Welcome to the School of Midlife podcast. I'm your host, Laurie Reynoldson. This is the podcast for the midlife woman who's starting to ask herself big life questions like, what do I want? Is it too late for me? And what's my legacy beyond my family and my work? Each week, we're answering these questions and more. At the School of Midlife, we're learning all of the life lessons they didn't teach us in school. And we're figuring out, finally, what it is we want to be when we grow up. Let's make midlife your best life.
Welcome back to the School of Midlife podcast. It's just me today, just like the old days of the podcast. We're just kicking it back old school today. Season one, solo episode, whatever you want to call it. And I'm doing this even though I've received the most incredible feedback on the recent conversations and interview episodes that have been dropping more in season two. I'm thrilled to hear that you're enjoying those episodes as much as I am enjoying sitting down with so many incredible women. There are some fantastic new interview episodes coming your way very soon. I just keep talking with the best women. So lucky me. And I should say, I'm always looking for women who are doing amazing things in midlife to spotlight on the podcast. So if that's you or someone, send me a DM. Let's make this happen. Come on the podcast. Talk to me. We'll broadcast our conversation all across the world. Anyway, even with all of the energy and excitement about the new episodes where I've been talking with a guest, I've heard from several of you that you miss the solo episodes, the ones that are more focused on high-level coaching. So that's what I'm bringing you in this episode and actually in the next episode too. So two back-to-back solo episodes. At the time this episode drops, we are smack dab in the middle of graduation season. And let me tell you, I love graduation time, except for preschool graduation and kindergarten graduation and fifth grade graduation and eighth grade graduation. Don't get me wrong. It's super cute to see your little kids in your caps and with their tassels on them, holding up graduation certificates from preschool and kindergarten. But can we be honest for a second here? Hasn't the whole graduation ceremony for everything gotten a little out of hand? Like we're throwing parties and handing out fake diplomas for, I don't know, just showing up and going to school? What kind of precedence is that setting? That when you do what you're supposed to do, in this case go to school and earn passing grades to move on to the next grade, that we're going to throw you a party and that you should be rewarded and celebrated and there should be a ceremony in your honor? it clearly my gen x is showing right now but and and i don't misunderstand me i don't mean to sound harsh or bitter it just feels like there are a lot of graduations out there for things that don't really warrant a graduation ceremony you should definitely show up for your kids and your grandkids as they air quotes, graduate from whatever grade they're graduating from. Take the pictures. Absolutely show up for them because it's important for them to see you there supporting them, especially if everyone else's parents will be there. If everyone else's parents are going to be there, you need to also show up. You also need to be there and show up for them. But please don't send me a graduation announcement. And again, graduation in air quotes. Or if you don't expect me to send a graduation gift for graduating from fifth grade, because I won't. Let's not make this awkward between you and me. If this were an email, this is when I'd end that paragraph with like a winky face emoji so that I'm being serious, but I also don't want to ruffle any feathers. Anyway, moving on. That is not at all what I had planned to talk about today. I'm going to get this back on track. What's so interesting to me about graduations is they're almost universal. It doesn't really matter what town you grew up in, where you went to college. High school and college graduations are all pretty much the same, right? You've got rows and rows of folding chairs lined up in the middle of the room, whether that's on a football field, which isn't a room, but on a football field or in a basketball arena or in a huge auditorium. And then in bleachers on the sides are all of the parents and friends who came to cheer on the graduates. And Then up in front there is a stage and each graduate walks across the stage. Most of the time their first name and their middle name and their last name are read and they receive their diploma and they go back. There's some student speakers, the graduates. get to turn their tassels. They all throw their caps in the air. There are tons of pictures taken. Think back to your own graduation. Wasn't it something similar to that? Of course it was. So it begs the question, why do I love graduation season? If you've seen one, you've seen them all. I'll tell you. Well, first, I love the music. Am I the only one that tears up when Pomp and Circumstance plays? It's when I hear that music, it's just an immediate flashback to all of the excitement and the journey and the studying and all the hard work that went into getting to the point where you actually get to walk across a stage, however big or small it is, and mark a pretty momentous occasion. it marks a lot of hard work. And when that song starts playing, I'm just immediately transported back to my own graduation. I wonder, let me see if I can cue up Pomp and Circumstance and figure out actually the tech. That would be fun, wouldn't it? So let's see if the School of Midlife can be really high test. If we can get some background music, if I can figure out the tech. Oh my goodness. Look at us. We are so high test. We've got background music. So I'm going to, I'm going to deliver the next part of the episode. Like we're at a graduation ceremony. There is something so optimistic about graduation. Like the graduates have all put in the hard work. There is so much potential ahead of them. They're on the precipice of beginning real life. And it seems like there are opportunities everywhere. There's still so much time to figure out what it is they want to be when they grow up. They have their whole lives ahead of them. And this is the part where I'm going to go into pretty much the same thing that all graduation speakers say. oh and the music's really building we have weathered some tough times but we have prevailed which is interesting right because it's coming from an 18 year old and they've weathered the tough times but they have prevailed anyway Things didn't always go our way, but we kept moving forward. Again, you're 18. Just you wait, you sweet little naive thing, you. Graduates, the best is yet to come. We are the world changers we have been waiting for. And as you leave the nest today, go forth and fly. Okay, okay, that's enough of that. But the music's great. The graduation speakers say the same thing over and over again. But that doesn't really take away the fact that there is this just it feels like there are opportunities everywhere at graduation. It's so optimistic. There's so much potential. And I think that's why I love graduation. Here's a fun fact for you. I actually applied to be a graduation speaker. I wasn't chosen and I'm pretty sure, I don't remember exactly, but I'm pretty sure my speech included a bunch of those standard graduation speech platitudes. I know for sure that I use the metaphor of a bird leaving the nest and soaring. You can't see it right now, but I'm literally rolling my eyes. The speakers who were ultimately chosen to speak at my graduation, there were two of them that I remember. I don't actually remember who they were, but they did this great back and forth poem that they worked in all sorts of music and TV and movie references and So it's no wonder that with competition like that, something new and refreshing and different, that my, let's leave the nest, go forth and fly, my speech had no chance. Anyway, so it's graduation season, and I'm curious, do you ever find yourself thinking back to your own graduation when it felt like you had your whole life ahead of you? When it seemed like you had so much time to figure out everything? I don't know if you did, but I pretty much had a plan for my life, exactly how I thought my life would go. I think we all had some idea of what we were going to do in our lives. Although I am certain that for most of us, our lives have turned out differently than we expected them to at 17 or 18 as those bright-eyed, enthusiastic graduates. I remember at my high school graduation, I knew I was going to college at the University of Washington, go Huskies, where I expected to major in poli sci and then go on to law school. And I was pretty sure I was going to rush and join a sorority because UW was a very large university. I was thinking 20,000 people in the freshman class. I might be misremembering that. Anyway it was big and it just because everyone who I knew who I had gone to high school with who had gone on to the University of Washington they joined sorority so I just assumed that was something I would do and spoiler alert Most of those 18-year-old plans did materialize. I went to UW. I joined a sorority. I graduated four years later with a degree in design and planning studies from the College of Architecture and Urban Planning. So I pretty much followed the plan, but not the Poli Sci degree, because I took Poli Sci 101 my first quarter of college, and it was in Kane 130. that doesn't mean anything for any of you who didn't go to UW, but Kane 130 is this huge lecture hall room. It's an auditorium. I don't know why they call it Kane 130, but it's literally an auditorium. So it seats, I don't know, 800 or 900 students. Which is great for not having to go to class after partying late the night before. Because if you didn't show up class, no one noticed. And it was also great for passing notes with the cute fraternity boys. Because if you were passing notes, no one noticed. But it was not super conducive to learning. And for me, it just felt too big. And I knew if I kept going to classes in Kean 130, and because poli sci was one of those majors where there were a lot of people interested in those kind of degrees, I knew I would have a lot of classes in that big room. Kean 130 was too big for me. I also wasn't that interested in poli sci material after all. So I did something different than I had planned and I started going to classes in the College of Architecture and Urban Planning. Because there are no set requirements to get into law school, fun fact, I did not know that before I started going to college. Probably should have researched that, but I didn't. So you can graduate with any degree, you just need an undergraduate degree and then you can apply to law school. So I figured I would do something that was interesting to me. and architecture was, and poli sci wasn't.
There are three very simple principles to making midlife your best life. The first is you must know what you want, not what you've been conditioned to want, not what your parents or society told you to want, but what it is that you actually want. The second is how do you define success? Not in the traditional sense of what's your career and how much money do you make, but what is really important to you? What are your non-negotiables? What does success mean to you? The third is knowing exactly what your best life looks like. Because without this step, you'll just keep adding things to your to-do list, thinking that after you accomplish the next thing on the list, you'll finally feel that sense of purpose and fulfillment and accomplishment that you've been chasing your whole life. And I just have to say, if that's the way life really worked, that all you had to do was check another thing off of your to-do list, you'd already be living your best life. Because you're no stranger to hard work, and earning achievements and accolades, or even checking things off that to-do list. But even when you're great life, you still feel like something's missing. You're not sure what it is. You just expect it to feel differently once you made it to midlife. And I get it. I've been there myself. I was successful by every societal measure. Highly respected career, marriage, I owned a big home on a big lot, had a vacation home in the mountains, drove nice cars. By all outward appearances, I had a great life. I had everything I always thought I ever wanted. But the truth is, I still felt like something was missing. I was overworked, exhausted, resentful. I felt stuck. I was ready to press the reset button on my entire life and start over. But everything changed for me once I started applying those three simple principles in my own life. And I want to share what I learned with you. Please join me for a free webinar, how to make midlife your best life and skip the midlife crisis, where I'll walk you through those three simple principles and show you how applying them in your own life will help you to make midlife your best life. Click the link below and get signed up and I'll see you there.
Okay, back to high school graduation. So when I actually interview other people, I feel like I've got an outline of what I want to talk about and I don't quite go so far afield, but I'm a little out of practice on these solo episodes. Anyway, here we go. Back to high school graduation. That was also the summer I was trying to figure out the best time to break up with my high school boyfriend. He was not long-term material, but I also knew that he was fun enough to be around for the summer. That we could go water skiing and go to movies and go to parties. All those things that kids do for the couple of months between the end of high school and college. I also had to work a job so that I could make some money for college, but it was I had a lot of fun planned for that summer and I figured that he was good to have for the summer and in true people-pleasing fashion I waited until he moved to Bellevue which is a city just across Lake Washington from where UW is in Seattle I waited until he moved to break up with him. That's right, I didn't want to make things uncomfortable or awkward between us over the summer, so I waited until he moved to a different town to uproot his life, to do something different, to be near me, to tell him that it was over. Probably not my finest moment. but also not the only time I would handle a breakup in that way. That's another story for another time. And man, I am all over the place in this episode. There's a point here, I promise, just stick with me. For the most part though, I was just eager to get out of town after graduation. I grew up in Bremerton, Washington, a small blue collar Navy town in Western Washington. We were only about just over an hour ferry ride away from Seattle but man it felt like we were worlds away from the big city for much of my all of my junior high and a lot of my high school schooling I'd actually commuted to Tacoma for school which was about an hour away, and Tacoma had a bigger city feel, and I just liked being in a bigger city. After growing up in Bremerton, I didn't spend a ton of time there because I went to school in Tacoma, but at graduation, I was just ready to get out of town and start my life. Which it's interesting, isn't it? How eager we are to squander our youth just to get to adulthood. I'm not saying that I want to go back to 18 and do things over, but it's just so interesting to me that when I look back on my younger years, I was always looking forward to the next milestone. When I'm 16, I can drive. When I'm 18, I'll go to college. When I'm 21, I can drink. When I'm 22, I'll graduate from college. When I'm 26, I'll graduate from law school and get my first job. I was just always looking ahead. I didn't have much of a plan after I started working as an attorney, but for so many of those younger formative years, it just seemed like I was counting down the years until the next big milestone. 16, 18, 21, 22. And so for much of my 20s I pretty much had life planned out between 16 and when I would graduate from law school at 26. for much of my 20s really, it felt like there was this urgency to start working. Graduate from school, get a job, start working, start earning money. Like earning money, that was the end game. Get a job, make some money. And because I was an attorney, my plan was also to keep working as an attorney for as long as it took to make partner. because that's just what you did, right? Unless you went into the public sector and you worked for, say, a prosecuting attorney's office or you were a defense attorney, those of us that knew we were going to not go the government route but go to a firm, we also knew that there was this expectation that we would just grind away for seven or eight years. We would work evenings and weekends for seven or eight years and we wouldn't complain about it because that's just what you did. And it's interesting that that expectation of a 60-hour work week, that didn't phase me one bit. I just accepted that that was what I'd have to do to finish the plan. And then if you're anything like me, once you have a plan, you work the plan. You get to the point where you always thought you wanted to go. And then once you get there, if you're like me, you might wonder why you don't feel the way you thought you would feel. It's like you've been climbing the corporate ladder and you're getting to the top and then it's only once you get to the top that you realize that you don't like the view. So instead of realizing that you've been climbing the wrong fucking ladder, you double down, you look around, you find a higher ladder to climb. And while I'm climbing the taller ladder, I'm also thinking something must be wrong with me. Because all of that approval and satisfaction and that fulfillment that I expected to feel when I was climbing the first ladder, All of that clapping and cheering and validation that I expected to earn once I climbed that first ladder, I didn't get it. So I figured that I must need to work harder. Instead of just being a partner in a firm, I have to do something bigger than that. How about owning my own firm? So I did that during the global economic collapse. And the firm was profitable. It was profitable during a freaking global economic collapse. But again, that wasn't good enough for the people around me to notice. So I was on this constant hamster wheel of do more, go bigger, try harder, until I stopped working the plan. until actually I changed the plan. And that's what I want to underscore here. You can change the plan at any time you want to. I'm going to say that again. You can change. You've got the power to change. You have the power and the authority to change the plan anytime you want to. You can make a new plan. And if that new plan doesn't work out, change it again and again until you find one that sticks. One that makes you feel as free and excited and optimistic about your life as you did as that 18 year old at graduation. One that gets you all getty excited inside. One that stirs up that blind optimism you had at 18, but in a more adult kind of way. It probably will sound cliche, and something like you would hear at a graduation, but go do something that lights your soul on fire. And add. Hear me when I say this. You are not too old to make a new plan for your life. You can literally start a new plan anytime you want. Notice I didn't say start again or start over. That's because so many midlife women that I've coached over the years will tell me they're afraid of going back and starting at zero. And I will tell you that nothing could be farther from the truth, my friend. You are most certainly not starting at zero. You have so much wisdom. You have boundaries and non-negotiables and what you like and what you don't like and what you will tolerate And what is a hell no. And if this plan hasn't worked for you, or maybe some of the plan has, but other pieces just don't feel like they fit, you get to take all of that wisdom and experience and knowing what you like and what you don't and what you will and won't tolerate. You can take all of that with you. So you're not starting from zero. If you need to start working a new plan, if you feel like you want to start working a new plan, you're just going to start anew. You're going to start something new. You're not starting over. Since it's graduation season, I would challenge you to look at your life right now and ask yourself Do I feel that same optimism that I felt when I was graduating from high school, when I was graduating from college? Do I feel like there are opportunities all around me to grab life by the horns and just make it the most incredible life? Am I doing what I need to, to make the most of all of the time that I have, or am I squandering it away? Like I kind of did when I was younger, just waiting to get older. Are you waiting for retirement? Are you waiting for someday? Are you waiting for the right time? Are you waiting for after the kids leave the house? Here's the problem with waiting. Nothing is guaranteed. Most of us probably had plenty of life ahead of us at 18. And I don't mean to be macabre here, but we're also, we're all getting closer to running out of time. And while it might not be the ultimate end of our life, the average American woman now lives to 80 years old. And it just keeps, the average just keeps going down. I personally think it's because we're on tech all the time, like there is no downtime anymore. You know, it used to be that you could go on vacation and you would leave work at work and nobody tried to get in touch with you 24-7. So I just feel like we don't have any downtime anymore. We don't have any time to reset. we're always on. I am not a medical doctor, so that hypothesis carries no scientific weight. But suffice it to say, the average American woman lives to 80. If you are outside of the US, if you are in Europe, most of those women, they actually live longer than we do. And they certainly live longer than we do in Asia. If you're in developed countries, of course. Anyway, if you are in midlife right now and you are putting off all of those things that you want to do until retirement or someday or whenever you think you will actually do the damn thing just know that if you wait until retirement let's say you're 62 let's say you're 65 and then you live to 80 you aren't going to be going and doing all of the things you want to do in your late 70s, your early 80s, so you have less time than you think. And again, I'm not trying to beat this over your head or bring the graduation ceremony mood down, but it's just facts that we don't have as much time left as we once did. And I would urge you, I would challenge you instead of waiting, instead of putting things off, instead of expecting that you will get to them at some point, start doing them right now. Start living your life. Start doing the things you want to do right now. Stop waiting. Life is too precious. You don't have as much time as you think you do. Start living right now. In next week's episode related to this, we will be talking about why you shouldn't wait until retirement to start figuring out what the next chapter of your life looks like. Perfect next segment. And here's a little spoiler for the next episode, which is if you wait until retirement, That is too damn late and we are not, we're not waiting anymore. It's too damn late and we are not living like that. That's next week. As I wrap up our time together this week, I will leave you with this. My friends, we have weathered some tough times, but we have prevailed. Things haven't always gone our way, but we have kept moving forward. We are the world changers we've been waiting for. The best is yet to come. Congratulations, all of you amazing midlife women in the class of 2024. It's time to turn your tassels. We did it. Thank you so much for being here. I will see you right back here next week when the School of Midlife is back in session. Until then, take good care.
There are three very simple principles to making midlife your best life. The first is you must know what you want, not what you've been conditioned to want, not what your parents or society told you to want, but what it is that you actually want. The second is how do you define success? Not in the traditional sense of what's your career and how much money do you make, but what is really important to you? What are your non-negotiables? What does success mean to you? The third is knowing exactly what your best life looks like. Because without this step, you'll just keep adding things to your to-do list, thinking that after you accomplish the next thing on the list, you'll finally feel that sense of purpose and fulfillment and accomplishment that you've been chasing your whole life. And I just have to say, if that's the way life really worked, that all you had to do was check another thing off of your to-do list, you'd already be living your best life. Because you're no stranger to hard work, and earning achievements and accolades, or even checking things off that to-do list. But even when you're great life, you still feel like something's missing. You're not sure what it is. You just expect it to feel differently once you made it to midlife. And I get it. I've been there myself. I was successful by every societal measure. Highly respected career, marriage, I owned a big home on a big lot, had a vacation home in the mountains, drove nice cars. By all outward appearances, I had a great life. I had everything I always thought I ever wanted. But the truth is, I still felt like something was missing. I was overworked, exhausted, resentful. I felt stuck. I was ready to press the reset button on my entire life and start over. But everything changed for me once I started applying those three simple principles in my own life. And I want to share what I learned with you. Please join me for a free webinar, how to make midlife your best life and skip the midlife crisis, where I'll walk you through those three simple principles and show you how applying them in your own life will help you to make midlife your best life. Click the link below and get signed up and I'll see you there.