Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello, I'm Kristi Stepteau, Your Midlife Maven, and welcome to the "Making Your Midlife Marvelous Podcast," the show where you can expect to learn, laugh, and maybe even have a good old cry, as together we navigate the health and wellness changes and challenges midlife women experience, and where you'll also be inspired and motivated to live your best midlife as we address all things nourishment, movement, and wellness with the holistic approach, mind, body, and spirit to help you make your midlife marvelous.
(00:55):
In today's episode, I'll discuss my story, how I was led to choose this career path during midlife, how this journey began, and how I hope to educate and empower you to live your best midlife, healthy and well, while also inspiring and motivating you to become your own midlife maven expert in your personal life daily. I'll be offering a special surprise at the end of this episode, so be sure to listen all the way through to the end for details. So let's get into my story. In 2014, my only child, my son Brocke, graduated from high school and went away to college, close to 4,000 miles away in Hawaii at the University of Hawaii to play division one college basketball. After almost 18 years of happily and proudly pouring myself 100% into any and all things that he was involved in, my husband and I quickly found ourselves empty nesters at a fairly young midlife age.
(02:07):
After having worked for several major corporations in my previous careers, like M & M Mars, Xerox, and Bristol Myers Squibb, during my son's high school years, I made the decision to somewhat pause my career and some of my entrepreneurial pursuits and be all in on my son's last four years being fully at home. Once my son went to college, like many midlife women who are empty nesters, I found myself asking, What do I do now? And after visiting my son in Hawaii five times in seven months, <laugh>, let me repeat that, five times in seven months during the first few months of his freshman year, my husband and my son both said, you have to find something to do <laugh>, and I knew I had to also, and we can just all agree, I was banned from the island. So what would it be? What was I going to do?
(03:09):
What was, what would be that fulfilling for me? Now, I knew I wanted to feed my entrepreneurial spirit. I knew I wanted to have an impact on women's lives, and I knew my degree in business and marketing could be an asset to whatever I chose. So after taking several career interest assessments to get an idea of things I would be good at, I settled on starting my own blog. I've always had an interest and love for fashion, so I launched my fashion and lifestyle blog, Lulu with Grace in early 2015. After running my fashion blog for a few years, I still felt like something was missing. You know, that feeling you get in your gut like, this is good and this is fun, but I'm, it's just, it could be better. It's just not doing or fulfilling that need that I have, and so I also found myself feeling like I wasn't really having an impact on women's lives.
(04:10):
I felt like I wasn't showing up in the way that I really wanted to show up at this stage in my life. So I knew I had to do some serious soul searching to figure out what my real passions were, and I had to figure out how I could use those passions to help and serve the community of women I had built with my fashion and lifestyle blog. Now, having always been a health and wellness advocate for my, myself and my family, having had an interest in health and wellness for most of my adult life, and being somewhat of a serious fitness enthusiast for most of my adult life, it dawned on me that health and wellness was my true passion, and it was something I felt I could share that would truly have an impact on women going through the many physical and mental challenges of midlife.
(05:03):
So I set out to get certified in fitness and nutrition, and I changed the name of my blog from Lulu With Grace to Your Midlife Maven so I could be a go-to resource for health and wellness information, tools and resources to help midlife women live healthy, happy, and whole during midlife and even beyond. So the moral of this part of my story is really in this quote that I love, and it's that "It's never too late to be what you might have been," and this is truly how I moved forward in this career journey and this stage of my life. Now, for those of you who know me personally, it's a well known facts <laugh> that I'm somewhat of a perfectionist, which has both helped and harm me in my past careers, and now that's a topic for a future podcast, but I knew I had to level up my knowledge and qualifications to be able to fully serve midlife women.
(06:07):
I knew my personal experiences and knowledge as a midlife woman could certainly benefit me, but after months and months of studying and testing to get both my nutrition coach and personal trainer certification, I realized how much more I had to learn. Now after becoming certified and renaming and restructuring my blog and website, Your Midlife Maven.com, and changing all of my social media platforms, I was up and running and ready to serve my fellow midlife women. Now, there have definitely been some ups and downs, bumps and bruises, and quite a few lessons about entrepreneurship in the health and wellness space along the way, but one of the things I learned during this phase of my journey is, you know, something is truly your passion and truly for you when you get knocked down and you face challenges daily and you keep coming back for more. So as you listen to more, uh, of my podcast, and I hope you come back for more, you'll find out that I love quotes and positive affirmations, and they'll be infused throughout my podcast episodes.
(07:23):
But there's another quote that I feel truly has defined my story and my entrepreneurial journey as a midlife woman, and it's, and the quote is, "Maybe life isn't about avoiding the bruises. Maybe life is about collecting the scars to prove we showed up for it." So as we navigate and go through all the bumps and bruises and the ups and downs of midlife and career change and personal life changes and challenges, we have to remember that the most important thing is that we continue to show up for it, and as we show up, we grow, we evolve, and we become better at managing it. So that was really a, a point, um, and a quote that really helped me realize that as I go through and as I went through this journey of career transition and learning new things, um, there was a purpose in it, and that, that there truly was meaning in every step, in every bump and bruise along the way.
(08:31):
So I'm here now certified and ready to help educate midlife women on all things nutrition and nourishment, fitness and movement and wellness and mindfulness, um, so that I can help you achieve your midlife health and wellness goals, and I really want to help you navigate the health and wellness changes and challenges of midlife so that you can fill your very best mind, body, and spirit through this stage and beyond in your life. I hope that I can inspire and motivate you to not fall into any of these stereotypes of midlife. Um, and I believe that you can make this stage of your life the best stage of your life by really taking care of yourself and making your health and wellness a priority. So through this first podcast episode, I really hope I've been able to tell you a little bit more about myself, uh, my story, and how I hope to help midlife women live healthy and well.
(09:33):
Now, in closing, I want to leave you with one final thought, and I want you to make this your midlife mantra, <laugh>. Um, and I love mantras just as much as I love affirmations and quotes, but this is a really good mantra, midlife mantra to live by, and the mantra is that "You can rise up from anything. You can completely recreate yourself. Nothing is permanent, you're not stuck. You have choices. You can think new thoughts. You can learn something new. You can create new habits. All that matters is that you decide to start today and never look back." So together, let's live our best midlife and let's make our midlife marvelous.
(10:32):
Now, for the surprise, this week on the your Midlife Maven Social Media, it's midlife self-care week and all week on the Your Midlife Maven, Instagram and Facebook stories, I've been sharing midlife self-care tips and inspiration. So today, to thank you for listening all the way through to the end of this first episode, I'm gifting you a complimentary personal gratitude and self-care journal. All you need to do is simply click the link in the podcast description, and you'll be able to instantly download your reusable personal growth, gratitude, and self-care journal. Thank you so much for tuning in, and be sure to tune in next week when I'll be discussing the midlife mindset, and in that discussion, I'll be outlining tips for maintaining your positive mindset or improving your mindset so that you can be your healthiest and happiest during midlife and beyond. Thanks again.