Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn
This is what the world needs now: two free-thinking “seasoned” Black women speaking their truth and inspiring others to do the same. Shaped by 45 years of friendship that began at the prestigious Brooklyn Technical High School through the Ivy League, medical school, marriages, divorces, triumphs, parenting queer children, life-threatening illness and many many amazing adventures. Each week, besties Leslie Osei-Tutu and Angella Fraser will push against boundaries in love, culture, careers, faith, politics and out-dated assumptions about women of a certain age. Remember, you’re never too old to change your mind…or your hair! (but more on that later :-)All views are our own and do not reflect the views of our institution/company. Information provided is not intended to serve as medical advice.
Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn
Don't Wait to Retire to Rest with Stephanie Perry-Part 1
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“Waiting until retirement age to start living is a scam!” Well, that is guest Stephanie Perry’s stance on why she has made it her goal to get Black women to “take career breaks, bop around the world, or move abroad all while embracing ease”
The Besties have mentioned her several times as a model of free-living, unapologetically choosing ease, and a window into the world of what she refers to as the “adult gap year”.
Stephanie’s transformation started when she gave herself free time, through travel, to find the part of herself that she might not have allowed to surface otherwise. Your value, she says, is in who you are, not in what you do. Especially for Black women who carry the weight of the stress of so many societal “isms”
The Besties couldn’t get enough of Stephanie Perry, creator of the popular YouTube channel, a full time house-sitter, creator of House Sitter School, co-creator with Roshida Dowe of ExodUS Summit and just all around cool sister-friend. So make sure you tune in next week for Part 2 of one of their most riveting conversations thus far.
https://exodussummit2023.heysummit.com/
Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto
Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine (HC) (2024)
This episode and all previous episodes are available on YouTube. Please join our Besties Quad Squad as a Patreon subscriber at the $5 or $10 monthly level. You'll receive exclusive behind-the-scenes content.
Visit Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn website for behind-the-scenes extras.
Hey Ant. Hey Les, how you doing? I'm doing great.
SPEAKER_02I know you look great. Why, thank you, my dear. Don't say you're excited. All right, I'm not. I'm not gonna say it. I'm not gonna say it, but I'm about to do my, you know, puppy has to pee dance. You know, that's the show that the dogs are really excited when you come in the house. But um, I'm gonna temper it down because I'm gonna be sophisticated today. But and yes, welcome to another episode of Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn.
SPEAKER_01Brooklyn.
SPEAKER_02And I'm gonna let you talk about our special guest today.
SPEAKER_00Oh my gosh. Um I I tried to get all my fangirling out. Um I okay, real quick. So I've been um following Stephanie Perry. This is our guest, uh, and you'll you're gonna hear so much about her. It it let me tell you, sit your ass down because this one this one is going to be well worth the nickel. Well worth it. Okay, so um I've been following Stephanie ever since my sister, and if you guys remember, my sister has been exploring um moving abroad for her retirement. And I think we had her on in season two. Um, but before that, I knew about Stephanie through her because she is she consumes YouTube. Um, she loves kind of the the the um the the realness of YouTube. She's an anthropologist, and so she's always been attracted to that type of media. And she fell in love with Stephanie and her work, and so that transferred to me. And um, so I'm at this event, the ROI summit in Puerto Rico, um, a couple weeks ago now.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_00Um and I did find out that Stephanie was a part of this entrepreneurial community that I am, but that doesn't mean anything. That doesn't mean that she's gonna be in Puerto Rico, it doesn't mean any of that. So we're at a breakout session, and I'm telling you, I was in shock. It's like a mirage in the desert. Stephanie gets up and asks a question, and I'm like, I know that person. Oh my god, oh my god. And let me tell you, this is a summit that has some big names. Who do I care about? This big name. Yeah Stephanie Perry. I didn't I didn't fangirl anyone, not Tabitha Brown, not Ivy McGregor, none of those people. It's this woman right here. And you're gonna find out why. Um, I'm gonna ask you, Stephanie, to introduce yourself because you do it so beautifully. It's so clear who you are, what you do, who you serve, why you are living on this planet right here and right now. So please.
SPEAKER_02And Stephanie, she warned me. She's like, Les, don't introduce her. I love the she put me in my place ahead of time.
SPEAKER_00No, we will have her do it because it's so I just love it. I wait for that. So go. The build up, the build up.
SPEAKER_03Can I can I stand up to this pressure? Yes, you can. Yes, you can. Okay, okay. I'm gonna do it. Hi, friends. My name is Stephanie Perry. I'm a house sitter. I'm the creator of House Sitter School. I'm the co-creator of Exodus Summit, and I help black women take a sabbatical or a career break. I help black women bop around the world. I help black women move to a new place, all while embracing ease. I believe that waiting until your retirement age to start living is a scam. I reject it. Scam. I love to see black women living their own dreams. Yes.
SPEAKER_00I'm so excited to be here. Yes, thank you. You are too. Man, I'm already emotional.
SPEAKER_02Me, me too, because what I've learned from just knowing you and from hearing Angela speak about you almost in her sleep. No, actually not. But I almost feel from looking at your videos, like we've been bamboozled. Yeah. We've been hooked with. We've been took.
SPEAKER_03We've been took. That's right. That's right. We've been convinced that uh the way we've been convinced that we're supposed to give our lives for other people so that they can live out their dreams, right? We've been convinced that we're supposed to be describing, defining ourselves by the work that we do, and that the only value that we bring is what we do, not in who we are. It's all a lie, guys. It's all a lie.
SPEAKER_00It's all a lie. Um, a few days before I left for Puerto Rico, Leslie um sent me um the book. Please remind me of the author's name, Les, but it's called Um Rest is Resistance. Yeah. And I'm almost finished that book, and it so connects with your message around, she really goes into the the fact that our ancestors did not have, they took away their divine right for rest. And it's our responsibility to make rest a part of our practice, like our responsibility. And so when you talk about ease, and I know you and um Rashida, um, who I've I'm coming to know now through you, um, your um your partner on the Exodus Summit, um, she talks about freedom. There was a particular episode where you and she um, I think you were on someone else's podcast and you were asked about freedom and how you define that. And I know that so many people, if they were to be asked that question, they wouldn't even know what to say. And so when you were so, you and Rashida both were so clear about what it means to you. Like what uh what work uh have you done? What uh what internal work have you done to reach this place in your life where you can really just embrace this? I I I can't imagine that you've always been this person. Yeah, but so naturally without stuttering in some way.
SPEAKER_03I have always been this person, uh, but she uh this person hasn't always been able to be front and center, right? But I have always been the person who was going to do as little as possible, right? And without right, unapologetically, I'm as little as possible. I never I never really saw the reward in doing the most. Um, but I think what the work that I've done is given myself a whole lot of free time.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Giving myself that career break, that sabbatical when I was 41 years old was an amazing gift that I didn't even I didn't even realize what I was doing. I didn't even realize how how much I was like helping myself or how much work that that was doing for me. I didn't know. Uh, but I've done but that I would credit that long amount of time in the prime of my life when I didn't have to focus on work. Um, and I credit being able to see the world and see how other people get to live. And I credit building community with other women, other black women who are into this same thing. That's that's the that's the bulk of the work. Some of it was already in here, but what really fostered it, what really helped me to come out of that cocoon or whatever you want to call it, was those things. It was the time, it was the travel, it was the community.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_03That's how I get to be um, you know, the champion of the career break, the champion of free time for black women. A one-up. I should say one-of.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Well, um, Leslie and I, we talk about pivoting a lot on this podcast, uh especially for um older folks who think that it's too late, um, who have you know just been focused on their sacrifices and not on joy. And um you were working and then something happened that made you say, okay, I'm gonna take a sabbatical at 41. Like what was that pivot for you?
SPEAKER_03For me, it was as simple as I want to take these amazing vacations and my job is holding me back, right? Holding me back from living my life.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_03Uh, I didn't have like a toxic job, I didn't have burnout, I didn't have the a lot of the um like the situations that I hear from black women today, right? The way that black women that jobs have treated black women has not been good. Yeah, but I didn't have that really that kind of situation. I just had a job that wouldn't let me be great. My job was like, oh, you want to take five days of vacation? You're only gonna get approved for three days, not three consecutive days. And then you have a dear day, right? Go to every single other person who works your shift and try to figure something out, right? That was the point that I took that break. That plus being introduced to millennials. So I'm Gen X. I was 40, I went to Brazil on a birthday trip and I met some younger people, hung out and partied with some younger people, and they were like, Oh, you know, just quit your job and travel, and then you can get your job back. That's how they were thinking. You know, they were early 20s, I was 40, and they were like, uh, you know, there's it doesn't make sense that you flew all the way to Brazil for five days. That's what you did. They're like, just quit. Just quit. And your reaction was, hey, wait a minute. That's exactly right. My reaction was from now on, that's what I do.
SPEAKER_01Right?
SPEAKER_03From now on, I get my money together and then I quit a job. And then I do the thing, see the things I want to see, go the places I want to go, experience the things I want to experience, and then I come back and work when I have to. And then I I originally thought I was going to do that cycle over and over again, and I was perfectly fine with it. They opened my eyes.
SPEAKER_02So was there one particular point or just a series of points where you looked and said, I got to get the heck out of here?
SPEAKER_03It was a couple. So my parents, I took a vacation with my mom and dad right after my mom retired from work. Uh, I believe she was 65. He my dad got to retire. My dad retired pretty early, but my mom retired at 65. And I went on a vacation with them, and I saw what it was like to wait until 65 to start doing the things that you really have been dreaming of your whole life, you know, when your knees don't bend and your hip hurts and you right. Wow. And so I was like, oh, okay, that plus the message from the younger people let me know that I wanted to approach things a different way. But even still, when I quit my job to travel for a year, my intention was to come back and kind of go back into that light. Didn't really understand what was gonna happen. I didn't understand what was gonna happen when I would have a whole year for me, um, how I would change and who I would discover in here. I didn't I didn't have a clue. And so I wasn't prepared. I wasn't prepared.
SPEAKER_00Wow. Wow. You wasn't you you weren't prepared um for your power. You weren't prepared. What what weren't you prepared for?
SPEAKER_03I wasn't prepared for the uh new vision I would have for my life. Yeah, I really was a 40-year-old who thought, well, 65, maybe then I'll get to do, you know, do live. Uh and so I wasn't prepared to have new vision, have dreams, goals, plans. So especially not dreams, goals, plans for myself that didn't at all revolve around a job.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, but if it had been like, oh, I think I want to go to grad school or oh, I want to, right, then I would have been a little more prepared for that. All of my girlfriends did that, right? Yeah, but I didn't have friends who were just quitting their jobs, dropping out of excellence, and deciding that they were going to be a house sitter.
SPEAKER_02I didn't have those friends, yeah, because it's not an American, you know, this retire at 60, work your ass off, retire at 65 and hope you have enough health in you to live your life, start living your life at that. That's such an American construct, and we don't realize that this is not written in stone, and it's not normal, it's not the norm around the world.
SPEAKER_03It's very, very American. There might be a couple other places. Japan might be doing the same thing, maybe.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_03For the most part, it's a very American way of living. Um, it's very capitalist, it's very fruit of the slavery tree, right? That's nothing but slavery. I need to write that down.
SPEAKER_00It's no slavery tree. Absolutely, absolutely that's what it is. It's you uh, you know, work to the bone. You work to the bone.
SPEAKER_03And we think it's so normal, you know. Yeah, we're generations and generations and generations in on this thing. So we think that this is just how it is, and those other people are doing it wrong, they're lazy. If if if we're at all aware that there are other people in the world who don't make what work the focus of their lives, yeah, we think something's wrong with them. Yes, we do. It's not them, they're not the problem.
SPEAKER_02Isn't that crazy?
SPEAKER_00Wow.
SPEAKER_02Okay. So did you get any pushback when you started embracing this type of lifestyle or ideas at least?
SPEAKER_03I did. Uh my mom, Angela's laughing. My mom thought I was having a breakdown.
SPEAKER_02Let me tell you, the first thing I thought of when I when I present this, not if, when I present this to my family and my mom, she's gonna think, you're gonna leave your good job, but you're a doctor. I never heard of such a thing. You know what?
SPEAKER_03Go ahead. That's right. Yeah, some people won't get it. But surprisingly, some uh some people that you would expect to be like, oh no, no, you can't do that. You must work. Some of those people are gonna be like, good for you. They've seen, they've seen friends, family members, co-workers drop, drop dead on the job and be replaced in days.
SPEAKER_02Let me tell you, in two weeks, they will say, Remember that lady that sat at the front desk, what was her name again?
SPEAKER_03They won't remember you. They might they might do a little something to to honor you. I had a job where a co-worker, young co-worker, passed away, and we put a little brick outside of the uh the um uh they were building the baseball stadium for the Philadelphia Phillies. He gave her a brick. And that okay, and then we moved on. So everyone has seen some sort of something like that happen. Sure. And so there are people who will who will get it, uh, and then there are also people who are think you're losing it. Either way, I think it's important that we understand it's not our job to convince people, it's not our job. We you can waste so much energy and you can really discourage yourself by trying to convince people that you deserve this thing instead of just use getting the thing, get the thing right, right, and let them follow behind later.
SPEAKER_00You have to check in with everyone. I think um, I mean, Leslie and our boomers, we're right on the edge. We're 1962, so I think what is it, 64 or 65?
SPEAKER_02Five, sixty-four, five is it at all.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so um the idea of living a scripted life is so ingrained in our generation. Um there's a certain way to do things, there's a certain sequence, there's a certain um um sets of things that you are um you should be desiring. If you don't desire those things, there's something wrong. Almost respectability politics, you know. It's oh yeah, yeah, yeah. It's all the things, it's all of those things. And so um a part of why Leslie and I started this podcast is to really challenge those assumptions. And that's why it's so great to have you here because you and there's a whole community of people, black women, who have decided that here's what I'm not gonna keep doing. Here's what I'm not gonna bring. Do you know what I mean? And and I I love that our listeners are gonna get to, you know, you're you're not a unicorn. Um you're you're very much a um a person of light, but you're not a unicorn, you're a real person. I I hugged you, so I know that is is true. And that you are living this way, it's so beautiful. So you house sit full-time? I house yes.
SPEAKER_03Well, I house it full-time sometimes, right? So there are times when I house it back to back to back, there are times when I don't. So I just finished a good chunk of house sitting in Costa Rica. Now I'm back in Delaware a little bit in the time. That was a mistake, but I'm back in Delaware for a little while and uh picking up my mom so that we can go travel around for a little bit. But there are times when I house sit full-time, yeah, back to back house sitting so that I don't have to pay for a place to stay, which is freeing. So, yes, I think that black women should quit their job. I understand the money, you know, we need money to live. And sometimes the way that we cut down our expenses is something like house sitting.
SPEAKER_02And I love that part of your workshops and certainly your summit actually guides people through the ways. And like in our heads, we tell ourselves, wait a minute, I can't afford it. This is not a thing, this is crazy, this is dangerous, this is this. And you really, I was looking at some of your workshops and some of the speakers, you actually can walk people through the how of this.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely. Yeah. Uh you it's easy to uh inspire people, right? But then, okay, but how do I do it? So, like, I will now you've gotten me to the point where I want it, but how do I do it?
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_03So we have to make sure, be very, be very um intentional about making sure that we show black women how to do it. Not no, well, I don't want to say how to do it. What I mean is we show you how other women have done it. From everybody to make her own path, right? Right, right, right. No two people do the exact same thing. But when enough women solve the same problems in a few different ways, solve the money problem, solve the kid problem, whether the kids are child child age or adults, right? Solve the spouse problem, solve the insurance problem. When you see enough women's approaches to have, you're gonna come up with your plan. One thing a black woman can do is make a plan, right? She has for sure is a breaking down barriers one by one.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, one at a time.
SPEAKER_03That's important. One by one is important, one at a time, because something like this can be super overwhelming. I say, Oh, I'm gonna start rejecting black excellence, start living with me. That's a whole other topic.
SPEAKER_02Don't get it. That's a whole other topic.
SPEAKER_00Do not get me started on that. Absolutely, absolutely. That's what I'm not taking into 2024. I gave it away a while ago, but I am not. Um I'm preaching it in 2024. I'm preaching it in 2024.
SPEAKER_02Stephanie, whenever the term black girl magic comes up, Angie is like, what the fuck? We are not magical creatures. We are human. Amazing creatures. We're not we are not magic. We are not.
SPEAKER_03I mean, that's how I feel right here. Yeah, I that's how I feel about the superwoman and superhero talking. We're the divine, you're killing her. You're killing her. You're calling her superwoman so that you can ride her to her grave, right? She's not a superwoman.
SPEAKER_02I loved your podcast about take off the cape. Burn it, remove the cape. She said, burn it, burn that shit. Oh, it is not serving anyone.
SPEAKER_00So um the last uh podcast that um Leslie and I did that um where we talked about you and Rashida's um work, there were actually two or three podcasts, but the last one was maybe a few episodes ago. And it came up because um Les had an experience with um a really expensive Copenhagen. For some medication she takes for a migraine. And so we were talking about healthcare in the United States. And I remembered learning from you that you go to other places and universal health care is available. Rashida was talking about that also. And so the idea that American exceptionalism. She starts laughing already. Yeah, just admit that. Just go, go.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. That in other places that they are invested in the health of their populations.
SPEAKER_03It's like once you start, once you go someplace else and you see how other people are treated by their governments or by their countries, you really there's no alternative back on the United States. I'm writing it down. We're not the best in health care, right? We're not the best in education. We're not the best in taking care of the people who need the most care. But what we are the best at is telling you we're the best, right? And telling you that the other people are wrong for some reason, for whatever reason. Yeah. So in a lot of countries, as long as you're there as a legal resident, you have access to health care. And that means a standard level of health care. And then you, if you want the bougie health care, you can top it up, right? Get yourself some private insurance. But as a legal resident of that place, you have access to care. You go into C doctors without a lot of rigor moral. I've never had Rashida and I both have never had the experience of having to go to one doctor to get a referral to another doctor out of the US. That's not how they do it out of the US, right? You need a so you know you know you need this such and such. She needed the a special eye doctor. You just make an appointment with that eye doctor, right? And then the actual doctor WhatsApps you and gets information from you, pecks in on you. No, there's care in healthcare in other places. You wouldn't, you can't you wouldn't believe it. Uh, we we interviewed a woman who had a baby in Italy, and she talked about the home. Uh what do they call it? The house calls the care for her baby. Right. I don't know, weeks and weeks and weeks. The nurses came to the house. The night nurse, what check on the baby to take the baby's weight and do whatever nurses do when you have a baby. Right. Um, there is actual care in other places. That is when this this is the conversation that really makes people mad about the way the US is set up. It'll really make you mad because what what's the difference? Why couldn't we have that? We have the most expensive health care in the world, literally. The most expensive care in the world and the least seemingly amount of care. Uh, that's a thing that really will convince people. There are people who go on vacation and have something happen and have to go to a doctor, and that's the thing that shows them, oh, wait a minute.
SPEAKER_02Wait a minute, there's something different about this. Wait a minute. Why is it so easy?
SPEAKER_03You know, why is it so accessible? Why is it so affordable?
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_03Why is it so uh convenient?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I was listening. I was listening to a um Dr. Uche Blackstock is an internist that's um in New York City area. She actually left clinical medicine a few years ago to start her own um company, advancing health equity. And she's been doing the circuit because she has a book out now called Um, I wrote it down, Legacy, um, A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in America. And what she pointed out is that when black Americans are here, the America itself, because of the isms and racisms and it has so many tentacles, it is actually toxic to people here. When immigrants who are has um the same health equity as other um non-um Blacks here, after two generations, their health out outcomes become equal to indigenous Black Americans, and which is inferior, and our health rates go down, our um quality of life goes down, our morbidities increase, et cetera, et cetera.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. It's real. I mean, it's it's it's not just, you know, people like to say, oh, race is racism and everything. Race is in everything. Everything.
SPEAKER_02It's like, why are you always talking about race? You really have to ask?
SPEAKER_03It affects every aspect of our life.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_03Every aspect.
SPEAKER_00Yes. By the way, Leslie was on um on the radio um because she called in to speak to her. She was on W NYC. Yeah, yeah. And um I was I was in a meeting, and Leslie's like, she texted me, Ang, listen to WNYC right now. And I'm like, I'm gonna be on the radio. I'm I'm like talking to a client. I can't, I can't. And when I got on, Leslie was on like a half a second later. She was she was invited on.
SPEAKER_02And so um she talked to um uh you know, about the macro and microaggressions that I see on a regular basis in medicine and how I have to internalize that in order to be a good doctor. You know, but it's wearing, it's weathering, yeah, and what we are um investigating and seeing more and more is that it is changing our DNA and the and what happens is the legacy of this type of weathering we see for decades and generations.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
unknownYeah, right.
SPEAKER_03We there's a lot of talk around about like learned helplessness, and but we have been changed as a people by the way the ways that we've had to live.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And we I think we need there is a radical action that needs to happen. We can't just continue and say, oh, well, here are some small incremental changes that we can just try to situation.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_03I think that there's radical action needs to happen as a collective and as individuals, like individual. You've got save yourself, right? Save yourself. I love your politeness.
SPEAKER_00Save yourself, run. Part with you. Part with you. And yeah, and and there you and and here you are being the example of that. Because people can can talk a big game, and so many people out there are talking about stuff that they're not willing to do themselves. And I have to ask you, um, you are very clear that your work is centered around black women. Um I know that you have a Facebook group, and um some of the reasons why you even chose to use that platform is because you can investigate who and you can make your choice. Um I know why I make that choice. Um how did you arrive at that? And what is some of the kind of um uh challenges you've gotten around that? Because, you know, everyone feels stress. White women feel stress. Like, I I I give my opinion freely. I'd like to hear yours.
SPEAKER_03We get a lot, I get a lot of questions about why is your this for black women only, whatever it is. If it's a workshop I'm doing, if it's the virtual summit that I co-host, whatever. Why is it only my YouTube channel? Why is this only for black women? Um, black women are the we're okay. I'm convinced we're the best people. I haven't met all people everywhere, but I'm convinced that black women are the best people. In uh, what is the word? In my own life, which would be anecdotally, right? But also just out in other people's lives as well. Black women's experiences are better when we get to be in places with just black women. And there are other people in in the community with us, in community with us. We have to we spend, I don't want to say have to, but we spend too much time coddling other people or helping them to feel safe, making sure that they're okay. Comfortable and not feeling attacked. Right. And uh so I think the best way to not have to exert that kind of energy, not have to do that free work for other people, and to actually be be in community with one another is for it to be a place for black women only.
