An Opera Singer Shares How to Reclaim Your Personal Power, Style, and Presence

There is a moment many high achievers quietly know: the life they built works, on paper, but something essential no longer fits. 

Not a crisis. Not failure. Something more unsettling: success without a sense of self. 

I'm speaking with Adria Firestone, The Reinvention Architect™, about what it means to rebuild from the inside out, reclaim your voice, and design a life that reflects who you are becoming, not who you used to be. The voice as the architecture of identity. 

A conversation about reinvention, presence, performance, and how leaders can reclaim their authority, not by starting over, but by returning to their essence. 

Adria Firestone, The Reinvention Architect™, keynote speaker, voice and presence expert, best-selling author of You Are the Artist of Your Life. 

She is an international opera and musical theater performer, Carbonell Award winner, Woman of the Year at the Spoleto Festival, and university educator with 20+ years of teaching voice, presence, and performance. 

Adria helps women and leaders reclaim their voice, identity, and authority through the Reinvention Architecture™ framework.

View the Podcast on YouTube.

 TIMELINE

0:00 — Introduction — "You're Not Depressed, Just Unfinished" 

0:30 — Meet Adria Firestone — Opera Singer, Professor & Reinvention Coach 

3:59 — The Duality: Life Looked Fabulous But Felt Empty 

4:32 — Escaping to the Stage — Running Away to the Circus at Age 10 

15:42 — Safe on Stage, Unsafe at Home — Roots of People-Pleasing 

19:40 — Hearing the Voice: "This Is Your Last Carmen" 

20:16 — Walking Off Stage Into the Unknown — What Comes After Identity? 

22:18 — Following the Breadcrumbs — How Life Guides You Without a Script 

23:31 — Hiding in Caregiving — Trading One Role for Another 

25:04 — Coming Home to Yourself — When All the Hiding Places Are Gone 

29:46 — Reinvention Architecture: The 4 A's — Accept, Ask, Act, Allow 

41:13 — The SHINE Framework — Seen, Heard, Included, Nurtured, Empowered 

42:58 — Invisible People in Organizations — The Real Engagement Crisis 

46:24 — Contact Adria Firestone and Learn More About Her

CONTACT ADRIA FIRESTONE

Website: https://adriafirestone.com/speaker-coaching-2/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adriafirestone/

Book: You Are the Artist of Your Life on Amazon

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

You're not depressed. Just unfinished. This is the podcast for leaders, high achievers, and entrepreneurs who have built impressive lives on the outside. And yet sense something is dying on the inside. If you ever stared at everything you have accomplished and felt strangely empty, this show is for you. My guest today is quite fascinating. She's been an opera singer on international stages, she's been a college professor, and she is a leadership coach, about reinvention architect. Her gift is about how do we bring our voice, our power, and personal presence and warmth, no matter where we are, on the stages, corporate environment, boardroom, team meetings, or in the family and community. You will get to hear my guest and a dear colleague who has a wonderful book, which I've read and I highly recommend it. You are the architect of your life. And you will get to hear, first of all, her voice. She will actually sing for us during this episode. My guest, Audrea Firestone, is here and she will share wonderful stories with us. Welcome, Audrea, and let's get started. First of all, where are you joining us from?

SPEAKER_02 1:34

I could say I was joining you from another planet because sometimes it feels like that. But let me give you the appropriate accent. I'm here in New Jersey, if I'm Jersey, New Jersey. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

There's a way to say that New Jersey.

SPEAKER_02 1:52

You can't just say I'm in New Jersey. That's boring.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

That's right. And so if you walk outside your residence, what do you see that is your favorite hangout?

SPEAKER_02 2:03

Ironically, Odisha, it home moved for me from places, from outside places to inside myself.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:15

Because when you're on the road for as long as I was on the road, home is not going to feel like a hotel room, even though I would bring my incense so that it would smell like home. But nevertheless, I love nature. I love to look at nature. But the home feeling is for me safety and silence in the morning. And sitting with my cat, who is in so many ways wiser than I am. She has this sense of confidence and independence, knows exactly who she is, and she has me wrapped around her little paw. And I meditate, and she loves when I meditate because she comes and sits on my heart. And that to me is some tangible silence and safety. It's not about doing things, it's not even about the space. Yes, I have some beautiful things in my space that are from my travels.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:21

But I learned that home was here inside of me. Yes. It was not a place, actually, not a physical place.

SPEAKER_00 3:31

That's right. That's beautiful. What is your cat's name? There are a lot of cat lovers, I'm learning.

SPEAKER_02 3:38

Her name is Precious, and she knows it.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

Of course, right away, my mind goes to Lord of the Ring, Precious.

SPEAKER_02 3:46

And Precious may very well join us. You never know.

SPEAKER_00 3:50

Absolutely. Precious, join us whenever you can. And in your book and your website and your writings, you talk about your life looked good from the outside.

SPEAKER_02 4:02

Oh, it looked fabulous from the outside.

SPEAKER_00 4:04

It looked fabulous. And then somehow it didn't feel like your life. Bring us to an inside story. What was it, what people saw? Because I'm sure it took a lot of energy and work to accomplish that, but it didn't feel like yours. Tell us about that duality.

SPEAKER_02 4:24

It is indeed a duality because one part of going to the stage, I like to say that I ran away to the circus when I was 10 years old, except my circus was the stage and the music that I loved.

unknown 4:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:42

The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in real.

SPEAKER_02 4:55

And I think one of the things, Adishiya, that I learned was and I was looking for to love and be loved without abandoning myself.

SPEAKER_01 5:07

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 5:08

And when you're on the stage, I didn't realize that I was escaping danger. I didn't see it that way at that time. I saw it as I was escaping to a world that was far more beautiful where I can be, I could be, as intense as I wanted to.

SPEAKER_01 5:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:28

I could scream as long as I screamed on pitch and followed the conductor. And if I did that, and I had all these fabulous characters to hide behind. And I put the avatar of Carmen over me. And she had so much more confidence than I did. She was absolutely confident. She was afraid of it.

SPEAKER_00 5:50

In your videos, you're there, you're commanding the stage and the challenge.

SPEAKER_02 5:55

Yes. And that to be able to achieve that depth of mastery of a craft is a very beautiful thing. But what I loved about it is the release that it gave me that my life did not give me, but the characters was kind of release, was it? To be able to be as passionate and as intense as Audria is as I am. But in life, I didn't fit in. I never fit in school.

SPEAKER_01 6:30

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 6:31

And I had this marvelous story. My goodness, this just popped into my head. I was doing showboat in with Houston Grand Opera, and I was doing Julie.

SPEAKER_00 6:41

And showboat, that classic movie, and I love that. I love that movie.

SPEAKER_02 6:46

And I was doing these jaws. She said, My mother wants to talk to you. And I said to myself, I don't know your mother. But and then she said, she was at Nova High School. And I said, and she was the acting teacher. And I said, You mean the beautiful blonde lady, Mrs. Hole? And Mrs. Hole wanted to talk to me. And she on the phone said to me, Adria, I cannot tell you how proud I am of you. And I have to tell you that we wanted to choose you every time you auditioned because you were the best. But because you were a freshman, we couldn't give you the roles. And I just want you to know that. I just want you to know that I said, this is an incredible gift that you're giving me because finally I left the high school and I was going to the college across the way. And that's where I started getting roles instantly.

SPEAKER_01 7:56

Yeah. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 7:57

So it it was very satisfying to be one of the values of my life is beauty, to be involved in such beauty. When you hear another human, even though I do it, even though I know how to teach people how to do it, when I hear a colleague of mine sing, Atishir, I look at them and I'm in amazement to hear that beautiful sound coming out of them. It's dictionary. It's an extraordinary thing to hear a singer, especially an opera singer. But I love all kinds of music because I had one foot in musical theater and the other foot was an opera.

SPEAKER_00 8:34

Your voice has a quality of a lullaby. Almost the moment I listen to it, almost been a psychologist, my nervous system. I feel I'm safe here, I'm protected. There's a all there's a power around me, just there's something about it. So I'm just guessing people in the audience listening to you, they it must have been like a therapy for them. It says, Oh my gosh, they just felt it. There's something very unique, very thank you, very wholesome, very almost like it from heart to heart that I experience that.

SPEAKER_02 9:18

And it is, it is. I feel that way. When I sing, it's an extension of whether I'm speaking to you or I'm singing to you. My singing voice and my speaking voice are very similar.

SPEAKER_03 9:29

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_02 9:30

And it is using more breath, a little more breath, but when I speak, I use my whole body to speak. I don't speak from Europe, I use my entire body to speak.

SPEAKER_00 9:40

How I learned that, yes.

SPEAKER_02 9:42

Oh, it's a beautiful thing, it makes a big difference. It changes the color, it changes the depth, and it changes the contact you have with people. Breath and voice is astounding. People don't realize how much presence requires the use, the good use of breath.

SPEAKER_00 10:00

That's right. So you do this work that you're like your breath as your power of your attentive power presence connection.

SPEAKER_02 10:08

Absolutely, because everything is vibration.

SPEAKER_00 10:11

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 10:12

Everything was vibration. If we could, if we were bright enough at this moment in Earth School to change our vibration, we would be able to walk through the wall and then come back through the wall because it's all vibrating. So you can imagine when vibration comes from another human, it is as unique as our fingerprints, as our DNA, as our voice print. It is a unique thing because you're designed a certain way, the hard palate, the soft palate, the sinuses give you a certain resonance. It depends on how you're built, and that is unique to you.

SPEAKER_00 10:48

So let me ask a question. You've had multiple roles in your life so far.

SPEAKER_02 10:55

Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_00 10:56

As a stage performer, as a coach, as a spouse, you've taught as an author. What role do you identify with right now? Is there a dominant role or is a combination of all of those roles in you?

SPEAKER_02 11:16

Do you mean, let me make sure I'm understanding, you're asking if there is a relationship with who I am now with any of the roles that I played?

SPEAKER_00 11:26

More personal that as you think about yourself, whether you're meeting people, whether you get on the call, you get on this podcast, which version of Audrea is showing up? Let me give examples. So when people ask me them, I'm an immigrant. They lived in New York and now live in California. And personally, I've been incorporated in the space of leadership, change, transformation. But deep down, I'm a skeptical psychology scientist trying to practical and challenge mental health models. My only focus is that mental health, especially depression, they are not illnesses, they're wake-ups.

SPEAKER_01 12:13

I agree.

SPEAKER_00 12:13

That's the only lens that I have. I may go here and there, but I have a soul's focus. I'm curious what is when you think about yourself, what are you doing each day? What role or roles come up for you?

SPEAKER_02 12:32

Ironically, I think it is wonderful that I was able to play so many roles. The positive archetype, the negative archetype, the positive anima, all of these different characters that I played. Because I was able to explore many facets of myself that some people never get a chance to explore. But I guess the largest character that made a difference in me because it's also how you play a character. For example, I never played Carmen as she's just sexy, she's just trying to seduce everybody around her. No, she thought that was great fun and it was part of her survival skills. But at a certain point in my life, when I was ready to walk off the stage, I realized that I wasn't the woman of the first or the second act anymore. I was the woman of the fourth act who says, Laissez-moi passer, just let me go by or kill me. I don't care, I'm going. That all that stuff was gone. And it was like, this is who I am. And if you like it, that's wonderful. If you don't like it, that's okay too. It is the coming home to myself, yeah, is in a sense. I have a picture of me as a little girl that I was in a tree. I could escape my tormentors because I could climb a tree really fast, even when I was three, and I'm clinging to a branch.

SPEAKER_01 14:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:21

And that's still I can do that. That is something inside of me, and there's another picture where I'm like this. Yeah. And that's the essential me is this joy of living that I've come back to.

SPEAKER_03 14:36

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 14:39

And when my joy turns on, it's it surprises even me.

SPEAKER_01 14:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:44

And it's coming home to yourself. I'm not trying to be anybody anymore. That's right because I've been so many people, and I did hide behind them. I admit it. I hid in the spotlight for 40 years of my life. I walked on stage when I was 10. I didn't walk off until I was 50. That's a long time.

SPEAKER_00 15:05

That's right. And you had an option to be all this different wonderful, extravagant, loud animals.

SPEAKER_02 15:11

I am male, female, old, young, ugly, beautiful. It was all these different animals that I could be.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 15:19

That's wonderful because you have a chance for exploration.

SPEAKER_00 15:24

That's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_02 15:25

And you have you're you're safe on stage. That's why I went there. I was safe. Nobody could hurt me on stage. I loved rehearsal even more than performance. Because I could explore and push the envelope as far as I wanted.

SPEAKER_00 15:42

Why was it you were safe on stage?

SPEAKER_02 15:46

Because I was not safe in my home. I had very now, don't get me wrong. I do believe that we choose our parents. I believe that the soul says, I want to learn A, B, and C, and I think I'll pick those two. Now, my logical brain says, Why on earth did you do that, Audria?

SPEAKER_00 16:11

That's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_02 16:12

What were they great teachers? Oh my goodness. Yes, they were. These were some of the greatest lessons that I ever learned in my life.

SPEAKER_00 16:21

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 16:22

But what I learned was at first for many years, one, if somebody said they loved you, they didn't mean it, and they were going to use you, they were going to abuse you, they were going to use you as a magnet to get attention, to get money, to get people to invest in their scams. And it was a terrible feeling. But ironically, I didn't understand that until I walked off stage. I fell into a depression because I didn't know who I was anymore. And I said to myself, wait a minute. Wait a minute. You were not in a loving situation, were you? You better start healing right now. And that's when I started intense personal work. I was always very spiritually interested and all that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 17:12

The work you did, intense personal work. What did you actually do?

SPEAKER_02 17:16

Okay. Therapy, psychologist, psychotherapist, EMDR, NLP, learning modalities, even myself, so that I could help others and help myself. Hypnosis. I was ready to meet a witch doctor at midnight at the crossroads because I realized that I was far more damaged than I knew. Which when you lose trust, you don't trust anybody after a while. You're always defending yourself.

SPEAKER_00 17:49

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 17:50

And I know how to do that well. I can put on this front that is very showbiz. I can be very charming, and I put that in quotes, but I keep you at a distance.

SPEAKER_00 18:02

You talk about your approach to people to life. You use the word trust and safety as something you experienced, you felt you didn't have them any time in life. Safety and trust. I did not. And yet you felt when you were on the stage, given the character, given the direction, everyone had a role. If people were mean or loving, it was scripted. There were no surprises. As long as you followed that song, it looked almost like it was a make-believe life. And you came off the stage and realized, whoa, people can be abusive, take advantage of what are they really after? And you had to learn to fend off for yourself, you had to go for your own healing. As you did that, you went journey of healing, setting boundaries. How did you find coming home? The reason I asked this question is there's a notion that almost coming home suddenly one day you wake up, you're home. This is a journey almost 40 years, journey of so what was that journey like? And when did you realize I'm just sort of home?

SPEAKER_02 19:25

It didn't happen after the 40 years. It took probably another 20 because after the 40 years, I was backstage in getting ready to do another karma. And literally, I heard a voice, and there was nobody around except me. I was doing my yoga with one leg up on a stage ladder, and I was just doing my stretches. And I heard a voice that said, This is the last karmen you will ever do. And I went, What do you mean, the last karma I'll ever do? This has been my life.

SPEAKER_01 19:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:57

And yet, inside of me, I knew I was hearing the truth, and I knew it was time to leave. And so I did that performance. I completed the rest of the performance for another two years of contracts that I had. I didn't sign any new contracts, and I walked off stage. When I walked off stage, I didn't say anything to anybody, I just stopped. Yeah, and I felt a tremendous loss. Yeah, because I had no definition anymore. Because if you ask me in the past, who are you? Oh, I'm a singer.

SPEAKER_00 20:33

So what you did, I want to get captured this kind. So you realized what you were doing didn't fulfill your anymore. You and then is the hero journey looking back no more. You need to look forward and then say, So, what do I do now?

SPEAKER_02 20:53

And to me, it was blank. There was no, I saw nothing in front of me. Okay, I had met this lovely man who was a beautiful carpenter, and we got together and I started a business for him. I ran a construction business. I was even a general contractor. We flipped houses, we redid houses. I didn't know anything about construction, I learned really fast. But then I started teaching at the university too. And so what happened is all the at all at the same time, I was doing all these studies to heal myself. And I was also, I became, I went to school to become a coach because I remembered one day as we were getting ready to move, I was sitting on the floor going through some scrapbooks and saying, Should I get rid of these scrapbooks? Because they're heavy and I should I keep them? And I opened up a few of the notes that people give you at the end of a show. And it was, Oh, Audrea, you did you were the most wonderful omnedis and I. Aida, but Audria, you as a human, you changed my life. Thank you. And I read enough of messages like that, and I started crying. And I said, wait a minute, these are breadcrumbs. You better become a coach because people are coming to you anyway and telling you about the children.

SPEAKER_00 22:18

These are breadcrumbs. Use that breadcrumbs.

SPEAKER_02 22:21

Did you follow the spreadsheet?

SPEAKER_00 22:23

In fact, there isn't been again. We should come back to this. That what I share with people that life doesn't give you a manuscript. No, life shows up as breadcrumbs, inclination, a voice, or in or something intuition says, I'm done with that. I'm relationship manager company.

SPEAKER_03 22:44

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 22:45

And initial reaction is that oh, I already know that's what these are breadcrumbs. That's those are to just listen to because that one leads to the next one, to the next one, to make it.

SPEAKER_02 22:56

To the next one and the next one.

SPEAKER_00 22:57

That's true.

SPEAKER_02 22:58

And so all of those things, because I was so panic stricken at not knowing who I was anymore, I was going to school as a coach, teaching at the university and running a construction company and flipping houses.

SPEAKER_03 23:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:11

So that's an awful lot. Okay. And then I discovered that my darling husband was very ill. And I didn't know that. I thought he had maybe a problem with alcohol. It was far deeper than that. And I also realized that I had become once again, I had hid in the spotlight, and now I was hiding in caregiving. And only at a moment of desperation, I'd never asked for help before. I remember I was in his psych unit and I said to the nurses, please help me. I don't feel safe anymore. And I felt horrible saying that because I felt like I was betraying him.

SPEAKER_00 24:04

That's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_02 24:06

But that was really hard. That was a huge challenge. And then when that finally resolved itself, that was pretty much 10 years, almost 10 years. And I realized that I hid in the spotlight, then I hid in caregiving. Now, ironically, here I am back in the same situation. I've been at the university for 23 years, and all of a sudden the university is closing, and my job is gone.

SPEAKER_01 24:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:37

And I said, Oh, so you've been showing other people and clients, students and clients how to find their voice, but you didn't have the courage to claim your own, Andrea, did you?

SPEAKER_00 24:50

Now you're creating stage of your life for yourself. You are the conductor, you write the script, you you rehearse, you go, you're your own audience and you show up.

SPEAKER_02 25:04

Now it's only me because all the hiding places are gone, Adish year. I can't find anymore.

SPEAKER_00 25:11

I love for the sorry to interrupt you for what you just mentioned. Hiding in so many roles. We grow up in roles as a good boy, good girl, then in college, dates, professional parenting, succession. So when people come to me as this psychologist for therapy, they feel tired. These are people who look great, smell great, their bodies great. They say, I'm tired of I don't know who I am. And people look up to me and have roles. People depend on me. Who am I? The tiredness is that where do I start? Something also you mentioned, and people ask me, so Artish here, I come and do session with you, and then will I wake up one Saturday morning and says, Wow, brand new me, and life looks rosy. Great answer. And I tell them the time will come, but it looks different.

SPEAKER_02 26:17

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 26:18

That somehow the burdens you had, the roles you had, how you were hiding, they won't be there, or if they are there are, they will not have as much pull on you. But then here's where it starts. So then realize I don't have a script anymore. That's where people actually stumble. They get freaked out. They go back to the roles versus and they say, Why? And I tell them the reason is all those years you played somebody else's roles.

SPEAKER_02 26:48

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 26:49

And now you realize you need a new script. It will be hard, it'll be frustrating, you will not like yourself, other people may not like you, but you are the author, you're the player, you're the director. Life. You're artists of your life, and that's the best gift, and that's the hardest gift.

SPEAKER_02 27:10

It is, it's very hard because once you put down the manuscript, the role that society gives you and expects you to fulfill.

SPEAKER_03 27:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:24

When you put that down, it's very difficult to fit in quite as comfortably as you did in the past.

SPEAKER_01 27:32

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 27:33

And I finally accept that I don't see things as other people see them, I don't hear things as other people hear them. I am Audria, I have a unique viewpoint. I respect that, I respect my intuition, I respect my intellect, I respect most of all my heart. And that I can hold a space for love. Because if everything that I've gone through, the main thing that I learned was that the greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return. And it's not I love you personally, it's holding divine love, it is connecting to something so much bigger.

SPEAKER_01 28:20

Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_02 28:21

And when that is there, when you wake up at three o'clock in the morning saying, Is this all there is? I've designed the most beautiful life. I look around and it just bores me to tears. And I just I can't stand this anymore. What am I doing? I'm doing everything for everybody. What does anything mean anymore?

SPEAKER_00 28:43

And that's depression.

SPEAKER_02 28:44

Is depression, and I have been there. Oh man, have I been there?

SPEAKER_00 28:48

That's depression.

SPEAKER_02 28:49

The only way out of that is one of the reasons why I created reinvention architecture.

SPEAKER_00 28:56

Tell us about it. Like now, you talked about reinvention architecture and also your book, and I see behind you artists of your life. Tell us about it.

SPEAKER_02 29:05

What I love about it, Adishir, is that we have to realize that you can't just wave a wand over yourself or smote yourself on the head and say, poof, I'm fine now. That's baloney. Unless you face what you're going through, unless you look at it, unless you get the help that you need to go through it, you're simply going to repeat the habitual because 95% is underneath the water of the iceberg. That's that controls us because it's habitual. And then there's the 5% at the top that looks so pretty and shiny in the sunshine.

SPEAKER_01 29:44

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 29:44

Instead, if you the first pillar of you are the artist of your life, is the first pillar of reinvention architect, is first accept exactly where you are in your life. Doesn't matter whether you like it.

SPEAKER_00 29:59

It's so hard.

SPEAKER_02 30:00

Oh, it's so hard. Hard to share. It's one of the hardest things I've ever done.

SPEAKER_00 30:04

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 30:05

It's so hard. But if you can do that, if you can look at your life and you say, Oh, I hate this, but this is the way it is right now. Okay, I see it. Not pretending that it's okay.

SPEAKER_01 30:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:19

Not pretending you're fine when you're not fine.

SPEAKER_01 30:22

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 30:23

So when you accept exactly where you are, how your relationships are, how your relationship with yourself is, do you tell yourself the truth? Where is your integrity? All of these things, once you have the acceptance of where you are, then with that kind of clarity, then you begin asking. So these are four A's. Then you ask for what you want instead of think you can get. Yes. Yes. First it's accept and then it's ask. Because we're trained in this society to ask only what you think you're actually gonna get.

SPEAKER_00 30:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:59

Instead of asking, well, no, this is what I want.

SPEAKER_00 31:02

This is yes, life, the bigness of life.

SPEAKER_02 31:07

Exactly. Yeah, and then after that, is you begin to act like the person who sees themselves and their lives more clearly. So therefore, your actions become different. And then to me, the thing, so it is first accept, ask, and act like the person you are becoming. And finally, and to me, this is the magic that makes it happen is allow. This is surrender to divine timing. Yes, I would love to tell you, Adashir, that it's Saturday, tomorrow at two o'clock, there's going to be a yellow car that is going to come up and get me and take me to a beautiful party. Yeah. Maloney. Now, if I'm standing there waiting for this car to come and pick me at two o'clock, suppose there's a sailing ship in the Hudson River that has my name on it. I'm going to miss it because I'm waiting for the car at two o'clock. Supposedly get into expectations. That's right. So if you keep your intention of what you want, but you keep how it's going to happen, when it's going to happen, and release it to divine timing, that is allow. And that's when your life starts becoming so much more relaxed. I was sitting there this morning. I had the laziest, most joyous morning. I was just sitting there saying, Look how beautifully things are working out. That I when you asked me, how may I help you? It was such a beautiful thing to say. And I said to you, I don't know. And then I realized, wait a minute, I need visibility. I need aligned visibility. And you said, Let's do a podcast. And I thought, look at the beautiful timing of all of this. Look at this, the next top speaker thing that all of a sudden I'm in a competition for speaking. Well, how did that even happen? Uh it just happened to me.

SPEAKER_00 33:02

The world is to hear that. Then there's a question. I mean, in my clinical practice, I see people in their 20s all the way till mid-60s. And sometimes the parents ask me if I can meet with their teenagers, which yeah, but clients I do that, but I don't do teenage work or something. A couple of times I met with the grandparents.

SPEAKER_02 33:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:28

What I'm really curious, I love to hear your perspective. What I'm seeing that there's a book Gail She wrote about 15, 20 years ago about seasons of life that different that they're with different wisdom, different experiences, enlightenment happens, different stages. Like my 20-year-old client and then my 45-year-old clients, they have different lengths to life, different preferences, different angles. Yes. So when you talk about the your book about the artists of your life, who did you write it for? Is it for all people through life? Are there certain groups of individuals? Who are you speaking to?

SPEAKER_02 34:14

I thought, in my egoistic conceit, I thought that I was writing this for midlife women who would wake up at three o'clock in the morning and say, Is this all there is? And I'm doing too much, I'm taking care of everybody, and there has to be more to my life.

SPEAKER_01 34:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:31

But then ironically, I sent it out to a few people to read it first, my beta readers, to tell me what you thought. And one of the women said to me, This has such grounded wisdom in it that this is something I would want to teach my children.

SPEAKER_01 34:50

And I went, Nice, nice.

SPEAKER_02 34:52

Oh, and then a man of mine, a fellow artist who is also an author, Hanschenbach, Hans said, he wrote an entire page of a review and said to me, Audrea, this is not just for women. This is for someone who is not satisfied with their life, and they're realizing that at any time they can change it.

SPEAKER_00 35:15

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 35:16

But they have to become aware of who they are and what it is they don't like. And then start white out the canvas, pick new colors, pick a new brush, and start a whole new canvas because we have the power to do that. Is it easy? No. If it was easy, everybody would do it.

SPEAKER_00 35:34

And do that. What you talk about, Audria, is the difference between information and wisdom. So I have a wonderful 24-year-old son, and I see him and his buddies. They have a question AI, Chat GPT, Claude, they get some information about lives, emotions, so on.

SPEAKER_01 35:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:57

What are you talking about? That is almost working with the rhythm of life, the way that they're supposed to be. Nobody teaches us that. We don't learn that from anybody. And it's almost we get smacked in the face, and it's oh, that's what I could have done with a better way. So, what you're doing, a way of being that younger people should learn this as a way to go through life and to be alive.

SPEAKER_02 36:37

I agree with you with all my heart because no one ever taught me this. I had to live the experiences that I lived, yeah, and then realize I love AI. I think AI is wonderful. If I want to, I've written something, then I've just thrown out all these thousands of words, and then I say, I know this is too much. Can you make this 2,000 words, please, or 1,000 words? Yeah, it'll cut it down. And then I but when it comes to the wisdom of yourself, that's right. You have to have the courage to sit down and be with yourself. And most of the young ones, one, they don't know how to communicate, they've lost the ability to look in another human's eyes because of their phones. Yeah, they I've been teaching for 23 years at university. So it is those young people, those very young people that I work with, I think they're the ones that have kept me young. But they're not taught to communicate. Yeah, they're not taught to express what they really feel. They look at images that are not even real images and think they need to look that way instead of saying this is who I am.

SPEAKER_00 37:47

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 37:49

So it's it's a far deeper thing, maybe than I know. I don't know. I just keep saying to my angels and my guides, listen, guide me if I need to be in this place or that place, use whatever I have learned. I am here with whatever remaining time I have to make the world a better place and to spread love, but self-love, to have people be able to look in the mirror and say, I appreciate you. I love who you are.

SPEAKER_00 38:22

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:23

Because I forgive me, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 38:25

I love that. So I believe that all of us at any age we do our work and we create, we send in a message through our actions, through our voice, through our writings, through our presentations. There are people who need to hear us, they need to then yes. So as you're doing your work right now, teaching, speaking, coaching, uh, going into the stage, who are you talking to? Who is your we want to say, I want these people to hear me.

SPEAKER_02 39:02

I don't think of it, I still have a connection link in my heart with midlife women. I feel very close to them because I think it was the Dalai Lama back in 2009 who said that Western women will heal the world. And I believe that there is a great deal of the feminine when you compare it to the patriarchy, when you talk about the divine feminine, that there is so much that the female can teach because each of us have male and female inside of us. So I feel very close to the women of this world, but I also never lived experience. I've lived it, yes. But when I see my students hugging me and saying, You made me believe in myself, Audrea, I believe in myself. There's I've never met a professor like you, you're so different. And I said, Honey, I love you. I'm just holding a space for love. And if I can hold that, whether I'm on stage, whether I'm speaking, whether I'm singing, if I can hold that shir, then I am doing what I'm supposed to do. I believe that my message will travel to the hearts that are open to receive it.

SPEAKER_00 40:18

So on that one, what is the message you want people to hear? Imagine you're talking to an audience. What is it you want people to hear, to think, to do?

SPEAKER_02 40:34

I feel that love is the greatest thing, the greatest gift that we can give ourselves and others. I think that's number one. That that is a link that all of us can give to the other, and but first learn how to give it to yourself. Yeah, that and the fact that to be loved, to be appreciated, that's why I created shine. That we all want to shine. What I mean by that is s we all want to be seen, H, we all want to be heard. I we want to be included, we want to fit somewhere, we want to be and nurtured, and society does not teach us to nurture ourselves and finally empowered, and if we empower ourselves live, included, nurtured, and empowered. Oh, this is I love this because I loved it. I want us all to shine, that's what I but you have to have the courage to share yourself and to put down the mistrust. If there's anybody who had to learn that was me, to put down the mistrust and know that you are safe.

SPEAKER_03 42:01

That's what I must do.

SPEAKER_02 42:03

I had a wonderful coach look at me after I don't know, he hadn't seen me in 10 years, and he went, You're afraid of your power, Miss Firestone, aren't you? And I said, Yes, I had been. I said, but that's going away. And he said, and you're always defending yourself. Yes. I said, yes, I used to because I needed to. And he said, but that's old and it's gone. I said, you're right.

SPEAKER_00 42:24

That's right. I'm starting to. Something for a listener that when you're talking about power of shine, in my book, I talk about power of I Matter. That many people are inside corporations. I I've been a corporate guy for 30 years or so. So ask my clients or listener. Yes. Next time you're in a meeting, group meeting, look around and see as people enter the room. Are people seeing their eyes? Are people welcoming them? Or do we only see the ones with title, with with budget, with the status? There are many invisible people. They enter, they have great ideas. They want to be seen, they want to be heard, they want to be included, nurtured, empowered, and they don't have that. Those that's one of the areas, one of the ways that depression, anxiety, and a sense of disengagement builds and metastasizes in organization that people are there. We don't see people, we see projects, and a lot of invisible souls over there. Oh, that's how we can change this. That's how we can change this.

SPEAKER_02 43:36

Ironically, I never thought that I would even speak in a corporation because I thought I'm so uncorporate. And then I realized, but I have something of value to share because I'm realizing that every single one of us, I don't care how grandiose you are, how many diplomas you have on the wall, how many billions you have in the bank. You notice now it's Gone from millions into billions. But those self-worth, where's the self-worth?

SPEAKER_03 44:04

Where's the real self-worth?

SPEAKER_02 44:06

Where is the I meet your eyes and I you?

SPEAKER_03 44:09

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 44:10

I don't say that. There are people who are afraid of that. They're afraid of these roles.

SPEAKER_00 44:15

That's right. And then going to roles, we make pseudo construct. In fact, I get invitation, Arishir. Can you come here talk about engagement in a very respectful way? I say that there's no such thing as engagement. Is a psychology is made. I never go come home and say, honey, I felt engaged today. But I would say that I was respected, I was included. Somebody asked my opinion. Somebody wanted to know, hey, can I make your life easier? We need to talk in a language of people, of emotions.

SPEAKER_02 44:49

And simple.

SPEAKER_00 44:50

And simple. That we get it. So, and then we talk about employees not being happy. Of course not. Because we lost the language.

SPEAKER_02 45:00

They're not even seen anymore.

SPEAKER_00 45:02

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 45:03

That's why I kept with that book, I kept finding it and simplifying it and simplifying. I got rid of any psychological terms, anything that was four syllables, I got rid of it. I said it has to be direct and simple.

SPEAKER_01 45:17

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 45:18

Because we have to start with essence. Don't give me an image. I want to see your essence. Who are you really?

SPEAKER_00 45:25

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 45:25

I heard this when I met you, I felt like you were my brother instantly. I just loved you, and that's it.

SPEAKER_00 45:31

Thanks, same here. I heard this little statement several years ago from one of my buddies say that humans are complex, are not complicated. We are not complicated.

SPEAKER_02 45:44

No, we're not. We all want to shine.

SPEAKER_00 45:46

We all want to shine. That's how our children want a the a teenager, adults, grown-up grandparents want the same thing too. Somehow we all do. We all do.

SPEAKER_02 46:03

Yes, we are. We are. And somehow, Adishy, you and I need, because we understand this so deeply, we need to put this out in the world.

SPEAKER_00 46:13

Yes, right.

SPEAKER_02 46:14

And it needs somehow to to, I don't know, for something to give it uh more arc so that it becomes more visible. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 46:24

So Audrea, how do people find you? Where do people find you? And who do you want to actually find you? Who do you want people to coordinate? Tell us about the way to access you, whom and how and why.

SPEAKER_02 46:39

The why, I that is up to the person. It depends on what they need. I am a life coach, but I love working with presence. And when I'm working with someone on their business, I don't believe that you can separate the person's business from the person.

SPEAKER_01 46:54

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 46:54

So if it's corporate, and I've had people I've that I've worked with about presence, they want corporate presence. I said, all I want to do is connect you to your essence essential authority. I don't want to turn you into somebody fake because that's not real, and you can't sustain that. You have to find what's real inside of you. So if someone wants to work on their presence, on their authority, on embodied authority, that's body language, that's voice, that's how you sound, how you express yourself. I love doing that. And I also love working with small groups of women, taking them through my book. I have an artist of your life intensive, where it's just six to eight women, and we go through the book, but very intensely in 12 weeks, that they're really having companions and guidance through their own reinvention.

SPEAKER_00 47:54

That's beautiful. Because it needs I'm sorry, you do this in person and virtual, correct?

SPEAKER_02 48:00

People can be both, yes. Virtually is no problem at all. I do that all the time. Yeah, I do a lot of speaking virtually too. So I feel that you can find me on my website very easily, audreafirestone.com, and that's a d-ri-a. There's no you, it's a firestone.com. And also I would love to give your listeners a gift. If they go to audreafirestone.com/slash book, they can download the first chapter of my book free that they can see what it's like and see if they like it.

SPEAKER_00 48:34

Wonderful. So I will provide all of these links to your assets where to find you. And also, is it okay if I put some of your links to your YouTube singing on the stage?

SPEAKER_01 48:47

Or of course.

SPEAKER_00 48:49

It asked my wife, honey, come here, look at it, isn't it? This is beautiful.

SPEAKER_02 48:55

Oh well, that's delightful. And what I love is that for 20 years I didn't sing. When I walked off the stage, literally 20 years, I didn't utter a note. And now I'm singing again, and it's very natural and it's part of my cells. It would be like removing part of me, it's just part of my way of expressing.

SPEAKER_00 49:14

That's beautiful. So let me bring us home. Okay. Reinvention, as Audrey of Firestone talked about, is not a sign that something went wrong. No, we all have great assets, great stories, and great promise. When we struggle, it's a sign that something has grown. We are in, as I say, we are in a different neighborhood. Get back home, and that's where you begin to lead. And thank you so much, Audrial. The I enjoyed our conversation, and this will be available to our listeners to join this conversation in the journey of growth and continuous becoming.

SPEAKER_02 49:59

Wonderful, wonderful.

SPEAKER_00 50:01

We wish you lots of success.

SPEAKER_02 50:04

Thank you so much, Ardashir. What a pleasure. I as I say, I feel like you're my brother. I just love you dearly, and I love your view of the world and the view of humans, and how much respect you have for the human race. So keep healing.

SPEAKER_00 50:20

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 50:23

Yes, we will. Thank you, dear one.

SPEAKER_00 50:25

Thank you.