Turning 40 and navigating the "ick" of the midlife crisis - with Stephanie McLaughlin

Is the midlife crisis a real thing? I've been curious about this for a while. 

I mean, there are times I'm actually pretty thrilled to be in my 40s. There are times I get a little freaked out about it. 

Stephanie McLaughlin is on the podcast this week to talk about that thing that happens to us around "midlife."

When she turned 40, Stephanie decided to have 40 drinks with 40 friends from her past. The project changed her life. 

In our episode, Stephanie shares how this started the '40 Drinks Project,' a movement that challenges the stigma around the midlife crisis narrative. Stephanie shares the unexpected wisdom she uncovered via the laughter and reminiscence she shared with long-lost friends.

One of the things Stephanie uncovered in this project is how her childhood memories were the secret ingredients to understanding her present self. She is now on a mission to wash away the "ick" around the idea of midlife, and to show people how it's actually a chance to turn back toward the things that brought you joy as a child.

Meet Stephanie McLaughlin:
Bringing a background in journalism to marketing, Stephanie McLaughlin merges creativity with clarity for clients of her marketing agency, Savoir Faire Marketing/Communications. Her superpower is uncovering a company’s “soul” and then developing stories about that soul that resonate with the audiences most responsible for the company’s success. She strives to help you Make Your Marketing Matter.

In 2022 Stephanie launched The Forty Drinks Podcast, a passion project based on a life changing experience she had around turning 40. Each week she has conversations with guests about transformation and reinvention that take place around that milestone birthday.

Connect with Stephanie:
Forty Drinks Podcast
Forty Drinks on Instagram
Forty Drinks on Facebook
Savoir Faire Marketing/Communications
Savoir Faire’s Small Business Partnership

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

Hi and welcome to Untethered with Jenlis, the podcast that's here to help you break free, be you and unleash your inner brilliance. I'm your host, jen, and in this episode we're going to talk about why we should be talking about the midlife crisis. Let's dive in. Hey there, unicorn, it's jen. Welcome back to the podcast for a really fun episode. That's gonna make you think, it made me think, it made guests think we were thinking all along the way, and there's also some just amazing, amazing stories. So this is one of. I say every episode is a favorite episode, but it was such a fun conversation. I really can't wait for you to have fun with it and to also have some thought provprovoking thoughts.

Speaker 1: 1:08

Our guest today is Stephanie McLaughlin, and Stephanie has a podcast called the 40 Drinks Podcast. It's a passion project based on a life changing experience she had right around turning the age of 40. I'm 41. Very relatable some of the things that she went through and the reason that she started that project, which has turned into a podcast. She's also a marketer. She has her own marketing agency, she is a Leo, she is an extrovert and she is a pretty rad human being.

Speaker 1: 1:43

In this conversation, we talk about something that she's so passionate about now being on the other side of what is classically known as the midlife crisis turning 40, what happens to us right around that age. She speaks about this with people, has spoken to so many people about this throughout her project and what she's many people about this throughout her project and what she's truly passionate about is talking about it, because it's something that we don't talk about or we pretend that it's not happening, and then we're so confused at what the hell is happening and we feel like something's wrong with us and there's all this shame around what is happening in this experience of our lives. So that's what we dive into in this conversation Really, really, really looking forward. Dive into in this conversation, really, really, really looking forward to you hearing this conversation. Everybody welcome to the podcast.

Speaker 1: 2:31

Stephanie, hi Stephanie, hi Jen, so beautiful to have you. We just had a moment of breathing and just grounding in and I just feel like the yummiest human being in the world. So I think we're bringing ourselves back to the ground. We sure are. Yes, yes, back to our center, back to the world.

Speaker 2: 2:45

So I think we're bringing ourselves back to the ground.

Speaker 1: 2:52

We sure are. Yes, yes, back to our center, back to the rooms. Yes, we're here, so beautiful. Everybody can join me for a moment of breath on Thursday's thread when I talk about this episode. So you know, stephanie, afterward I have a round table with myself where we gather and we talk about what we talked about Great.

Speaker 2: 3:06

I love it. I've actually listened to a couple of your Thursday threads so I know exactly what you're talking about.

Speaker 1: 3:15

So beautiful, it's so fun and just to pull out a little nugget from the conversation and I love that it gets to carry on the conversation a little bit further. So, for our first conversation, so excited to have you here because we're going to talk about something that I've been thinking a lot about, because I am 41 years old I just hit 40 last year and I have been through so many thoughts, I have so many thoughts about the idea of turning 40 and I'm really in the midst of it and I know that you have some thoughts. Having been through it and having talked about it and having a podcast that is specifically focused on it, how did you get to the point of feeling like this is something that really needs to be talked about and explored?

Speaker 2: 3:59

That's a great question and it comes in many parts. So it starts with my 40 drinks project, which is something I did to celebrate my birthday, and we can go back to that in a moment. After I did that project, I wanted to do something with it. It was profound, it was interesting, it was unique, and so for several years I tried to write a book and get a book published, and always got great feedback, but never quite made it over the hump, and so I put it in a drawer for a couple of years. And then, a couple of years ago, I took a course that really introduced me to some of the mechanics around podcasting and I realized, oh, I could do a podcast on not only my 40 drinks project but also this same transition that other people go through, and so I started that just about two years ago and I love it. It's so much fun. But what I realized is that the people who come on the podcast are either past their 40 transition and they're we're discussing you know what they encountered and how they made it through to the other side, and a couple of them are coming up to 40 and want to talk about you know how they're approaching 40.

Speaker 2: 5:13

But it strikes me that the concept of turning 40 is, is, and the transition, this developmental stage that we go through is not common cultural knowledge.

Speaker 2: 5:27

It's. The people in their mid-30s to mid-40s right now are so removed from that concept of the midlife crisis that when I was a kid, was so prevalent that at least if you were doing, if something was going on inside you, you might have thought well, I'm not, you know, divorcing my wife and dating the secretary and buying a sports car, but maybe this is my version of that. And now I don't think there's that touchstone, that cultural concept that people know that they're going to face that or that maybe they're in the middle of that. And so I realized not too long ago that not only do I have to, not only do I want to do the work that I'm doing on my podcast of showcasing all these transitions, all the versions it can take, but I also realized I kind of need to like come out here with the flag and like make the case for this cultural, you know, phenomenon that people aren't really aware of yet. So that's kind of the big picture story of how I get to talking about turning 40, even though I'm in my mid-50s.

Speaker 1: 6:38

Actually. No, I'm in my early 50s.

Speaker 2: 6:40

Don't let me age myself. What did I just do?

Speaker 1: 6:44

Isn't it funny? It's funny how we talk about age, and I'm sure you think about this a lot, I do. There's so many little things that we do to ourselves, even in the way that we talk about age. That is fascinating. Okay, we're going to put a pin right here and come back, because I have some questions and some thoughts. Your project what was the project and where is it at now? From when it began and you might've just answered that question, but fill us in there, okay.

Speaker 2: 7:18

So when I was approaching 40, I was in a position where trying to figure out, like, what to do to celebrate and the big 4-0 party just was not resonating for me. It felt icky and gross, which is really interesting because I am a Leo, I'm an extrovert, I'm like all the things that like put me in a spotlight and I thrive, right. So why did I not want this party? And I couldn't quite figure it out, but I was looking for alternatives and the idea just sort of settled into my brain, almost fully formed one day, and I realized that I wanted to have 40 drinks with 40 people in 40 different places, and that each one of the drinks was going to have some thematic connection to either my friend or our relationship. And that was it.

Speaker 2: 8:14

And I own a marketing agency and so we thought we'll put up a little website and I'll write blog posts and I'll post it to social media. And it was fun and it was silly and I was really drawn to the idea because it was ridiculous and that it would help me extend my birthday for as long as it would take to have 40 drinks, which turned out to be just a little over a year. So the status of the project is that it is complete in the project sense, the original project but it lives on in this podcast. It lives on in this charge that I've taken up to make it common cultural knowledge that there's a transition around age 40 and then to showcase so many versions of it that anybody who's approaching or recently turned 40 with dread in their heart knows that they're not alone.

Speaker 1: 9:08

The concept of that just lights my heart on fire. I love silliness things that we think of. We all have these ideas. What if I went and did 40 drinks with 40 people? But the people who follow through you are my people, the people who will follow through on the thing and make it happen? And it's like, yes, you brought that rando idea to life and it has taken on a life of its own at this point.

Speaker 2: 9:35

And the interesting point is that the only reason that I did follow through on it was because it was silly, was because it was ridiculous, was because it was so frivolous that I had no idea that underneath the top layers was something really powerful and that this whole project was going to change my life. And it did. It changed my life.

Speaker 1: 10:06

That's really cool. It's really cool. Okay, we're going to come back to the pen, because I even recorded an episode I don't remember which one it is, so I can't direct people back to the specific episode, but it was sometime last year. In this episode, I went on a rant about how the midlife crisis we have to stop shaming people and feeling shame around the idea of the midlife crisis, because I recognize there is something that is happening here. We are all going through this thing, but at the same time, we don't want to call it a midlife crisis, because that feels really shamey, that feels like our parents, that feels like something that we don't want to ourselves be going through. Correct. So there's something to what you're saying that I myself am feeling, just to confirm, thank you. Thank you for validating me. I feel it. So what do we do? What do we do about it? Do you have, in all the conversations that you have heard, do you have thoughts around this that are propelling your mission?

Speaker 2: 11:10

I think what we do about it is we talk about it and, to your point, we unshame it and we just talk about the things that we're feeling and the things that we're experiencing. We talk about the things that previous generations would have considered tab experiencing. We talk about the things that previous generations would have considered taboo. We talk about, we give voice to those icky little questions that are bubbling up inside of us. For some of my guests it's been is this all there is Right? And they've done.

Speaker 2: 11:45

They spent their 20s and their 30s doing all the right things and checking all the right boxes and building the life that everybody told us we needed to have. And then they got there, they finally got to the destination and found out that it wasn't that sweet. It really didn't taste good and they didn't want it. And again, that unshaming is important. But there's another piece that I think is important as well, and that is just to understand the developmental stage.

Speaker 2: 12:18

So in our 20s and 30s we're in what Gail Sheehy in her book Passages calls first adulthood, and in that first adulthood we are doing all the things that some external authority tells us we should. Right, it's our parents, it's our teachers, our mentors, you know whoever, somebody older and wiser than us is telling us that we should do these things. So we do. But then we come to this transition phase and we realize that we have our own experience, our own expertise, our own authority, and all of a sudden we start trusting that more and more, and so the decisions that we start making are more in alignment with who we are and what we want and what's more authentic to us.

Speaker 2: 13:16

And that a lot of times requires change. It requires, you know, us stepping away from the path that we've been carving because because we should to the path that feels more authentic to us. And so I think, if people really understand that this is a normal human, american, western developmental stage, it becomes like the sleep regression at two, or the teething or the terrible tweens. It becomes just like those other phases that we go through. There actually is no shame to it.

Speaker 1: 13:56

Yeah, oh, man, okay. So here's the question that's coming to mind for me as we start to talk about this and we might be riffing on this real time. I don't know how much thought you've given to this and it's definitely just coming to me in the way that you have framed this up, because I think the question that I have been sitting with so much about this idea of untethering like we are untethering and maybe that's just a different word. I think that I think, as you're speaking, I'm like it's actually a different word for a midlife crisis. It's the midlife untethering because we're unlearning all of the expectations that we have learned.

Speaker 2: 14:32

Well, I think the word is perfect for the moment we transition from first adulthood to second adulthood, because what you're doing is you're untethering from other people's expectations. You're untethering from what other people have told you you should do, and I just want to remind everyone, you included, that all these people who are telling us the things that we should do and giving us this guidance, by and large, they want the best for us. They want us to be happy, successful, they want us to be safe, and a lot of their guidance and direction is towards us building a life that they believe will be safe. And so you're exactly right. What you're doing at that moment and during that transition is you're untethering from other people's expectations, from other people's ideas of what your life should look like, from other people's ideas of what job you should be working, or where you should be living, or how many kids you should have, or whether you should have kids. You're untethering from all of that. During this transition phase, you make such a good point about.

Speaker 1: 15:50

we automatically and this is a natural tendency, because it's also a safety and a fear-based mechanism in some ways, to help ourselves feel like we're okay we want to point the finger at somebody and we want to say, well, they taught me this and now I've got to unlearn it. It's like, well, everybody, everything that happened in your life was because somebody was trying to keep themselves in you safe. It's an important thing for us to remember.

Speaker 2: 16:17

And they want the best for you. You think of. You know the things that our parents guided us to do when we were 16, 17, 18. You know the choices that we made, whether it was going to college or what major to choose. I spoke to a woman who her entire family was sort of science and engineer minded and her parents literally said to her go get an engineering degree, because you will always have a good paying job. And so she did that. She was not an engineer by sort of birth and by you know, by psyche, but she made herself do the math, she made herself do the coursework and she found herself at like 35 in a complete and total mental breakdown because she was not living her life, she was living somebody else's life. So you know, they want good things for us. They're doing the best they can, but it's up to us to choose to forge our own path and live our own life.

Speaker 1: 17:21

At the root of that is compassion, and having compassion for ourselves first, and then we can turn around and have compassion for the people who tried their best, at least in my experience. So okay, here's the second half of that question. Question of the untethering question can we, should we, strive to do it sooner, or in your eyes, is it happening exactly as it's supposed to? Any thoughts on that?

Speaker 2: 17:48

I do have thoughts, and this is this is the, the real-time riff, because I haven't really put it to words yet.

Speaker 2: 17:57

Part of my mission is to make it, to help people go through the transition with more ease and grace than maybe I made it through right Showing them.

Speaker 2: 18:08

Here are all the examples, but your point is a good one. Should we be talking to 25-year-olds? Should we be talking to teenagers? I mean, it's tough to know sort of where to start sharing these messages, except that I think in this area of your mid-30s to your 40s, you start to become open to the messages, because you are starting to pick your head up a little bit and look around, instead of just keeping your nose down on the path that you've been digging for, you know, for 10 or 15 or 20 years. So it's a great question. I don't have a great answer for it, but I feel like that's something that I'm rolling around with as well. It's like you know, if we were having this conversation with 25-year-olds, could they make different decisions for the next decade that would prevent them from going through the transition, or would their transition just look different because they had taken some steps at different times? It's tough to say.

Speaker 1: 19:08

Or would it even land with them at that?

Speaker 2: 19:10

age Exactly. They probably wouldn't be open to it because it feels right. So when you're 25, thinking about when you're 40, you're still old at 40. So you know who wants to be 25 and thinking about. You know old things.

Speaker 1: 19:25

I think I saw something on Instagram yesterday that said, just so that you know, 2024 to 1990 is the same as 1990 to 1956. It's terrifying, Something like that. It's like, oh no, I might have those numbers wrong.

Speaker 2: 19:40

No, I think I saw something very similar go by recently. Yeah, it's terrifying, but yeah, I think as a former 25-year-old, I had really very, very different things on my mind. If you're just out of college and at your first job and for me I was living in the middle of Boston I was like you're paycheck to paycheck, so how can you think about doing things that you love and things that fulfill you when you have no experience at anything? For me, I feel like I had to go through some of these jobs and some really crappy jobs and some really great jobs to to come up with the fact that and even then, at 36, I needed a career coach to help me realize that starting my business was the right thing for me to do. So I think you're right. It might not land in in much earlier years than than we're kind of looking at you're right, it might not land in much earlier years than we're kind of looking at.

Speaker 1: 20:41

Yeah, so maybe the unshaming that we're talking about is really one of the most important things, because even that point of I needed a career coach it's like that's what career coaches are for they're here to help, but we do, I think, as women in particular, it can be all people, in particular women we often will feel like I should have been able to do this myself. I shouldn't have needed the help and support.

Speaker 2: 21:02

I should have known it earlier. It should have just come naturally to me. It's a load of bunk, it's not true.

Speaker 1: 21:12

What are then, on top of that thought, what are some of the things that you have seen and heard in all of the interviews, all of the conversations throughout this project, over and over some of the experiences that people have had?

Speaker 2: 21:25

So they fall into sort of two camps. One camp, the easy camp, are the people who had what some of them call a midlife awakening, and for a lot of those people it includes a piece of a spiritual awakening and an opening to personal development and personal growth in whatever way that hits with you, because personal growth comes in 17,000 formats, so there's one for you. So for a lot of those people it's an evolution of sort of who they are and where they're going. And then the second camp is people and I think I fall into this camp and I think I fall into this camp who weren't paying attention to any of the signs and basically they either burned their life down to the ground or their life burned down to the ground around them and they had to start over again. So you know, some of us hard-headed the signs for the choice.

Speaker 1: 22:30

Yeah, absolutely, and went straight into we chose for you.

Speaker 2: 22:33

Yeah, some of us hard-headed folks just ignored every sign like right in front of our faces, and decided to do it the hard way.

Speaker 1: 22:44

Yeah, so what helped you most? What did you find helped you most through that transition and what do you find helping most people?

Speaker 2: 22:53

So the 40 drinks project is actually what really catalyzed my transition for me, because I want to start off by saying yes, I did it over cocktails, you don't need to. What happened was? It turned into 40 visits with people that I chose from throughout my life. Some people I saw, you know, regularly, some were family, some people I hadn't seen for 10 or 15 years. I snuck in an old boyfriend, I mean. There were people I sort of pulled out of. This is your life array of people.

Speaker 2: 23:33

And again, I was doing it because it was silly and ridiculous and I had this great excuse to reach out to people who I hadn't talked to in a long time. But what happened was during those visits you naturally start talking about when we hung out or when we were together or when we were close or when our lives were sort of near each other and people were reflecting. People were telling me stories about myself that I didn't know, that I had forgotten, that I had like wallpapered over that window because I thought it was unattractive or something, and so they were reflecting back to me things that I didn't know about myself, which started to get me thinking and really get me kind of opening up to some of these pieces of myself that I had buried for a long time.

Speaker 1: 24:31

I'm even, as you're talking, I'm thinking, oh, who were? And I'm sure other listeners are too. Who are the people who I would meet with? And it's such a, it's so fascinating to think about the things that people might have told you what was one of. Is there anything that you heard about yourself that you were like wait what?

Speaker 2: 24:48

Oh yeah yeah. There's two great stories. Here's one. I had drinks with two girls who I was tight with in grammar school and high school. I met the first one in second grade and then the second one moved to town in fourth grade and Ginny's the second, karen and Ginny. And Ginny was telling me a story. She said do you remember how we met? And I said I don't know. It was fourth grade. You know I'm 40. I don't know, I don't remember. Was it at school? And she said it wasn't. She said she had moved into town.

Speaker 2: 25:19

We lived in a small rural town outside this Manchester, where I live now and where I was. I have two younger brothers and the houses around us were all little boys. So somehow on the town gossip line I don't know how you get that when you're nine years old I had heard that there was a family who moved in up the street with three girls. So Ginny says to me I took my dog. I told my mother I was taking the dog for a walk, I put it on a leash and I walked it up to Ginny's house and I basically was loitering around outside the driveway until an adult saw a little girl loitering at the driveway and, kind of like, sent the girls out, like you know, go say hello. I had completely forgotten that. So I was sort of you know, chuckling at that story as I was driving home from our drink. And then I said wait a minute. And I went to Google Maps and I Googled the distance between our houses. We were on the same street but she lived over a mile away from me.

Speaker 2: 26:23

I was nine years old and I endeavored this. You know, I created this scheme where I put a dog on a leash and walked up the street to go make a friend. And as a 20-something, as a 30-something, as an adult, as a 40-something, 50-something, I know that I'm a bold person, but I had no idea that it was that ingrained in me. I had no idea that it was that just inbred. It's not something I chose to do, it's who I am.

Speaker 2: 27:01

And so at some point after that drink I said something to my mother. I said oh, ginny told me this funny story. Ha, ha, ha, do you believe it? And she sort of laughed at me and she said ha ha, of course I believe it.

Speaker 2: 27:12

Why do you think we kept you on such a short leash? I believe it. Why do you think we kept you on such a short leash and there was like a V8 moment of like? Yeah, I was on a short leash until I was probably in my early 30s and I know that sounds ridiculous. I sort of allowed it in my 20s and 30s but, yeah, my parents kept me on a really short leash and it kind of explains some other things. It explains me going away to college and turning into, like you know, a wild woman and you know this party girl and this crazy girl and you know all the drinking I did and all the you know fun I had while maintaining you know, a 4.9 GPA and while maintaining a part-time job. So it kind of explained a lot of things that I hadn't really bothered to go looking to figure out because I'm not a particularly introspective person or I wasn't at that point.

Speaker 1: 28:10

So there's one story that's such a cool story and now I think everybody just now wants to go have 40 drinks with 40 people, to go start to have uncover all of these hidden. Okay, tell us, can you, are you willing to tell the second story? Yes, cause that was so good.

Speaker 2: 28:29

Thank you. When I was in college I hung out with a group of guys One of them I had gone to high school with. We both went to the same college. He, very early in our freshman year, met another guy who for the next 15 or 20 years they were like two sides of the same coin. One was blonde and one was brunette. And then they, I think at the end of our freshman year or maybe early sophomore year, pledged a fraternity and so then there was like a bunch of other guys. So anyway, for like 10 or 15 years there was like these guys that I hung out with and I was the only girl all the time. You know there were plenty of times we'd go out in like huge crowds and there were mixed, you know everything. But there were really-.

Speaker 1: 29:09

Well it was like a mile walk to go find all the girls you know, so you just had to find the boys. Well, yeah, yeah, that's true.

Speaker 2: 29:14

You know, so you just had to befriend the boys. Well, yeah, yeah, that's true.

Speaker 1: 29:18

Metaphorical walk.

Speaker 2: 29:20

Right, right. The interesting thing was they, when it was guys night out, when there were no girls allowed, when there were no girlfriends allowed, they still called me and I was always included. And so I internalized this understanding that I was one of the guys and that's just how I went about my life for decades, honestly, because after that group kind of dissipated and grew up and went separate ways, I moved back to New Hampshire and there was another group of guys that I kind of insinuated myself into and again I just thought I'm one of the guys. So one of these two original dudes I went for a drink with I hadn't seen him in maybe 15 years and we're sitting at a bar talking, it's late in the evening, we're having a great time catching up and I said something about being one of the guys and it was like a needle on a record. It was like a record scratch. It was like and he looked at me and he goes what are you talking about? And I said, well, you know, I was one of the guys, I was just always invited. And he said, steph, you were never one of the guys. And I was like well, but I don't get it. Then what? And he said you were just such a cool chick that we always liked hanging out with you. And at that moment my brain launched out of my head. There was skull and hair everywhere, like it blew my mind.

Speaker 2: 30:52

So I got that far with the story and then, I don't know, years later, I was telling it to someone else and he kind of pressed me. He said so, what's the big deal? So if you weren't one of the guys, what's the big deal? Kind of pressed me. He said so, what's the big deal? So if you weren't one of the guys, what's the big deal? And I had to take it a step further and I realized that I had never given myself the credit that I would be cool enough, awesome enough these were really cool dudes and I had never given myself the credit that I would just earn that rate that by being myself. I had to put on a hat, like one of the guys' hat. That's the reason that they want to hang out with me all the time. It wasn't just that I was like Steph and I was pretty awesome. You know hip, hot, you know wild, chick, and who wouldn't want to hang out with her? So that kind of that. Yeah, that rocked some foundations.

Speaker 1: 31:54

That is an amazing story that illustrates the meaning that we make of things in our minds and how make of things in our minds and how. So here's one of the things that I have noticed about myself that has continued to unfurl during this time period that we're speaking about is the realization that everyone else knew me more than I felt like I knew me because I was associating myself with all of the things that I thought everybody else thought I was, but everybody else was actually seeing me. That was a very hard realization. I actually had a hard time accepting that.

Speaker 2: 32:34

So you've just given words to a concept that I could not have put my head around. But you are 100% right, because I remember, towards the end of my 40 Drinks project, thinking I want to be that person that they see, I want to be that person that other people know me to be, and you know whether that was bold or whether that was ridiculous or whether that was, you know, awesome enough to you know, warrant hanging out with. You know, yeah, you're exactly right. Other people knew me better because I was spending a lot of time making excuses for myself or making up reasons that you know and this comes up a lot in the conversations too your enoughness. You know I was making up reasons why I was enough to be X, y and Z instead of realizing that I was enough to be X, y and Z.

Speaker 1: 33:36

Yeah, it's really wild. I remember I put a post on Instagram I think I was 38 at the time but it said, hi, I'm Jennifer and I don't know who I am at the time. But it said, hi, I'm Jennifer and I don't know who I am. It was this like I actually don't know because I had done. This is something I do with all my coaching clients. My first coach had done it with me and it's very similar to your 40 drinks thing. So this is kind of interesting.

Speaker 1: 33:58

Go and ask six people what value do you see that I bring to the world? That's a very kind of like similar question. It stirs up a lot of similar things to what you're saying without. Yours is better in some ways, because it's like ooh, the fun stories. That's actually really really interesting to me. But it cuts through the noise of the stuff that we're making up to what people are actually seeing, and I was like how are people seeing? Like, what, wait? You're saying what about me? That's not what I see. That you see, that's not the story in my head. It was very confusing.

Speaker 2: 34:32

Yeah, it is confusing. I did something similar recently. Someone had introduced me to the concept of the Johari window. Have you ever heard of that?

Speaker 1: 34:40

No, please tell us, what is that.

Speaker 2: 34:43

J-O-H-A-R-I Johari window, and it was. It's similar to what you were saying. There's, and there are online tools where you can do it. It's like go in and pick six adjectives that you would rate yourself and so I did that and then send it out to other people and have them pick six adjectives that they would apply to you, and then it sort of maps things out into like here's what you know about yourself, here's what you don't know about yourself, and then here's some blind spots, and then here's the unknown. And then here's the unknown, and you know, I of course chose the like strong words, you know like bold, and I forget exactly what the words were.

Speaker 2: 35:30

Um, you know, I'm sure, bold and sassy, and some of those were in it, and a couple of people you know chose those same words from the list, but the the words that most of I think I probably had six or seven people do it, and the words that most of I think I probably had six or seven people do it, and the words that most of those people chose were much, much softer. They were caring and kind and they were really soft words, and so that was what, in the Johari window, was called my blind spot, and so it was like I know this about me, other people know this about me, other people know this about me that maybe I don't know about myself. And it was all those softer words.

Speaker 2: 36:11

So probably the things you are, but don't think you have to be, and maybe I don't know, I'm still wrestling with it. So it's just, it's an interesting exercise that kind of shows you how you think yourself and then how other people think of you, and it's really interesting and it's really interesting.

Speaker 1: 36:41

Thank you for that. All of that, myself included, all of us self-development dweebs are like, okay, I'm sure they're Googling right now, pulling up a browser window and looking it up.

Speaker 2: 36:51

So thank you for that. That's a tool that.

Speaker 1: 36:53

I hadn't heard of, and so anybody who listens to this podcast may or may not have heard of as well. So we'll definitely give that a try. What is anything that I could have this call? I seriously want you to be. You're such a cool chick. I just want to be friends with you, so we can talk all day.

Speaker 1: 37:13

Okay, I accept, but is there anything that we haven't covered that you just want people to know? Anything that just a message that you feel like needs to come through to anybody who might be listening to this, whatever age they're at right now, whatever developmental stage.

Speaker 2: 37:34

Yeah, I think, if we focus on that 35 to 45, I would say that whatever you're feeling inside that feels discordant, that feels yucky I call it the ick because it can take so many forms it might be your job, it might be where you live, it might be your romantic relationship, it might be your kids, it could be anything. Whenever you start thinking those thoughts that you don't want to think, I just want you to know that you're not alone, that so many people have had the same thoughts that have gone through transitions. You know that you're kind of aiming at, and they've come out any number of ways. So I think that's part one, and part two is something I'm going to go back to a movie that I love, and it's called Under the Tuscan Sun. Have you seen this one?

Speaker 1: 38:32

It's been. I've read the book. It's a book, right?

Speaker 2: 38:35

Okay, it started as a book I actually never, I never read the book, but there was a. There's a great movie with Diane Lane and in the, in the middle of the movie she's sort of having a little tantrum and she says you know, I want love in this house, I want a wedding in this house, I want a family in this house, and she's sort of like having her, like she's in her transition. She's having this tantrum of like all the things she wants that she feels like are so far away from her. And at the end of the movie the same person she had the tantrum to comes to her and says Frances, look, you got everything you wanted.

Speaker 2: 39:13

And she looks around and there's a wedding actually in her backyard of the house. But it's the kid from next door and her husband who's become family to her, her best friend is there who had the baby, and so she's there and there's so much love in this backyard. So she got love, she got a wedding, she got a family and none of it looked like what she thought it was going to look like. And that's the important part, because you can miss it. You can miss it if you're so hung up on it looking a certain way and it having to be a certain thing in order to make you happy that you could miss the fact that you have everything you ever wanted.

Speaker 1: 39:58

I'm glad you talked for about 15 more seconds because I was about to cry. That's so beautiful and such a powerful reminder to step back and to look at what you have and do see, like really see what's here, which is what so much of what we're talking about with really seeing ourselves, like really pause and see. For me that is for me, stephanie what breath work does for me, and I know people can get to that state in a lot of different ways. We can do it through art, we can do it through connection, we can do it through conversation, through meditation, through breath. But it's that pause to really be quiet and to see what is really true and what is really here. It's so powerful and we have those friends in our lives who can help us to do that, and you can be that friend to somebody else too. It's a beautiful story, thank you. Thank you so much for being here. I have one final question where do you see the magic? In the?

Speaker 2: 40:55

world. I've listened to a couple of your episodes, so I've been trying to think about this question and, and, if I'm being truly honest, where I find magic in the world is in conversation, because when I worked with that career coach when I was 36, one of the assessments we did was introvert, extrovert and of course, I'm an off the chart extrovert. But one of the things I didn't know about extroverts is that we actually process our thoughts out loud, out, kind of in front of us, in the air, in front of us, and so talking, having conversations, sharing ideas, throwing things back and forth, rolling around with ideas with people who are open to that is really where I find a lot of magic in the world, which is part of the reason I love to do my podcast and part of the reason I'm so thrilled to be here with you today.

Speaker 1: 41:51

Oh, that's awesome. I love hearing the answer to that question. That's one that I've never heard before. So fun. Thank you for coming on the podcast. Where can people obviously they can find your podcast? Where's the best place that they can connect with you? And then, if they're interested also in your marketing work and what you do that way, where can they find you?

Speaker 2: 42:08

So the Everything podcast is 40drinks. Spell out the word 40. So the website is 40drinkscom and on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, I'm 40drinks and the marketing work is a company called Savoir Faire, which is a French term, which means someone who knows what to do in any situation. So check out Savoir Faire Marketing. We're based in New Hampshire, so you probably need to put that on your Google filter.

Speaker 1: 42:36

Awesome. Thank you so much for coming on. All of the links to Stephanie's businesses and Instagram, the podcast it's all in the show notes, so go and check it out there. Thanks, jen.

Speaker 1: 42:48

Doesn't everybody who is right around this age, or anybody who is beyond this age, wish that you had done exactly what Stephanie did and had 40 drinks or 40 visits or 40 experiences with 40 people throughout your life? Can you imagine who are five of the people who you would invite? As she was talking, I was thinking about oh, my goodness, I would love to talk to one of my elementary school teachers. I would love to talk to my old neighbor. We had this old neighbor. I actually think it's possible that she passed away, but these are some of the people who came to mind, your best friend in fifth grade. Who were some of those people? Wouldn't it be fascinating to sit down and have a conversation with them? And what could we learn with that willingness? And with that willingness, I encourage you to reach out to five or six people. I'm going to include a link in the show notes to the little self-development thing that she I think. I can't even remember what it's called, so I'm going to have to go back and listen to the episode to hear what that was called and go. Do that. And if you don't do that exact tool where you reach out to people and you ask for the adjectives, do the one that I do with my clients, which is ask six people what is the value that you see that I bring to the world? And watch the responses that come in and, in particular, note where something feels incongruent with what you thought about yourself. It's so fascinating. So fascinating because people do see us. People also see some of the things that we project about ourselves, but they see things that are in your blind spot and it's so fascinating to see it. I'm going to pull a little thread out of this episode and go a little deeper on Thursday, so be sure to tune into Thursday's episode. We'll also do a little bit of conscious breath at the end of that episode, so stay tuned for that, looking forward to seeing you on it.

Speaker 1: 44:45

If there's something that you enjoyed in this episode, I encourage you to share it with a friend. Share it with all of your friends on social media. You can take a little screenshot of the episode itself. Share it on Instagram. Share it on Facebook. If you tag me. I'm mentetherjen on Instagram. I will always reshare your posts Instagram. I will always reshare your posts. Thank you once again for listening. You just keep shining your magical unicorn light out there for all to see. I'll see you next time. Bye.