The Midlife Rebel Podcast
Welcome to Midlife Rebel , the podcast for women in their 40s and 50s who are done playing by the old rules.
Here, we redefine what it means to thrive in midlife—where health, purpose, and freedom meet.
Each week, we explore the intersection of body, mind, and spirit through honest conversations about holistic health, emotional healing, and awakening to your next chapter. With expert guests, soulful stories, and practical wisdom, you’ll find the tools and inspiration to live with more vitality, authenticity, and joy.
Whether you’re reinventing yourself, reclaiming your wellbeing, or simply craving deeper meaning, Midlife Rebel invites you to embrace your evolution and design life on your own terms.
Contact Nadine: https://midliferebel.beam.ly/contact
The Midlife Rebel Podcast
It’s Game On: Choosing Yourself in Midlife - Sunaina Mehta
Midlife is often framed as a slow fade. This conversation takes a different view.
I’m joined by Sunaina Mehta, strategist-turned-founder, who spent two decades in global brand leadership before stepping away to redesign her own life. What followed wasn’t neat or linear — two divorces, children leaving home, selling a house, and returning to study for a master’s in strategic design. Out of all of that came a clear focus: helping ambitious women shape their next chapter with intention, confidence, and momentum.
We talk about what Sunaina calls graceful rebellion — choosing yourself without burning everything down. She shares how strategic design principles translate into personal reinvention: starting with curiosity, testing small moves, paying attention to energy, and adjusting as you go. Midlife isn’t one problem to solve. It’s a web of interconnected shifts — work that no longer fits, relationships in flux, and the reality that pulling one thread moves the whole system.
The conversation also moves into the body. Through method acting, sensory work, and voice training, Sunaina began to notice how years of “just carrying on” had muted intuition and dampened softer forms of power. Releasing stored tension wasn’t indulgence — it became a practical way to make clearer decisions. We talk courage as boundary-setting, financial independence as fuel for choice, and how to tell the difference between impostor thoughts and the quiet knowing that a room simply isn’t right for you anymore.
Sunaina shares examples from her work with clients — from academics to investors — showing how creative confidence leads to tangible outcomes: clearer direction, stronger presence, and platforms that support women to step into leadership and financial agency on their own terms.
If midlife feels full of questions — Why am I here? What’s next? — this episode offers a grounded way forward. Not by forcing answers, but by designing forward with curiosity and care.
Subscribe, share it with a friend who’s ready to pivot, and leave a review with the belief you’re choosing for your next 90 days.
Midlife isn’t game over.
It's GAME ON!
You can find Sunaina's profile in our Guest Directory
https://midliferebel.beam.ly/person/sunaina-mehta
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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. If you're in midlife, there's a good chance you can feel something shifting. Your work might not fit anymore, relationships might be changing, and you could be questioning what comes next. My guest today, Sunana Meta, knows this turning point well. After 20 years leading global brand strategy for companies like Nike, Levi's and Coca-Cola, she stepped away from corporate life to rethink what really mattered. At 50, she rebuilt from the inside out. And now, as the founder of Design Your Next, Sonana supports women to create lives that feel aligned, authentic, and alive. Thank you so much for joining me. Boxing Day here, Christmas Day for you. How good are we? Like, talk about being committed to the purpose. Or escaping our families, one or the other. It's an auspicious day. Definitely. It's an auspicious day for sure. Thank you so much for taking the time to be here today. So we've got a lot to talk about. This is a very poignant point of our lives, the midlife. And obviously, this podcast is all about exploring midlife and how it unfolds for each of us. And you've got um quite uh an amazing story. Um, so do you want to start by sort of yeah, kick us off with a little bit about what was happening for you when you when things started to change.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I mean, first of all, Nadine, and I'm I'm pronouncing that correctly, yes. Uh I I usually go by Nadine, but I'm used to Nadine, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Nadine. I'm glad I asked. Well, first of all, thank you so much for inviting me. I really appreciate your consideration. And it is an auspicious day, and it's wonderful to speak with a strong woman at that. So, at on this day. Uh, in terms of transitions, my life has been all sorts of transitions. So we'll hone in here on the one at 50. I'm now a little older than that. And um, about a few years ago, my life completely flipped. And um, while I am no stranger to pivots, this time a lot of things happened at once. I got divorced for a second time. I sent my son to college in a faraway city. I'm in Los Angeles, he's in DC now. I sold my home, my four-bedroom home in the perfect Idyllic suburbs of San Diego, and joined another master's degree program. So pursued my second master's degree, this time with classes in Paris every six weeks. And I just opted moved to Beverly Hills. I have to add to that that I quit my job. I left a corporate career, which is a fantastic career, and I walked away from quite a bit. So a lot of things happened either to me or on account of my decision to pivot and make sure I was never living small. I was living true to my authentic self and moved into the unknown.
SPEAKER_03:You made it sound so simple. You've put it into this like nice, tidy little story. But was it simple? Was it a clean, like you know, step-by-step process? Obviously, you've uh worked in corporate, so that you know, I guess suggests that you are organized and efficient and hardworking, all of those things. But did that happen in your life as well?
SPEAKER_02:Nothing is ever simple. It was very complicated. And actually, the master's degree that I did, it's called Strategic Design for Global Leadership. I did this with Parsons School of Design, where we talk often about wicked problems. And by wicked problems, we mean very complex problems. It's a design terminology where one thing is layered with another, interconnected with a third or a fourth thing. And to take one apart means to dismantle or to look at the entire puzzle together. So it's a web of sorts. So definitely not simple, at times very, very hard, sometimes very traumatic, um, while at other times very uplifting and self-determined. I tend to call this graceful rebellion. That's sort of my own little essence or tagline, which essentially means when you choose yourself, when you're really open to pushing against convention in order to be your most authentic person, that's graceful rebellion because you do have to stand up and rebel. And I guess for women, and I love the name of your podcast and what you're doing for that reason, it speaks to me so much because when we rebel, especially, we do it with a lot of grace because it's about choosing who we are. It's about understanding our authentic selves. And frankly, you don't always know that either until you go through the journey, and it's a forever journey, too. So none of it was simple. It was all quite complicated, but one thing was always very simple that integrity is a line I will never, I will not cross. That's my border, my boundary. Um, independence is incredibly important to me. It's been a these have been streaks in my life forever, always by my side, and which really put me in a place where I believe in myself a lot. I tend to waver on that and will not uh hide that truth. But ultimately I fall back on what I call self-belief, which is my safety net. And I just believe that the uncertain and the unknown can be very exciting when you're optimistic about who you are and what you're going to discover about yourself.
SPEAKER_03:Wow. Okay. One thing that jumped out, well, lots of things jumped out for me then, but one thing that I'd love to uh for you to share a little bit more on is this idea of independence. Because I feel like in well, depending on where you are in the midlife journey and if you're a parent, for example, or if you have a career, um independence, like having other people that are depending on you family, children, work, career. Um how does independence for you fit into that? Or how do you fit into that?
SPEAKER_02:That's a wonderful question because the reality is again, in wicked problems, there are many dependencies and some wonderful, and not only wonderful because you love them, but because you are responsible for for their care and to nurture them as well. My son is 20. Um, and he has seen me choose myself on multiple occasions, two divorces, he's witness to them. And what I have always believed is that it is actually my responsibility to choose my path. One is because he sees a mother who is growing into somebody who values herself and who see and values him in the process. I have been in situations in my own life where I was less valued as the child. I was just at the receiving end. I think a lot of us end up in that situation as well where we just go with the flow of what our parents tell us. In this case, he went with my flow, but I valued him at a different level as well. I made sure that at the end of the day, he always felt love through the process. So for me, um, independence is a responsibility to myself and to other people. Because when you're independent, when you understand and you can show love at the same time as standing with by your values, they grow strongly as well. So that for my son, I think actually has made him a stronger person and a more empathetic human being. And he's proud of his mom. I mean, today he gave me a gift for Christmas, which was a spa day from his own money that he has earned and he has thought of me. And I was just so proud of him to see that he is a generous person and he sees and understands me in spirit as well. That's lovely. That's great. I I do want to say this one thing though, Nadine, is is financially that's a huge, huge part of this as well. You know, we can go into that. But to be independent, you have to be financially sound. And I will never, never underestimate the importance of that.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. What was I gonna say? Um the response from other people, I think this is one of the biggest challenges that we could face in our 50s or 50s, midlife. As we do feel like we want to start making changes, as we do feel like we're growing out of the person that we were, as we do stop wanting to do the things that everyone else expects of us, we want to rebel. But there's a part of us that could be quite worried about how others are gonna respond. How did that unfold for you? And what would your advice be?
SPEAKER_02:I'm uh a number of moments are flashing through my mind right now, some of them earlier, some of them from now. But I I always say is that when we step away, we think we're going to get isolated. We think that we're going to be alone. And I'll say, especially during this particular midlife turn of mine, I have met so many incredible women who have stepped forward because of my voice, or because they have resonated with the choices I have made. So, what I like to say is that you may think you're choosing you're going to be isolated, but you are less alone when you move forward. Um, yes, people react. I have had a situation where I've lived twice in in India and New Delhi, and the second time around, I've um I've moved a lot between the two nations, United States and um India. And my mother and my family actually, when I wanted to get divorced for the first time, um they basically told me to leave the home, that we're we're done with you, you're out of the family. I mean, these are the things, the skids we hit, right? When when these situations happen, and those are incredibly traumatic. Um but they came around because I said, This is my choice, my decision, and I I need to abide by that. They came around. Um even my first mother-in-law and father-in-law, they love me. They have come around. So we may go against the grain, but I find that the people who truly, genuinely respect and admire and and love you for what you did and who you are will come back.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, wow. And I guess it's um, excuse me, it's living proof that when you do step out of those situations and you do you are um brave enough to do it, that you know, life goes on. You do get through it.
SPEAKER_02:You do, you do, and you're you're you're stronger for it in a good way. I don't just mean like because I was more of a fighter. I mean you're just more of a whole person because of it.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, you're being more true to who you really are.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Just following that thread with marriage, relationship, um, you've experienced two divorces. Do you feel it's because you have bec you were not being who you truly were when you were in those relationships, or did you simply outgrow them?
SPEAKER_02:The first one was really about what you said. It it was because I wasn't able to be who I was fully. I was in my 20s when I got married the first time. Good family, good people. Um, and and he was he's he's a good man also. Um we got married in the United States and after several years moved home. For him, it was home. For me, it's my second home was New Delhi. And I couldn't fit in culturally. Although I had spent 12 years as a child in New Delhi as well, I couldn't fit culturally with the family needs or expectations. It just, it just was a different, different vibe. And in the process, I realized that while my first ex loved me, I'm not sure he respected my values as a fully independent, career-minded, especially then, um, woman who needed to be independent and autonomous. It's it's very, very important for me to be independent and autonomous, not depending. I've been through two marriages, but I am a hundred percent my own financial person. 100%. Um so for me, it was he needed me to fit the mold, and I couldn't do that. And I tried. I even moved to India trying to fit that mold. It didn't work for me. And when I realized that, I had to step away. Did was that difficult? Absolutely. Like I said, my family did not agree because, like I said, they were good, well-to-do even people. Um, but on top of that, I was a single mom in New Delhi, which is not a good place to be alone. Uh, but I did it because it was important to me.
SPEAKER_03:Um, were you in your career and um you had a child at that time as well? Or did your career yes, okay. So your career spanned quite some time.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, yes. I've been working for over twenty I was working for over 20 years. Um, I was working until 20 through 2023, which is when I just sort of let everything change. Some of it blew up and some of it was my shift. But yes, uh been 14 plus years in advertising, um, three times as head of department at ad agencies, both in India and in the United States. And then um I spent seven years on the customer insights side at HP here in San Diego, so close by, I'm in LA now, um, working within market research, insights, innovation, and global marketing.
SPEAKER_03:Okay. Um, what was I gonna say? So when you so you had this blow up 2023, so it's pretty fresh still. Was it something that was brewing in you for some time, or was it an explosion of like, that's it, I'm done, I'm out of here. Did it happen quite suddenly? Or were you kind of planning and it was it it it was sudden?
SPEAKER_02:Was it it was sudden? Things tend to happen that way for me. I will follow a condense conventional path, and then all of a sudden, something, and maybe to some extent, it's brewing because you inside feel that there's change happening and you don't know how to name it. In fact, you might repress it or suppress it. I think both in my case. Um, but it starts to bubble and you start to wonder. It's actually through the wondering that's that I discovered certain things that blew up my world. I came upon them with the bubbling um of of yeah, something's not fitting, something's not right. So I would I will say that the shock of what I found blew up my world. And um, then I just let it. I let it go. I I went with it. I took the force of those that explosion and wrote it versus resisted.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, wow. It's almost like your first marriage and the change that you went through with that, and the decisions that you made, and the difficulties you went through with making those decisions were like a warm-up for another big change.
SPEAKER_00:Someone once told me somebody I dated twice. He told me you've graduated from marriage like you did your undergraduate. You did your graduate. I know I'm done. I'm not doing any PhDs.
SPEAKER_03:But those things do happen in our lives, don't they? Where we have these small these experiences which seem big at the time, but then something bigger comes along, and you realize that all of those life lessons that you you learned in the earlier days, although at the time you're like, why me? They can actually, if we choose to learn from them, if we choose to up level, they can actually be very valuable teachers, or they can just repeat, or they can just repeat. Yeah. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02:In fact, the second time around, I I was talking to my mother who was in India. I remember during the crisis in the divorce and second divorce, and I said, you know, people are so, I mean, I still had my four-bedroom home, and you know, I still was working at the time um for HP. And I said, other people have it so much worse, so much worse. And her response to me, which was very refreshing and helpful, was your feelings are valid. You have a right to feel the trauma you're feeling. You have the right. Don't think you don't, right? Our feelings are if they're they're still valid. And to your point, I love this one saying I heard I heard um once, which is we prepare our whole lives for the opportunity that's yet to present itself. And I guess that goes in the negatives as well, the challenges, right? They're preparing us for what's gonna come next when we're ready for it. Um, yes, I totally agree with you.
SPEAKER_03:So let's talk about your reinvention. Um, so you've gone. Are you finished at university now? Did you yes? And what was it? Can you explain a little bit more about what that entails and how you came upon choosing it?
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely, because it's the craziest, hardest to understand title. Uh, we always laugh about this in the program. It's because it's a a master of science for strategic design in strategic design for global leadership. That's the name of the program.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:So essentially, so essentially, um, strategic design really is we you you know design thinking. Have you not really no design thinking? No. Design design thinking it has been a Of a trend, it's sort of becoming an old um conversation now, but at the same time, very important and I mean very relevant still. So design thinking is essentially the process of problem solving by first understanding human beings or people and their needs and the problems that they're facing and going at a very iterative, experimental approach to solving it. So if you have something that's incredibly complex, if you're an engineer, you're gonna step back and go, well, we gotta, you know, figure out how to code something with the problem, it is not human-based always, although engineers will argue I'm an architect as well from once upon time of a little bit of subject matter understanding. Um, but but you it's how you approach a problem when you go with deep empathy and then work experimentally and iteratively to solve for that problem that you're identifying human first. Um, that's basically design thinking. So it's used a lot in product development. It's it's core to product development now. Um, big companies, uh famous companies like IDEO, if you've heard of them, that's their core um philosophy and direction. So strategic design is actually stepping back and saying, okay, so there are a lot of systemic problems in the world. So as a business leader, as an organizational leader, as any leader out there or any person who wants to solve something, solve a problem, let's step back and look at it as a designer. How would a designer unpack this problem and solution it? And the designer will always start with the human side, this human center, right? To do that. And then they will work and co-create with those people to solve the problem. So that the solution really truly is not an imposed one. It is one that is a great fit with the need that they have. So that's what this is a strategic design for global leadership, which essentially means it was a global cohort. Um, people from around the world, which was of course lovely. Um, but it also means bringing in sustainability and the concepts and the bigger phenomena that are affecting the world today, and how do we look at those and solve for problems?
SPEAKER_03:Okay. And what drew you to this particular course? Was it did it feel out of the ordinary for you? Was it something you'd had your eye on for a while?
SPEAKER_02:Like I always look for the thing that nobody else is doing.
unknown:I tend to do that.
SPEAKER_02:I was an I as I'd mentioned, my bachelor's undergraduate degrees in architecture. So I began in the design space and working uh within both within strategy at both the advertising side, I was in planning, account planning, which is strategy, and in the company side, I was uh working with the innovation teams and product dev teams. I've been close to the importance of to been close to design and creativity always, right? Um, so this was um this is a natural um kind of thing for me to therefore do, but it's also completely out of the box. When I when you live in the corporate world for as long as I have, you just want to explode it. Again, you want things to just you want the outside in. You become so siloed and so specific to the way everybody thinks within this large corporate culture that you forget how to be different. So I was in this program with students who were in their 20s, in their 30s, in their 40s. I was the oldest person in the class, right? And we were all a flat team. There were no hierarchies, there was no command control. It was also very self-led and facilitating facilitated self-leadership throughout the program. We had to work together. You learn collaboration at a different scale, right? Collaboration, co-creation, um, and understanding. Um, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So it yeah, it's interesting that you've um talked about this sort of new style of leadership and that and the the old corporate structure that sort of needs to change. And I've spoken to to several other guests in leadership roles who who've sort of indicated the same sort of thing that we need to that it needs to be more person-centered. Um have you are you still now in the corporate world using those new skills?
SPEAKER_02:No. So I found it after going around and wondering what I should do, should I get another job? Should I get into this market? Should I? I'm also a sake song, um, so I'm very into the culture of Japanese sake. So it's a sort of another creative side that I play with. Um but after a few interviews and conversations, I was having them over the past year, year and a half, in the space I have lived, which is in advertising and in and brand marketing, I just came around to the conclusion that I don't fit anymore in that world. I just don't. And I mean, take the age, the midlife piece out of it, just mindset-wise, it's not a fit. And you learn, I mean, there are some hard truths. There are time you you can't change the culture if you're one person. It has to come from a larger sort of push. And the way we're we're set up as corporations today, it's hard to make that change. It it genuinely is very hard because power is defined differently in the corporate world than it is in, let's say, an entrepreneur's world or a creative world. Um, and if you don't play that power game, which is largely defined by patriarchal systems, right? Um I don't know if that's where I would put my energy. So I went and I established design your next. That's that's my my version of what I need to do. And I believe very strongly in making that happen.
SPEAKER_03:Great. Well, let's hear about it. What is design design? What is design your next?
SPEAKER_02:Design your next, essentially, it's that. Um, so it is a program, uh a strategic program, where I enable women in transition, I call them ambitious women in transition, to reclaim or really define, articulate their purpose, and then anchor and activate that purpose in a clear project and a plan to take forward. And at the spine of this, I use strategic design, I use that process. And um, to plug into that, I plug in voice work. Uh, so method acting is one piece or using some of those techniques, how we articulate ourselves through brand storytelling. And then really 90-day, let's put it to paper and how do we activate? So it's an eight-week program end-to-end, starting with defining where you've been and therefore who you are becoming, to what your voice really is, to your aspiration, your project, your 90-day plan, and how you're going to execute that. Um, it's it's young. I am excited. I've just finished my first cohort and I'm looking for the second one, but this is my life's work. I know that in my bones for the first time. I know in my bones this is it.
SPEAKER_03:So, are the women that you're um supporting through this process, are they women like you who are kind of at a point in their careers, like they're career women, um, who are just not feeling satisfied anymore?
SPEAKER_02:I've had a mix of people, uh, two PhDs who are professors uh at universities and deans or heads of department. One, um, a woman in her late 50s, early 60s came to me saying, uh, my legacy, I need to build my legacy. So for her, it was a leg, it that's what it was. It's like, but I have no time to figure it out, to get it down, help me give it shape. Um, another, while it wasn't corporate, she walked out of her very senior department job and as a professor and said, it's time to change the system. How am I going to make that systemic change happen? So that was her focus. Then there are, of course, people from the corporate environment as well, and another person who had stepped out of venture capital for a long time, but was one of the strongest, most empowering presences or people I have ever met. So they're the the the point of union here is the need to give shape and activation to something to channel who you are and what you're about. And um finding the what I would say is the creative confidence to do that because we have to reconnect with our intuition, as you would know, right? Aligning our intellect and our intuition that it shut down for me completely. I had no alignment between my intellect and my intuition three years ago, two and a half, three, four years. Not at all. Um, my body, the feeling of the pain I've been carrying for so long. Keep calm and carry on is not the best advice. There's so much in your body you carry.
SPEAKER_03:Can you talk a little bit more about that and how you came to realize that that was um an important missing piece for you?
SPEAKER_02:Um it's recent, actually, it was this year. Um, a couple things. One is, of course, the method acting. So, my dearest friend, who was also a guide in my program, she's she's a method actor, she's a Hollywood actress and um a teacher at the Strasbourg Institute uh here in LA. And she got me into the method acting um sensory practice, uh it's a sensory relaxation. And so, unlike meditation, you are focused, but it is sensorial. So you are imagining different feelings and tastes and scents and using your five senses as um and in your and living in your body, you're kind of embodying that versus being still in meditation. So that was one practice which I love. She's like, Sonana, you have never slouched. I might not even be doing it right now. Like, she's you have never slouched. Do you know that you don't slouch? I'm like, I don't know how to do this, you know. I don't know how that was a learning for me that my friends, people who've been my lives and seen me through so much, are like, you don't, you don't, it's not in your body.
SPEAKER_05:Wow.
SPEAKER_02:So it this was this was learning, this is important. And then the second, um, was I did the South Asian version of the vagina monologues in May. Okay. And um, yeah, so the vagina monologues, you know, as we know, are are the stories that are written by oh, I'm forgetting her name right now, the wonderful I'm not sure actually writer Eva. Um, so essentially they are you know coming from women and and um this in particular, I'll speak to. It was it's called Yoni kibat. Yoni means womb. Bat means conversation, you know, and it was really um my own story. We told our own stories on stage. And um, so I went through the process of understanding mine. The trauma, like I said, keep calm and carry on means suppress, repress, and carry on, right? Here was the first time I was giving some some uh processing it in real life. Um, one day in my car, I allowed myself to scream at the top of my lungs, just scream, because I had never done it before. I've never, I've never done it. This was like two months ago. Like, well, this is safe, it's quiet in here, music's loud, I'm just gonna do this, right? So um, and and that I learned from yet another practice I did, which was um Patty Roddenberg's um The Second Circle.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:Her and um she is a voice and acting coach in the UK, very, very well known and established. And she did does these workshops about second circle energy, which is the intimate energy between two people and how to utilize that to build your own presence and and your own voice. Um, and that's when I started to realize that I'm not letting this out in the right way. I listen to Viola Davis sometimes.
SPEAKER_04:Oh my goodness, I haven't heard of any of these noises, these names. I'm gonna have to check them all out.
SPEAKER_02:Beautiful. I will send you some of these links. Um, all of this really made me realize I have had a very, very sore back for a year and a half. And I haven't understood what it is, haven't been able to understand. And um, someone sent me to an acupuncturist. She said, during Yoniki Bot, she said, just go, just go. They were so wonderful. Just go. So I went and she looked at my tongue and she said, Your yin is depleted. Uh I'm like, what do you mean? I'm single, I got no strings attached to you. Here, what's up with my yin? Like, my son is in college, I'm like living in Beverly Hills. Like, what are you talking about? And she's like, And she says, No, it is, and that's when I realized, Nadine, was that it is because um we give so much in this system to be a part of it, yeah, that we let go of who we are as women and The Heroine's Journey, another great book I just read, um, is the answer to Joseph Campbell's The Hero's Journey, and there's some story behind that. But there is a circle that we go through, right? A cycle, and there's a dark part of us that we don't allow to let out. We don't allow it because it's not appropriate and it doesn't work within these systems. And realizing all of that, and realizing my back was actually my body giving me some of these hints and telling me. I mean, I'm going on and on. This is this is this is what all this year, all this year.
SPEAKER_03:That's fascinating. All of it's fascinating, isn't it? Um, I love that. Um, the the yin and the yang, uh well, the lack of yin. Yeah, I it's it's uh hard to find that balance of uh the feminine energy. And yeah, there is a suppression of it and uh almost um to some degree a sense of um not being in control if you express your feminine energy, including screaming in the car. You know, how erratic is that? Or slouching, how dare you? How could you? Yeah, really interesting, and you've been carrying that your entire life. So do you feel like this is the tip of the iceberg? This stuff that you've learned in the last few months is really just the beginning of something quite different.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, absolutely. I mean, and while I may wish to go deeper into the side of the spiritual embodiment, for me, I think the learning from being an executive for so long in the corporate world is I want to see more and more women open up their creative energy to be successfully, to be on stand on their own two feet, to be independent. Um, and for me, it is getting them to that execution that matters to me. I want to help them because look, I've been doing this, I've pivoted multiple times in my life, and look at what all I just discovered in this past six to eight months, right in this year, which is my year of fly, by the way. I call I give every every year a name. So this is year of fly, and you know, we're getting lifted off here and we're learning. I'm learning. Um so so so, yeah, um, so much more more to discover, but so much more to give and develop for for more people.
SPEAKER_03:And there's I guess there's a there's a a fine line between what you're experiencing learning for yourself and your own evolution and keeping that grounded um work for your clients. Because if you're learning stuff, but well, you could get a little bit, I guess it could get a little bit out there too soon.
SPEAKER_02:So here's here, yeah, yeah. And this is a cohort program, right? So we all work together. Everybody works together. That's a very critical part of this, it's both cohort and one-on-one. I do both things that both are needed, but um the women in my in my recent cohort are the reason why I have also learned so much more. Uh, because they are high-achieving women. They tend to be high achieving women. Um, and I cannot pull out Carol Dweck or Brene Brown, all of whom I respect so much. I respect all of them very much, and say, let's do this exercise, right? That that's not going to satisfy these women. These women need to be challenged too. So I have to run a little bit faster to bring them prompts and areas of self-reflection and and opportunities for self-discovery in things that they are are new, that are new and challenging to them as they apply them to themselves. So um actually they're part of the reason why I am learning more and more. It's it's this it's again, it's it we feed each other. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Do you feel like they've they those women in your cohort ha have been a mirror for some of the experiences that you've had? And can you see your evolution because of uh because you're seeing in parts of you in them? Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, no, it does. I have to think about that because I it's almost as if what always surprises and delights me is that everyone's a little different, which is why come back keep coming back to everybody is unique. There's nobody like you in this world. It's how you where you were born, your context, your learning, your experiences, you're the absolute we're all together. The mirror is that we all share the same, I'd say, universal journey. We are all women, we all have those larger, those, those larger um uh threads that that bind all of us, but at the same time, they were all quite beautifully different. Um, I'd say the one the one thing that I was opened up to, which I hadn't really spent time with before, was the IFS process. Um, so she's not a mirror per se, but a woman actually helped me hold my own mirror up to me. So IFS internal family systems. Ah, okay, yep. Yeah. I haven't done that. And um yeah, I'll I'll she've gifted me the book. Um Richard Schwartz, No Bad Parts. And I just spent time with that. And it's almost like she just wow, it was fantastic. Um, whether or not you buy into it, the analysis on yourself is just I loved it. It was great. So not a mirror per se, but uh yeah, it it helped.
SPEAKER_03:Can you talk about courage?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. What can we say about courage? That we need a hell of a lot of it. Oh my goodness. Yeah, because a lot of women ask me that. It's like, because I'm I they they say, How how have you done what you've done? Which is, you know, even back when I was 24, I moved to the United States. I returned, I'm a reverse immigrant. When I was 12, I moved from Dayton to New Delhi.
SPEAKER_04:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:And yeah, Dayton, Ohio, which is a small, small city, small town in Ohio, in the Midwest in America, which is where I was I spent my childhood. Um courage this this is just so much to say about this. Courage for me has always been about knowing my boundaries and when they can't get crossed. There's something from the inside that just gets me to stand up and and and walk away. I think a lot of my courage has come from having to walk away from things that no longer felt aligned with me. Um, and courage is not only is it hard, it's it can be dark because you're gonna do things that you think you were not capable of before. I have I have been in situations where to protect myself, to protect my family, I have had to stand up differently from what I've from from from who I am. I know I'm kind of rambling now because I have so much to say on this topic, but at the same time, I'm not sure how to anchor it. Can you throw me a lifeline here and help me?
SPEAKER_03:I guess okay, let's keep it super simple and and just um how when you're working with other women and they need courage, how do you uh communicate with them or assist them in finding what they need to take that next step to you make the bold move? Is that helpful?
SPEAKER_02:Yes, I I start with who they are. We have to start with who you are. And I I don't just mean who you are today, I mean let's start with I I haven't filled in this blank. I was born to fill in the blank. Because I really believe that before we can aspire to something, before we can set goals and outcomes, we have to start with who we have, who we were born to be. Now I'm not saying it's going to be exactly a one-on-one, but who were you born to be? And how do you answer such a large existential question? Is you start with what brings you energy? What energizes you? What excites you? Where have you smiled? Where have you felt like you were in a flow, even if you weren't just finding happiness and joy? What was that thing that fired you up? And what were your patterns as you played as a child where those showed up? Where do you see them in your mid in your early years, your young through the cycle? Can we draw patterns there? Because that's something you're really, really, really good at. You're really amazing. This one woman in the program, and she's just like, I've been doing this all X, you know, I've been using my voice so much, I've forgotten that the strongest, my strongest suit was listening. I have become a transmitter, not a receiver anymore. What happened? I need to bring it back in. So helping excite people around the things that make them tick, you know, make their clock move, those are the things. And when you see that, then they start to define around it and they start to see, therefore, where they're going. You cannot aspire before you understand your origin and and I and your your energy, right? Um, so that's that's how I think because that's the safety net I'm talking about, the self-belief.
SPEAKER_03:And is that has that been your own experience as well? Like defining that? What am I what was the question? What am I here for?
SPEAKER_02:Who I was born to fill in the blank.
SPEAKER_03:I was born to.
SPEAKER_02:What are you born to?
SPEAKER_03:Has yours changed?
SPEAKER_02:So I go in I, you know, I never realized what I was born to. I used to go off of the negatives. So I once I wrote drove my I drew out my life journey. It was part of our master's degree. We had to do our leadership journey in mine. So obviously, you got like these ups and downs, ups and downs. And I realized that I have always risen, like or been strong and amazing and and proud of the downs.
SPEAKER_04:Oh.
SPEAKER_02:Because you've and it's only yes, and it is only through this process of going back to school, bringing strategic design into my life as a way of thinking and approach, um, that I've realized that I need to be looking at the wins too, right? The positives. We need to celebrate those, celebrate the joy, celebrate the moments of positive truth in our lives that matter. Um, and so I was born to bring people together in fun in experiences where they get to know themselves better. That's always been my jam. I only wrote that down now. Right. In my life's work, every pivot, every one of those leadership tilts I've done or ups and downs in my life, have been around inspiring creative confidence in women, first in myself and and and also through the years in others by modeling it, not by teaching it, instructing it, by modeling it. I want to exemplify creative confidence in my life. And um, so so yeah, so that's it's it's not changed, but I never looked at it right before.
SPEAKER_03:It's interesting how you um you say creative confidence, because creativity is very much a yin energy.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. So you're stepping into that more.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, and and I had shut it down, even though I was in a creative industry for so many years, we we gave it to the gods of the creative teams in advertising, right? I was a strategist, I was I was working the brain, I was the intellect. I have won. My corporate career has been around my intellect, fully around my brain.
SPEAKER_01:And um yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Can you uh talk a little bit to um how are you have you been able to embrace and accept the old you in order to step into the new you? Or has it have you felt like you've needed to push old Sunana away? The old corporate.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, I love old Sunana. I mean, old Sunana did what she like. I I wouldn't be who I was today if it weren't for her. Yeah. For me, it's always like this is evolution constant. I don't even see it as a reinvention ever. I don't start over. I'm just doing that journey of my life. So my financial independence is because of her. Um because of of the way she she survived and held her own and was smart um with with how she took care of her financial independence, right? Um touch wood, as we would say. Um, but you know, that's I I love her for all of that, but she's she's tired. She was tired and she needed she needed that yin back and she needed the creativity back. We are all creative beings. We are all creative beings, and when we are creative, we are more open and curious about the unknown and we're less fearful of it. Um yeah.
SPEAKER_03:We're getting close to the end of our time together. Um, I I feel like I would I feel like I'd love for you to sort of I know you talk we talked about that phrase. I am tell me the phrase again, I am here to. I was born to. I was born to. Can you sort of talk more about purpose and how um that has unfolded and is unfolding for you and how you uh support other women to sort of discover purpose? I think it's kind of a it's a little bit different, isn't it? The purpose thing.
SPEAKER_02:Uh uh yeah. Um I think so. Yeah, okay. Yeah, sure. Whatever you'd like, I can talk.
SPEAKER_03:Go for it. Purpose. Okay. I guess in the bigger scheme of things, let's look. We're talking about leadership, about feminine creativity. I guess I'm thinking of it in that kind of you know, what's happening in the world, how things are shifting, women are wanting to step into their power, purpose, that yeah, that kind of energy I'm I'm kind of thinking.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. Yes. So we'll start with my my purpose, yeah, right, is to inspire and activate creative confidence in women so they can live their lives on their terms. And when I say creative confidence, what I mean is it's the ability for every fruit for you to tap into your intuition and trust the process of life that's in front of you and to move forward on that path, knowing that it's going to work out, believing in yourself and believing that it will work out. There are two there, do you know this world is obviously so full of not just uncertainty, but so much pain, so much difficulty, so little humanity. And we as women, I believe, we are the nurturing, creative, empathetic believers in in in in, you know, we we are the ones who bring that forward. And it's a yin-yang thing, feminine, masculine, but it's all it's all it's all in each of us, men and women is my point. It's not just this is for women, but but the point I guess I'm making is that we all have an inherent ability and talent that we can bring out that will be more caring and and and um problem solving for healing for this world. And we just don't have enough of that energy because we're so tunnel vision focused on linear systems and directions for A plus B is going to be this when it's not. Um, I have seen purpose unfold in Design Your Next in so many wonderful ways. One by having people understand where they're where what they were born to do, how they play, what they enjoy today, what feels meaning to them, meaningful, and what brings them energy in their lives now and what their career looks like, right? You kind of bring all of that together. Um, one woman is now driving a school of thought. She's defined it, and I can't really say what it is only because she has to announce it, not I.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Um she's defining a school of thought and architecture that is really more towards wellness and well-being, especially in a country like India, where it's quite messed up. Um, the environment's quite messed up. Another woman, she says, I care about who I make rich, and her whole job right now is to build an investment platform for for women so that they are investor ready. Um we all have different kinds of purpose, right? Um, but we need to have it. I guess I've worked in advertising for so many years that purpose is just inherent. It's like what Simon Sinek likes to say it's the why, right?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Why why do you do what you want to do? Um I'm going all over the place, to be honest.
SPEAKER_03:I don't feel like you are. I think it's um Okay, it's you're in your you're in your yin flow.
SPEAKER_02:Um, I'll get on my soapbox for a second. It's like when everybody talks about Simon Sinek and everybody says, Well, look at what an amazing thing he said. And I'm just like, what are you talking about? This is the way it's always been. Why is this shocking to people? And maybe that was that's always been surprising to me, I think, is when I hear people come to me and say, Well, you have to know your why. Of course, in brand strategy, we always start with why anyway. It's your brand purpose. Dove is about self-esteem, and you know, Nike's about going out there and you know, gashlete inside you, and all of that. So we all have whys, we all have whys, and they're suppressed and layered. So we don't know what they are. When someone tells you, I'll gotta give you this thing on imposter syndromes. Like everybody talks about imposter syndrome and this voice saying, I don't belong. What if you actually don't belong? Maybe that's your intuition talking, not your critic.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Because these systems are so screwed up. Maybe this whole meeting setup is wrong, right? This is wrong for you, wrong for your energy. So, what's making you flow on the inside when you let that out? That's your why. And purpose. I have to say this too: purpose is not a destination, purpose is a journey. So I want to inspire confidence in women, self-confidence, so that they can create and tell their own story and be their own independent women. That is a journey. I'm not ever going to achieve my purpose, I'm going to live it.
SPEAKER_04:Yes, I love that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So, yeah, I mean, that so this back to Simon Sinek's like, I can't believe people keep quoting this man. He's great. I get it, but guess what? This is just truth of life. This is truth. Defining and articulating it is very hard.
SPEAKER_03:I was gonna say that actually because also a why can be quite simple, but we might feel like that's not enough, also.
SPEAKER_02:Maybe I think that when we define it and write it in a way, so this is something we do in Design Your Next, is I help them write it in a way that it excites them. Because we often write these long sentences with if I could just tell you, just do it, you got it, right? Like it's just right, like, you know, I for me it's long, inspire creative confidence in women so they can live lives on their own terms. Um I say it's that's that's mine. Um but we will articulate it in a way that it empowers, it's self-empowering. Yeah, it excites you and makes you want to keep doing it, right? Um, so no, I think simpler is better, but the words they're gonna make you go, you know, this is me, this is my life. Um, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And they've got to be your words, not the words you think you should be using, also.
SPEAKER_02:True, true. And you just never know whether though they are though. Like sometimes I've had that question. It's like, how do I know this is not the old you know, me from based on what other people tell me?
SPEAKER_03:Um and then we go back to the intellect versus intuition, don't we? Really?
SPEAKER_02:Yes, and we go back to what energizes you. Does this energize you? Does this feel like it's really aligned? Does, does okay. Another big piece of this is so with purpose, I have them define. Obviously, they're from to their vision. Like I can break this process down for you, but the important piece comes from brand strategy, is I have them also write first a belief statement. Right? So I was born to fill in the blanks. So we understood how we played, how we what energized us. I try to imagine where I want to go, okay, from here to here. What are those shifts? Then what do you believe? And this is not just about believing for you. Let's think about the people you want to impact as well. I hate the word impact, it sounds so forceful and kind of mean. It's to make a difference to inspire how yes, yes. So, how how do you what what is this? Who and what do you believe? I believe that the world more women in the world who are on their own two feet will only bring more nurturing and more love to everyone else, will only lift. I believe that being independent is a responsibility, not an a selfish act, right? Like these are beliefs, and and and and when you define those beliefs, then your purpose comes out more clearly. It becomes more obvious that that's a line, this beliefs so strongly, that's my purpose, therefore. So that's what we actually do in the program is we write all of these statements, right? And then go from there.
SPEAKER_03:Cool. Thank you. That was great. I the reason I wanted to um ask you about purpose is just because I think that this is a this is a a moment in our lives, this midlife, where we we do really start to question what is this all about? What is my purpose? And so I was curious to to hear what you had to say about it and how you helped others to define it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I mean, it's why are you here? Kind of that that's it's just a we reach really no too much. Yeah, it is it's it's amazing because you you realize at this point in our lives, it's the same thing with driving. Like people who are older can't drive, uh learn to drive older because they are aware of the downside so much.
SPEAKER_03:Right. Okay.
SPEAKER_02:More there's more fear, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:There's more fear, less inclined to take risk.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, well, we we tend to know what's going wrong, right? Like we will we reach that point where we've seen so much of life and we have so much to give and so much wisdom and so much ability and still so much energy in midlife that you're like, I feel this roaring thing inside of me, and I can't suppress it anymore. My mind won't allow me to suppress it anymore. I think even neurologically, we can't just walk away from it anymore. And in that case, what are we going to do with it? What am I going to do with this thing? And I have no voice for it, no direction and no idea. Help. You know, that's what design your next really is about. It's like, okay, because you already know it's in you.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:That is what design. We we're this is not about I have to make you realize you have potential. You know it. You feel it. It's in your gut. You just don't know how to take it out and bring it out into the world so that it's bigger and more meaningful than even you alone.
SPEAKER_03:Love that. That's that's a very um that was a a beautiful sort of closing description of exactly how how it works in your in your um coaching program. Um, yeah, and it it it sort of uh really helps to uh encapsulate the experience of uh what women are going through when we know there's more, there's more, it's not the end, it's not the the story isn't like game over when you reach this point in your lives. It's like let's go.
SPEAKER_02:Game on. It's game on, game on.
SPEAKER_03:So now thank you so much for joining me. We're gonna share all of your details in our guest directory so people can find out more about you and um get all of your direct links. I've really appreciated this conversation, it's been fun, and um yeah, appreciate you joining me on Christmas.
unknown:Thank you.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, it's a perfect day for this. Thank you. I hope you have a wonderful holiday.
SPEAKER_04:Thank you, you too.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, and new year. And one day I would love to learn more about you.
SPEAKER_03:Thank you so much. Thank you. 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 Mea Coffee forward slash Midlife Rebel Podcast. Thanks for listening.