Discover Your Authenticity & Inner-Strength: How To with Rachel Hollis

on this episode of The Resetter Podcast. I am thrilled to share a truly inspiring conversation with someone whose work has really profoundly impacted me on my own journey. And it's Rachel Hollis. So hopefully you know who she is. If you don't, she is a best-selling author. She is a powerhouse speaker. But what I love about her most is she is a beacon of authenticity for millions of women worldwide.

I first discovered Rachel when her first book came out girl washer face and at that time I was so impressed how in one moment she could deliver a message on social media and look absolutely gorgeous.

And the next day, she would show you what it's like to be a woman who's navigating her own life, and she would be sitting in her car crying with makeup dripping down her face. And I was blown away at her openness and her honesty and her willingness to show all of us all sides of her.

And it really was a huge motivating factor for me to bring the message that I had in my clinic, the message of what I was doing with my patients, and to bring it forward to the world and to do it in the most authentic way possible.

So you're going to hear in this conversation that she really has discovered a formula for living life authentically. She also has learned how to take some pretty gnarly hits. We talk about that. The media has been unkind to her. People have lashed out at her and we talked about how she's handled that and how she's stayed true to herself.

So in this conversation, we get really real about the struggles that women face every day and the societal pressures, the weight of perfectionism, and really the sting of public scrutiny. But more importantly, we really address the power of women standing in their own truth.

which is something that you're going to hear in all my podcasts right now. I'm really committed to doing that in my own life and I'm bringing guests to you that are examples of how they're doing that in their lives. Because what I truly believe and I know Rachel believes this as well is that when one woman shows up authentically, she gives permission for others to do the same.

We also, in this episode, we touch on topics that are near and dear to so many of you, like navigating Perry Menopause, Rachel's in the thick of it, embracing your inner voice. Both Rachel and I are learning to listen to it and finding the courage to stand up firmly in your own personal beliefs. And I just loved this conversation.

And I hope that you are moved by it as much as I was. I hope you find your own voice in it as deeply as I found my own. And most of all, as I hope all my podcasts do, that this truly enhances the way you think about yourself, what you're capable of, your self-talk, and how you show up in the world. Because we are absolutely more powerful together as women when we show up in our true authenticity.

So Rachel Hollis, her new book is called, What if You're the Answer? We will put links in here. Go purchase it and dive in to what it means to live an authentic life. Enjoy.

Welcome to the Resetter Podcast. This podcast is all about empowering you to believe in yourself again. If you have a passion for learning, if you're looking to be in control of your health and take your power back, this is the podcast for you.

Women's healthcare is at a crossroads. On one side of the equation, women are opening their eyes to the fact that our traditional healthcare system has been offering a one-size-fits-all formula. A formula that doesn't honor the hormonal rhythm of our female bodies.

In this awakening, women are boldly standing up and demanding better solutions from their doctors. Healthcare answers that are unique to the feminine body.

Eat Like a Girl is now available at all major book retailers, both in-store and online, including Amazon. You can also find it in audiobook format with Audible and Spotify Premium accounts. I'm so excited to hear what Eat Like a Girl means to you. Go to DrMindyPels.com backslash-e-leg to find out more. DrMindyPels.com backslash-e-leg.

If you're ready to kickstart your fasting and health journey, which I know so many of you have reached out to us and asked how you customize a fasting lifestyle for you, my Reset Academy is the absolute best place to be. My Academy is not just me, my team, but it is an incredible group of people that are all dedicated to building fasting lifestyles and supporting each other in it.

So when you join, you gain access to all the exclusive calls where my team and I share the latest insights, we answer your burning questions and we guide you towards your health goals. By becoming a member, you're not just investing in a membership, but you're investing in yourself. End of story.

So if you're ready to unlock your fullest potential and embrace a fasting lifestyle, join me. If it feels good, join me. So all you gotta do is go visit DrMindyPels.com slash reset Academy to become a member. Let's do this together. It's so much better together. So that's DrMindyPels.com slash reset Academy.

Well, I first have to tell you like it's an honor to have you on the Resetter podcast, but I really feel like I need to tell you why. Okay.

So before I introduce you to my audience, I have to tell you that I was in my clinic for many years teaching hormones and nutrition and lifestyle. Lifestyle was my specialty in my clinic. And one of the mama bears is what I call them. One of the mama bears in my clinic said, you should really take your information here and you should put it out on social media.

And I was like, no, I don't want to go on social media because I have a value system, which is I will always show up as me. And I don't want to have to get into a place where I'm like putting filters on myself. And like, I don't want to get in my head about how I look or what I'm talking. I just want to continue to be authentically me.

And then one of my staff introduced me to your stuff. And I was literally one of my, in fact, she's going to die. She doesn't work with me anymore, but she's going to die that we're talking. And she said, well, look at what Rachel does. Look how Rachel shows up.

And I started watching you and I was like, if I can do it with that level of authenticity, then I will jump in. And I did. Thank you. Thank you. Honestly, I really appreciate that. And my heart really appreciates it right now as I go into this sort of, you know, like when you're launching something, you ramp back up and you have to

put you got to get out there more and it's not I think for most of us it's our least favorite thing but also care about the work that you're doing you understand that you've got to sort of get through the noise so you have to be present and I try and hold space for both of those things that like I don't

This is not my natural thing. I would prefer to, you know, maybe be in sweatpants right now, writing and not, you know, doing this with you. I love doing this with you, don't get me wrong. No, no, no, I can't. I can't put your side down. No, it is. Yeah, it really, it really helps my heart because getting that feedback or hearing that is great because there are days where you know you need to show up, but you're like, man, I can't show up like her.

And my hair doesn't look like that. And we get into this sort of middle school mindset that we once had of needing to be a certain kind of person in order to show up and hold space. So true. Yeah. Anyway, thank you for that. I appreciate it. Yeah. And you know, it's interesting because I think this is a really important point for women is what you did for me.

is you showed me, I have a passion of helping and I'm gonna just continue to be me and y'all can like me or you cannot like me, but I'm gonna continue to be my authentic self. And so your commitment to your authenticity allowed me to step into the ring and now have millions of followers that are listening to my message. And I think that is the power of one woman standing in her own authenticity is that she

the other women watching can go, oh, I can do it that way. As opposed to what we think we should be doing, which is let me show you how perfect I am. Let me show you how beautiful I am. And then, you know, what we don't realize is we're actually making other women feel less than in our desire to put on the smoke and mirrors.

Yeah, for sure. I think that started for me, like, I came up on social media as a blogger in 2008, so very, very early days. And I, you know, if you go back that far, there weren't filters and there weren't, we didn't know about live a light right here that's helping because it's dark and I needed, there's a light aimed at my face right now that is making me look like I have more of a tan than I do.

But that didn't exist back in the day. We didn't know how to do those things. And as they started to come out, like, here's this filter, or, oh, now we know if we hold the phone up in the air, that it's a more beautiful look for our face, just all this stuff that almost everybody does. I employed every trick in the book, right? I thought, you know, everything that we can do.

But at some point in interacting with my audience, which back then was coming to me for casserole recipes, I started to understand that I was living in LA, right? And so I was surrounded by people who were doing these kinds of things. But I started to realize that like the mom in Ohio or Milwaukee or Dublin or wherever who was taking in this information didn't see

that people were using filters and didn't understand that I got a blowout that morning and didn't know. And so I realized like, oh my God, she thinks this is what everybody looks like. And so she's using that as a frame of reference for herself. And then I was like, oh God, I still love a blowout and I still love a cute outfit. But I also will pair that with like my rosacea is

Poppin' and my hair looks crazy and here's because that's, I think, real life. It's both of those things. Yeah, yeah. And again, I hope you know the impact of you showing up and doing that, like how that has freed so many women. I'm actually right now currently in LA. I grew up in LA.

I had a childhood friend, so I was blessed to grow up in the very beginning of Malibu. And once I got old, and then I went to the University of Kansas for college, I played on a tennis scholarship. So it was real stark difference to be in LA and then to be in Kansas. And when I came back to LA, I just saw it so different. And I started to sort of move away from some of my childhood friendships.

And so I was recently reconnected with my best friend from childhood and we were sitting and we were talking about, she's 55, like I'm gonna be 55 next week. And we were talking about what it's like to slow down aging and she was telling me about all the cosmetic surgery she was doing and I stopped and I said to her,

Why are you doing all that? And she said, well, you know, when you see somebody and you meet them for the first time, what they always say to you is you look so good. And I told her, I'm like, that's funny because people don't say that to me. And I'm not saying that because I don't think I look good.

But they say other things to me like you have such great energy or thank you for all the work you're doing. Like those are more meaningful to me than somebody telling me I look good. So why do you need to look? Why does that have to be the thing that people see? And we started to break it down and I said, is it have to do with you feeling worthy?

And she's like, yeah, I feel worthy when people tell me I look good. So I wanna go back to this authenticity in which you show up over and over and over again, because people can look at you and say, look at your books, look at your social platform, look what you've created, and it's really admirable. But what I think is the most attractive thing about what you're doing is that you're doing all that.

with this authentic lens that is freeing so many women. And I'm curious if you realize that. I guess, I mean, I hear, I get that word a lot. Like people will use that word a lot. Like when you write the author bio on the back of a book or whatever, we're just doing that this week. And that was the word that they use. And I'm really appreciative of it. But it wasn't a, I wasn't aiming at that. I wasn't saying like, oh, how can I show up authentically? I just,

To be totally honest, I grew up in an environment, a very religious environment, and my father was a minister, and everything was about looking perfect, perfect, perfect. And behind the scenes, it was anything but that. And so I grew up with a sort of visceral, I hate these words, hatred, but it almost feels like that. It's a very strong feeling that I have with faking it.

And so I just sort of, for good or bad, show up as myself and sometimes don't think about what's flying out of my mouth or how that might sound. But the one thing I'm pretty proud of is that if you are reading my books or following me online or getting anything from what I'm doing,

know that it's me. The public mistakes that I've made or the things that have happened, that's me showing up as myself and it also in showing up as myself, I think it means, I hope it means that the audience, the readers, they really know me. When people walk up to me and they know me from books or podcasts or whatever, nobody calls me Rachel.

Like everyone's like, great, great, great. I love that. Which is what my family calls me. And I love that because I hope that what it feels like is that I am a friend of yours and I'm telling you like this crazy thing my kid did this week or something I'm struggling with or something I'm really proud of and you're, again, I hope, like if I'm gonna show up in this space,

My goal is that you see my personal evolution. You see how different I am today than I was 15 years ago, I hope. Because otherwise, oh my God, what are we doing? Why are we here?

Right, so true, so true. And I want to get into the new book, but that leads me to the next piece of admiration that I have for you. And now that I'm more public and feel like my life is exposed and people are coming up to me, I can't even imagine when you're going through the hardships that you've gone through in the last several years. Like you should have seen me yelling at the Instagram watching you going, for God's sake, people.

She is going through pain and heartache. Get off her back. Yeah. It's what I wanted to say. Thank you. How did you handle that? Oh, I don't consume anything about me. And I haven't for years, actually. The very first book that I wrote was fiction.

10 years ago and it was just this little thing that I did because I thought, I loved, I had always wanted to be a writer and I thought, oh I have this story idea and I wrote this book, I self-published it, I put it on Amazon and every day I would go and check reviews. And there weren't that many readers but you know, every once in a while there'd be a new review and it would just make my heart sing and someone would say they liked the book and every day I did it. And a few weeks into that I logged on and there was a one-star review.

And I will never forget her handle and I will never forget what she said, which is that my writing was trite and vapid and I was gutted. I was it destroyed me. I was so proud of this book and I knew it wasn't going to win a Pulitzer, but I was so proud because I finished it.

And I just, I cried for like two days and I don't know why I thought it could be a writer. And I went down this whole crazy spiral and then I realized, my God, a stranger on the internet just literally stopped the way I was living my life.

And I made the decision right then. I wish I could be that person. I feel like there are some people who are really good at receiving negative criticism and then flipping it. I'm not. I know myself and I know the emotional boundaries that I need to be able to continue to do this work. And they are to not consume anything.

Yeah. Good or bad. If someone has written something good about me in the last 10 years, I have no idea what it said. And if someone's written something bad, I also don't know. That it's really none of my business. I'm just like, because it has nothing to do with me. Right. Because those things that people say are about their perception of me, or of a brand, they don't actually know me personally. So I'm sure people did say all sorts of things. I have no idea what they were. That's beautiful. No.

No, no, no, don't worry. I know, oh my gosh. The joke is, actually Ellen has a new stand up that's really interesting and really well done. But she has a thing where she says, I don't, I wasn't reading what people were saying about me, but you know that people are talking badly about you on the internet when your family and friends start texting you, like thinking about you, and you're like, oh God, what happened?

But all of that to say, I made the decision a couple of years ago to just shut off comments on my social. And I had seen other women, especially doing it. I don't really see a lot of men having to do it, but a lot of women doing it. And it does make me sad because I wish that I had that interaction with this community who's been with me for so long, but there just was too much. There's too many things that pop up and it felt a bit like,

I always, it's like sort of like you invite people over to your house for a party and then they come to your house and then start telling you how ugly your hair is or why you're a bad mom and I'm like, I just, I think. So everything I'm putting out is for the audience and I just hope that it's helpful and I just sort of do it and let it go.

Yeah. And you know, we call that in my, in my amongst my business, we call that mission hearted that we want always want to keep the mission of what we're doing. And before I am going to get into your book here, I just, I just,

I think that there's something remarkable about how you show up that I think is really can be an example for so many people. And one of the things that I realized as my socials grew is that on the flip side of what we're talking about, I also didn't want to define myself by the positive comments. I didn't want to define myself by the followers because what happens one day when they go away?

So it's a really weird world and so I too just don't look at the comments and was like, I need to look at the impact and what we are doing to impact women and lift women up.

Do you have some measure? Because I feel your mission. I feel your care for me as a reader. Do you have some measurement as to the impact you're making in the world? To be honest, I really used to ground myself in that. It was so foundational to everything I did. I would say 2018, 2019, when the books were just exploding,

And it was, it was every, I got up every day and like, I'm here and I'm doing, and I, to be totally honest, completely burned myself out. And I burned myself out because I was tying every single day's action to my mission and my purpose for being here and like, this is what I'm doing. And if I'm being honest, when it became about this, like this is a bigger thing

that, you know, the universe is using me as a, you know, the stuff that I would tell myself, right? I would use that to push myself physically or emotionally past places that I should have gone. And it had such an awful effect on my health. And I also would use that. I wasn't showing up as the mom that I want to be.

I wasn't showing up for my friends in the way that I wanted. Because everything was about this bigger calling, it really allowed me, I don't know, you see I love documentaries about athletes. I'm not an athlete, but I really love understanding how their minds work.

And you see some of the greatest athletes in the world, they really do have to shut themselves down to every other thing in their world in order to do this one thing really, really well. And I do feel like I was kind of aiming at that a bit.

of like, I can be this person. And I just, when I've done so much work, so much therapy over the last four, almost five years, and so much inner work and spirituality and reconnecting and all of these things.

It just, it's one of those things, I don't know if you have something like this in your life, but it's one of those things I can do well, I can do this well, and I can be this person, but it doesn't sit right in my spirit. It's not, it's not,

the way that I Want to live because I'm too good at chasing that Like I flip a switch and I'm sort of chasing an accolade or I'm chasing an award. Yeah, it's outside in Yeah, that's what I always say it outside in and happiness is inside out Which is really you know so much of what your new book is about exactly

We as a human race are incredibly mineral deficient. And a large part of that is coming because our soils, the food that our soils are growing in, are incredibly depleted, especially here in America. But throughout the world, we're seeing that soils are not having the same mineral rich content that they did years ago. And minerals are really strange because they have this subtle yet

powerful effect on our brain and our body. So things like depression and anxiety have been linked to mineral deficiencies, which is why I am constantly looking for mineral resources. An element has done an incredible job with their products.

So if you're not familiar with element, they are a mineral packet. You can put it in your water as you're going throughout your day. They will keep you in a fasted state and they have you really yummy flavors. So check out element. If you go to drink element, so let me spell it for you because it's a little tricky play on word words. I actually say elementi or element depending on how you want to say it.

So the website is drink element. So d-r-i-n-k-l-m-n-t.com forward slash mini-pels. And if you go, we'll also leave the link in the notes below. But if you go and you check out their website, they will give you a discount and let me know what your favorite flavor is.

We have been leading three-day water fast for almost a decade now, and it is the most incredible experience. To me, the greatest part of this experience is that we can do it together as a worldwide community. Really, the fuel for your body over the next three days becomes knowledge. The art of fasting is you are putting yourself in a healing state.

that you cannot get with a medication, you cannot get with a supplement, you cannot get with even food. When we go without food, you turn on an intelligence inside your body that knows how to heal itself. Please go to DrMindyPels.com slash water fast. That's DrMindyPels.com slash water fast.

I am so excited to be doing this to start the new year.

I'm just curious and then we are gonna dive into your new book. What drives you? And these are questions I've asked myself as I've aged. I'm post-menopausal. Oh, I'm so jealous. I wanna be post-menopausal so bad. So bad. I can't even explain how bad I wanna be there. I'm like, come on, we're good. Let's just wrap it up.

Okay, so let me tell you, it's so freaking amazing for so many reasons, but let me tell you the biggest reason. Yes, please. And this is something I'm going to write about in my next book is that what is happening in the female brain starting at 40 is that there are the people pleasing neurons are being pruned away because you don't need them anymore. I feel that.

And the part of the brain that just can see a more collective picture, a little bigger lens, more like a amygdala that tells you everything about fight, you know, you have to fear starts to calm down and gives you feelings of empathy. So literally, like where I sit two years after having my last period, I'm like,

I love this. Like you wanted, if you want to hang out with me, like get ready for me to tell you what I think. Yeah. Because I'm not holding back. And if you want to say something to me that hurts my feelings, I don't really freaking care. Yeah. Like, and I'm not scanning my environment for every threat anymore. It is so amazing. I can't wait to be there. I need this. I need this life. I also need to not have a period anymore.

I need all of these things for me so badly. Honestly, where I am, it's a really interesting time for me in terms of my career because I am making a very conscious choice. And this kind of ties in with what I was just saying of like, I can't.

I don't want to be this person and sort of hold the weight of what it is because the message that I keep getting and have gotten a lot over the years is that the, and I hope, oh God, I hope this doesn't sound douchey, is that the best way that I can set an example or do this work and set an example for the women in my community or the readers or whatever is to live as authentically as I possibly can.

And for me, that actually is

creative. It's not, I didn't mean to become successful writing nonfiction books about how to help your life. I did not mean to do that. I started as a fiction writer for a reason. And it was just about chasing this creative, imaginative, leaning into that world. So for me, it looks a lot more like that. And it looks like really going back to this place that is kind of like the little, no, not even kind of, is me as a little girl.

writing stories and drawing pictures and just like I've heard people say this over the years usually older and wiser women have talked about creativity and how important it is and I the more that I lean into it the more I really it feels like I don't know an epidemic of

I would have heard this five years ago and been like, oh, so lame, like shut up hippie. But it's true because when I get to do something creative, when I get to take even an hour, which is such a luxury and sit and just write something that I don't know if it's going to be anything, but it just makes my heart really happy. I swear to God, I'm a better mom. I am a better partner. I'm nicer in the world. I take better care of my body. Like it affects me on every level because I'm filling up

Like the this this I don't know this passion center in me that like bubbles over into every other area of my life Yeah, yeah, have you heard the quote like don't think about what the world needs think about what lights you up because the what the world needs is people that are lit up

Yeah, that's good. And that's what I heard in that. The other interesting thing, and this does tie in to your new book, is I've been really thinking a lot just about how, as women, we adapt to the patriarchal world that we live in. And my audience knows this, that I don't mean patriarch like men. I mean a structure of power that's over us that has said women need to show up in a certain way.

And I was recently introduced to the work of Carol Gilligan. Do you know Carol Gilligan? No. OK, you're going to want to know. OK, I'm going to go down on my post-it. OK, so she wrote a book called, back in the 80s, she's a feminist philosopher. And she's still alive, by the way, at 87 years old. And she wrote a book called In A Different Voice. And what she said is this few look at the difference between a girl's brain and a boy's brain.

A girl's brain, which a woman's brain, it is more relational. It operates from right to left and left to right. So it's working from both hemispheres, which makes us constantly looking out at the world through relationships because we have so much access to both the right and the left brain.

A male brain works from back to front. So their brain is much more linear. They think in terms of rules, how to create rules, how to break rules, how to, and again, these are, I know we live in a very, you know, a time where there's a lot of non-binary people identifying that way and I have mad respect for that. This is just generalizations. So, but what happens is that at 12 years old, and I'm gonna say this is because this is when hormones kick in,

is that when a girl goes into puberty and she starts to access this relational brain, she loses her voice. And she starts adapting to what the patriarchal society is expecting of her. And the example that Carol Gilligan gives is if you ask an 11-year-old boy and girl what they want to eat, the boy will say, and they'll both tell you, they'll tell you, I want this, or I want that.

Now you fast forward to 12 or 13 and you'll ask that same boy or girl what they want. The boy will still tell you what he wants and the girl will say, I don't know what you eating.

And now we've spent our whole life with this relational brain adapting to everybody else's needs. Now, I think Perry Menopause, how old are you? I'm 41. I'm 41. I'm 41. I'm deep in Perry Menopause, deep. Okay.

So I think what happens at Perry menopause is these hormones go away and that authentic voice that we have pushed down for over 40 some years or 30 some years starts to bubble to the surface. And that's part of the Perry menopausal experience is like, you know what? I've been holding back what I really feel and what I really want to say for the last 30 years. So now I need to tell you what I really want to say. And when I looked at your book,

I was like, Bingo, she's coming back. Her voice is coming back to this authentic self. And just even in the title being, you know, what if you were the answer? Like, you are the answer. So can you talk a

little bit about how you came to this place because I, my hormonal lens is like, oh, she's just beginning. Yeah. Tell y'all what she really thinks. Yeah. So it started, and I say this in the opening chapter, that this book was written over four years.

And it was, I didn't really know what I wanted my next thing to be. I didn't know many times, it will last four years, I thought, I'm never gonna write again. I'm never gonna put something out in the world. But writing is, either journaling or actually writing on my computer is, I said, it's like my creative practice, it's therapy to me. It's prayer, it's meditation, it's all the things. So I was documenting, I would just sort of write about what was happening good or bad, falling in love again, or

when my children's father passed away and the grief of that and how hard that was for it. Like I just wrote it. I wrote it, wrote it, wrote it. And I didn't really know what it was. And this is very similar to Girl Washer Face in that I didn't know sort of the theme of Girl Washer Face. I was just kind of writing thoughts or I was writing essentially essays or, you know, around a certain topic.

And with Girl Wash Your Face, one day I was like, oh wow, these are all lies. The through line, in all of these, these are lies that I was taught to believe and I don't want to believe them anymore. And with this one, it was very similar. I just got chills thinking about it. It was very similar one day I thought, oh, I'm writing. These are all just the questions I have.

Because what I realized is like, oh my God, I don't know. And whatever I thought I knew two years ago, five years ago, 10 years ago, Mike Tyson says everybody has a plan till they get punched in the face.

Yeah, everyone believes their capital T truths until they go through something that completely reorients the way they see the world. So I just, through that lens, started now, okay, these are questions. And are there other questions that really helped me to make change or to be honest with myself when I don't want to be honest? So that's what I talk about. And it was written over these four years of

A lot of shit happens in these four years, but it really is.

It's funny. I think it's very funny. I want it to feel like your girlfriend's just sort of telling you stories about her life and maybe making you think about yours. My last book was really focused on going through hard things and grief and how do you manage that. And this is not that book, basically, is my headline. This is very silly and irreverent and filled with jokes and I hope filled the things that'll make you smile.

Yeah. And so with the questions, when you're asking, I love that this idea that there's 26 questions. You know, are you, of course, I'm sure it will be highly entertaining. I have no doubt. I can't wait to read it. But when you ask yourself these questions, are you sitting in silence and getting the answer? Or is this like, you're thinking deeply about like,

you know, what's the meaning of life and then months go by and you're like, oh wait, I think I figured it out. Like, are you coming to your own conclusions? It's both, honestly. There are some of our questions that happened around dinner tables with wine and my girlfriends. Some are questions that

with that same group that we would ask each other once a year. We will literally sit down and hold space, and here's this question that is gonna make you really contemplate. So for that one specifically, the question is, we used to get together at the beginning of every year and do something called a vision cast. We'd go to like a hipster coffee shop, we'd all bring our journals, and we had the sort of framework that we went through to just plan out our year and set intentions for how we wanted to show up. And the most powerful question in that mix

was what must you let go of to be the person that you wanna be? Not what do you need to let go of? Because you and I could probably think of like 50 things we need to go like, but what must you let go of? This person that you say, the next evolution of me, she's kind or she takes better care of her health or she really focuses in on her relationships or she really focuses in on her business and gets it passed a million dollars, whatever.

Everyone's different. But whatever that next version of you is, what are you currently holding on to? Whether it's a relationship, a practice, a belief that if you really are honest with yourself to become this next version of you, you must let go of this thing. And with a question like that, you don't even have to commit to letting go.

you just have to know what it is. Because oftentimes I think I might know what my answer is a long time before I actually find the courage to act on it. Some questions are more playful, some questions are things that came to me in business. I heard this question by a business mentor years ago that I then use for everything in life, which is

If you had to start again today, like it was specifically about an employee. I had an employee on my team that just no matter what we did, they just like sort of couldn't get it together and they couldn't. But I felt bad and I just kept working with them. And he said, knowing what you know today, would you hire them again?

Let's say, you know, exactly who they are. They sit down for an interview. Would you hire them again today? And I was like, absolutely not. And he said, then what are you doing? And I was like, whoa, yes. Why are they still on your team? But I actually think this is a really valuable question for friendships.

It's a really valuable question for the job that you have. And I know we don't all have control over whether or not we work a job. But I think that we find ourselves in these experiences and we just keep doing it because we're like, well, I've spent so much time. I've invested so much money. I'm pot committed.

And when you ask yourself that question, hey, you know your boyfriend, he kind of sucks, but you guys have been together for a long time. Or your girlfriend, and she's pretty gossipy, and there's something about her energy that you really don't.

If you knew what you knew today, would you go on another date with him? Would you ask for a second date? And the answer is no, oh my God, why are you in a relationship with someone that you wouldn't even want a second date? So it's just a bunch of things like that, told through funny stories, that I hope. At least one of them, I'm like, oh man, just let one of these questions be like, oh hell, okay, I needed to hear that.

Okay, so when you ask yourself some of the deeper questions and you get an answer that scares the shit out of you, like how do you move forward with that?

I mean, honestly, the thing that comes to mind for me, and I think a lot of women will understand this, particularly women who are perimenopausal, and you said like we get to a place where we just sort of, the people pleasing strips away, is I had had

This isn't in the book, but this is just a truth that I had had an awareness in my spirit for a very long time that my relationship was unhealthy, but I could not understand why. And I mean, for years, and I just, I talked to people and I talked to therapists and I just tried and it was my intuition was screaming at me, like just screaming at me for years, but I had been taught to ignore that.

You know, I had been taught, like you said, sort of outside, like, well, what do they think and what do people prefer and what does my family approve of and what all of these things were stacked against me. And it took a very long time for me to understand that these feelings I was having, the anxiety in my body, the illnesses that I was, just all of it was the stress of like, something's wrong and I'm ignoring it and pretending like it's not.

And even knowing that this needed to end, it was very unhealthy on both sides, I could not find the courage to even admit that to myself.

I didn't walk around for months and months and months going like, oh, I think I don't think this relationship works anymore. I don't think this is good for either of us. I don't think this is good for my kids. I did not have I didn't sit around with that knowledge. I just kept going. I just kept like turning it over and over. And I want to say that just in case there's anyone listening to this that find themselves in a similar place of like, something's wrong, something's wrong, something's wrong.

And I remember going on a very long walk, like probably walk for 10 miles. And I was just trying to understand it and trying to figure it out. And I was turning over and over in my mind. And it was like between one breath and a neck and the next, like one step. I remember exactly where I was walking around the lake in Austin. Just one step, it was like, I have to get divorced.

It's just, it's that. It's like, it's just, it's done. We've tried everything. It's been years. Something's wrong. And I want to say this too. I didn't understand what was wrong until many years later.

And that was once I had space and could see with clarity. And that's something I never hear people talk about. The willingness to listen to your gut and to listen to your intuition when you don't have any proof that what that gut is telling you is right.

And that is so brutal because nobody in your life understands why you're making the choice that you're making. And doing it in a public way, like just all of those things, and it wasn't until so many years later that I was like, oh, thank God.

Thank God, thank God. You know, I think as good up for yourself. And as parents, especially, I think sometimes we will stay in things much longer than we should because we think, oh, this is, I have to do it. It'll destroy my kids. And now I'm like, oh, that was, that was me saving us. That was like, we have to, we have to move on from this thing. So that was a really good example of, I knew something was wrong, but I didn't know what.

and I didn't have the courage for a very long time to face that truth. So I really, it's about at least just taking the step, at least sort of looking in the closet for the monster, at least just like, what is there? And then once I know what's there, at least I am informed of what I can do next.

Because I think a lot of us, you know, we ignore it. We numb out. We focus on the kids. We focus on work. We do all of these other things so that we don't have to hold truth for what's really going on in our life.

You know, I had a really good friend say to me this spring, just this year. I mean, you're learning it at 41. I'm just starting to learn many of these pieces at 55. And I had a friend that, a really good friend that just came in one day and she said, you know what surprises me so much about you, Mindy, is that you are so scared to disappoint all the people you love in your life, but you have no problem disappointing yourself.

Brutal, brutal, but so good. So good. I mean, is she such a good friend? And I was like, well, for starters, thank you for having the truth, you know, the balls to like tell me that. And then I started looking at everything that I did in my life and how the first thought always was, okay, is, are my kids gonna be happy? Is my husband gonna be happy? Are my employees gonna be happy? Like, is everybody happy with this thing that I have to decide about? And I have now flipped it.

And I started to ask myself, are you happy? What do you want? And you know the first time I started doing that, there was no neuronal pathway for like, what do you want? It was just blank in there.

Did you experience that? Well, you know, I actually do write about this part is post divorce because I got married. I met my ex-husband when I was 18 years old and we divorced when I was 36.

So it was a very long time in a very, we were both raised in religious cultures that said the man knew best. He was the head of the household, whatever he wanted, that's what you did. And I was a people pleaser. So I was like, okay, we'll just do your thing. When I got divorced, the simple things, I've heard so many women talk about this, that like I started using fresh dill again.

I love dill. It's my favorite herb. And I put it in everything. But I didn't put dill in anything because he hated dill. Or I stopped watching sci-fi movies or fantasy movies or these things that I really loved. And it's like no, he didn't ask me to do these things. I just was like, well, he doesn't like this thing. So we don't like this thing. And I started like learning myself again.

And almost like dating myself, what do we want? We want Mexican food. And we're going to order it and we're going to sit in these giant granny panties and watch documentaries about cult leaders. And we're just going to eat Mexican. And it's going to be the highlight of my week. So I really just learned what are the things that I like to do and to have the courage

to speak that, which was so freaking helpful when I went into my next relationship, because I was so determined not to bring all of that baggage from the last one, and to find my voice, and to say what it is that I really want. And it's a practice, and it's a, because of God, it's so easy to fall back into old patterns. So easy. Yeah, but it really did help to take that time.

to date myself and learn myself again. So another theory that I have about perimenopause is that when you look at estrogen and progesterone, they're not just two hormones that are just hanging out by themselves. They actually stimulate a whole cascade of neurochemicals. They stimulate dopamine and serotonin and acetylcholine and glutamate and GABA and oxytocin and BDNF.

like so when they start to go away you're not just losing two hormones and maybe if you're losing a little testosterone you're losing about eight or nine neurochemicals and that's why that perimenopausal shift

is so challenging because I do believe that this is the moment, especially where you're standing right now, where we can't hide from ourselves anymore. There's no neurochemical armor to be able to say, okay, I'll put, you know, I won't put fresh dill in the salad. Like, I'll just, you know, I'll leave it out. Like, it's like we can't hold ourselves back.

And I'm curious at 41 if you're starting to feel that, you know, beyond just what you did with your marriage and in your new relationship, because this is something I'm wanting more women to speak about how there's sort of like this truth that is sitting inside of us that is like, hey, it's just going to come out now.

Yeah. And I can't pretend anymore. And it's going to come out everything from this relationship doesn't matter to me to guess what, like my kids are 24 and 22 now. And I'm like, you're adulting, like I'm, I'm not parenting little children anymore. You can pretty much figure that one out.

like you just start setting boundaries and hearing your own voice. And I'm just curious because I think a lot of my listeners are in that phase. Are you finding that in other areas of your life and does it get easier the more you answer the calling? Yeah, I think, I mean, I used to have so much, so much anxiety, just debilitating anxiety and worked on it so much and took adaptogens and like,

therapy, it's like everything that I could do to manage that. And the anxiety for me was always based in this sort of core belief that I was going to upset someone and then I was no longer safe.

And I could track that back to my childhood and know exactly what that means for me. But if I, on the surface, it would be like, oh, this person on the internet doesn't like me. And now I'm having a debilitating anxiety attack. I can't do anything else today. I'm just sort of drowning in this feeling. But at the core of that is like,

someone doesn't like me, I've upset them, I am no longer safe. That's always a sort of core thing. And it really is something that has started to lift. Like, I shouldn't even say has started to lift. It's like, it's not there. Every once in a while I'll start to feel like, oh no, am I having, and I'm like, no, I probably just had too much espresso. Like I'm having a physical reaction that feels like anxiety used to feel. But I'm not having those feelings anymore.

And I, in my head, I'm like, oh, is it because I've just like, I've learned the breathing techniques and I figured out what to do? Or is it because I'm just, things are stripping away and I just, I'm like, okay, it's not, this is a huge one for me. And I think if you have any listeners who are like, are in business or maybe they are doing work like we're doing or, you know, they have podcasts or books or whatever, it really is about speaking to the people

that are wanting to hear what you have to say. It really is about creating for that audience that is happier here and is okay and what are some tips and what could I use to help with, you know, I'm having really heavy periods and like, what could I do? And that they really want that information.

As opposed to the anxiety of believing, I needed to show up perfectly for everybody. And if someone didn't like me, if someone didn't like my style or my voice or what I stand for, any of those things, that now I'm creating for them. And you get into a pattern of, and I think this is true, not just for work, but for life, where you're no longer trying to win, you're just playing not to lose.

You know, you talked about tennis, right? And my fiance is a massive tennis fan. So I've gotten into tennis in the last few years. It's fun. And you see those happen with players when they're at Grand Slams or that they've gotten to a certain level. And they're like, all they want is to just hold on to the level that they're at. And so the biggest players, people who are like the top 10 in the world,

will go into a huge tournament and some young kid who's seated like 200 comes into the thing and takes them out in round two. And everyone's like, oh my God, that's this massive upset. It's not. It's that the young kid had nothing to lose.

They're here, they're having a good time, they're taking chances, they're wearing a crazy outfit, they're asking the girl on the date, they're doing these things versus, oh, I have so much anxiety about getting this wrong that I'm not gonna do anything at all. And yeah, so I don't, you're the first person that said that, I'm like, oh, maybe it's a, maybe it is a hormonal thing. But that's why I feel less inclined to care if you don't like me, okay,

It wasn't for you. This thing wasn't for you. And I love and respect your right to believe and be whatever and whoever you want to be. But I'm just not going to consume what you're doing because there's a person over here that does like it and that she's got to be who it's for.

Yeah, yeah. So in the book, you say you have a quote that's really interesting because it ties into a question I've been asking myself and that you're not looking for answers, you're looking for wisdom. And again, I've been thinking a lot lately about aging and this concept of why we're so obsessed with anti-aging. I'm like, we're all aging. So what would pro-aging look like? And then that led me to

Well, what does wisdom look like? How do I find the people who have wisdom that I would want to tap into? So when I saw that quote in your book, I'm curious if you're not looking for answers, you're looking for wisdom, where are you finding wisdom? Well, I think wisdom is something that can only come through experience. You know, answers you could read in a book or here on a podcast, but you haven't actually lived the experience that would make that settle into your bones.

And that for me, wisdom is this lifelong journey, right? And that you're constantly absorbing and looking and trying to take things in and that you understand that every single person you interact with can be wisdom for you and can teach you something and that what you know today

is so different than what you're going to know tomorrow or 10 years from now. That's probably the biggest knowledge that I have is I really used to live off like capital T truth. These are my beliefs. My flag is on the ground in this. And I'm like, oh my God, when I think of some of those things I used to believe, I'm like, oh my what?

So if I could be so certain back then and be so wrong compared with who I am today, then I have to hold space for that in every area of my life forever. And so I guess to me, an answer is sort of like there's a period and maybe wisdom is an ellipses. Like it's something that continues to grow and it continues to change and evolve just like I hope to continue to change and evolve.

Love that, I love that. So you've been inspiring primarily women. I mean, do you have any, are there any, any men follow you? There's probably like four. No, there are, there are absolutely men in my community. They tend to be men who like other men and they are fabulous and we are so glad that they're here. But every once in a while, over the years, I'll have a husband come up to me at an airport or, you know, some of the, and they'll be like, oh, I'm sorry, are you, yes, and they're like, oh my gosh, like,

I can't tell you what your work has meant to my wife or how much it has helped. Those men are so incredible because they're so cute. They're always like bros. They don't look at all like you and they're like, you know, or I've had men say this book was so important to my wife that I read it too so I could better understand her and we love those partners. But yeah, I'm so grateful for everyone. I just tend to do work that is specifically for women because that's the lens that I know.

And me too, this is why I get questions all the time of like, can you teach my husband about his hormones? I'm like, no, I'm staying focused. It's enough to learn about women's hormones. But here's why I ask you this is I've been lately walking around thinking,

Women are waking up. Women are waking up. And that statement has been permeating in my brain. And I'm like, what are they waking up to? And so I have some thoughts on what I think women are waking up to, but I'm curious if you feel it. Like if you feel because you've been empowering women for so long, is there a different voice women are using? Are there different ways we are showing up than ever before that you're seeing?

I absolutely, what I am seeing most of is an unwillingness to stay in situations, relationships, jobs, towns, belief structures that someone else put on you.

Yes. I think so many of us were raised in cultures and we were raised to be people pleasers or we were raised to follow the rules or be good girls or we were kind of taught that we had to stay inside of this framework if we wanted to have our parents love or if we wanted to find a partner. And what I'm seeing more and more is people say, man, I don't know what the right path for me is. I just know it's not this.

And there's a willingness that I'm seeing to get off the path you're on before you know you're leaping and you don't know if there's a net and you don't know if there's another thing to grab on, but you just know this is not the thing for me. And that is so counterintuitive to how I was raised and taught to behave. And I think a lot of people were very similar.

And in order to do that, you have to trust yourself. You have to know yourself. You have to know yourself. You have to know yourself. You have to know yourself. You have to know yourself. You have to know yourself. You have to know yourself. You have to know yourself. You have to know yourself.

I was so disconnected from my intuition and everything in it is really just hoping that you're gonna, oh God, that voice was always there. Like it was always telling me. One of the questions in the book is, when did you know something was wrong?

Not, not, not when did you leave? Not when did you make a change? When did you know something was wrong? Because if you think of a relationship you've had or a bad boss or a business deal you got into and everyone I asked this question to, you're like, yeah, but when did you know that this girl was not great? And people are always like, oh.

on the second date and they've been together for four years. Or yeah, when I met my business partner, I got this really weird feeling in my stomach. I felt really panicky, but everyone told me that she was so great and I really wanted to partner with her and, you know, the ego gets involved. So I really like, I'm so hopeful that this is a path to know yourself better because if you know yourself, you'll trust yourself.

Yes. And I can't remember who said this, but something I read recently was talking about the idea that you don't have to know, you may never know why your intuition was telling you that he was so good. Yes. And you may never know why your intuition said, don't go left, go right. You know what? You shouldn't go on this trip. You don't have to know why. You just have to trust that that was the right decision for you.

Yeah, and intuition is our superpower as women. You know, when you look at, we have access to both sides of the brain constantly, there is a sense of this inner knowing. And when you look at our hormones, same thing like, you know, it gives us a deeper spectrum, I always say of emotions and mental clarity, yet we live in a society that intuition like who, what, that's woo-woo. Yeah. So, so I love the way you said that.

The last thing I have to tell you about this question book that you've created that my neuroscience brain is just loving so much and something that I really teach my community is that when we're moving through life often, especially in our younger years, often it's our amygdala that's helping, that's making us make decisions. You talked about safety.

Yeah, and the amygdala is constantly saying, are you safe or are you not safe? So if we go to the people pleasing part, like, you know, oh my God, if I don't please this person, then I have a long history of memories that tell me that I'm not safe. And the way you get out of the amygdala is you need to move yourself into the prefrontal cortex. You cannot be in the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex at the same time.

And the way you shut up the amygdala and move to the prefrontal cortex, the quickest, is you ask it a question.

What? Okay, wait, give me an example of this. I love this. So, right. So like, when I heard that this book was about 26 questions, I'm like, she must know this. I didn't know this. I did know this. I did know this. Okay. So let's use safety as an example. Let's say you're in a situation where you really want to stand up and say something to somebody like, this is no longer like, let's say it's a divorce situation, like, you know, this is no longer working for me.

And then the amygdala is like, hey, you remember, because the amygdala teams up with the hippocampus, which is our memory, and goes to the hippocampus, and is like, tell me all the times I stood up for myself. And I got burned, and I wasn't safe. And the hippocampus is like, there was this time, and this time, and this time. Like, I got you, girl. Here you go. I'll tell you all the reasons this is going to go down. But what if you say, like,

What emotion, what mental state, what support do I need right now to be able to stand up for myself?

And you ask a question, the amygdala is like, we only know how to keep you safe. So that's not a helpful question. And the prefrontal cortex comes in and is like, hey, I'll tell you, I'll tell you this, you do this, this and this. And we had all these amazing things happen. So it literally your book is moving people to a different part of their brain. And I just want you to know that. I didn't know that. It makes me so happy.

And just by sitting with that book and reading it, and as you are answering the questions telling your story, we all will be answering the questions and you have literally taken us out of the fight or flight brain. So I have to say thank you. Oh gosh, that's so, I mean as someone who spent a large part of my life in fight or flight, that's incredible.

So I love that. I love that. Now, how do people find the book and find it? Oh, anywhere. Just go anywhere. Find the book. And I always narrate my own audio books. I actually probably am maybe a little different than other authors in that. My audio books tend to be more popular than my physical books. I'm assuming because I have a podcast. So if you like listening, you can go grab that. But yeah, you can find it anywhere.

Well, Rachel, thank you. I really appreciate the time. Yeah. And I just keep doing what you're doing because, you know, you lifted me up and you didn't know that years ago and I wouldn't be sitting here if I hadn't used you as an example of what an authentic leader looks like. So keep, keep leading us authentically. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much for joining me in today's episode. I love bringing thoughtful discussions about all things health to you. If you enjoyed it, we'd love to know about it, so please leave us a review, share it with your friends, and let me know what your biggest takeaway is.