The Midlife Rebel Podcast

Creative Midlife, Honest Menopause, New Beginnings - Lisa Parda

• Host - Nadine Shaw - Midlife Rebel; Natural Wellness Advocate, Astrologer, Gene Keys Guide,Human Design Enthusiast • Season 16 • Episode 5

Share episode

Send us a text

Midlife doesn’t arrive quietly — it arrives with questions, friction, and the invitation to do things differently. In this candid conversation with Lisa Parda, we explore the messy magic of reinvention: hormone chaos that scrambles your words, burnout that creeps in when you’re “good at everything,” and the unexpected joy of building a second act that actually fits.

Lisa shares the moment a routine workday opened the door to radio, why she chose to keep the parts of real estate that lit her up and release the rest, and how a health scare became the catalyst to quit alcohol — leading to steadier energy, better sleep, and a clearer head.

Together, we dismantle the loud narratives about midlife and replace them with practical truth. Brain fog isn’t the end of you — it’s a temporary rewiring that sharpens your focus on what truly matters. Beauty pressure softens. People-pleasing loosens its grip. The real work becomes identity by subtraction: asking who am I without this? and letting old labels fall away. From there, creativity can emerge — saying yes before fear sets in, tolerating the beginner phase, and building rhythms that support making, not just doing.

Food is where philosophy meets the plate. After autoimmune symptoms and AFib, Lisa reframed cooking from a chore into a daily act of self-care. We talk food as medicine, why ultra-processed “convenience” steals more than it gives, and how gratitude can change the body’s chemistry around a meal. Her cookbook weaves accessible recipes with love letters to breakfast-for-dinner, gut-friendly party food, and desserts that are worth it because they’re made with intention.

If you’re craving a grounded, hopeful take on midlife — one that honours your body, edits your workload, and feeds your creativity — this conversation will land. Listen, share it with a friend who needs it, and if it resonates, follow, leave a review, and reflect on the one thing you’re ready to set down this year.

Find Lisa's full profile in the Guest Directory

https://midliferebel.beam.ly/person/lisa-parda

Hey there, Rebel, 

I'd love you to send me a text to let me know what you thought of the episode, if you have any questions, or if you've got suggestions for future topics or guests you'd like to hear from.

Send me a text and I promise I'll reply!

SPEAKER_01:

Hey there, Rebel, it's Nadine here. Before we dive into this week's episode, I just want to wish you a very happy 2026. And I also want to say thank you for being here. Whether you've been listening for a while or you've only just discovered the Midlife Rebel Podcast, I truly appreciate you. I'm looking forward to sharing many more conversations with you this year, and I hope they continue to inspire and support you as you move through your own midlife rebellion. Thanks for listening. Welcome to the Midlife Rebel Podcast. It's time to rewrite the midlife story for women who refuse to be put in a box. Because maybe midlife isn't a crisis. Maybe it's an awakening. The journey through midlife can come with a whole host of deep questions, or at least it has for me. Who am I now that I've had kids? Or that my kids are leaving home, depending on where you are in that journey. How do I care for my changing body naturally? What gives my life meaning and purpose now? How can I stay vital as I age? And how can I be more me? My guest today, Lisa Parder, joins me to share her own midlife story. How this chapter can become the most creative season of our lives and how embracing change can lead to powerful reinvention. Lisa, thank you for joining me. I'm really excited about this conversation. I love having a good old chat about all of the things in midlife because it's a big deal, isn't it? And in fact, when I first entered midlife, I can see on reflection now that this was a big journey and that it goes on for quite a long time. Mine started, I reckon, when I had kids, because I started late in life. I was 40 when I had my first um child. But yeah, it's it's an unraveling in very in so many ways. And so I'm really uh excited about hearing your story and um yeah, all of the things that go with it.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, thank you for having me on. I really appreciate um this conversation. And I think it's funny what I imagined midlife would be when I imagined it and what it is in real life and how disparate those two things are from each other. So I love having real conversations.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I agree. And I'm kind of like, I wonder whether someone's just putting us off the scent, you know, with a lot of the stories that we get told about midlife and that that it's this terrible thing. And like once you're there, game over. Um, yeah, I wonder if they were just putting us off the scent. There have been a few other things that, you know, have put women off the scent of of who they actually really are. And uh I wonder if this was just another one of those things.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so you said something beautiful because I feel like I feel the same way. It's I'm trying to get back to who myself. I'm trying to get back to the real person I am underneath all the things I was out in the world to either survive or to make a living, you know, or because I thought they were the right thing. And it's I'm constantly trying to get back to myself and the the older I get. And the other thing that I think is really interesting is I wonder, was I just a walking hormone? Because now that I don't have hormones, I almost don't recognize the younger version of myself. Like, how can I have thought that? Or how could I have believed that, or what was I thinking? And it's like, was I just a walking hormone and I didn't was that just leading the way? And now that I don't have them, I can it's almost like glasses have been taken off in a lot of ways. But I didn't get there right away during the transition where the hormones were kind of all over the place. I felt crazy. I felt like, is this a mental illness? Is there something wrong with me? And I don't think my the women ahead of me didn't talk about menopause, which everything was kind of a secret back then, too. Um, but I think my grandmother's generation was given hormones, although they didn't talk about it, and my mother's generation what didn't. And I grew up on hormones, I grew up on the birth control pill. So I have been augmenting my hormones so much. And when I got into um menopause and was told you can't have hormones, we don't give hormones to women, you know, for that reason. I thought, well, you've been giving me hormones this whole time. What's another three years? I don't understand what's happening here. So I do think one of the beautiful things is you do get to the other side. Yeah. I feel like there is a piece or and and it was several years for me where I felt like I am slowly losing my mind and they don't know what's happening. And I feel crazy. I hate everyone. I hate everything. Like there was this almost like this oh overwhelming feeling like, did I set up this life? Whose life was that? Like, you know, and it and it's not that I didn't have a beautiful life. I actually have a really beautiful life that I intentionally chose all of the things, but some of the things that hadn't been serving me for a while in my business, I was still doing because they made money. And I really found a satisfaction in providing in that way and having a financial more stability. And but then I was just, but this doesn't serve me. Why does it have to be so hard? Why can't I do things that are easy? And I think it was because when I was younger, I came from the ch type of childhood that would make me want to fix problems. Like it was uh like more of a trauma response. And once you get good at something, you like being really good at it.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, and now you're like, okay, so am I gonna do things I'm not really good at? And what does that look like? And how does that feel? You know, to be a beginner again in your 50s, you know, can be daunting and scary, but it also can be exhilarating.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Oh, you've opened up so many um doors there for conversation. Throwing it all in. Throwing it all in. Um to the whole with the hormone thing, I'm kind of like on the tail end, I think. It it interestingly, it wasn't really until my early 40s, after I'd had kids, probably, that I realized what a player the hormones were in my life, and I started to recognize in my mood, but also my physical activity, because I I work in a gym, so I could really notice certain times in my cycle when things were easier, when things were more difficult, and it wasn't until I was kind of coming to the the end of my um menstrual years that I sort of started to understand that process more, which was a bit of a bummer because it's quite empowering when you kind of don't have to go, well, what was what's wrong with me? I was okay last week, and this week I can't do the things, or like that thing that didn't bother me a week ago really pisses me off today. And you think that there's something wrong with you, so that was a bit of a bummer that that kind of realisation happened quite late in the piece, but yeah, being on the other side, that complete balance where like every day you can almost be guaranteed that you're gonna feel your mood is gonna be regulated. There aren't gonna be such steep highs and lows. That's quite uh a reward, isn't it? For all of the stuff that we go through in the in-between. But there was a definitely a period of time where I'd be like, oh, I've got a headache, I think it must be my hormones, or um, oh my god, I feel so out of breath. It must be my hormones, or I can't think straight, it must be my hormones. And you start to question am I like, am I going mad? Am I just using this as an excuse? Because there's so much messaging as well. So it's like unraveling and untangling, like what am I actually feeling and experiencing compared to what have I been told I'm going to experience as well.

SPEAKER_00:

So that's the one thing that I thought was frightening was I thought the what was happening in my brain was going to be a permanent change.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Because I that's the part that made me feel crazy because I had I remember I sell real estate. So I've been a real estate broker for 23 years, and I kept pointing to the side of the house talking to my husband about the shutters. But I could not articulate the word shutter. Yep. I'm a realtor. I can't be pointing out the house saying the thing on the side of the windows. Shutter did not exist in my brain. And I started to become very frightened that am I not what is happening to me? You know, am I not going to be able to function? And it um, so I was temporarily on a hormone replacement. And then I had a medical issue that they thought was too much estrogen. So they immediately stopped all my hormone therapy, which was physically painful.

SPEAKER_01:

Right.

SPEAKER_00:

So I literally was going online Googling how to buy estrogen without doctor's orders, or you know, because I was like, I can't live like this. And they were like, we're not gonna prescribe it to you because we think it's causing some major problems and it's risk, you know, it's a risk for stroke, it's a risk for this, and we're not going to give it to you. And I'm like, I don't care if I have a stroke, I just can't feel this way. Oh my gosh. That's how bad it was. And I kept telling myself, this will pass, this will pass. And when it finally did, I do think it was irresponsible to hardcore stop hormones. I do think there should have been a yes, this is probably a problem, but let's taper you off. Because I almost think that was like a medical negligent thing to just be propping me up with all these hormones and then just stopping them entirely. I physically felt so much pain in my body. Like I would tell you, my joints hurt, like, you know, the physical pain. But now that I'm on the other side of that and now I don't have any hormones propping me up. I I can say, I can see that maybe the addition of hormones might have kept that phase for me a little bit longer. Yep. But I also was frightened to be on the other side of it. Because when I started taking hormones, I started getting my brain back.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So I was really afraid to get onto the other side of that.

SPEAKER_01:

I've spoken to I haven't done a whole bunch of reading or anything about it, but one of my other guests or a couple of my other guests who've spoken about this change in our brains is actually a thing, right? The so this, you know, oh brain fog, it's terrible, you know, um we lose our minds.

SPEAKER_02:

Yep.

SPEAKER_01:

Um is actually a rewiring of our brains, getting rid of the stuff that we don't need anymore. And I refuse to say that I have brain fog. I'm like, I'm not gonna be I'm not gonna be put in a box, I'm not gonna be put in the brain fog box. But there are certainly times where I have more mental clarity than others. Um, and I also I kind of feel a bit dreamy sometimes, like I can't quite, yeah, and can't quite find the words that I'm um looking for.

SPEAKER_00:

Which in this type of environment you feel is so crucial.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_00:

Like immediate the articulation for me of immediate word recall and immediately bringing what I'm thinking or feeling articulated in vocabulary out. I always had a pretty good command of that. And then to lose that piece was like, oh, I'm having a communication problem, and is it gonna last forever? So I found that, and like I said, the shutter was a perfect example of like I can't live like this.

SPEAKER_01:

I can't point, yeah, and that's how we feel, but also the messaging is it it affirms that, doesn't it? All of the messaging around midlife and that that it's a really bad thing affirms that you're you are losing your mind, brain fog, you know, it's a bad thing. If it was re um, here you go, I've lost the word.

SPEAKER_00:

Um if it was recognized that it's a temporary.

SPEAKER_01:

But it's a process that's important for our long-term, I don't know if it's health, but sanity, maybe. Um, yeah, how different that would be and how we could embrace it rather than try and block it out or prevent it as long as we could. Prevent it. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Because I think some of the other messaging is, you know, you we're still having to be sexy and beautiful, and now you can do Botox and this and that. So maintain your idea that you're this young, sexy, vibrant person as long as you can. Like there, there's actually all sorts of mess messaging. And I remember when Christy Brinkley was like, I feel sexy at 62, and I'm thinking, oh God, at 62, we're gonna have to carry this about. You know, of course we want to feel beautiful and to our spouses or our partners, feel desirable and like we we're wanted, but we don't want that to the general public. We have other things to say now. I don't have estrogen, I don't have the um even the wherewithal to want to like you know, continue this ruse. Like, and I almost feel like there's a seriousness that has come about a little bit where when I was younger, I would really want to cater to people's feelings a lot more than I have the interest to do now.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

And I wondered how much of that was at odds at the time.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Well, I guess like the early part of our lives in terms of the like attractiveness is to find a mate, isn't it? Like that's uh kind of a primal thing. And probably that pleasing thing is part of a tribal thing as well, like to be accepted by the group, by the people that you're gonna have your life with. I wonder why that kind of changes, because it's no F's given a little bit, isn't it? As you sort of edge further into your 50s, I feel like I'm right on the brink of that at the moment, that I've not quite I'd still have a few F's given.

SPEAKER_00:

Like us, yeah. And I I think about all the times that um, you know, the running joke was that you know, men trade their wives in for a younger version. Well, can men be learn, can men learn how to interact with this new woman that exists in their home? Can we give them any tips instead of just trade this model in for the young one? You know, because that has a whole host of oh, you're starting a family again at 57, are you? Are you taking the kids to drop off at 57? Are you in your new family?

SPEAKER_01:

That hasn't happened in your life, has it?

unknown:

No.

SPEAKER_00:

No, but my thought process is we always heard that men had midlife and that they chased the cars for young women. That was the the story or the language. When you get into midlife and you're like, oh, I'm less agreeable now. I my opinions are really not that my opinions weren't strong or or I wasn't disagreeable before, because I'm sure my husband would say I was a little bit disagreeable before, but just the overall feeling I have about it now is a little bit different. And that we, you know, some of the societal messaging is that like, what do we do with these women now? What do they bring to the table?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, when we know young girls bring a lot of, you know, beauty and youth and vitality and you know, the ability to reproduce and keep the species going and and all of that fun stuff, which is very important. But, you know, older women have a place in society too. And we can come to work differently because we're not, you know, tending to young children. Because I think one of the worst things that was done to my generation, I'm 53, and when I was growing up, I was um, I couldn't have it all. There was a perfume ad that I bring home the bacon, I fry it up in the pan, and I never let my man forget he's a man. Right. I'm working, I'm making sure he's all set, I'm cooking, I'm like, I'm doing all of this stuff, and we were exhausted and never really satisfied doing any one thing because we were doing everything.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And I don't think this generation has that, which is good. You know, I I hear the younger generation thinking how crazy we're we were for all of the things we were doing. And I'm glad that that message went downward that, you know, it's there's no such thing as balance. You are gonna be juggling a lot of things and some things fall to the ground and you can pick them back up or you can put them down. But that this idea that we don't have to be all things to all people all of the time, I think is a great message for women to hear. Yeah. Because I don't think men got that message. And no offense to the men either. Because I love I love our men in the world. I'm not that person.

SPEAKER_01:

Um yeah, there's two parts to it, isn't there? Like the messaging for the men is that the women can do everything. And the women are trying to fulfill that. And we can do quite a lot.

unknown:

Right.

SPEAKER_00:

And when I remember when I used to be told, oh, don't multitask, it's like, well, I can multitask because where would our species be if we couldn't multitask? Oh, well, I had to go do something so the baby died. We had to go change to the baby so this happened. The house burnt down. Like we can we can do a lot, which is pretty amazing.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Um, but I I know that I I waited to try to have children until I was older as well, because I thought I'm being told I have to have a business and have this and have this and have this and have children, but I didn't have a lot of family support. I'm an only child. Both my parents passed away. We didn't have a very big family. I wasn't very close to them physically, location. So, who's going to be helping me with my children? Who was going to be my backstop to doing that? And since I didn't have that, I thought, well, I can't do all of this. And so I waited to have children later. And then I had miscarriages and didn't have children because I wasn't given the Messaging that, okay, your biological clock starts ticking way earlier than you think.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Because you see women in their 40s having a baby, or you see like 18, 15, 13, 4. You know, you see that in the world and you think that's just automatically going to happen to you. Yeah. But now I know women are told in their 30s, if you're not ready to have a baby, freeze your eggs.

SPEAKER_01:

Really?

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, in America. You know, a 32-year-old will be like, if you're not married and you think you want children, freeze your eggs, which is smart. Right. But it it has a whole host of other ramifications. But at least women are told that where my generation was just do it all. You know, just do it all.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Yeah. And I, well, then that comes up with a whole host of other um self-reflective questions, and this, you know, this time of our lives where we're kind of going, who am I? Who's who is the real me? Because we've got so many layers of the shoulds and the definition of success. And as you mentioned, with your career, you know, not feeling satisfied, but still feeling like you needed to make the money. So there's all of that, and and there's a there's a part of me, and I think it's uh a shared experience where you are kind of going, well, does that value belong to me? Or is that one that I can let go of?

SPEAKER_00:

And you know, Dan's And even I might have had that value years ago. I might have really valued that, but I don't see a place for it now, or it doesn't serve me as well now. And it goes, can I try it differently now that I have more experience, or you know, it it there I like to think that there are seasons and chapters in that we can lay some stuff down to make room for other stuff.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. So early Lisa compared to Lisa now. What was going on with early Lisa and when did you start to experience um a subtle shift? Or did you get a big slap around the face from the universe?

SPEAKER_00:

So I met a woman to go as a guest on her show, and I was reading her um bio, and she said she helps people through the disruptive change.

SPEAKER_02:

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00:

And I thought, wow, I wish I had that language earlier. Because my entire resume would have shown the reason why I was changing careers was a disruptive change. So I grew up wanting to be an air traffic controller. I did everything right, I could pass the test. I actually worked for the Federal Aviation Administration, not in that capacity, but for a number of years. But if you don't take the test by 28, you're not going to be able to be an air traffic controller.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

So it long story short, I'm 28. They're not offering the test. I'm going to have to think about something else. Well, my entire desire, like I only had one plan.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So then I had to try to find something else that I wanted to do. And I was propelled in my early career by wanting to be an air traffic controller, not being an air traffic controller, but being involved in aviation nonetheless and exploring what other things it had to offer and loving going to work. So now I'm not loving, now I don't have that. And now I have to go to work and I don't love my work at all. And I try several different things. I try manufacturing, I try telecommunications, I try chasing money, and they're all not working. You know, um, layoff, a company bought out all the people who were there for under two years got laid off, like a lot of disruptive change.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

So then I decided, you know, I always really liked real estate, and I'm just gonna get into that. And I got into it at 30, and I I loved it. And then I had that same feeling of aviation where I wanted as much of it as possible. I wanted to learn construction and I wanted to learn renovations and I wanted to learn management and how does it work as an investment? So I threw myself into it, doing all kinds of things. And I got really good at solving problems. I was always really good at solving problems, and real estate comes with a lot of problems. So I got really good at all of the facets of it. But then in my late, I would say like my mid to late 40s, I was really getting burnt out. I was going through miscarriages. I wasn't liking the property management component of our business. And I wanted to let it go. But it paid the bills. So there was no real way, you know, well, you have to offset the income, blah, blah, blah. And sales is a very cyclical cycle where, you know, the real estate market's great and the real estate market's not so great for a myriad of reasons. It always kind of coincides with the economy. But property management was the even thing that allowed you to pay your bills while sales cycled. But it wasn't, I wasn't nice there anymore. You know, I wasn't kind or generous with my time. Like, and I'm like, this is not good to be this person. Then you add, I'm going through hormonal shifts, you know, like you add everything else in there. Like, I have to start doing something different. So I still do real estate sales. Okay. But I recently, um, it'll be two years in March that I gave up the property management.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

And so the young, the young me wanted to enjoy my life. So that meant I wanted to enjoy my work. It was very important. Um, my father told me when I was really young, we're not going to leave you when we pass away with money. So you better like go and work every day. And that's why I was picking the career in aviation because I thought I'll never get bored of this.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I'll, you know, so it it was great advice. But then when you're not loving your work, it's, you know, in the back of your head, you've flown too close to the sun where you do love your work, and now this feels like a problem to be solved. You know, but you're adult, your responsibilities, you have bills to pay, you know, all of the other things. And it wasn't until um I've always loved reading. And because reading has immensely affected my life in so many positive ways, that I knew at a young age I wanted to contribute in that arena.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

But when I was younger, I thought, I'm who wants to listen to a 22-year-old about anything, let alone as a writer. That's not true, by the way. But I was like, let me go get life experience and then I'll I'll come back to it. So I was trying to circle around how to bring that back into my life. And of course, this self-publishing now, yeah, we don't have the gatekeepers we had before. So it was a perfect time to get into it and juggling it along with everything else. But I I knew that I wanted to bring that as a component in the second half of my life.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

And one of the things I tell my friends' children all the time is they want their career to be something just like me. I love it. I love going to work. It doesn't feel like work. But sometimes you don't know what it is. And I do believe that you'll you have to do the thing. Action is the direction.

SPEAKER_02:

Right.

SPEAKER_00:

Even if you don't know what decision to make, make some action forward because other things will come out that you don't know exist because you don't know. But you've got to start getting into it. So on my own type of advice of, well, let's start doing this. You know, it's not, I don't know what I'm doing, it's not going to be pretty, or it's probably not going to be good at first, all of that. And then I sort of fall into a being invited onto a radio show. It was three years ago. Um, we had a local radio show in Nashua, New Hampshire. It uh it's a political, right? So it's talk radio. Everyone's arguing all day about politics.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_00:

Owner of the radio station comes into the bank where I have an account and says, I'm so sick of everyone arguing, it makes for boring radio. I need something to bring our community together, like a cooking show or something.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

And the branch manager points to me in line and says, Well, she's writing a cookbook. You should have her on. Oh. So he invited me on. Um, we talked a little bit about real estate, actually, and not the cookbook. And then we talked a little bit about cooking. I came on a second time, and then he's like, You should have your own show. This would this would be really great. And it was the thing I didn't know I wanted.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Until I started doing it.

SPEAKER_01:

That's so cool.

SPEAKER_00:

And I had to say yes right away, and I had to get on right away because if I thought too much about it, I would thought, I would have thought it doesn't make sense. I I would have given myself 20 reasons to not do it.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

But in the action of doing it, so many other things have come up, and it is actually one of the biggest joys. Like I look forward to my radio show every my whole week is built on Thursdays.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

It's the day of my show, and the whole week is built on that. It's my favorite day of the week. And um so now I'm looking for ways for real estate will always be a part of my world because it does pay bills.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, I am really good at it, and I have 23 years of experience in every facet of it. And I'm actually really good at what I do, and I don't want that expertise not to be utilized. But I am looking for what used to eat up so much of my time was property management, you know, probably 30 hours a week, you know, maybe 20 hours a week was on the sales piece. So I'm I'm looking to increase the sales, but to give, you know, a part-time job's worth to the radio and writing books and promoting books to see what that looks like over the next 10 years.

SPEAKER_01:

Very cool. I think that that kind of process that you've gone through with your um real estate work is kind of interesting because we can well, there's what's that phrase, and I don't even know if it's the right one, but throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Like there's a there's a real well, there's a real sense of wanting to shed the old, I feel. And and like you said, it wasn't lighting you up anymore, but it pays the bills. So there's a real kind of battle of like personally, I I've had a similar experience because we have a um we had a gym business in Sydney, which we sold and we moved up into um a small country town on the coast of Australia, east coast. And um we were like, never again, we're not having a gym. And it's very much my we've eventually we've started doing it in a way that works better for us. It's um doesn't take up as much time, there aren't any other staff. But I had I went through a real internal battle of I don't want to do this anymore. It's not lighting me up, but I need to provide for family, we need to pay the bills, yeah. So it's kind of reassuring to hear that you've had a similar experience and that you don't have to completely let go of those things, and it's okay to have other things as well.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so for real estate sales, that's that part still does light me up. It's still the finding the better project, valuing it, all of that, because I do a lot of investment generating, so a lot of income generating. So it's um I have a really good way to detect value. And I probably had it intuitively because I was always on a beer budget, but I had champagne taste. So it was something that always existed in me. And then when I had a way to formalize it and bring it to something where it was valued by clients and and whatnot. Um, and I that really does still light me up. But what I had been doing was I would say, this property is a great price. It could be really valuable a year and a half from now. And then I would take on the responsibility of doing all of the things to make that happen. Yeah. Now I can just say to somebody else, these are the steps you do to make that happen. And I'm still available to have a 45-minute conversation with my clients if they're having a problem through it. So it allows me to keep the part I like and that I'm really good at, but not requiring me to physically manage it and touch it and do it myself. I have, you know, 23 years of doing it. That's time well served. I can tell somebody what to do and get them where they need to be, where a long for a long time I would I would do it for my clients because I know it would be done.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And how much of that was my ego or me not being able to let go of control. You know, so there was a little bit of that back and forth where I think a lot of times I would just be like, well, I'll do it because I know what I'm doing. I don't have to explain it to you, you know, that mentality. And then you're all burnt out, and then and now what happens. Yeah.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So now But like when when you say about the gym, I think whatever brought you to that profession, you probably loved.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. Oh, totally. It was my goal line, like 100%, 60 hours a week, you know, like for a significant amount of time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

But there was some part of that business that maybe was getting new clients, or maybe it was whatever that part of it is. And that's the thing about being a business owner or a self-employed, you are everything, yeah, all of the time. You know, and I think that's why sometimes these conversations are great so that people know that they're not alone or they're not going through it, that we all go through it. You know, that this isn't for the faint-hearted. Business ownership is not for the faint of heart. But it is rewarding in so many ways, too, because it's it's it's you, it's your vision. You know, people bring products to life, and yeah, it is really interesting. But life changes, we change, economies change, business changes, how we do business changes. So we have to adapt with that as well and keep, you know, trying to keep our sanity in there too.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. And now you're able to do uh, well, you have some passion projects that are supported by that whole previous 23 years of work and that experience that you've built up over that period of time. I'm curious to hear what uh whether you have any have had any kind of guilt that you should be doing more, that you're not working as much as hard, that kind of thing, or whether it's been your experience been with that? I'm kind of curious.

SPEAKER_00:

It's difficult to make the transition, or there's a habit in being productive than being creative. So this world is more on the creative side, yeah. Where the other world is I have 20 contractors to call, I have rent to collect, I have the accounting to do. It was very task-oriented.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And your to-do list, there was always too much on it that always moved to the next day, and then you added new things on it. And that was the part that over time was just really overwhelming. But now you have all of this blank space. And how do you when you're used to feeling productive by checking things off of a list? This is how I used to be satisfied. If I had to do something that showed up that wasn't on my list today, which always happens, right? You put five things on your list, none of the five things gets done, but three things get added. If I did something that wasn't on my list, I would put it on my list and cross it off immediately because at least I did something from the list. It was never on the list, you know. So whatever weirdness that is in my personality, but I think someone would identify with that. But it's trying to learn um creative work has a different productivity to it. It's not how many emails you answer, it's, you know, and it's long work. Um, so it's how do you sustain that you're not procrastinating when you should be doing something? Because it's uh creative work also has resistance to it.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, my my other job had tasks I didn't like to do. And on a day where I had to do five things I didn't like to do, I would procrastinate the four with the one I like to do the least, or the one I didn't mind doing the compared to the other four. Like I joke that my dish, the inside of my dishwasher needs to be cleaned when I have to do my taxes. Like, oh, look how filthy this dishwasher is. You know, like I'm always doing something, procrastinating on doing something else. And and that was like a very task-oriented business and type of job where now it's difficult for me because now I have this space not to just enjoy the space and still get things accomplished.

SPEAKER_01:

So you you're enjoying you do enjoy the space, or it's a it it's uh you need it's uncomfortable, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Because for all of these years there was stuff to do that I was if I just had space, there wasn't stuff getting done. Yeah. And now I get to decide what needs to be done, which also could be procrastinate on doing any of it. You know, creative work makes you think you need to be inspired and and everything else when that's not the case.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

You need to do what you need to do.

SPEAKER_01:

How much do you think is tied up with identity and that kind of like who am I? Because we're not just tasks, are we? But But i it's like well, I I stopped drinking alcohol when I was uh well, only like three and a half years ago. And that's brought up a whole bunch of questions because that was tied up with my identity. You know, I was the person who could have a glass who had a glass of wine with dinner every night and um, you know, drank at parties or and then all of a sudden I'm not that person and I don't have that thing. And that is massive.

SPEAKER_00:

So I have so much to say about this.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, good.

SPEAKER_00:

So one of the things that I noticed was when I asked who am I, I would have a list of answers, and sometimes I wouldn't even know that they actually felt real, but they were labels.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

So then what I started to say is who am I without this? Which was a different question.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And who I am without this was about letting go of, for example, I talk about this on my radio show a lot. And I um I joke that it's because my mother promised to pay for my therapy and then she never paid for my therapy. But I um talk about my mother's drug addiction.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

Who am I if I'm not the daughter of a drug addict? If I just let that go. I mean, she's been dead for 15 years or somewhere approximating that. When do I just let her go and forgive it? And I'm an adult and it's all fine. You know, when so a lot of that is, well, who am I if I'm not the daughter of a drug addict?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Who am I if I'm not a property manager? Who am I without, you know, who am I without things? Um and who am I almost feels like I have to put something on.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. You need another.

SPEAKER_00:

Where to me, what am I taking off?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So I liked who am I without this as a question that seemed less daunting and overwhelming than who am I?

SPEAKER_01:

That's so good. I love that. I'm gonna I've gotta use that. What a that's like the hot tip. Love that.

SPEAKER_00:

And then about drinking, um, I had a heart event, okay, which was also playing into the property management because when you're a property manager, you're on call 24-7.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And I've never had a vacation that didn't have hot water heaters break in at 10 o'clock at night while I'm traveling to Aruba or insert, you know. Yeah. Murphy's law says that the things that on Thanksgiving the oven will break. You know, and when you're in property management, you that's just part of it. You're accepting that. Um, but I had a heart event, and while I was in the hospital and they were trying to figure out what was wrong, they kept saying, like, who are you? Your phone never stops ringing. You know, like all we do is hear that thing buzz it. Like, what do you do for a living? That, you know, and there was one time I was texting, I'm in the hospital, and they were texting back, well, can't I just call you real quick? And I was like, No, I'm in the hospital. And while I was texting that, they physically picked up, called, called me, and I said, No, I'm in the hospital. I can't, like, I literally can't talk to you now. I'm hooked up to heart attack leads. Like, I cannot talk to you. But the doctor said, We can't find anything wrong with you physically. You don't have blocked arteries, you know, through the whole gamut. So I'm gonna say, like, it's lifestyle, it's stress and lifestyle, which was horrible to hear, and then the most the best thing I could have heard because it wasn't outside of my control. I can control my lifestyle.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So it felt like I got agency back where I felt like my health was I was losing my health in the middle of menopause. I had been complaining about AFib um for a while, and they kept telling me it wasn't uh AFib and that it was just menopause, and I didn't know what I was talking about. And I was like, I think I'm dying.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, like my health I could get these heart palpitation things as well. It was pretty hectic. Like I never ended up in hospital, but it was, yeah. One of those things where I was like, I think it's my hormones.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And so that's what they kept telling me it was when it actually wasn't.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

So, and when I got into the hospital and they were like, you lost 50% of the function of your heart, and we can't tell you why.

SPEAKER_01:

Goodness.

SPEAKER_00:

Um, but one of the things I did, so they found no reason. So I had to go to an electrophysiologist, like the cardiac doctor that deals with the electrical impulses.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, yes.

SPEAKER_00:

Because that's what atrial fibrillation is. And the heart has a dominant and a subordinate beat. And there was a third beat trying to dance at the party. Yeah. And that's what that problem was. So, but because this was part of COVID, the doctor couldn't see me till August. And my heart event was right around Thanksgiving.

SPEAKER_01:

November.

SPEAKER_00:

So I did a deep dive. How do you heal this naturally? One of the things was stopping drinking.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00:

So I stopped drinking. And at first it was not a problem at all because I was doing it for my health.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

And then over time, it started to a little bit be a problem because it's socially what we do. Everyone around me is drinking. I'm like, I have, okay, we all start go out together at one, now it's 10 o'clock at night. I want to go home and lie down. You guys want to go out for another three hours. Like that kind of behavior started to wear on me. But now I think we're in our for the people around me that are my age, we're in our 50s. We have to stop abusing our bodies and drinking is a slightly an abuse to our body. So now I almost feel like I'm on the other side, a little evangelical about the benefits of not drinking all of the time.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Because I feel so much better.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. I feel like we know so much more now. Like, you know, some people go, Oh, you know, but I've my parents had a drink every day of their lives and blah, blah, blah, blah. But we know the negative impacts of drinking now.

SPEAKER_00:

Um, and we also our parents didn't have 20,000 chemicals on their food. Right. Our parents didn't have plastics. Like our parents lived a different life. So in the cooking world, you know, people want to tell you they don't need to eat vegetables or eat healthy, and they always cite someone who's 78, smoking cigarettes on the porch, drinking whiskey for breakfast, bathing in bacon juice, and then you live to be honored. And you're like, Yeah, well, they didn't, you know, they also worked outside a field for 15 hours a day, got sunlight, slept eight hours. Like, their world is different than ours. Yes. I don't know what to tell you.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

They were killing their own bacon. Yeah. I I don't, you know, I don't know what to tell you.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

But it's different now.

SPEAKER_01:

It totally is. I saw a post actually on Instagram the other day, and it was from a um like an integrative doctor. Um, and he was just comparing the Halloween, like, you know, us saying, Well, we had lollies at Halloween, and or candy, you call it, right? Um, and we're okay. And he's like, Well, no, actually, there's like five ingredients in the candy you had when you were a kid, and now there's 25 or 30 ingredients in the candy that's made now, and that has an impact on our health. So, yes, we do.

SPEAKER_00:

And we didn't have 20 pounds of it.

SPEAKER_01:

Yep.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, everybody wasn't giving out whole bars of candy bars, or you know, I remember, you know, you came home with a stash and you did have way too much candy for a while, but I went out with my nephews, and after they my sister-in-law went through all the candy that they wanted and then gave us a bag of candy, it's almost 20 pounds.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh my goodness. That's a lot.

SPEAKER_00:

I have a picture of her eight-table dining room table covered in candy.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh my.

SPEAKER_00:

And so I'm like, this is you're giving me diabetes in a bag.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01:

And and not only that, so there's like an excess of all of the things in life, but there aren't food quality has diminished as well. You have written a cookbook, and do you include some of this stuff, like the you know, your sort of insights into health and wellness?

SPEAKER_00:

And I tried because I come to so my growing up with food, I grew up in McDonald's.

SPEAKER_02:

Right.

SPEAKER_00:

My mother was smart enough that she was going back into the workforce and she knew she couldn't do everything. So she gave up laundry and she gave up cooking. Cooking. Good for her, actually, really smart. She didn't get overwhelmed. Um, but I ended up getting sick. I ended up getting psoriasis after my father died.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

And it was my autoimmune problem was definitely triggered. I was 24 by stress and grief. But I had been eating so poorly up to that point that I went to doctors who were telling me at the time they didn't even know it was autoimmune. Yeah. And they would just be like, You're lucky it doesn't cover more of your body, and use this cream occasionally when you can't stand it anymore. And I didn't like that answer. So, again, how do you get rid of psoriasis naturally?

SPEAKER_01:

Lifestyle.

SPEAKER_00:

Right? It's lifestyle. And I went to a dietitian and we did this elimination diet, which eliminated everything I was eating and putting in real old foods.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

Um, but I couldn't have nuts, I couldn't have eggs, I couldn't have wheat, I couldn't have sugar. So I was making salmon or I was making chicken, I was eating brown rice, and I was having broccoli. Like I was having just that. But I in three weeks all my psoriasis was gone.

SPEAKER_01:

Amazing.

SPEAKER_00:

And so I I learned through that lesson that food is medicine. But I also think there's a component that um our emotions are also affecting our body. And I think it was Ellen Langer who said the worst thing was Descartes telling us in science that the mind and the body are not connected, that they were separate entities. When your cis your body is a hormone system, an immune system, a nervous system, it's it's all connected. And you wouldn't put water in your gas tank and expect it to drive down the street for the next 300 miles. But we do that to our bodies.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_00:

So because I I grew up on takeout and all of that, of course, it's delicious and wonderful, it's convenient, but at some point something may bring you to this side of the table where, you know, you're gonna have to learn to feed yourself. But I I sort of, so the name of the book is my love language is food. Yep. Because when I met my husband, I didn't cook, you know, I ate out all the time. And it's not like he made me cook in any way, but he tried to get me to eat better food. Yeah. So he's like, let's not go to McDonald's, let's go get fish at this restaurant. Like, let's not go to pizza. You know, he had a very healthy relationship with food. And then I learned to start cooking when we bought our house, and I fell in love with it. And I found it to be very physically satisfying, like a tangible thing.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

And then I felt I could be really selfish with it and cook things the exact way I wanted. And then that fueled me wanting to do it because I was satisfying myself multiple times a day in adulthood when life can be not satisfying.

SPEAKER_02:

Right.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. When you're going through disruptive change at work and you're every day you're wondering if you're getting laid off, if you can come home and make yourself a nice meal, you're like, well, at least this is okay. Like, at least I have this.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So I use food a lot that way. So I have um philosoph, like a love letter to a bunch of different things. And I have one about vegetables, you know, I have one about cooking for yourself and the independence of that. I have one about loving restaurants and the place for restaurants in your life. So I talk about these love letters, but I do try to insert my very bossy opinion about the fact that I know we don't all want to cook. I know people hate food shopping. I'm a food shopping, I hate food shopping as well. Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Um, but there you can't outsource your health and you can't outsource your happiness. Both of those things are inside jobs.

SPEAKER_01:

I love flooding. You are base, well, basically, uh, amongst other things, really kind of flipping the perspective on it because I I often feel like cooking is a bit of a chore. But of course, you saw it as a self-care practice, really. And flipping our um ideas and thoughts around any kind of behavior is gonna have um well, it's that whole idea of being grateful for what we have, having gratitude for it rather than hating on it. But when you're talking about how our mind and body are connected as well, that process of having more gratitude. I'm just kind of working through this because I think this is a really yeah powerful point that you've kind of shared. Um, is going to give off a different cascade of chemical reactions in our body, which are gonna help us receive the food in a different way. I've read a book um many years ago called um something wisdom, nutritional wisdom, maybe, and he talks about that emotional um response and how we feel about the food that we're eating, how it can actually um, you know, if we feel bad because we're eating something naughty, how that can create a whole chemical reaction and that our body will respond to it, perhaps by you know putting on weight. Whereas if we are grateful and we um enjoy it um and we feel that we deserve it and how fortunate we are, that that can check that can actually have a quite a different response into how our body receives it. So I love that. Um yeah, I'm gonna remind myself of that regularly.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, when you when you think of the chore piece, so I totally get because there are days that I it is another chore. And if I do it begrudgingly, anyways, it's never as good.

SPEAKER_02:

Right.

SPEAKER_00:

So if those are the days that I just choose order the pizza, get the Chinese food, go out to a nice restaurant, and you know, make it a date night with your spouse, like go visit a friend, grab something out, perfect. But I can't live in that outdoor space anymore. Yeah, I can't live in restaurants anymore. Partially because in my youth, we we have a language for this now that I didn't have when I was younger. But I was what supersized me the movie. If you've ever seen that movie in America, I think it was maybe it was actually a British movie. Um, but the guy eats McDonald's every day and he has fatty liver in like six weeks. Well, I was 18, 19, 20. If you gave me a round of antibiotics, I would automatically have a yeast infection.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

And they would say that's not possible. There's no correlation between the two.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, right.

SPEAKER_00:

Because that was 30 something years ago. Now they know about your gut biome. Yeah. Now they know antibiotics. But when I was like the canary in the coal mine, I was so unhealthy as a child that this was all happening on the inside, but because I had no markers of it on the outside, no one would never ever know what's going on. I was skinny because I starved myself. I would only, if I was having McDonald's, I would have one thing to eat a day, which was McDonald's, and I would starve myself the rest of the time.

SPEAKER_02:

Wow.

SPEAKER_00:

Because you can't eat three meals of a McDonald's or a McDonald's or in this and be thin. So all the adults in my world were keeping to 1200 calories. So I kept to 1200 calories, but I was I wasn't 1200 good calories, I was 1200 of the worst calories you could possibly eat.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So when I when I say I came to food as a as a in it, it wasn't modeled for me. Like I said, my mother, and I don't blame her for this. It was one of the joys that she didn't make me come home and have canned asparagus because in the 70s. We did not have a culinary revolution. We were eating canned asparagus and canned mushrooms and steak that was like shoe leather. We were not in a culinary revolution. So I was thrilled that my mother didn't make me come home after school and eat. But it didn't do it set me up for a lifetime of unhealthiness because now I can eat out a restaurant three times in a week without having some kind of ill effect from it.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, right. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Because my body, it's an accumulation load that at 53. And that's why I say the thing about the drinking. I've been drinking for 30 years. Yeah. Like that's a lot of accumulation and load on your liver, on your gut biome, on your brain, all of these things. And is it boring to cook at home? People would argue that it's boring. But if you look at the food in my cookbook, it's anything but boring. A lot of the times I get inspiration from restaurants. Like I would never make a shrimp curry, just think of making it, but it's my favorite Thai dish. So, oh, what am I in the mood for? If I was going out, I'd go out for Thai, but well, let me make Thai at the house. Now, is it as good as someone who makes Thai food nuts in a Thai restaurant? Probably not, but it's pretty good. It's made with real ingredients. It has nothing but vegetables. You know, it's as healthy as it could be. And then I know that I feel better. I have the satisfaction of making something from start to finish and then also enjoying it, having that um satisfaction of actually that tangible. I get to enjoy this too.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Um, what types of uh so you've mentioned your curry. Is it uh uh, you know, most cookbooks have your starters, your main course, desserts. Have you have you got all of that in your book?

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. So I have um breakfasts and I have a philosophy breakfast for dinner. When you don't have the mental fortitude to do something and you just don't take those, make Breakfast, it's always comforting. Most of the time, we don't have the space to be having great breakfast before work, anyways. So if you can have ex Benedict on a Wednesday, you know, so I have breakfasts, I have a lot of to-go items, easy to bring on the road with you. I have soups, salads, vegetables, you know, starters, appetizers, party food. I have party wings that you can make from scratch. Yeah. Um, a lot of dips, that kind of things for parties. And then I have um regular dinner lunches, and then I have desserts because I do think we should not live without cookies.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I do think we should not live without ice cream.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

But have really good cookies.

SPEAKER_01:

Know where your ingredients have come from.

SPEAKER_00:

Good ice cream.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Make it yourself. Make that part of it. Because I remember when I was young, my grandmother um would take us down into her basement and we would make cookies, chocolate chip cookies from the back of the tin. Yes. I mean the back of the package.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And those were always the best cookies, and I think it's because I meant I made them.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Yeah. How I'm conscious that we're kind of coming, getting close nearing a close for our conversation. I would love to hear just a little bit more about the creative process that you've been through. You've talked about creativity and how this is kind of um, well, it's it feels kind of new for you. How has that been? Like how did that all come about? This uh the the creation of your cookbook, and how is creativity showing up in your life in other areas?

SPEAKER_00:

So I think I've always been a really creative person, but I was always told as a child that artists don't make money, photographers don't make money. So I was it was always squelched. And um in my real estate business, I helped people flip apartments or I helped people flip houses. So there was a little bit of creativity of picking paint colors. And so I tried to infuse creativity in that process, but nowhere near where I really reside inside my creativity that's inside. So cooking was a way I was able to express my creativity up until this point, making beautiful dishes, making great desserts. You know, I was a baker for a long time because that was building something, that was making something. So I've always taken my creativity when I can where I can. I paint sometimes, even though I'm not very good at it. I draw sometimes, even though I'm not very good at it. Um, but this has been interesting because as I started to indulge that the when you're making something from scratch, the possibilities are endless.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

That it's a series of decisions to get you where you are. But I will say that um the more I practice creativity about something, the more I want to continue to practice it. Yeah, so I love coming up with different radio show ideas, um, things around the radio, conversations of people to talk to, the conversations to have. Um, for the book, making a cookbook is like making a manual. So I made the book very creatively and then thought this isn't the manual everyone thinks it is, and let me bring it back down to what it actually is.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So that was interesting as a process. Um there's uh a little saying that I love, and it's like you know, you you set out to climb a mountain, and the point of the mountain is not to climb the mountain, it's who you become on the other side of the mountain. And I think that's really what the creative every creative endeavor is. It is it is the climbing the mountain because you have something to climb, but it's who you become in climbing the mountain. And I think the the book is as much my my lifelong love of cooking, but it's also my lifelong love of books.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And being spoken to on the other end of that. You know, I'm trying to plant seeds into your subconscious that maybe if you are given this cookbook because you won't buy your own, because cooking is another chore, but someone gifts it to you as a hostess gift, that you go through it and the pictures feel pretty enough, and the food sounds interesting enough, because I know if you make it once, it'll stick around in your repertoire because it's the it's the dishes that people always ask me for the recipes of.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Amazing. I love that you've um kind of really put perspective on the creativity process as well. Like it doesn't like part of what you do can be drawing, painting, but it's about yeah, a process that helps with your own personal growth. Whatever it's creating something, it's making something out of nothing, isn't it? And the journey that that um you go on, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And one thing I must say about the creative process that I have plastered in in every notebook that I use or every sketchbook that I use is art is never finished, it's only abandoned. Ah because I think that is a good one.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Um, and that when you're when you're putting something of yourself into something, you cannot hold that that's what the other person is going to receive.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Because how many books did I take something from that that wasn't necessarily the author's intention, but based on my perception and my experiences, that's what's touched me. So I'm hoping that people find the pictures pretty because I know I eat with my eyes first.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And I know that when I'm not in the mood to cook and I need inspiration, seeing pretty pictures of things that make me go, mm-hmm that's like, oh, I could go for that. So I hope the pictures are pretty. I hope that the recipes are, and this is the part that when you self-publish, you don't have a team of 12 people telling you that things are good or things are bad, or remove this or add that. So it's me.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I hope that there's not blind spots in that. But I've told myself in releasing it that if there are blind spots, I can always make a second edition. If exactly 400 comments are that they really don't understand a recipe or that it's not I can re I can revise.

SPEAKER_01:

But the process that you've been through has been part of your journey, and that's valuable, precious part of the story.

SPEAKER_00:

And I'm hoping I can take that that judgment back. That it's what it is at this point. It's going to be done and it's going to go out into the world and that's that. But I have found creative ways to get it out in the world. I'm collaborating with a couple of artists to um so many people told me that they wanted to buy the book for a family member or a friend for Christmas. And I thought, well, they will they'd be disappointed just getting a little cookbook for Christmas. So I partnered with a couple of people to give kitchen type gifts with the book. Yeah, that's like a charcuterie, you know, a charcuterie board or um a cutting board or a pretty platter, and I'm working with a glass artist. Yeah. And we're working working with a woodworker.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, cool. Lovely.

SPEAKER_00:

So I'm finding other ways to be creative now that that part. Now it's the business of selling a book.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And marketing a book.

SPEAKER_01:

Finding creative ways to do that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. That feels genuine, and then I'm excited to do it and it doesn't feel creepy.

SPEAKER_01:

I love, yes. We don't want creepy. Well, we're gonna buy my book, please.

unknown:

Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

We're gonna share um all of your details. We're gonna put uh your profile in the guest directory so that people can find you easily, and that will be linked to the the podcast episodes so that people can find your book and um more about you. Lisa, thank you so much for joining me. It's been a really great conversation. Um, yeah, very inspiring. Love it. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you, thank you so much. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_01:

Hey there, Rebel. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Midlife Rebel Podcast. If you'd like to support the show, you can buy me a coffee by going to buy me a coffee forward slash Midlife Rebel Podcast. Thanks for listening.