23:31
I don't believe in being bored because what you can do is you can actually think those things through.
00:23:36
You can go down rabbit holes and not cut yourself off because you can,
00:23:40
you can read, you can be like, I'm going to follow this. Okay.
00:23:44
What is Taylor Swift actually? And how did she get started?
00:23:48
What is all of this? You know, and go all the way down, you know,
00:23:52
until it's like two or two or three hours later, it is engaged.
00:23:57
There's nothing wrong with that. It's like, it's what we all want to do.
00:24:01
You know who we are is like, oh yeah, I got to get back to work,
00:24:03
you know? And I'm just, no, it's not all of time. It's raining.
00:24:06
I can't do that. So it's like there's these different things that have built into it.
00:24:11
So I do think productivity is skewed. Of course you want to be productive when you're working.
00:24:18
But to me, I've redefined productivity to be okay with myself because I find
00:24:24
that I still have to tell people that I'm okay.
00:24:27
You're like, hey, you look younger. You look happy. and I'm like I am really
00:24:32
but I'm still doing something I do college now and I do and I read books and
00:24:37
actually do any of you like the New York Times puzzles?
00:24:41
I do. Oh my gosh. I have to use ChatGP TV to solve them.
00:24:49
I'm a spelling bee aficionado and so after the Barbie movie came out like Chris
00:24:56
and I were like hey our job is puzzle like my job,
00:24:59
like if I've done all of my all the puzzles
00:25:02
like wordle queen bee connections in a day we will stay up till two in the morning
00:25:09
if we haven't done that yet because our job is puzzle so we tell people like
00:25:12
my job isn't beach like ken my job is puzzle puzzle that's what I do and when
00:25:17
I'm in France my job is olive olive.
00:25:22
But I love this because you know you're retiring was your form of self-love
00:25:28
and self-care right you found you're happy and.
00:25:33
And even though you had all that grief, you found a way to channel that and to really deal with it.
00:25:39
Because I think that a lot of us don't deal with it correctly, right?
00:25:43
We don't take the time to absorb all the feelings.
00:25:47
Yeah. We don't take time to actually to grieve at all. Right.
00:25:52
Because there's an incredible book that my sister-in-law, who didn't know,
00:25:58
she was grieving for my mom and then lost her mom.
00:26:01
And then my brother like died within a month of the year anniversary of her
00:26:07
mom dying you know and it's just this she's had and she sent me an article and
00:26:11
and one of the things that was so,
00:26:14
incredibly helpful was it's that there's grieving
00:26:17
and there's grief and grieving is
00:26:21
the process whereby you rewire
00:26:25
your brain and because you
00:26:28
have to learn to live without someone
00:26:31
who's been in your life and who
00:26:35
your whole world view and world order makes sense with them in it and when they're
00:26:42
gone and our brains are incredible but it takes a long time to rewire because
00:26:48
like I was just came back from this incredible six week.
00:26:54
Like, I mean, a trip of a lifetime and where we traveled literally with a backpack
00:27:01
that you could carry on your back or roll one backpack for six weeks.
00:27:05
I need your packing tips because it's intense.
00:27:09
I will say it involved buying a suitcase in the last, within the last week,
00:27:12
just to like throw all the things I'm like, all right, I've been really good.
00:27:16
But, but so grief is those, It's that episodic moment where you're...
00:27:21
It's those episodes where you're completely knocked over, like a wave has just come and upended you.
00:27:28
And you're sobbing for no reason. My mom has this smell from childhood,
00:27:34
and I kept one of her nightgowns.
00:27:37
And I opened the drawer, and I actually... I know it's going to sound weird,
00:27:42
but I smelled my mom's nightgown, and I just started sobbing. That's grief.
00:27:46
But grieving is being like, that's okay. I'm going to put it back.
00:27:50
I'm not throwing it away because I'm going to not deal with it.
00:27:53
Yeah. I'm just not going to take it out again for a little while.
00:27:56
And I'm going to, you know, think about what, think about the moment with her
00:28:00
in this nightgown, when we picked it out and bought it together and all these other sorts of things.
00:28:04
And that's a process of my brain learning that, but coming back from this trip
00:28:08
and even on the trip, I know I would have called her a bunch of times to tell her.
00:28:13
And my brother is an incredible chef. And I And I was like, I wanted to,
00:28:17
like, I got you the best pepper in the world, Chris, from Cambodia.
00:28:21
And because no one would have appreciated it more than him.
00:28:25
And so that's like, that doesn't stop. And those feelings of grief don't ever stop.
00:28:32
But you learn to be like, I can't, I can imagine what you would have made with this.
00:28:39
And you try to find the happiness. But if you don't have time to go from those
00:28:43
moments of just overwhelming sadness to feeling.
00:28:48
This is the joy that you brought me and what you taught me so that I can like,
00:28:54
so that I'm going on this crazy wild goose chase for the best pepper in the world.
00:28:59
It's because I know you would have appreciated it. If you can't get there,
00:29:02
then you never get to a place of grieving where your mind and your brain is rewired.
00:29:09
And we have to, like, just have to.
00:29:13
So time is like such a gift. So So reading nine books, even if it was escapism, is a gift.
00:29:21
And we don't see it as that. We see it as like being idle.
00:29:25
You know, how many people go on vacation and they either stay completely wired
00:29:29
when they're on vacation?
00:29:31
They're like, oh, I feel like I need a vacation after my vacation because it took so long.
00:29:35
You know, it took me so long to unwind. You know, it's actually, it's not right.
00:29:40
And I, you know, so I think that's part of it for sure.
00:29:44
So like productivity fuck
00:29:48
it i'm like you know what yeah i'm productive i'm
00:29:51
productively learning how to
00:29:55
live my life without two of the most important people in my life my whole life
00:30:00
you know and like i i found something that i think makes me very productive
00:30:05
i i made olive oil my brother did get to try my olive oil he was really fired
00:30:10
up he's like don't i get more than everybody else.
00:30:12
I'm like, you have five milliliters more than, or centiliters more than everybody else can.
00:30:17
You're getting 25 centiliters. Everybody else is only getting 20.
00:30:21
And he was like, okay, but I'm going to need some more, you know.
00:30:24
He did get to try my oil, but he was supposed to come visit this September.
00:30:29
And actually see our house. He had seen it, but not when we were living there
00:30:33
because we were just buying it right after my, we were going to take a trip to France.
00:30:37
That's another reason our France and olives are so important is because if my
00:30:42
parents were going to, it was going to be their 60th wedding anniversary and
00:30:45
Chris and I had rented a big house. So I have a brother, Chris,
00:30:48
and my partner's also Chris.
00:30:49
So sorry if that's confusing, but I don't live with my brother and I don't like
00:30:53
plan everything, but we had done this.
00:30:55
And then my mom died right before. She already had a ticket.
00:30:59
Actually, to come to France. All the grandchildren, everybody was going to be
00:31:02
there. And she died. We all went anyway.
00:31:06
And so it was sort of like a way of grieving her.
00:31:09
And that was when we found the house and bought the house that we were going
00:31:12
to live in, which is much smaller than this one that held our whole family,
00:31:15
but down the hill from there.
00:31:17
And then we got it. So he got to see it, but he didn't. And my mom knew.
00:31:21
She saw it in photos, but she never actually got to see where we were going to be.
00:31:25
But she knew that we were going to go there. So that's sort of a comfort.
00:31:27
And my mom's ashes are buried under a tree that one of the 200 year old olive trees there.
00:31:33
And we call it grandmother olive. And my first, our first batch of olive oil
00:31:37
is called cuvee mimi for my mom.
00:31:40
And so in a way she's, she lives on. And I talked to the tree when I leave,
00:31:44
I go and I say, you know, and we prune the tree.
00:31:47
I'm like, sorry, mom, we got to kind of cut your nails and your fingers.
00:31:50
I hope we didn't go too far.
00:31:52
We talked to her, Which I think is pretty normal, by the way. Yeah.
00:31:57
So I think that, you know, I found a way to redefine it, but I still,
00:32:01
I actually, you know, going through another interview process and stuff and
00:32:05
you're like, oh, I should do this. I should do this because that's what makes me worthy.
00:32:09
In the world, in other people's eyes, I need to be working and making money
00:32:16
and doing all of this other stuff.
00:32:17
And one of the things that luckily my partner, Chris, and I,
00:32:21
he's like, you know, let's just, he started like becoming a budgeting person.
00:32:26
He's just like, let me show you. Let me show you. And that's how much money
00:32:29
we're actually spending. And like, see, it's going to be enough.
00:32:32
But it took months for him to convince me it was going to be enough, that we would be okay.
00:32:38
Because like our life in France is much less expensive. Food is less expensive.
00:32:42
Like New York is super expensive.
00:32:44
We'll be selling one of the apartments and our daughter will be up here and
00:32:47
we'll still have a place to be, but it's not going to be the same.
00:32:49
We're going to be transitioning fully over there. But it takes a while, you know?
00:32:54
Like yeah and then you know I was like what is my
00:32:57
purpose and it's like just because my purpose was to inspire other
00:33:00
people and everything I'm just going to inspire myself or just
00:33:03
meet people and do things differently yeah you know this is so interesting to
00:33:08
me because even though you've talked about you know different aspects of your
00:33:12
life that you are basically it's all kind of the same like you were having to
00:33:16
rewire you know what you defined your self-worth to be what your life meant without a job,
00:33:22
without family, without, you know, these actual losses and you're,
00:33:27
and like looking at you, you're happy.
00:33:28
Like I think the happiness radiates from inside out.
00:33:31
So it's just so beautiful and so interesting. So, I mean, thank you for sharing the story.
00:33:36
I'm taking notes, like I got to ask myself this because kind of,
00:33:40
I remember G-Rex when you had that
00:33:43
email mail and you called me
00:33:46
and I think you knew right like
00:33:50
you knew in your mind that it was the right move but you
00:33:52
were almost saying it like you were asking for
00:33:56
permission like I'm gonna do this but you're waiting to hear like oh you shouldn't
00:34:01
do that or whatever you know and so I think so to Cecile's point we how we define
00:34:08
our worth and what we think is okay to do is a little bit skewed.
00:34:14
And I just, I don't know, the both of you, I mean, you guys are very inspiring
00:34:18
and I'm taking notes completely selfishly to ask myself in the shower later,
00:34:22
like, how do I define my worth?
00:34:24
What is my success? But, you know, there was a lot that went into that, too, right?
00:34:29
Because when I got that email, at the time, you know, my wife was suffering
00:34:35
through shingles, right?
00:34:37
So, and I was about, you know, turning 60 the following summer.
00:34:42
I was like, fuck, you know what? Who's going to hire me? Because I still need insurance, right?
00:34:47
I could retire, but, like, how am I going to fucking survive?
00:34:51
So, I mean, part of all of that played into the breakdown that I had in December.
00:34:57
There was a lot of other shit that went on.
00:35:00
But I will tell you that once I made that decision, right, once it was all final
00:35:05
and I had gotten the paperwork, by that time, I was like, fuck it.
00:35:10
I don't fucking care anymore because everything had gotten so stressful, right? Right.
00:35:18
Personally stressful. We didn't decorate for Christmas. We didn't do anything.
00:35:22
I was so depressed and nobody could figure out what was going on because on
00:35:28
the outside, I look perfectly fine.
00:35:30
We all do. We're so good at that.
00:35:33
It was so good at that. Christmas day rolled around and I was like, fuck, I am done, done.
00:35:40
But I'm going to say, you know, we were on
00:35:42
a webinar yesterday today and I can't stress this enough like
00:35:46
if you are in a spot where you just don't feel like
00:35:48
you can talk to anybody pick up the phone and
00:35:51
call 988 because they honestly saved my
00:35:54
life and I am so thankful to be alive today because like
00:35:57
you Cecile I am in such a better place this side
00:36:00
on this side of a depression you know I'm
00:36:03
living my fucking best life I get to be on
00:36:06
a podcast with my best friend yeah we
00:36:09
get to go out there and make a difference every day i'm living my dream
00:36:13
job working my dream job and i'm still spending
00:36:16
amazing time with my wife right like
00:36:19
we drove two hours to go see wanda sykes last night and then got up which is
00:36:23
so awesome yeah yeah but you know i can see it in your face i can see i see
00:36:31
a difference cecile i see a A different one than the work. Even though I just
00:36:36
woke up and I look like crap.
00:36:38
Yes. Like you don't need all the lights shining on you on the stage.
00:36:42
You are. I got nothing on my face. Yeah. I feel like your presence here today
00:36:46
is stronger than it was ever on a stage. Oh, that's such a wonderful.
00:36:50
You're not necessarily aware of that, you know. But the only other thing,
00:36:54
though, that I think is important is we think our relevance in this world is
00:37:00
tied to our productivity again.
00:37:02
But your relevance and like are you going to stay relevant are you going to
00:37:06
stay current it's like current on what like I know more about olives and the
00:37:10
diseases that come and hurt all like it's a different thing right right like you.
00:37:16
I can't tell you again how many times people are like, well,
00:37:20
don't you want to stay on top of all of it?
00:37:22
I'm like, no, I don't have to know.
00:37:26
I still love people, by the way. You know, I reached out to Gretchen.
00:37:30
I was like, you know, this may be off topic, but I, and I thought,
00:37:35
well, you know, here I am.
00:37:37
I would have been like two years ago.
00:37:40
You know what? I can't, I have no time to talk to anybody, let them come and
00:37:44
talk to me and ask me if I need, you know, if I can do something.
00:37:47
And I was like, you know what I think is, it might be worth talking about this
00:37:50
because our purpose, our relevance, our, you know, our productivity in life, all of those things.
00:37:58
See, I got my three points in, by the way, those are my three,
00:38:00
but those things are so, you can teach an old dog new tricks,
00:38:06
right. But, or whatever, I don't know.
00:38:07
But that things strike me all the time because people are like,
00:38:10
don't you want to stay relevant? I'm like, I don't know. Again, for who?
00:38:14
I'm relevant to my kids. They're happy that I'm happier. The first time my daughter
00:38:20
came to visit us in France, she was like, you guys are just so in your happy place here.
00:38:27
You kind of drift around. You're like, okay, today's a big day.
00:38:30
It's time to go to the market because this is when we're going to get all our vegetables.
00:38:34
And this is a a good day to go get bread and stuff. And it is enough.
00:38:40
It is enough. And it took me a while to realize that.
00:38:44
But I still hear so many people who are like, I don't know, I feel like I'm
00:38:48
not really being productive. And then redefine productivity.
00:38:52
Redefine it instead of trying to fit yourself into another mold because it's
00:38:57
never going to be enough then.
00:38:59
It's never going to be enough because what we do in our day-to-day work lives is a little bit nuts.
00:39:06
Yeah. And so if you try to make another chapter in your life.
00:39:12
If that's your bar, you're never going to hit it. So you can either be disappointed in yourself.
00:39:17
And honestly, Gretchen, that probably has something to do also with some of the depression.
00:39:23
You know, I know I was grieving and that kind of couched some of it.
00:39:27
But I'm sure I was also sort of depressed, like, I don't know what's going on at all.
00:39:31
And all of these other things that were intermingled, that if you can't change
00:39:36
the bar, change where it is, it might be higher. career because like I'm learning
00:39:42
about things I didn't know anything about.
00:39:44
I knew what I was doing in my previous job. I was good at it.
00:39:49
And I, you know, was running at this sort of high revving my engine constantly level.
00:39:55
And all of a sudden I'm like, it's different.
00:39:57
But if you can't redefine what productivity is for you, if you can't find relevance,
00:40:02
then it is going to be harder.
00:40:04
Harder and so you just have to think about where
00:40:08
you want to redefine and what those things are and
00:40:11
I think one of the most important questions is like right am I
00:40:14
doing this and it's actually okay for
00:40:17
it to be a smaller group of people like it's
00:40:20
okay for it to be for me because when I read a book again I'm gone to the world
00:40:25
and it's so funny because my husband will walk he like walks He like will put
00:40:30
a cup of tea next to me because he's so happy to see me just doing something
00:40:35
for myself because I don't normally do that.
00:40:38
And I'm learning to be excited and probably like, hey, I just read nine books. You know what I mean?
00:40:44
What's the next one you think I should read? You know, and he's like,
00:40:46
I can't believe you're into sci-fi, like sci-fi, like opera.
00:40:51
Like these like three to six book series like about. And they're always women
00:40:56
heroines, by the way. That has not changed.
00:41:00
A pain in the ass of the patriarchy. I'm like calling it out wherever I can
00:41:05
be anywhere. I'm like, yeah, it's because men are doing this. I'm sorry.
00:41:08
Luckily, there are a few good men in the world, honestly, because like, and my son is one of them.
00:41:15
My husband is one. I got a few friends. But honestly, I got a few brothers and
00:41:20
my brother-in-law, but honestly,
00:41:23
that has not changed that's a
00:41:26
core part of who I am that'll never change it's
00:41:29
just redirected yeah thank you so
00:41:33
much this has been amazing oh my gosh I haven't gone on and on too much no when
00:41:38
you ask somebody who speaks who spoke for a living to and you know it's gonna
00:41:43
be like blah blah blah but you know you know what is wonderful you know what's
00:41:47
funny though it's like as soon as I turned 60 literally early,
00:41:50
between 59 and 60, a switch went off on me.
00:41:54
And I was like, you know what? I don't really give a fuck about a whole lot of things. Right.
00:41:59
I care about my happiness. I care about my wife's happiness. Yes.
00:42:05
I'm here to make myself happy. And, you know, my wife's funny.
00:42:09
And Dirty Skittles happy. And Dirty Skittles happy. So my wife's super funny. She's nailing it.
00:42:13
She was like, I've never seen you work on something so hard and not get paid for it.
00:42:18
But I really, I believe in our mission for the podcast, right?
00:42:22
And our mission is to really normalize how we talk about mental health.
00:42:26
Me too, which is why I was like, can I be part of this too?
00:42:29
Because I think what you're doing is truly remarkable. And I think it's funny as hell, for one.
00:42:36
It's poignant as hell, for another.
00:42:39
And it's really important. It's important. And I think I'm very impressed that you're doing it.
00:42:45
And I'm honored to be part of it.
00:42:48
And I can't wait to hear more from everybody.
00:42:54
Thank you. So I am going to turn the tables on Dirty Skittles and Cecile now.
00:42:59
Why? Because you normally ask these questions, but I am going to change. I'm changing it up.
00:43:06
So my first question is, what is one word that you love the most?
00:43:12
That's a tough one. I know the word you hate the most. I don't like being put
00:43:14
on the spot like this. Yeah.
00:43:17
Look, it's Dirty Skittles is going to answer first, right? Well,
00:43:20
she got to think about it.
00:43:22
The word I love the most. Mommy.
00:43:26
Oh, okay. That's a good one. I like that one. That's a good one.
00:43:30
I hear ma more than mommy these days, but that's also pretty good. Yeah.
00:43:36
Do you want me to answer too? Yeah, no, you get to answer. It's a two-part question. Joy. I like that.
00:43:43
Joy. I love that. I love that. Okay, so now I have another one.
00:43:48
I already know the answer for this one for Dirty Skittles, but what's the word you hate the most?
00:43:54
I'm dying. I'm going to die of laughter. I'll say mine. I'll say mine.
00:43:57
Well, the word I hate the most is moist. The most I was going to say.
00:44:02
Everybody hates moist. It's gross.
00:44:05
Moist or wasp. I don't like wasps. I don't like the way that comes out.
00:44:12
It's a little hard to say. Yeah. I get that. I actually get that.
00:44:18
Oh, mine is going to take me right into the world of business speak.
00:44:21
And I think it's empowerment. I think it's abuse.
00:44:26
I love that. There's nothing wrong with the word itself.
00:44:31
I just think it's abuse. It's like we're empowering our people.
00:44:34
I'm like, yeah, you know, women's empowerment.
00:44:38
I'm like, even the word power is a little, means a little something different
00:44:43
to women than it does to men. Exactly. Exactly.
00:44:48
Either that it's yeah probably empowerment there's a
00:44:51
lot of business word business speak i think
00:44:54
heart share mind share those always make me gag too and
00:44:58
also talking around the piece i know that's more than one word but like around
00:45:03
the piece like what piece and why not just talk directly about it yes whatever
00:45:08
the piece is i think that's a whole other podcast is things Things that make you go, bleh. Yeah.
00:45:17
I hear you. I love this.
00:45:22
Cecile, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. This was so awesome.
00:45:27
It's so great to catch up with you. And now you're part of the family.
00:45:31
Awesome. You know, we have 60 of you now. 60 family members we never had before.
00:45:37
That is amazing. 60. And you know, so Chris is going to be 60 in a few months.
00:45:43
I'm just two years behind him. So I'm getting there really quickly.
00:45:46
Although I do like to talk about the fact that we're from two different generations.
00:45:50
I'm Gen X and he's a boomer, a Jones apparently, because, but that's a pretty auspicious number.
00:45:58
It is. Because when you had your turning point, you were talking about your
00:46:01
turning point. My turning point for sure was my mom's passing.
00:46:04
And I was like, nothing matters as much as that.
00:46:10
Happiness. You know what? And I'm telling you, you look amazing.
00:46:15
Like you... For somebody who just woke up. Yeah, but you glow like happiness, right?
00:46:20
You can tell that you're out there and you're living your best life now, right?
00:46:24
And on vacation, having friends be part of that and stuff. I had so much fun.
00:46:30
Like I have this joke term, it's called chilling hard, you know,
00:46:33
because I had a hard time relaxing.
00:46:35
So chilling hard means, you know, I'm working really hard at it,
00:46:38
but I'm doing, you know, the kind of relaxing that works for me.
00:46:41
Yeah, love, love, love. But I'm happy to see both of you.
00:46:46
And again, I want to thank you for what you're doing for everybody out there
00:46:51
because it's awesome. Oh, thank you. Really impressive.
00:46:54
It's inspiring and it's awesome. So you're living your best lives. Well, one of us is.
00:47:01
All these words. And we didn't get to hear what your favorite and most hated
00:47:05
words were. My favorite word is love.
00:47:09
Oh, love that. And the word I hate the most is,
00:47:14
but I can't, I'm going to just spell it. Starts with a C and ends with a T.
00:47:19
It's my least favorite word. That's a bad word. That is an unpleasant word.
00:47:23
That one doesn't trip off the tongue very nicely and it's just an awful word.
00:47:27
I agree with you. Yes. It's awful. Yeah.
00:47:29
And so, yeah. And joy, I never actually said what joy to me.
00:47:33
It's because you can find joy.
00:47:35
If you can find joy in anything, in sadness, in tragedy, in beauty,
00:47:40
in love and everything else.
00:47:43
It's like you don't have to if you can see
00:47:46
those things then you don't have to seek happiness you
00:47:49
find peace that is like a totally different state of being yeah i love that
00:47:56
wow i had to write that down we're giving skittles like all these little nuggets
00:48:02
of information because i'm telling you don't wait until you're 60 to find this though No,
00:48:07
don't wait till you're 60, 57, 56, whatever. Just do it.
00:48:12
And I can't wait for the shower of yours. It's going to be a revelatory shower. Oh my God, I know.
00:48:16
It's going to be important. I'm telling you. It's going to be a life-changing moment for you.
00:48:21
Thank you so much again. This has been awesome. Sorry, Jurek, to cut you off.
00:48:25
I love you both. Thank you so much. This has been a really wonderful way to wake up.
00:48:32
Yes, enjoy the rest of your day. Hi, y'all. Thank you so much for listening to this episode.
00:48:37
I'm t-rex and i'm dirty skittles don't forget to subscribe rate and review this
00:48:42
podcast we'd love to listen to
00:48:45
your feedback we can't do this without you guys it's okay to be not okay.
00:48:53
Music.