I Feel You, A Fortify Wellness Production
Bettina Mahoney the Founder/CEO of @atfortifywellness is a rape survivor who started her brand after struggling to not only find a therapist, but multiple mediums to heal through her trauma. Fortify Wellness is a 360 holistic platform offering therapy, coaching, fitness, and meditation on one subscription platform. We dive deep with our trailblazing guests about overcoming adversity.
I Feel You, A Fortify Wellness Production
Stop People-Pleasing. Start Living.
Alisia Gill, executive coach and creator of "The Era of Enough," shares her journey from corporate leadership to helping Gen X women make career decisions aligned with their authentic selves rather than societal expectations.
• Finding comfort in thinking about her mother, who gave her a sense of possibility by saying, "you can be whoever you want"
• Describing herself as a "smarty pants" who loved reading and was focused on facts rather than opinions
• Learning about the consequences when friendships changed after returning from studying abroad
• Surviving cancer twice and how it changed her relationship with time - "I didn't survive cancer twice to be stressing about what you think about me"
• Realizing the importance of intentional leadership when seeing employees taking notes during her presentations
• Creating "The Era of Enough" after an adversity caused by being placed in a misaligned job role
• Developing the concept of a Personal North Star to help women identify their unique values, aspirations, and preferences
• Challenging women to ask themselves what they truly aspire to be, not just what titles they want
• Advocating for Gen X women to make intentional choices aligned with their authentic selves
More about Alisia:
Alisia Gill is an executive coach and creator of the Era of Enough™, helping Gen X women make powerful career decisions rooted in who they are now — not who they were told to be. A former Chief People Officer, Alisia brings sharp strategy, deep insight, and real talk to every conversation. Through her coaching, content, and keynotes, she helps women lead their next chapter with confidence, fulfillment, wellness and joy. She is a graduate of Columbia and Princeton Universities.
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**This information is not to be misconstrued as medical or psychological advice. Please contact your medical team if you have questions or concerns pertaining to your medical or psychological well-being. All of the linked products are independently selected, and curated by the fab Fortify team. If you love and buy something we link to, we may earn a commission.**
Welcome to I Feel you a Fortify Wellness production season seven, where we explore the real stories and strategies that help you strengthen your mind, body and soul. I'm Bettina Mahoney, your guide on this journey to a healthier, more vibrant you. Before we get started, here's a quick reminder this information shared today is for your inspiration and knowledge, but always consult a healthcare provider for any medical concerns. I am so excited to welcome Alicia Gill, an executive coach and creator of the Era of Enough, helping Gen X women make powerful career decisions rooted in who they are now, not who they were told to be. A former chief people officer, alicia brings sharp strategy, deep insight and real talk to every conversation. Through her coaching content and keynotes, she helps women lead their next chapter with confidence, fulfillment, wellness and joy. She's a graduate of Columbia and Princeton Universities. Please welcome Alicia. Hello Alicia, Thank you so much for joining me today.
Speaker 2:Hello, I'm awesome. How are you I?
Speaker 1:love that. I love the excitement behind your voice and the awesome. That's really cool. So we kind of just dive right into it. We just like rip off the band-aids, like why not in true Fortify Bettina fashion? But I'm curious, when you are alone, there's no makeup, your hair isn't done, no cameras, just you in the most natural states. What brings you the most comfort and can you define yourself without the titles?
Speaker 2:The thing that brings me the most comfort is thinking about my mother. I sit there and I think about my mom because she's one of those moms who she was very quiet in her way, but firm so, but quiet, yeah. So one of the things she said to me was you know, alicia, you can be whoever you want. And I was like okay, like I actually believe that you know what I mean, like I I took it very literally and so that gave me this sense of possibility that I wish more children had. But even as I walk this earth now and I've been through some hard stuff now and I've been through some hard stuff but there is this internal optimism that I have for what the day is going to bring I just kind of believe I'll be able to figure things out, and I think it's because of my mom.
Speaker 1:I love that. I think women just know how to figure things out. You know like we just we get everything done. That's beautiful, that you're so close to your mother and your mother was able to be that leader and that example for you. If we could rewind a little bit what that person, that little girl in you that was observing and watching your mother, what kind of person did you used to be before? All the titles Like were you someone that you know was playful and you know loved to just be around? People Like who was that person before? Society kind of molded you into who maybe you were supposed to be or had to be.
Speaker 2:I was a smarty pants. I just had to know everything. It was very important to me and so I used to read books. If you ask people who knew me back, then they'll say everyone will say, oh yeah, she really liked books, like everybody will say that you know. So I was very interested in facts. I was very interested in not people's opinions, I wanted real things because I didn't like injustice. So I was very focused on this is right and this is wrong, and I will. We can talk about it, but I'm not going to have a non-factual conversation. So I suppose in another life I would have been a lawyer, but I don't like conflict. But I did have a sense of right and wrong and I was a smarty pants and I was very curious and that whole figureoutable thing. I just felt like, well, if I'm interested in it, let me figure it out. And that whole figured out spirit has just been with me ever since I was a child.
Speaker 1:Were you an only child? Because I was also that way and I was an only child.
Speaker 2:Ah, well, it's kind of an interesting thing. So my older sister is 11 years older. I, from the time that I remember, I, you know, I was raised almost as if I were an only child. But then now, you know, record scratch. So then, when I was 12, my mom decided she wanted to be a foster parent and so we moved to a house and here came the foster kids. So all of a sudden, I'm a middle child. How did I, how did I go from, you know, being the almost the youngest, and now it's an older, and now these kids? What is happening? Right, so that? So I grew up as a middle child. So I started off as a youngest and I became a middle.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, that's interesting. That must have been a really hard sort of switch and change for you. So if we're hopping around here and we are jumping from younger Alicia to now adult Alicia, we are jumping from younger Alicia to now adult Alicia. Can you remember maybe the first time? And success means different things to different people, but in your words, and what success is to you, did it ever come at a cost, whether it was burnout, exhaustion, loneliness?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was a Latin American studies major in college and so I decided to spend my junior year abroad, not least because I was kind of struggling with school in terms of being in an urban environment and I grew up in the suburbs. So I went to South America junior year abroad. Now, that was fancy, because back then people didn't do that. This is pre-internet and you know, somebody left. You didn't know what was happening. You know, got a letter from them. You had a letter from them. You know, it was kind of like that and I was excited to be over there. Where are you? Well, I'm in Brazil, you know, it was. It was kind of like that. That was my junior year.
Speaker 2:But when I came back, um, that was my junior year, but when I came back, some of the friendships that I thought were going to be there weren't there. Why? Because they, they were there and they moved on. In my mind I was dropping back where I left, but that wasn't true for them. So then I started to say, oh, wow, that was very, very upsetting, because I wasn't thinking of the cost of making a decision like that. I just thought Alicia makes this decision and Alicia comes back and Alicia's world is as it was, and that's not true. That's not true at all, and that was sort of my first experience of that first experience of that.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you came back from, from studying abroad. You come back and life kind of changes for you and then you realize you know the world doesn't stop because you went off abroad. When you come back, what was that like for you? How did you kind of pick yourself back up by the bootstraps and just keep charging on? Was that tough for you?
Speaker 2:It was tough because it I only learned it over time. So it's not like you show up and I'm not talking to you anymore. It wasn't like that. It was like you know, these things, you see, the closeness, those little things that you share with somebody, you're tight with those things weren't there. We didn't have the jokes anymore, we didn't have those same experiences anymore that we could recollect, and that's where the humor is and that. So I just observed that it wasn't there, bit by bit, and I was like, wow, you know, there, there are consequences to everything. Even amazing things have consequences, and maybe we care about them, maybe we don't. But it became really clear to me then that, yeah, this is a world of consequences and I never really had to think about it like that before.
Speaker 1:That's really interesting and I think it ties really into our topic that we talk a lot about on this podcast, which is limiting beliefs, the things that get in our own way from stepping into ourselves and disarmoring who we aren't to get into who we actually are. So I'm curious now, when we jump into where you're at today with your coaching and all the things on a personal level, what belief did you have to unlearn to come back home to yourself? That?
Speaker 2:what other people think is irrelevant. Now, that's a very easy sentence to say, but so much of our identity is contained with it's full with what other people think, or what we think other people think or what we think other people should think. Right, there's a lot of that, and now I don't actually care. You know what I mean. I mean, there are a number of reasons why that's true. One reason that's true is that I'm a double cancer survivor, right? So I'm out here, like you know what. I didn't survive cancer twice to be out here stressing about what you think about me. You know what I mean. Like, when you put it in those terms, it seems a little silly. But then also, who are you? You know what I mean. I, you know I'm going to send to myself and society doesn't reward you for that. And when you, when you're a young girl, you know, society almost punishes you for that, you know. But no, no, no, I, I, I really don't care, um, what other people think. You know, sometimes I do, but I get over, I rebound.
Speaker 1:It's interesting when something will. I, because, of course, with my app and what I'm building, I do my own work because that's so important. I have a soul coach. I have incredible people that I have to work on my journey, because it's an ever evolving journey for everybody. But when something bothers me, whether it's like something that someone says to me, my soul coach will challenge me and go, okay, that it's not about them.
Speaker 1:What is it that is upsetting you within you that is upsetting you so much? And leaning into that has helped me so much, because I've realized that again, what you're talking about the balance, practicing the self-care and doing the work if something's offsetting, it can't really unbalance you. You're still at a nice equilibrium and that's the process. Like that's the true self-care that you're talking about and I'm talking about that. I think that social media, maybe even LinkedIn, talks about, like you know, work-life balance, like really, what is that you know? But the true balance that I wanted to highlight for you, that I loved, is, like you know, work-life balance, like really, what is that you know? But the true balance that I wanted to highlight for you, that I loved, is, like you're like I got right back to balance and that's exactly what that is. It's like if someone were to say something most of the time, as you know, and I know, it's just projection, most of the time, projection, you know. You know it's not really about me and self with self-awareness.
Speaker 1:You're like okay, I'm right back. I'm right back to where I was before. But I think it's so hard with younger people. They don't have the retrospect or the life experience to know that it's going to get better, that it's not about them. It's, most of the time, people projecting their own belief systems onto you and it can be really challenging, especially in 2025, to be a young person. So I love that you stated that it's so, so important and, as a coach yourself, you've led high levels of people, high performing people. I'm curious because I always talk about, like putting the oxygen mask on first, which can be hard. No one's perfect at it. I'm not perfect at it. I try. I find that balance, I try intent right. When did you start realizing you needed to lead yourself differently?
Speaker 2:You know, so this is going to seem like a silly thing. So when I was chief people officer, you know so this is going to seem like a silly thing. So when I was chief people officer, there was a moment when I was on stage and it was like all hands or I was explaining something or whatever, because I was always about inspiring the people, because it's very employee focused. It really really was, and I was saying my thing. And then I noticed that there are people and some of the employees they had their notebooks out and they're like writing things down. And I'm like, wow, they're out here writing down what I'm saying. What I am saying to them they feel like is worth remembering, it's worth thinking about, it's worth.
Speaker 2:You know, the words that I am saying matter. And if the words I'm saying matter, what else matters? How I show up matters, how I dress matters, how I talk to people matters, how I spend my time matters. All of these things matter. So I became very intentional about all of these things when I observed that one little thing, because what happens when you step into leadership is you become other, you're other, you're one of them because you have the ability to set the strategy for the organization. You have the ability to fire people, you have the ability to give assignments to people, so of course, you're the other. So how do you then want to show up for them so they can feel safe, so they can feel like they want to do their best work, all of the things? But I think that's what I think about that moment of people taking notes on, based on what I was saying, that I I started to think more of it in a 360 way, about leadership.
Speaker 1:I love that you use the word 360. I use that a lot too. What was it about it for you seeing the employees write down what you're saying? What did that speak to you? Was that a notion of oh, wow, like what I'm saying is valuable to them? Did you feel like your inner child was coming out going, wow, like you're good enough, you're, you're, you're doing amazing, you're, you're hitting these milestones that you know I wanted as a child? Like what was speaking through your mind during that moment?
Speaker 2:Well, it's so funny. Like any actor, like you know, you go up there with an intention. You know you want to. When you're an actor, you want people to feel something, want them to understand something, you want there to be a lesson.
Speaker 2:When you're doing internal comms or employee communications, it's not dissimilar, and at one point I wanted to be an actor, but but you know I didn't do that because you know you're smart, can't be an actor like that. That's a whole nother conversation. But you know you have in um an intention of of what you want to have happen, and so I liked the fact that when they were writing it down, I was like oh, so my intention is is coming through, because they could have been sitting there yawning, they could have been sitting there on the phone, like there were all the things that they could have done, but they but there was something about the way that I, the decision I made to hold myself physically and the words that I chose to use and the way that I said those words landed with them, and so that for me that was a really positive. So it was like at least it got another A plus, but also the A plus was in service of them, which is what I really cared about serving them.
Speaker 1:That's so cool and yeah, I mean it's so nice to get the what feels like the gold star, you know, and it's interesting. I grew up as a professional dancer. I grew up as like a competitive dancer and I was also like when I went to college I was a psych major. So like the arts has always been a part of my life and it's interesting you mentioned acting because I just brought on another um exited, an exited founder and he's so talented he's on his next company. He's also writing on Broadway and he's like I don't even tell people that because people have this like notion about you know being being an artist and what that means and you know it could be a distraction to investors. It could be. And I disagree.
Speaker 1:I mean, like seasons ago I brought on my cousin Andrea, who has her master's in voice operatic singer song around the world. She's now an executive at Estee Lauder Brands. She's head of travel retail worldwide and for a long time she was I don't know if she still is, but she was on the videos for the corporate education videos and people would ask her and go wait a minute. How are you like memorizing the script so quickly? And she's like I used to memorize operas Like this is nothing you know, and so like I think there needs to be a conversation for like corporations around hiring artists and creative people because you know they're so talented, they can think outside the box, you know.
Speaker 2:I feel that creatives I say this all the time they're magical people. Yeah, I think they're magical people and I remember I loved working with creatives when we had to do design and visual identity systems. The idea that you could talk to them about the strategy of an organization and they can create a visual that embodies the meaning and the feeling I really thought it was magical. I enjoyed working with them so much and learning their language. I could never do what they do. Certainly I respect expertise and I particularly respect that kind of expertise.
Speaker 1:So I'm curious what now, in your state of being, in this state of consciousness, what does enough look like now? And your mind, your body, your spirit, your schedule?
Speaker 2:Oh, you know, as soon as you said that I start to exhale. When you don't have a preconceived notion of how something's supposed to be and you're just open, that feels great in your body Because you're not like what am I supposed to be? I'm behind. No, everything's supposed, it's how it's supposed to be, even if it's a crap day, it was supposed to be a crap day. You know what I mean. And I did the best I could. I'm going to do the best I can. My default position is that I'm amazing. Right, I think we're all amazing, because if you start with that, then you don't beat yourself up. You're doing the best you can. The best you can is really really good.
Speaker 2:So you know what more could you ask for? You know, that's why I have this disposition. There was a woman I used to work with, um, she was in the c-suite with me and she said she pulled me aside. She said, lisa, can I just ask you a question? I said yeah. She said, um, why are you always so upbeat, like you can't catch me, not being an upbeat way, you can't catch me. And I said to to her. I said, you know, because I remember my mother used to always say not everybody who thought they were going to wake up today woke up. But we did. So let's make it amazing. She's like okay, that's my answer to everybody, because I really believe that we didn't have to be here Again. Cancer survivor, I know I didn't have to be here again. Cancer survivor, I know I didn't have to be here. You know what I mean? Um, so, and tomorrow is not promised either. So let's do the best we can, you know, with this little day we got.
Speaker 1:I love that and I can. I I'm curious what did that experience for you being a cancer survivor? How that shape, the way that you look at I mean you kind of already alluded to it, but how you look at life and how you approach life.
Speaker 2:It's it gives you this. You start thinking about time in a different way, like a time, and this is when I started thinking about cause. I used to like to try to do everything, but now, and for a while, you don't do everything. You curate your life. You curate when you curate. What does a museum do? It curates. It has tons of stuff they can put in there, but it doesn't. It puts certain things in there. Everything has its time and its place, and just because you've done something before doesn't mean it needs to be at the front. Maybe that was what it was supposed to be, and now you can put it to the side, you know. So it's really gotten me to think in that way.
Speaker 2:To curate, I only have a certain amount of time. I want to do the things that I do, choose to do them really well, or the way that I want to do them, the way that's fun, or whatever. Because you start thinking of how do I want the days that I have left? What do I want them to be like? Do I want them to be frazzled because I tried to do 20 things and did them all in a you know half-assed way? Or do I want to say I achieved X, Y, Z and I took it as far as I wanted to take it. I'm going to do something else, what else, what you know, and that keeps it exciting and whatever. So I think that's the kind of the real big mindset shift that I got out of. That is how I decided to spend my time.
Speaker 1:Interesting. And so what was the transition like? Going from chief people officer to coach?
Speaker 2:Good question. Now. It's really funny because I used to always say I don't care about HR. Well, what do you mean? How do you mean chief people? Because I didn't grow up in HR, I'm an economist and then I did consulting on. You know, I did a bunch of stuff.
Speaker 2:But I started to realize I, you know, I like things to work and I was trying to figure things out. Like I told you at the beginning, I always wanted to figure things out. Why does a company do well? Why doesn't it do well? And I started to really understand that it's about the people. It's the people. If you don't get the people part, the organization is not going to meet its objectives. So that's why I started caring. I said that's why I care about HR, because I care about the people, because that is the catalyst and the foundation for making this organization do whatever the heck it wants to do. It has a mission, but so do the people. They have careers. They don't have to work here, right, they can do all kinds of things.
Speaker 2:So for me it became interesting to deal with a workforce, individuals at scale, but then also have the opportunity and scale, like policy and investments and things you could do to help them, but also the things that you do with them one-on-one. And then I realized you know what? I can continue to do that. But leaders come and go. Different leaders have different points of view about the role of HR. They have different points of view about how they want to treat their workforces right. These things can change in the time when the leadership changes, and I said I don't want to change on a dime when these leaders change. I care about the people. So that's when I decided no, no, no, alicia, take it to the people, actually spend your energy dealing with the people. And so that's when I started getting really excited about not just not, you know, let me transform the organization and get awards, which we did. I'm proud of that.
Speaker 2:But also, what really feeds my soul is when I'm having a coaching discussion with somebody and I see that a light went on and I see that they have transformed that, the way that they are thinking about something in particular and it's done. Once the light is on, it's on and you can see it, and sometimes they're crying or sometimes you know when you're thinking, you just kind of look up. There's a lot of looking up. They're thinking, they're thinking. I'm in it for that. I'm in it for that on a one-on-one basis. I'm in it for that when I see it in a group, because I see people do that for each other and I'm enabling and catalyzing that.
Speaker 2:I do it when I'm on the stage and I'm giving a speech and I see I'm engaging the one-on-one and you believe it. You know what I mean. This is what we could do. We could do it, you know, and to me being the person who could help make that happen, and to me being the person who could help make that happen one-on-one, in a group and en masse, doesn't get better than that. So no, I don't want to be in C-suite having a meeting with the CFO about some budget for next quarter. You know which is the kind of stuff you have to do when you are a CHRO in an organization.
Speaker 1:It's part of your job. So I'm curious what are like as a, as a former hiring, um, like a chief people officer, what were like common denominator traits that you looked for when you were hiring?
Speaker 2:I hired for I was very big on your ability to tell your narrative. If you can't tell the story of yourself, which would be the easiest story to tell, that to me is a flag. Now, obviously everyone's nervous, isn't it? But you should be able to tell me. It can't just be I did this, I did that and then said now I want to do this, okay, but you know, and I'm kind of pulling it out.
Speaker 2:The other thing is I I like to hire for the ability of somebody to learn, because required skill sets now more than ever. They come and they go. I don't want to just hire you because you're deep in this one thing, that one technology can be gone. I need to know that you can learn new things, different things. So I'm looking for evidence of that. I would take somebody who could demonstrate how they've moved across platforms or across operating systems, whatever the case may be. I would pick that person over somebody who could say I'm deep in this one skill. That's in the job description, because I know that person can learn that skill in the job description. I don't necessarily have evidence that this person, who only knows this one thing, could learn something else interesting. So that that's what I was always looking for so I'm really interested in connecting the dots.
Speaker 1:How did the error of enough find you in your practice?
Speaker 2:well, let me tell you, error of enough, where did this come from? So I came from a breakdown, came from a breakdown. Came from a breakdown. I had a nervous breakdown earlier in my career and you know I told you before I was a smarty pants. Smarty pants evolve into overachievers, and you know. And then you put the Gen X lens on that and oh my gosh, right, because we just did everything we were supposed to do. We had our heads down. You've been asking questions. You know we just did everything we were supposed to do. We had our heads down. He wouldn't ask any questions. You know what I mean? We just did everything, right.
Speaker 2:So smarty pants, alicia, growing up at a time when that's what the workplace demanded of you and there was no asking questions and there was certainly no saying no to anything, like you know, it would be like a record scratch moment, or at least you felt it would be a record scratch moment if you were to express a preference, right, it was kind of crazy now that people, when I say it cause people are like really, I'm like, yeah, really. So in this particular case, I was in the fast track of this company and it was really old school in terms of if you wanted to progress in this function, you had to go through these various jobs. And this one job that came up, I said, oh no, this isn't going to work out at all. Yeah, cause it was not in my wheelhouse, it wasn't things I like to do, or that I wasn't good at them. I was like I don't, I don't think so, but I was told I had to do it. Okay, you tell me I have to do it. Okay, I'm going to. I'm going to work my behind off till I what? Figure it out Right.
Speaker 2:And so I had so much anxiety I would show up. The people who I was working for didn't want me there. They resented me being there, so they didn't want to actually see me succeed. Who is this top talent person that is over here that we didn't even pick, and that kind of thing, and every mistake. They would love to hold it up and I'm like dude, that's a mistake, because you never told me. But it didn't matter, you're supposed to know right, it was just. It was kind of a weird dynamic. But also, even if that wasn't the case, the nature of the job itself was not aligned with who I was, and so I was trying to work myself. I would be at the job till 10 pm 10 pm every night. I knew the cleaning people. I knew them. We would have conversations, but check it, not only was I there when they came, I was still there when they went home. This isn't making sense. And so now I'm sleep deprived. I'm sleep deprived, I have anxiety. I was making mistakes before, now I'm making more mistakes.
Speaker 2:I went to ask my sponsor. I went to timidly say you know, I don't think this is going to work. Oh, alicia, you're fine, just go back. And I was like okay. So I went back and I remember I was in bed one time. It was like 11 PM and I'm like wow, that was a crap day. Also, I have to get up in five hours and do it again.
Speaker 2:So I was like you know, this job is wrecking me. And when I explained it to one of my friends, just hearing myself say the words of what I was going through made it clear to me that this was not an unsustainable situation. So I called human resources and I went out on medical leave, which I was embarrassed to do, because seeking mental health support was not a thing back then, it was not normalized, so I waited to seek treatment because I was embarrassed to make the call. But I finally made the call and so when I was out on leave of absence you have a lot of time to think and I thought hold the presses, just stop this right now. This isn't making sense. I'm sitting here, this amazing resource in this company, and you put me in a situation where I was not gonna thrive. That tortured me because of some rule that you had about the job.
Speaker 2:Screw that I was so amazing. I am amazing. I was enough as I was and also I've had enough of you. That was my whole mindset. I had enough of you telling me that I have to do A, b, c and D. If you didn't think I was amazing, I wouldn't even be in this program, but here I am. So now you have to listen to what I have to say, and so I developed this framework for thinking about who you actually are and that everybody has their own personal North Star of their own requirements and the things that they aspire to be and the things that they love to do and they're amazing at, and their preferences and their values and the things that make them enough so they can pick things that are in alignment with who they are, not the other way around. So I wasn't calling it that then, but that's really what was happening, and so, at from that time on, I became very clear about what my personal North star was, and I not made a decision since then that was not in alignment with it.
Speaker 2:But fast forward to now, as I've been coaching women, now that we're, you know, gen Xers are between 45 and 60 years old, and I'm coaching women who are feeling out of sorts, who are still feeling that they're not enough. You know, maybe I didn't get promoted because I wasn't supposed to. Or, you know, maybe I should. I should be moving up, but should I? Or you know, a lot of uncertainty. Maybe I picked the wrong thing. Why am I a lawyer? I don't even like being a lawyer. What do you like? I don't know. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:So it was just the women that I work with are like I want different. I don't even know how to explain how I got here. I went different. I don't even know how to explain how I got here, or maybe I can, but it was based on a series of non-decisions that I made or decisions I made and I don't like it. And I realized that the frame of you know what, you're enough as you are yeah, like what would the world be like if you were enough and you could live your wildest dreams, what about that? And I found that that was a way to connect and I wrote this LinkedIn post where I talked about this and it just really, really resonated and I said you know, I think this is what we're going to call it. I think I'm going to call it this, because people get it. They get it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree, and you know I I have a wellness app that I am building and we're headed to launch and we have a couple of pilots that we're doing. And you know, when I was raped, it changed my life and my vision of self-worth.
Speaker 1:I did not feel enough. I thought that I deserved it and it was like the lowest of lows, or what I thought was lowest of lows, and what came out of it was a really beautiful thing, which is, yes, this platform and this podcast and this app, whatever. But as I do this intense work on myself, I'm like, if you took all of that away, I'm still worthy and that was a win for me. Like everything else aside, I got myself back and that is such an underestimated, you know, high. That's such an important thing that it doesn't matter what titles you have, you know, chief people officer it's amazing CEO, founder, whatever it's like.
Speaker 1:Being okay with you is so important. You can't like, you don't want to go through your life going oh, I'm miserable, I'm unhappy, I hate myself. It's like we have this one life and we're here to thrive and to love life and to not just survive, and the skill sets that got me through that awful experience is not going to be the skill sets that will get me to the next level and then the next level and then the level after that. And so we have to be in this love affair with ourselves because, at the end of the day, we have to sit with ourselves and see ourselves for who we are, and such a beautiful thing, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that is why, as part of the framework that I have, you know this personal North star what is it? One of the hardest things it is for my clients to do. I asked them what do you aspire to be? Nobody asks these questions. I'm not even talking about what is your purpose. I hate that, by the way.
Speaker 2:That's another conversation, but it's how do you want to show up in this world when you get older and you look back, what's the things that you did, so that you won't say I regretted X, Y, Z. It's not a title, right, it's not? I look, I was a who cares. Who cares? What did you show up and do? How did you make people feel? What did you get to do? What impact did you make? What you know? What I mean? Like these are the questions I ask people. If you don't know what you aspire to be, how are you ever going to get there? Because your aspirations shouldn't be a dream. Dreams are for when you're asleep. What do you aspire to be? And let's get about the business of getting you there. That's what we're doing.
Speaker 1:I'm a coach. I'm not a therapist. Action right. It's like when you have all the aspirations in your head, you help them flush it out and turn it into action right.
Speaker 2:That's right, and an insistence that the choices that they make. We're 45 to 60 years old. My gosh, if we're not going to insist on the things that we need to be the people we want to be, if we're not willing to do it now, I suppose we never will. And I tell people we don't have time. We don't have time. This is not a game. This is our lives, and what you aspire to be is not like a hokey dokey thing. No, seriously, what do you want to be in this world and what are your values? What matters to you? Have you been putting them down and suffering, working for places that are not in alignment with your values? For what A paycheck? For what A title? What are you actually interested in? You're out here being a lawyer. You don't even like it and you're still doing it. And you, even worse, haven't figured out what you do like. And you're living in the well, I was told and this and that, yeah, but what if everybody? What if all that went away Now?
Speaker 1:what Leaning into the discomfort, I think is really important and really hard for people to do, like sitting in the silence and being really honest with yourself about who you are and what makes you who you are, and I love to sit with. Do you ever sit with your inner child? I know that's a very earthy crunchy thing. I do a lot and I have this photo of me as like a three-year-old, with leopard pants on my head because I was completely bald. I didn't have any hair so I thought, oh, this looks like hair. And anytime I'm mean to myself or hard on myself, I look at her. I'm like, how could I be mean to myself? Like that's that little girl that just that had, that was fierce, like you, like smart and spunky and felt safe to just like say my opinions. And it's just such a beautiful thing when you think about sort of like the, the state of consciousness you're in right now. What are things you wish, like characteristics or lessons, and you know in a few words that you wish you knew as a younger. Oh, wow.
Speaker 2:I wish I were more open to taking risks, I wish I was more open to believing that there's more than one way to live a life well, and I wish that I was less judgmental.
Speaker 1:Wow, less judgmental of yourself, I'm assuming Of others, oh, of others. Okay, wow, that's beautiful. Thank you for that. So thank you so much for joining me today. How can our listeners continue to follow and support the work that you're doing?
Speaker 2:Well, I live on LinkedIn, my social platform of choice, because all the multimedia you could do. So I do a lot of writing there, videos and really just sharing what this era of enough is really all about. So you'll see all of that there. I hope it's become very clear that my personal North star is to help women Gen X women in particular get these transformations, so the easiest way to contact me is hitting me up in the DMs and LinkedIn.
Speaker 1:Thank you, alicia, for joining me today. I appreciate you. Thank you for having me. Thank you for listening to. I Feel you a Fortify Wellness production, where we empower mind, body and soul to reach new heights. Your wellbeing is your greatest strength. Nurture it, honor it and watch yourself thrive. If today's episode inspired you, subscribe, share your thoughts in the comments and come back next week for more insights to elevate your journey. Stay empowered, stay true and remember you're not alone. I Feel you is a Fortify Wellness production. All rights reserved 2025.