AGEIST
The AGEIST podcast is where we rewrite life after 50. Hosted by David Stewart, founder of AGEIST and Super Age, we talk with extraordinary people—scientists, creatives, and thinkers—about living vibrantly in your 50s, 60s, 70s and beyond. From longevity science to emotional well-being, fitness to purpose, we explore the tools and mindsets that help us stay curious, energized, and deeply engaged with life. This isn’t about aging gracefully—it’s about living boldly.
AGEIST
Angélica Fuentes On A New Era of Women Leading
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Angélica Fuentes, business executive, founder, and women’s equality advocate, belongs to a generation of women refusing the old script that ambition narrows with age, power comes from status, and reinvention has a deadline. She talks about building companies in male-dominated industries, becoming a CEO at 29, advocating for women long before corporate equality became fashionable, and starting NOWFUL in her 60s. Listen to gain a sharper way to think about rest, resilience, self-worth, and the daily practices that make a person harder to break. Fuentes’ story is not about returning to who she was before loss, but about using age, motherhood, and hard-earned wisdom to build from a deeper place.
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Key Moments
"Men and women need to either cooperate or the needle is not going to move very far."
"...teach people that rest is power and that coming back to yourself is knowledge and those two put together will allow you to achieve anything you want, because it's allowed me to do it."
"Your worth is determined only by you alone."
Connect with Angélica Fuentes
NOWFUL
Instagram: @angelicafuentes63
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Click Here for the full interview transcript.
Welcome to episode 286 of the Ages Podcast. I'm David Stewart. Today we're talking with Angelica Fuentes. Angelica has lived through and rebuilt after public and personal upheaval so severe, she nearly lost everything, including her children and her motherhood. It's an incredible story. She became the CEO of Grupo Imperial at age 29, so young, and spent decades in the highest levels of Mexican business helping build and lead major companies, has been advocating along that way for equality in the workplace for decades, and is recognized as one of the most influential women in Latin America. What interested me about Anhelica is that her story weaves together business, power, motherhood, identity, loss, recovery, and the very practical questions of how we rebuild when all that old structure falls away. She's now 63, a single mother of two teenage daughters, and the founder of Nalfful, a wellness system built around the daily rituals she says helped bring her back to herself via scientifically backed products. I wanted to ask her what wellness means to her and how she used it to get through the hardest periods of her life. Here's a little bit of our conversation.
SPEAKER_02You have to dust your knees and you have to get up because failure will teach humility. Losses. I lost everything in 24 hours in Mexico. I almost lost my daughters in my motherhood. Loss teaches you what really matters. Eleven years ago, I went through that, where I was stripped off of everything. And I was left with what really matters, and that's my life, my integrity, my self-awareness, and obviously the most important, my my daughters, who I fought for like a lioness. Those are the things that we learn as we get older if we choose to learn it.
SPEAKER_00What stayed with me in this conversation was and Helica's clarity around strength. We tend to think of strength as output, more work, more speed, more pushing. And Helica makes a very good case that real strength may also involve stopping long enough to hear yourself again and to rest, which is harder than it sounds, especially for those of us who have built our lives around performance and responsibility. We'll talk with Anne Helica Fuentes right after a brief word from our sponsors. Lately, I've been thinking a lot about recovery. Training matters, but what you put back into the system matters just as much. True Nutrition lets you build a protein blend around the nutrients you actually need, from the protein source to the flavor to the add-ins. The ingredients are clean, third-party tested, and first party verified with no fillers, no additives, and no gluten. If you're looking for a way to customize your protein to fit exactly what you need, you have to try True Nutrition. Right now, they're offering our listeners 25% off for their Memorial Day sale from May 22nd through May 25th. Build your own blend by going to TrueNutrition.com/slash AGIST and use code AGISTSUMR to get your custom protein blend today. Every movement we make starts with energy, and that energy starts inside our cells. As we age, our mitochondria, the little engines that power us, can become less efficient. That affects strength, recovery, resilience, all the things we actually care about. Timeline developed MITAPURE with Urolithin A to support metophagy, the process that helps clear out damaged mitochondria so our cells can work better. I think of it as working closer to the source. Timeline's clinically proven formula is now available at a new, lower price. MidaPure now starts at $79 when you go to Timeline.com slash AGIST. That's Timeline.com slash AGIST. This season I've been paying more attention to the energy curve. Coffee can be useful, but too much of it and I end up wired than flat. Element Lemonade Iced Tea has been a better afternoon move. It uses full black tea extract with electrolytes, so the caffeine feels steadier and there's no sugar, artificial colors, or dodgy ingredients. Sharp and clear is the goal, especially when it's hot out and hydration matters. Get a free eight-count sample pack of Element's most popular drink mix flavors with any purchase at drinkelement.com slash Aegis. Find your favorite flavor or share with a friend. That's D R-I-N-K-L-M-N-T.com slash Aegis. Before we get to the conversation, a quick favor. If you're enjoying the Aegis podcast, please take a moment to give us a five-star review. It helps more people find these conversations, and we would truly appreciate it. Let's give Angelica Fuentes a call right now. Hey Angelica, so good to see you.
SPEAKER_02Same here, David. Thank you so much for this time.
SPEAKER_00Where does this podcast find you today?
SPEAKER_02It finds me in Miami and Florida.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I love Miami. It's such a great city.
SPEAKER_02Today's a beautiful day. You know, I woke up and it was kind of cloudy, but now the sun's out, so it's a little breezy, which is nice.
SPEAKER_00I spent a year living there and I really love the summers because it gets these storms come in, and it's there's like all this drama for like two or three hours in the afternoon, and then everything goes away. It's great.
SPEAKER_02I don't know if we would like that. This is, I just moved here, so we'll see. We'll see.
SPEAKER_00So good so far. So much to talk about here, but just before we get going, could you give us a little background on how you started in the business world? You started, you know, comparatively young. I had a lot of success. Could you tell us a little bit about that?
SPEAKER_02Sure. Uh, David. So I'm a Mexican-American businesswoman. I have spent more than 40 years building and leading corporations. I have been advancing gender equality for that amount of time. I was a pioneer in advancing corporate policy that had to do with generating, for example, equal pay for equal time for both men and women, uh, flex time, home office, way before COVID. I had equal pay for equal time from the top of the ladder executive all the way down to the men and women who clean the offices because to me it was important. This is way before it was something that was talked about, like it has been over the last few years. Through my foundation, I worked with uh international organizations and created a very positive impact for the lives of, I'm very proud to say this, of millions of women in Latin America, but they were all this amazing young women that uh got impacted in two areas that are very important for me: financial independence and training programs. You give a woman financial independence, she makes decisions, she does away with a lot of um abuse that she goes through and training programs so they can continue scaling whatever it is that they have chosen to start in their lives. I did begin my career very, very early on at 11 years old. I worked at one of my family's gas stations only in the summers, mind you. So I did that for three summers, and then I became somebody's secretary, and then an accountants assistant. So I climbed the ladder literally from the very bottom to the top, and I became the CEO of my family's company at the age of 29 years old. It's one of the largest energy groups on the northern part of the country. Then I led a group called Omnilife, Angelissima and Chivas, who is in 17 countries where I led a major turnaround from a company that was in the brink of bankruptcy into an overbillion dollar valuation. And I have been, you know, in businesses and running them in sectors that are dominated basically by men, like the energy sector and professional soccer. I have also believed and understood that if I opened a door for me, I had a responsibility to open that same door or other doors for women. So that has been my life in a short amount of time.
SPEAKER_00So many questions I want to ask you. The contrast for me in business, the gender relations in the US versus in Mexico.
SPEAKER_02When I came on board to run the company as a CEO, they were asking women, I mean, this is a long time ago. I was like 29 years old. They were asking women for a blood test to make sure they were not pregnant so they could be hired. I obviously immediately took that off. Women at that time did not really believe in themselves. I understood that I had a few women who had the capacity and the talent to become executives in the corporation, and I I gave them the opportunity. And more than not, they would eventually give their power away to a man. They could not handle doing that, so it was it was very hard. I am sure things that deep were not happening in the United States at the time, but I don't think they were way better than they were in Mexico and Latin America still. Well, back then and even a few years ago, the people who were participating in the boards of the privately health companies were the in-laws, the male in-laws, and that's the daughters, for example. I was has have been a rebellious person all my life. So I did not just sit down quietly and you know lived by the societal rules. I decided that I knew I could push through, and I understood very early on that I could not compete with or against men and much less women, but I needed to only compete with me better today than I was yesterday. I think as time went by, I saw the differences between the US and Mexico. The US had a little more open agenda about women speaking up, women claiming positions. Yet I found it that it was hard to create a pipeline for women by women because it took them so long and it was so hard for them to climb up that ladder position that I believe, and this is just my belief, that psychologically women possibly did not create that for other women because you know there's there's a certain amount of fear of losing that place that you know is only held by very few and not a lot. I'm sure that has changed with time, but I didn't see that happening back then. It was worse in Latin America, believe me, but but I saw that in the US too.
SPEAKER_00You said that you've stopped competing with men and with other women and you compete against yourself. What does that look like?
SPEAKER_02I didn't compete against myself, I competed with me. Okay. That looked like I wanted to be Ben I was yesterday. That meant preparing myself twice as much or twice as hard as any man because I understood that because of my gender, I had two jobs. First to prove that I was talented and smart and intelligent, and then to get rid of the barriers and the obstacles that were put in front of me just because of my gender. So by saying that, I was just very prepared, I was very studious, I have lived by a belief of perpetual learning. I think when you stop that, when you think there's not nothing else to learn, that's when everything basically ends for you. So that's what I meant with that. I was, you know, I started in the energy sector, as I said, where even today is still controlled mostly by men. And I understood that if I try to compete against them instead of cooperating with them, I was not gonna get anywhere. We were not gonna get anywhere. And that's how I became the president of the Mexican Natural Gas Association by cooperating with men, by understanding that they needed to see me as their equal when it came to uh the policies we were trying to implement, the things where we were trying to achieve. And so I made sure that we that I brought everybody onto the table. I think that's a big mistake that women have made and are still making. Thinking we're better than, more intelligent than, more powerful than, smarter than men. That is not true. We have not had the same opportunities as men have had. When and if we ever truly do, then we will make our own choices. And then we will understand that we're not better than anybody. We're just amazing as we are. And we are as intelligent as, you know, we want to develop it, and we are as wise as we want to tap into ourselves, and we are as strong as we want to tap into our truth. And I have often told young girls that I hope that when I am no longer around or at the end of my life, I don't see girls doing what men did to us, believing we should be on top of better than, more powerful than. We need to learn to cooperate. Today, we either cooperate or the needle is not going to move very far. According to the World Economic Forum, it's going to take today 123 years to achieve gender parity with men in economics, education, health, political participation. 123 years.
SPEAKER_00Wow. We're going to pause here for a quick word from our sponsors, Morworth and Helica in just a moment. I have a pretty simple view of supplements these days. The closer it fits your actual life, the more likely you are to use it. That's why I like what True Nutrition is doing. Instead of grabbing whatever tub happens to be on the shelf, you can build a custom protein blend around your goals, your digestion, your training, and your taste. Maybe you want something to fuel up for a hard workout. Maybe you want support for body composition strength, or just getting enough high-quality protein into the day without turning it into a project. With True Nutrition, you choose the protein source, the flavor, and the add-ins, so the formula actually makes sense for you. I also like the transparency. True Nutrition is a US-based brand focused on premium ingredients, third-party testing, and first party verification, which is an extra layer of quality control most brands skip. If you're looking for a way to customize your protein to fit exactly what you need, you have to try True Nutrition. Right now, they're offering our listeners 25% off for their Memorial Day sale from May 22nd through May 25th. Build your own blend by going to TrueNutrition.com slash AGIST and use code AGISTSUMR to get your custom protein blend today. Most of us think about muscle health in terms of lifting weights and consuming protein, but there is a deeper layer underneath all of it, and that is cellular energy. Your muscle cells are packed with mitochondria because muscle takes a lot of energy to do its job. As we age, mitochondrial function naturally declines, and that can show up as lower energy, less strength, slower recovery, and a little less bounce back than we used to have. Timeline has spent more than 15 years researching mitochondrial health and developed mitopure, which contains urolithin A. Urolithin A supports metophagy, the body's process for clearing out damaged mitochondria and recycling cellular components. In one study, participants saw a 12% improvement in muscle strength in four months with no change in exercise. That gets my attention. For me, healthy aging means protecting capacity, the ability to move, train, recover, and keep showing up for the life I want. Supporting the cellular machinery underneath strength and energy feels like a very smart place to start. Timeline's clinically proven formula is now available at a new lower price. Midopure now starts at $79 when you go to Timeline.com slash AGIST. Nowful, you have a new venture. What is that?
SPEAKER_02Nowful is a system that I developed from 40 years of experience that I've lived. I started working within myself when I was like early 20s after a few years of coming to terms with the question a friend of mine had for me. I remember we were in our lockers in high school, and Medium said to me, How can you be sad when you have everything, Angelica? And I looked at her and as if yesterday, I remember looking at her and saying, I have everything, yet I have nothing. I come from a very privileged family, so yes, I had everything on the outside. But I had this emptiness here, this hole that looked very dark and black and scary to me. And it took me a while to understand, because I would sit with me and ask me a lot of questions. Took me a while to understand that there was not a single person in this world that would be able to feel that until I got it. And it was me who needed to feel that. It was me who needed to open up all those little drawers, because that's how I view them, that one of them is love, the other one is happiness, resilience, strength, wisdom, intelligence, happiness. We all are born with all of that. We forget to feel open them up and fill them up with light because life passes so fast, because it's all about the externalities that we think mattered, because that's what society has dictated. So when I understood that, I started working within me. I cannot get enough books in the beginning. My first book was called Living in the Light by Shakti Guyan. My second book that I read was Visualization by her. And then the world opened up to all these amazing books that I read. And they say that when the student is ready, the teacher appears. So a lot of teachers that work with the self, with energy, with connecting with who we are started appearing in my life. And that was an amazing journey. And then, you know, taking care of my body and taking care of my mind by continuous learning allowed me to excel in the business to be able to turn around a company and create an overbillion dollar company, but it also allowed me to go through the darkest of times in my life. And all of that is now full. It's not a trend. It's a system that brings you back to connecting with yourself. And it's a system that has products that are scientifically backed. That's nowful. It's my gift back to the universe. And I know it's gonna be my legacy. I had a very hard time resting, David. And our major focus with Nowful is to teach people to rest. To teach people that rest is power, and that coming back to yourself is knowledge. And those put together will allow you to achieve anything you want because it's allowed me to do it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, resting. Something that comes so naturally yet can be so hard.
SPEAKER_02Very much a little story. I come from an entrepreneurial family from the northern part of the country. And my grandpapa and my dad were insane hard workers. I mean, even on weekends, even on Christmas Day, it did not matter. They worked, they worked, they worked. So looking at them, I thought it was amazing. I think it's it's a very good trait to come from a very hardworking family because it teaches you how to follow up and how to learn to build. But I grew up feeling very guilty of resting. The other day I was speaking with somebody and he asked me to fill in the blank. It was something like back then, Angelica, what does rest mean to you today? Back then, if I had answered, it would probably be it would make me feel not worthless, but it would make me feel like a failure, like a non-achiever. So because I felt so guilty about resting, I had a hard time sleeping. And I think a lot of people today are going through such a hard, fast-paced experience where they wear burnout almost as a as an honor badge on their chest that we don't know how to rest. And we are overwhelmed, especially women. And we need to learn that in order for us to lead with consciousness, to lead with energy, with focus, with clarity, our body needs to be rested and our mind needs to be open and clear. And we cannot achieve it if we go on a constant non-rest, non-sleep motion.
SPEAKER_00100%. I do want to bring up a little bit of a contrast here. You're 63, you have two teenage daughters, and you just started this company. So help me with that.
SPEAKER_02I have never hidden my age. I love every age that I've gone through in my life because I think it's just amazing experiences that we go through. It's very energetic. They're my biggest teachers. I have gone nonstop in my life achieving what I have wanted to achieve. So it's it's an amazing place for me to be at. You know, I've always been very creative. I've always been very focused on what I want, but now my focus comes from a different place. It doesn't come from a place of how are people gonna see me? Uh, what is it that, you know, that that I should achieve, that I should, you know, be looked at. It's a from a place of this is what I want. Damn. This is the seven stone that I'm gonna start from. And that's what I want to do today because that has helped me. And I want to give back.
SPEAKER_00Tell me about creative visualization. Is this something you still practice?
SPEAKER_02Well, yeah, I think it's very important. I've always been very visual. I kind of inherited that from my mom. She could see things. So when I meditate, I'm a very visual meditator. I cannot go and find the blue pearl that somebody told me I need to go find it. I can't meditate that way. So I go in very fast now because I've been meditating for 40 years, and I see things. I actually see, I visualize. I do believe that you create where you envision. But it doesn't come like, oh God, I want that. You know, I'm visualizing. No. You create what you envision by working, by being disciplined and being constant and believing in you and what you're trying to achieve.
SPEAKER_00That's right. Let's take a short break when we come back. And Helica talks about rest, identity, and what it means to keep building at 63. I used to think the afternoon fade was a caffeine problem. Have another coffee, push through, keep going. But caffeine mostly mutes the signal that tells you you're tired. The fatigue is still there, building underneath, and when it wears off, you feel the drop. What I like about Element Lemonade Iced tea is that it takes a different approach. It uses full black tea extract. So the caffeine comes with L-theanine and polyphenols, the way it exists in the plant. Then it adds a meaningful dose of electrolytes, sodium, potassium, and magnesium, the same foundation as Elements Core Hydration Mix. For me, that makes sense in the summer. Heat, training, travel, long work days, all of that asks more from the system. I reach for lemonade iced tea when I want something that feels clean, steady, and actually refreshing, with no sugar, artificial colors, or strange ingredients. Get a free eight-count sample pack of Elements most popular drink mix flavors with any purchase at drinkelement.com slash ageist. Find your favorite flavor or share with a friend. Once again, that's D-R-I-N-K-L-M-N-T.com slash AGIS. Yes, I think there's there can be some confusion out there between the sort of magical thinking that I if I just imagine the whatever, but we you know use the visualization as a goal, but we still have to get out of the chair and do the work. It's not gonna happen. Talk to me a little bit about how, you know, starting this, starting this new venture at 67. So I'm 67. So like I get it.
SPEAKER_02We're still very young.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. That's how I feel about it. Absolutely. And you too. We got a long runway ahead. How are people approaching you with this idea that you're 63, you've had a lot of success, but now you do now you're doing this other thing, too. Are you getting any sort of pushback about that or surprise or anything?
SPEAKER_02Or I think a lot of women are surprised that at my age, I've decided to start something else. But I also believe and I've seen and they've written to me how amazing that somebody has not given up. Because I think that we portray who we are inside. I think people see that energy on the outside. And I have never believed that dreams, that building something with your life, that reinventing, that creating another project has an expiration date. And because I live with that, people have seen it. So, no, I have not had pushback. As a matter of fact, I think people, especially women, like I said, have felt, oh my God, if she can do it, then maybe I can too. I'm much younger than her. I think that we put our own limitations in our lives. It doesn't matter how old you are, we put our own limitations. And I don't, you know, the world's the limit. Go out there, you know, find your purpose, find whatever it is that you want to achieve. When you find your purpose, you find your strength to go get what it is that you want. I always tell people that I feel a lot more aligned, more grounded. I feel very energetic. And I think that's my two teenage daughters that give me that they give me on my toes. And I just do, I just go. I am me. I love what I see in the mirror inside and out every morning.
SPEAKER_00So that's beautiful. And it and it's, you know, you're by doing what you're doing, you are expanding people's imagination of what they can do. And you're an example out in the world. And I and I and I think this is something that people, as they get a little older, they forget like we're not invisible. People see us. And especially young people can they'll give us that sort of, you know, like like teenagers are. They're like, I'm gonna old people, whatever. But they remember us and they see what we do and it and it impacts them. And I think that's really wonderful what you're doing.
SPEAKER_02Thank you. I I really enjoy what I'm doing. You know what's so funny? My daughters, they know I'm 63. They obviously, you know, I'm their mom. They've seen me for 15 and 13 years. When they see a person around my age, when they hear it, they think it's old, but not when I, when they see me, they look at me like, oh, yeah, you're 63, Mom. I said, Yeah. But, you know, it depends. I believe, David, that one of the more important things is how do you view yourself is how you're gonna life. You know, you can be a very young, physically person, feeling that life is too heavy and too burdensome to live. And so you carry this old heaviness on your back. Or you can be as young as you and me, and as young as you and me in our hearts. And it doesn't matter, you're 67, I'm 63, we're we're thriving, we're we're living our lives from a place that we've chosen, a place of being a peace, happy, a place of resilience, a place of strength, a place of learned experiences that life has given us. A place of understanding that, yes, it hasn't been easy, but it's been absolutely worth everything that life has given us to grow as people.
SPEAKER_00I think it's also the language we use when we speak about ourselves. Like I know people who when they speak about themselves, they diminish themselves. You say, well, I'm too old for that, or I'm an old whatever, or I can't do that anymore, or these sort of things. And I and I think that it it sort of to me, it's sort of it's connected to the visualization that you mentioned earlier. Because I think that these things, like how we how we see ourselves in the world and and where we see ourselves going, the language that we use around that, I think, I think it's quite important. I would do you have thoughts on that?
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. Think I believe that words are very powerful. I learned that at a very, very, very young age. Because I used to go in my closet with my dog and write me little notes, not knowing I was actually writing affirmations for me. And then later I understood how powerful words are. So I always tell myself, be careful with what you say about you. And I tell women, I tell my girls, be very careful what you say about yourself, how you express who you are, because we become our thoughts, we become our words. Yeah. But we should never put ourselves down. I believe, David, that when we don't learn the lessons that life has put out there for us, we go back to that old garbage that we've been carrying. Because, like I said a little while ago, it's not about why did this happen to me, but what for am I going through this? And that's how I view life. And I feel that when you understand that everything we go through, especially the hard times, the pains, is nothing but lessons the universe, God, creator, whoever you want to call that amazing being gives us to teach us so we can move on in our lives. We never get anything we're not ready and prepared to overcome. But it takes a lot of strength, it takes wisdom, it takes knowledge, it takes understanding, it takes time, it takes patience, it takes tapping into your resilience to go through it. But then it's amazing. I think that that when people understand what things teach us, then we don't go back to that that you were talking about. You know, because for example, to me, you know, we all have gone through painful things, especially the older you get, the more painful moments you go through. You know, it teaches perspective when when we have failure and and everybody's gonna fail. I always tell my daughters, you will fail at some things. It's okay. You have to dust your knees and you have to get up because failure will teach humility. Losses. I lost everything in 24 hours in Mexico. I almost lost my daughters in my motherhood. Loss teaches you what really matters. Eleven years ago, I went through that where I was stripped up of everything, and I was left with what really matters, and that's my life, my integrity, my self-awareness, and obviously the most important, my my my daughters who I fought for like a lioness. Those are the things that we learn as we get older if we choose to learn it.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. Warren Buffeter, one of those guys, said, you know, failure isn't really failure. It's just if we choose, we learn. I is it okay? I would I would like you to give us a little more detail. What happened 11 years ago?
SPEAKER_02I'll I'll go about the 11 years ago, but to me, failure is nothing but an opportunity to achieve whatever it is that you did not achieve before. If you do it the same way, then you're not very smart. But it's just, you know, another opportunity to achieve what you want to achieve. And it's not failure that defines you, but the attitude that you take towards what happened that will define you. So what happened 11 years ago? So 11 years ago, I lost everything, a company that I built that was uh 50% owner with my ex-husband, ex-partner. And he took it away from me in 24 hours. At a country like Mexico, that rule of law is basically non-existent, and there's a lot of corruption that goes through it. Some people maybe did not believe or even heard or understood, but I think the news lately are you know coming out where people can really grasp how corrupt a country like Mexico is and how people can get away with so much. It is insane. So a judge took everything away from me, my companies, my assets, my bank accounts, my title. My ex tried to take my daughters away from me who were two or four at the time. He went as far as trying to take my motherhood away from me as well. And he created a horrendous, violent smear campaign against me that lasted for years that went on on a daily basis, several times a day, in the newspapers, in TV, radio stations. And I had two choices. I either could choose to be the victim of my circumstances, of my ex-husband, or even me or his attorneys or everybody, and hide underneath my bed and cover my selfie sheets, hopefully that the storm would pass eventually, or stand up, stand my ground, reconnect with my truth, with my wisdom, with my strength, and with my resilience, and choose me. Choose my daughters and choose my life. And I did do that, and I moved on.
SPEAKER_00There must have been days there where you were just like, How do I get out of bed today?
SPEAKER_02I was terrified because I had my two daughters and I was on my own. He, like I said, took all of it away. Um, there were times that I was terrified of losing my girls, of losing my motherhood. I had my daughters with uh donated eggs. I was 47 and 49 when I give birth to my girls. So in Mexico, surrogacy, I don't know how it is today, but back then it was very gray area legally. So he said I was not the mom, my girls, that they should be taken away from me. Went to Texas, which is where I was born and where my daughters were born. And a judge gave me an emergency relief very fast, saying that I was the mother of my daughters because I gave birth to them. So that was terrifying. That was the hardest thing I've ever gone through in my life. I was overwhelmed sometimes. I was exhausted, but I had me. I had those at the time 30 plus years of experience of connection with myself, of taking care of my body, of taking care of my mind, of taking care especially of my spirit. So what they tried to break, they never could. My spirit, myself, my what makes Angelica be Angelica. And we can be stripped of everything that can never take our real power away. Never. If you put power on what you have, and I would tell this to women for years, David, I would tell women, power is not about the position you hold, the assets you have, the bank accounts you own. Um it's not about your car or your house. That's not power, real power. I mean, it's a sort certain kind of power, but that's not like real power. I would tell them, real power is here. It comes from within, it's who you become. It's about all those little doors that you open up. That's real power. And sure enough, life, the creator gave me a lesson, you know, in a way it asked me, are you willing to walk your talk? And so I went through it physically, mentally, and spiritually. I never lost my power. I rebuilt myself at 52 years old again. And now at 62 last year when I launched NAFO.
SPEAKER_00Wow. That's it is wonderful. Again, North Star power of example. And it's I love what you said. Like at some point we're all faced with, are you gonna walk the talk? This is all great, but are you actually gonna do this? Are you actually gonna take these actions? And do you really believe in yourself that you can do these things? And that can be a real that can be hard, very hard.
SPEAKER_02So yes, that was 11 years ago, and um I'm still here. I'm happy. I'm at peace. That's so important. You know, to feel good about who you've become. Yeah, let me tell you another little story. A friend of mine, Camilo. I was living in New York at the time. This is oh my god, 2015, right right after I was going through this. And no, not true. I was not living in New York at the time. I was there for like a while with with with my girls. It was in the summer. And Camilo, my friend, said to me, if you can change something so you would not have to go through what you're going through, what would you change? And I said, nothing. Nothing. Because I will not have my girls, I will not be who I am if I today, today you ask me if there's anything in the past that you know, if you were given the opportunity to change anything, would you change anything? And no, I I I I love who I'll become. I love being the mother of Valentina and Maria Ignacia. I love my life, I like my path, I like where it's led me. It's been hard as hell and uh ter terrifying sometimes and very lonely at other times, but but I will do it again to be where I'm at.
SPEAKER_00Because now you've got you.
SPEAKER_02Yep, I got me. And that's when you age with grace, when you age without excuses, when you age without being a victim, when you age connected with your strength, understanding that you're never alone because you have you, when you age with experience and wisdom, like I said one time. I didn't start from zero, I started from wisdom.
SPEAKER_00What are you looking forward to the next 10 years? What's your ambition?
SPEAKER_02Oh my God. Growing Nowful, definitely. There's part about Nowful, it's an app that we're working on amazing things. It's an app that guides you to reconnect with yourself. It's powered by AI. It's an amazing platform for wellness and for mindfulness. So I'm hoping to grow the app to where many, many, many men and women use it for that reconnection that we need. It's a very fast um practice that you would do on a daily basis if you choose to do on a daily basis. I I think that you need to create those rituals and become habits so you can be great. I mean, I did what I've done every single day to be here, to grow nowful, to be a pioneer in products that allow you to rest and to alleviate pain and joint muscles because people who are very active have pain. But as you get older, you know, there are some pains that are there. So I've done and we've created products that allow you with that. I played tennis yesterday morning and my lower back on the right side was like, oh my God, that was a little painful. I, you know, I I something is coming up. I I put it on and it was like, okay, that feels good. So I want that. I want to continue talking to people, mostly to women. I want to see my daughters grow into two amazing they are already, but see them happy and help them with their struggles and letting them know that like up to today I will always be there for them whenever they need me. And I want to continue being hopefully an inspiration to people, mostly women, for them to know that it's never too late to dream, that it's never too late to start again. Because if we think we deserve them, then we choose that and then we do it.
SPEAKER_00Is there anything you'd like to leave the listeners with today?
SPEAKER_02I think I would like to leave your listeners with something that is very important to me. Believe in yourselves. I think that's one of the hardest things that we have, especially women. Women tend to not believe in their own power and their own strength and their own uh wisdom and intelligence because we are led to believe that we don't have any of those, that that's more of a masculine trait. No, it's also, you know, part of who we are. We both, we have both energies, both feminine energy. I want to leave your audience understanding that age does not matter, that your gender does not matter, that you should go out there and live your life as fully as you've chosen to, not mattering how old you are or what gender you are.
SPEAKER_00If people wanted to get in touch with you and follow you, what would they do?
SPEAKER_02I have a web page. It's angelicafuentes.com. My social media is Angélica Fuentes 63. I like to uh write a lot of positive things in my LinkedIn. It's also Angélica Fuentes to me has been very important to leave positive things in the world, positive um thoughts. It's all Angelica Fuentes everywhere. But remember that your worth is not determined by your age. Your worth is determined only and only by you.
SPEAKER_00That's right. And I think that goes for young people and older people. It's all the same.
SPEAKER_02All the same, I agree.
SPEAKER_00Thank you. We'll put those links in the show notes. And Helica, I have terrible Spanish pronunciation, so I'm just gonna be able to do that. Well, you said it perfect right now in Helicopter.
SPEAKER_01Said it perfect. Yes. Okay, yes.
SPEAKER_00Thank you, I'll take that. And Helica, it has just been it has been a pleasure speaking with you. Today, your story is quite extraordinary. Thank you. Cinematic is what I would say. It's amazing. I want to say congratulations, but that's not appropriate here because what you've done is you've become you. And that's that is a wonderful gift. So thank you so much.
SPEAKER_02Thank you. Thank you so much, David. It was great talking with you.
SPEAKER_00My pleasure. Take care now.
SPEAKER_02You too. Bye-bye.
SPEAKER_00What I took from Anhelika is that reinvention has a different texture when it comes later in life. It's less frantic, it's less interested in applause. It comes from scar tissue, judgment, and a better sense of what matters in the long run. I also liked her point about rest. So boy, many of us have spent most of our lives thinking that if we can keep going, we should keep going. Well, I can tell you from experience that works for a while, but it's not really good for the long term. It can even look impressive from the outside. But there's a cost to always being in output mode. And Helica's story is a reminder that recovery, reflection, and ritual are fundamental to building a sustainable lifestyle. If I change one thing about my routine after this conversation, it is simple. I want to pay more attention to the moments when I am choosing rather than reacting. That is usually a signal. It may mean that I need some sleep, may mean that I need to get outside. It may mean I need to stop adding more to the day and ask a better question. And Helica has had power. She has lost power, and then she's rebuilt it from a much more internal place. That is a useful thing to hear at any age, especially useful for those of us who are ready to build that next chapter with even more intelligence than the last one. For those of you haven't heard, we've got this thing coming up called the Super Age Games, New York City, November 7th. The idea is that we all have strength and capacity. And wouldn't it be interesting to do a challenge where we actually put some metrics on what HealthSpan could look like? And if we train for this and we measure it, maybe we'll all live a little healthier and a little longer. It's going to be a great day. November 7th, New York City. Check it out. Go to games.superage.com. Love to have you there. That's it for this week. Stay strong, stay vibrant. We'll see you next time.