Powerful women get vulnerable with Dr. Tracey Gendron and Nicole Anderson

All right, so for this difference makers we have, this is what I was thinking of when I thought about our discussion is two things was one is as three, I'm going to say high powered individuals in our communities. What would we be doing currently if we weren't in a global pandemic? Like, what will we currently be currently doing today? The first thing that popped into my mind was, well, we would be at Silver Diner eating lunch, a late lunch with each other. That's what we would be doing right now. But also, I also wanted to get a peek into your, like, what you're doing right now, because like I said, I ran into traffic because I had this epic unicorn battle with my daughters, you know, right after we sat down and had lunch together. And like, traffic's what I'm calling those intersections of my life right now. And like, you know, the calls that I have and it's just kind of those intersections. And so I wanted to share with you what my days looked like and then kind of see maybe if we can do a comparative analysis. All right, Dr. Gendron.

Nice. Now that works. That's good. I'll take it.

Okay, so May 6th of 2020.

Awesome.

Like an excited kid.

Yes, very excited.

That is so cool. So May 6, 2020, I would have been just coming back from a.

Trip.

At the homestead of a retreat. And I think this was my recovery week, so I'd be writing this week. So I guess. I mean, I guess I'd be. I'd still be in Virginia, but I would have just finished a month's worth of being in Florida. And today I had an epic unicorn battle. I had a Zoom call with a friend and I had two client calls, all on Zoom with struggling Internet that's run by hamsters. So that's my comparative analysis. Nice.

So I would have been gearing up for graduation. That's what had been going on. Graduation was supposed to be Saturday, and we would have had our celebratory event on Friday evening. So that's, you know, the disappointing part because the graduates not only deserve to be recognized, but we absolutely love celebrating with them. So that's something I definitely missed this year. We will just say we're postponing it, not canceling it. So instead what we did was all of the faculty, we put our regalia on and we had really cool virtual backgrounds that my husband designed, like balloons and the Siegel center and all kinds of graduation type things. And we did a virtual graduation on Monday. We read paragraphs about each one of our students that are graduating and the awards and all that great stuff. So we found a way to celebrate them in the meantime, which is very good and very meaningful. And, you know, that part has been great. So that's what I would have been doing. And instead we just made it happen a different way. I love it.

I love it.

I love it. So mine is a little bit different. This is my first time at comparative analysis, but I'm actually taking advantage of the pelissonary posture and have gone to stay with some friends temporarily. And I'm actually spending more time with someone that I haven't seen in 10 years. Have since we first met each other, which is really amazing. And her family and getting to just pause and take things at a different pace, which is really nice. And if we weren't in a telecommute posture, I would be doing the normal professional posture. We had a pretty significant meeting today, and that would have taken a top priority, which it still did, but it was a lot more relaxed and confined in the telecommute posture, which was very nice. And interacting with people throughout my office, which would have been wonderful. And just a lot of different things that I missed. But at the same time, I'm very grateful.

Yeah. I wrote an article called the Great Pause. And you guys know, I'm not. I'm not opposed to having people stay six feet away from me and not touch me. And so that's just been an interesting. It's like part of me almost thrived in. Is thriving currently. And so, you know, that's just. It's an interesting observation. The other thing is, is that those videos that I kept putting off to record in the interactions like this, where I was like, oh, my gosh, it would be great if we had, like, a window into this. Like, our last silver diner conversation went from everything from, like, our stance on cats to how we're rearing the next generation. And it's. It was like, I wish. I wish I was cool enough to have, like, an HGTV show. I'm not even sure that would be appropriate for hgtv, but I couldn't think of, like, another channel where there'd be a camera crew, like, following me and because I get to interact with these really cool people. So that was. I didn't think about that until this morning when I knew we were going to be doing this, because I think I said last time at the lunch was like, we should just be a traveling. We talked about the wagon and, like, doing a traveling show of us.

Yeah.

And we made it happen.

Who knew it would be through A panel.

I mean, sometimes you ask for things, they come in ways. Okay, so this is my fault.

I'll.

The unicorn. We'll just talk about the unicorn in the room.

That's funny.

I do like, I do like. Like I have a whole collection right now just to bring some humanity to the zoom call. Because my screen doesn't pick up like the virtual background. That's my wall. Like, it just happens that my wall is green. And so, like, occasionally it picks up that, but occasionally it doesn't. If you look at the other videos and I like seeing into people's. I'm a creeper, I guess. I like seeing this space that you're sharing right now. Like, Nicole, you have like family photos behind you, you know, like that. That something. It's human. You're gorgeous when we go out to lunch together in your professional attire. But it's awesome to see you. Like, it's almost. Can I use the word vulnerable?

Absolutely.

And I think that's. There's something special about that. Even though it's forced.

It'S forced. But I think a lot of people are getting a lot out of it. And I think you hit on a piece of it, which is that slowing down. You know, Nicole, you had mentioned that. And I think that's very real. We're so busy and we're moving so quickly and we're constantly needing to get to the next thing that it becomes so hard to be in the present. So, you know, and even when we had our breakfast, lunch, you know, it was wonderful and we got to connect. And I'm sure we were all thinking about the to do list that we had that day of where I need to go next and what I still need to accomplish. And it's going, we're going. And you just, you stop thinking about it, you know, you just live it because it's your everyday, it's your norm. And this has given people the chance, some people the chance to slow down and be a little bit more reflective and a little bit more quiet. I don't know about you, I've loved the quiet. The lack of planes, the lack of so many cars, the beautiful. And there is something that is more peaceful about it. So it's unfortunate it takes something like this for us to have that moment. But otherwise you just follow the groove of life and it's busy.

Yeah.

Yeah, very true.

I was thinking about the Venice canals. Did you see the pictures? It's like, what else are we missing? Because to your point where we're just like in this and when we had breakfast, all three of us, I think use the word or use the term our hard stop. Because it was like 9:30 for some of us. 9:45, 10, we have a hard stop.

Yeah.

Well, Mother Nature was like, listen, humans. Yes, here's my hard stop. Exactly, exactly.

Sit your butts down, stay at home and just listen to me for a little bit. Yeah, yeah.

And it's, it's so crazy, but it is, it's very sad the circumstances that led to this, but it's also a once in a lifetime opportunity to stop and reflect and slow down and be vulnerable, all the things that you were talking about and just appreciate, you know, we've always kind of, I think everyone has said, I wish I could be a kid again. And it's almost like you get that chance to drift back into, oh, I have all this free time, what should I do?

It is so interesting that you say that because I think about it the same, but almost just the opposite. So one of the things about elderhood and about growing older is that it's a process of turning a little bit more inward into our own understanding, emotional dimensions, spirit growth, you know, that kind of thing. A little bit turning inward and less turning outward. And some of that is because of this abundance of time that we have that gives us more of an opportunity to reflect and become and grow. So I think, if anything, this almost all, like, we're elders in training and this is a chance for us to continue to think about how we are growing into that stage of our life, what we value the most. I mean, this has been a really great opportunity to think about values, spending time with your family or your animals or, you know, whatever it may be. So rather than being the kid part, I'm thinking of this like, no, this is training. This is training for elderhood and helping me think about the things that are most important to me so that I can take that forward.

I love it. Yeah, it's been interesting. So I, with my heart condition, I've been grounded Since I guess, March 9, March 10, which was interesting because I was in Houston and it was like flying through a time warp because Texas was ahead of us on our timeline. And so I think Texas basically shut down, like March 11th. They canceled the rodeo. For those of you who are not familiar with Texas, that's a big deal.

That's a big deal. Okay. Like that's a thing. Okay.

It's like a month long rodeo. It's not like a weekend, like, so to cancel it, you know, I guess it would Be the equivalent of us canceling the Olympics right now or rescheduling the Olympics to Texas. There was another comparative analysis. And for me, with clients, my own companies, there's a lot of stress for my health, there's a lot of stress. And then there's a choice on what I'm going to model for my kids because I can create. I have not invited. So my home office is detached from our house. It's not in our house intentionally, but this is our guest bedroom. Because I don't get telephone reception in my home office, which was all intentional. Not necessarily, but it's welcomed is what I was saying for my previous life after travel or my previous lifestyle and the design of travel and all of that. But for now, it's all one big energy. I don't get to shed that when I walk through the threshold. I'm welcoming you into my guest bedroom and I'm bringing this energy into my house. And so I'm really, really conscious. And I think what I'd love to close with for this particular discussion is like a mindset, a mantra, something that as a listener we can go to and think about in order to know that we're taking care of ourselves. Because I think it's so interesting that Nicole, you're talking to your younger self or you're playing with your, that, that childlike spirit. And Tracy, you're observing that, you know, wisdom in that space. Those are my words. And for me, there's parts of it that's very protective where I go into a very conscious protection mode of my family because, you know, I have military clients that are looking at all of these, analyzing worst case scenarios. And then I have small business owners that are firing, you know, 90% of their workforce. And so my theme was the protection. And so for me, what I would share is that I have in my head this Venn diagram. And I'm not going to assume that everybody knows what a Venn diagram looks like. So imagine one bubble here and one bubble here and then there's this beautiful little ellipse. I don't know what that shape's called, that where they overlap. And so there's the things in this bubble that impact me and then there's the things in this bubble that I can control. And where that overlap happens, where that beautiful little eye is, is where I focus because there's things that impact me. But if I perseverate on them. See, look, I do have a master's degree. I can use a big word if I perseverate on them. I'm not my best self. And then there's things that I can control but that don't impact me. That it's almost like me sticking my hand into like the spinning top of somebody else's reality. And I'm getting my energy mixed up in something that doesn't impact me. And then I become very exhausted. So for me, that's just been helpful to have that visual and to center myself around that.

I think that's great. I like that.

I'm waiting for a Maya Angelou quote or something from Nicole. Give me something with the kitties that you go to to ground yourself.

Oh my. Well, as far as grounding myself, I like Eleanor Roosevelt, but she had several. But one in particular, and I'm gonna unfortunately not have the exact language down, but it's essentially around the idea that those who open themselves up and those who show up to a situation to participate are the ones who are going to see success or failure. And that failure isn't necessarily failure so much as it is an opportunity to learn. I really loved what you said about seeing where the energies where you're going to allow things to affect and drawing those boundaries and taking care of yourself during this time as well, I think is really amazing.

Thank you.

That's great.

Thank you. Guinness is taking care of himself too, just in case you were very well concerned.

He's excellent self care.

So funny thing, like my first week trying to do zoom calls. I was. I was seated in a position where you couldn't see Guinness because I would get on a zoom call and somebody be like, hey, where's Guinness? And I'm like, how would you like me to. Do you want me to put him in my lap? Like, how so? And I had it say bunny and Guinness, like on the zoom thing. But so now I'm seated on the ground like, like in a crisscross applesauce, like meditative seat. I think it's in yoga. It's literally called seated pose. So that he can be in this like nest chair behind me so that when I join a call, they know it's all six legs. Like, they're not getting. You know. And he was having difficulty as well of like, how am I supposed. Where am I supposed to be right now? So I just. Nicole, when I was talking to you about the kitties, I was like, that's my gigantic cat. So he's snoring. Can you hear him snoring?

No. No, but I can.

Well, I won't. He looks very comfortable.

He does. He.

So, Tracy, do you have your centering to share? Did anything come for you?

So I think for me, the one that I go to a lot is just that change is the only constant. So that helps me always to recognize that we should expect change, not necessarily resist it or, or fear it, but allow ourselves to kind of fluidly move through it and with it and recognize that it brings opportunities. So it's. That's the way of the universe. That's the way of life. You can't get comfortable for too long. But change is good. And without change, I think we wouldn't have the motivation to want to learn and grow. So when I start to get that little panicky kind of feeling of like the world is spinning out of my control, just to realize I never had control to begin with, as you said, and that we can expect this change to come, it gives me some level of comfort and going, all right, it's okay, well, we'll follow this and the other piece of it. My dad always said to me, this too shall pass. Those words always stay with me. And he's right. This too shall pass. And that will be a new season, a new day, new time. So that's what helps me stay kind of grounded in the present.

Yeah, that's funny because my grandfather said I cried because I had no shoes until I saw a man with no feet. Like that was his saying. And I'm thinking I'm frustrated because, you know, Steve's flying right now and doing his military service. And I say I'm frustrated because it's like, you know, I'm a one woman show. Except for right now. Right now we have our bandwagon going. Blue had surgery. The puppy had his surgery on Monday, you know, just to get fixed. But this was like, just, life goes on. And just. So I just felt it all on my shoulders for a moment. And then I thought, there's a roof over my head. Like I have an 8 year old who is actually helping tremendously with my 3 year old and my parents live next door. So it's not like I'm that alone. We have this multi generational inclusive compound. So, you know, it's incredible. I do think, I do think about the homeless population and specifically homeless youth and homeless elders. And I do wonder, you know, how I do have a sense of I could be doing more right now. And so I'm just putting that out there to say that that is something that I cope with. And that's why, Nicole, I had said the, the protection part of it is because I do feel that in my chest of. I feel people in need out there, and I want to help, you know, and it's just that push and pull.

Of.

My family, the world, my family, the world, my family, the world, my family, myself, the world. And that's. That's the place that I'm at right now. So. Yeah. Yeah. I am so glad we got a chance to do this.

Me too. Thank you for making it happen.

Thank you guys for showing up. I mean, I was. Was it. Am I wrong? Was it easier for us to get together like this than silver diner?

100%.

I think we. Like, it was only the second try, right? It was the only second time proposal. Yep. And we all made it happen.

Yeah.

100%. All right.

Well, sure.

I'm sending you my ET energy through the Skype camera. So there you go, through your healing. And thank you guys for being here. Thank you guys for sharing how you're making a difference and showing up.

Thanks, Bonnie.

Thank you, Bunny.