Reveal Your True Beauty with Cindy Joseph

Welcome to Mama Goddess. I'm your host, Alexandra J. Johnson. This podcast is all about rocking your goddess life, creating vibrant health and celebrating motherhood and family life. It's about living an authentically awesome life. Let's have. Hello, and welcome. I'm Alexandra J. Johnson, and today we have a gorgeous guest, Cindy Joseph. Cindy is a former makeup artist turned super model. That's why she's gorgeous. She's amazing. And she also is the spearhead of the Pro Age Revolution and the CEO and creator of Boom by Cindy Joseph. So welcome, Cindy.

Hi. Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.

I am so excited to be chatting with you. I think you're amazing. I love what you're creating, what you have created, and just who you are in the world. So I'd love to start off with the Pro Age Revolution. And on your website, you have what does it say? It's about women, it's about beauty, and it's about time. So tell us what that means.

I'd like to record the way you just said that it's about time. And that is true. It's actually time. You know the story of the emperor's new clothes, where finally the emperor is going to be out showing his new fabric and he's parading down the street and. And people are kind of like, oh, yes, beautiful, beautiful. Mm. And then this little kid yells out, the emperor's naked. Well, I like to call myself Kid in the crowd because I feel like I'm daring to speak up and tell the truth about ageism in America. It's actually all over the world, but it's particularly prevalent here. And we commit ageism against each other, against ourselves, and it's about time we just stop that. It's completely make believe, this concept that as you age, as time goes on, you become a faded version of your previous self or basically you get worse and it's just not true. And I didn't even realize it until I got into my 40s and I'm 41, 42, 43, 45. And I was getting better. I was getting smarter, healthier, more experienced, more passionate, had more self knowledge. Life was getting better. But I was waiting for this other shoe to drop. Because I'd been told all my life, through the media, through friends, neighbors, parents, brothers, sisters, like everybody you talk to doctors, that somehow life was going to shift and just start going downhill. And I was experiencing the opposite. And I was also coloring my hair. And one day I thought, I'm a big hypocrite. Here I am Spouting off about how great age is and life is getting better. And then I was trying to hide it, so I stopped that right away. And then my life really shifted. But the pro age revolution is about shifting everyone's attitude from an anti age point of view to a pro age point of view. The way I look at it is aging is just another word for living.

Mmm, that's beautiful. Very cool. Yeah, it's amazing. I mean, I'm 35, so I'm. But I feel that definitely I'm getting better and better. And I always say to my husband, by the time I'm 50, like, what? I am going to be on fire. I mean, so much better. And I love that. I love that too. With you coloring your hair, stopping to color your hair. Please tell us about that because I know that's a big issue for a lot of women. The gray, silver hair. Yeah.

When you get that first silver hair, how many people go, look, I'm so excited. I got my first silver. Maybe if they have a really cool grandmother and a family that really supports them and finds them right for exactly who they are. Like women are so heavily judged on their looks. Right. I mean, that's where we're most heavily judged.

Totally. And it's where we judge ourselves too. Right?

Are you the right age? Are you the right color? Are you the right size, the right texture, the right shape? So right from the get go, we are judging ourselves so negatively all the time. Then we're told that our looks fade, disappear and go away starting at age 25 or 30. So it's like, oh God, grab this lipstick, grab the products. Let's do whatever we can to hang on to our youthful looks for as long as possible. Because when they go, the attention disappears, the flirting disappears, your value goes down and you continue losing value as you age. So that's the make believe. That's what society made up. It used to be true that women were valued for one reason and one reason only, and that was because we could bear children. So when you're in that window of time where you can start making babies until you can stop making babies, that was when we were at our most valuable. Well, that ended about 100 years ago. We got into the job force. It's now 2014. We are creating and running corporations. We are in government office. We have ran for president. Like, why is it that every woman embedded deep in our psyche still has this belief that if we are not in our childbearing years, or at least if we don't look like we are. We're over the hill, and it's all over when we start valuing ourselves from age 30 all the way to 110, when we start celebrating our age. And when I say a lot of people go, oh, I've accepted my age, it's like, okay, I just kind of accepted it. Celebrating your age is a whole different thing. It's standing proud, it's showing off your silver hair. It's smiling really hard so those crow's feet really show up. It's your sunspots from all the fun and all the play you've had in the sun and your wrinkles and your turkey neck. However your age shows up, it's wearing all of those things proudly as badges that show you've lived some life, you've developed character, and you are continuing to do so and excited about it.

So great. Okay, so how do we get there? Because I know. I mean, like, even that I can hear. I get excited, and I've celebrated my beauty more and more, and I know a lot of women are, but there's still that media. There's still so many influences around you that we all try to put ourselves into boxes. Like, this woman does this. This woman looks like that. Oh, I shouldn't have this. I should have that. So how do we get to the place of celebrations?

I think educating yourself about women's history and really taking a look at that, really taking a look at what's real and what isn't and stop pretending. It's one thing to play fantasy and play dress up like we did when we were little kids. And, you know, I want to be the funny one. I want to be the warrior. I want to be the frail one. We have these archetypes that we like to relate to, and that's fun, and that's great. And that's what's fun about pouring through the pages of fashion magazines. We all relate to a little bit different look and character and all of that. But when we get down to brass tacks, let's look at the reality of it. Number one, those models. When I am in a magazine and I see a picture of myself, I have often, like, taken a second glance and thought, did I do that job? Is that me? There is so much retouching. Photoshop, they stretch your neck, they open up your eyes, they change the color of your hair. None of those girls, not the most famous, amazing Giselle, Cindy Crawford, whoever the latest cover girl is, look like that in person. And I know that because I work with them every day. And I made them up, and I would spend. I mean, think about it. They come to the photo shoot raw, wet hair just out of, you know, out of bed. And the makeup artist takes about an hour and a half to do their makeup. Then the hair takes maybe two hours. Then the photographer sets up this really fancy lighting so all the flaws disappear, as if humans have flaws, which is completely absurd in my point of view. And then they retouch it after that, and they take hundreds of pictures until that exact right one is there. So then as young girls, we see these pictures and we think, oh, my God, she looks like that. She was born like that. And it's just not true. And we have our good days, we have our bad days. We have our good moods, we have our bad moods. Number two, when you look at your girlfriends who you love and adore and support, you don't look at them with the critical eye that you look at yourself with in the mirror. I mean, I used to have to put on these. These critical lenses when I worked with the models when I was a makeup artist. So a young woman would walk in, superstar or not. And then we do the hair, the makeup, the la la la. We get them in front of the camera, and we all had to watch and go, wait, there's a hair out of place. Hang on. Oh, I've got to fix. Her upper lip isn't quite full enough or whatever to get the picture that we wanted. I'd forget to take those critical lenses off, and then I'd go to the mirror and look at myself. At the end of the day, I had so much makeup on. We are just so mean to ourselves. Now. If my friend came up to me and said, I have this wrinkle under my eye. Do you notice it? Do you see it? And the reason I'm bringing that up is I have a little puff there that makes a little white dot under my eye. And I've obsessed over that now and again. She would say, honey, nobody is looking at that. They're looking at your spirit, your smile, your coloring, your. The mood that you're in. And it's like, of course, when I meet somebody, I may initially go, oh, my God, what a beauty. Look at her hair. Look at her white teeth or whatever it is. After we start talking, all those physical traits disappear. Who do I see? I see this character. It's like when we're little kids in the sandbox. That's what we see. You know, there's the mean one, the nice one, the funny one, the sweet one, the Shy one. That's what we see. We see each other's spirits, and we just put so much attention on the book cover rather than the book. It's interesting because we all really see each other for who we really are. We are not fooling anybody. You know, you can dress her up, but you can't make her happy. And I always say you can have the perfect outfit, the perfect hair, makeup and everything. And you're not really feeling good about yourself. You're not in the best mood. Maybe you're thinking kind of cranky thoughts, and you go to the party anyway. People see that, they don't see everything in place, or they see somebody trying really hard to control their looks, really getting away with it, not really fooling anybody. And then, on the other hand, you could be in such a fabulous mood, you're having a dinner party, you're gonna see your best friends, and your hair is greasy, like baggy sweatpants on, and you race to the store to get that last bottle of wine, and somebody bumps into you. And you don't even think about what you look like because you're so excited. And they're like, oh, my God, you look fabulous. Did you fall in love? Did you just wait, what's going on? You look amazing. And then you look in the mirror like, oh, my God, are you nuts? My hair's greasy.

Everything.

Like, honey, you're looking good. As you're turned on to life, you're excited about what you're doing. And that's what makes a woman beautiful. It's not the shape of her nose and the size of her derriere.

It's.

It's really how much she's taking in life. And I'm not. I'm singing to the choir. I am saying stuff that we already know. I'm just saying it out loud. You know, people have asked me, oh, do you have your red work done? Or. Well, of course you're not worried about it because you're a model. It's like, first off, I wasn't born a model. I was in photo studios every day from age 18 to age 49 and was never asked to model. And, you know, I've had my moments of insecurity. You know, I dyed my hair for six years because I freaked me out. I wasn't ready. Oh, my God. But I used to think if I ever got a facelift, which I would never do, but some women do. And I say, honor yourself, but pay attention to your motivation. Are you being motivated by fun or fear? Because if desperation is what's motivating you. It doesn't matter what you do. It's always going to show. Your desperation and fear is always going to show. But if you're doing it out of fun and pleasure, so you're going for pleasure and fun, then, hey, you know, give yourself a purple Mohawk. Whatever. Turn. I'm a woman. I grew up in this society. I get it. I get the judgment. And if it's. You feel good and you want to do Botox and all that, think about it medically, make sure you're doing something safe, and just really check what's pushing you to do it. And I've had a lot of conversations with women about dyeing their hair, and they're like, I'll never let go of the dye. But they end up doing it, and there's this newfound freedom, and they start saying, I was never complimented by my hair because it was never healthy, and it always looked dyed, and now it's completely silver. And I get compliments from strangers every day. Really fun stories. I'm definitely babbling. I wanted to stay on this one track, and I think I lost it. But we'll keep talking and see what happens.

Yeah, I mean, I love it. It's not babbling at all. It's super inspiring. I mean, it's so great, too, like, the. Because we are so hard on ourselves, and we think that in order for us to be beautiful, we need to. I mean, this is personally part of my process, because I am not that into fashion and makeup. I'm very simple, and I beat my. Beaten myself up in the past, that I'm not, like, really into it, and people know how to put their makeup on, like, all perfectly, and I just don't care. Like, I'm like, okay, I got my yoga pants. Like, I feel good. But there's this idea that you need to be showy or I don't, like you said, of just, like, owning what is. I think that's. It's been challenging for me. And I know talking to other women, it's like, what is your authentic style and how do you find it? So how would you recommend people to, like, find their authentic mojo?

Experiment. Experiment. Play, you know, try it all. Dabble in it all. It's funny. You were saying that you felt obligated, like, you should wear more makeup and do all that. And when I was a teenager and a young adult, I was the opposite. I poured through the magazines, and the reason I learned to become a makeup artist is because I was my first subject. And I grew up in the Twiggy days, so I wore fake eyelashes to high school.

Wow.

I would not leave the house till I was set. And I had no idea how I was going to get married and you know, sleep next to somebody and wake up and have them see me with no makeup on or anything. But that was, that was definitely desperation and fear. And I quickly became a, you know, California flower child hippie and didn't shave my legs or wear any makeup and went natural. So I finally found it and then I finally found a happy medium, I should say. And one of the things I was going to say about the facelifts and the Botox, I've always had very old looking hands, even when I was young.

Right.

And I thought, okay, I make my face look like I'm 25 and then this 70 year old hand comes up. Where do you stop? Like after a while it's come, just let her go, you know.

That's really funny.

I think finding people that love you for who you. And that starts with loving yourself.

Yeah.

You know, again, taking the critical glasses off, looking in the mirror and finding the things that you like. You could just start with the physical and then it's kind of like writing a resume. You can write a resume about all the things you've accomplished in your life, you know, all the people you've loved that you know, you can fall in love with yourself. And it takes paying attention to yourself, you know, not avoiding, but turning around and really giving yourself something nurturing. There's, I mean, you know, a myriad of things with all the people you interview and mental health, physical health, all of it, it's all out there.

Yeah.

You gotta want it, you know, and go after it. And I think that's the beginning. And once you've fallen in love with yourself, people have fun being around you. Yeah. And everybody else falls in love with you and then you look around at your life and you're like, this is good.

Totally. I think having, for me having a child has helped with that too because there are days where, especially when it was newborn phase, where I literally just didn't even look in the mirror. And we're like outside and I realized I'm out in public. I have absolutely no idea what I look like, but oh well, I feel like I'm having fun. Like it was great. And it felt really good to know that I could go out and be in the world not knowing what I look like and still feel good about myself.

Beautiful example. Love it, love it, love it. And Big basically What it boiled down to is you were putting your attention on somebody else. And you could also put your attention on something else, like if you were just completely absorbed in a project. And that's really what happens because you're less self conscious. You're putting all your consciousness, all your attention on something else. And it's so rewarding. That's so wonderful. I love that stuff. That's perfect.

That's awesome.

The other thing is, I always figure, you know, what if I'm not walking around with every little hair in place and everything perfect. All those people that are feeling like, oh, they're not pretty enough or attractive enough or this or that, like, they're gonna really like being around me when I'm like, you know, with my turkey neck and my wrinkles and all that stuff, they're gonna feel so good about themselves. So you're helping the world by not caring about what you.

That is awesome. I love that too. You're saying the self consciousness. I know. You know, for me, part of my journey too is I noticed how self conscious I was. It was always about me and how I looked. And it's ridiculous how many journals I have when I was in college of like, I hate my body. Oh, poor me. Like, what do I look like? I need to lose weight. And it's like, we are wasting our life.

I know. All that energy and attention. I mean, thank God I somehow made a career out of putting on my fake eyelashes. I got some kind of a return my kids through college with that money. God, it's so true. It's so true. But, you know, it feels so good to talk to you about this. This is another huge part of the pro age revolution starting the conversation. You know, the longer you hold things in, the more it turns into shame. When you get it on the table, you just tippy toe and you dare to say it, like, oh, my God, I'd never stop dyeing my hair. And this is why. And I'm so afraid. And oh my God, I'm 50 and I'm single again. And I'm. I don't even think I'm dateable because I'm over the hill. And we all have so many fears in so many different categories. And when we start sharing them and talking about them, pretty soon we're laughing about it totally dissipates. It lightens it up and puts that big bright light onto the truth. And then it just boils down to what it actually is. A couple silver hairs or whatever the thing may be. It. It's Just talk to your girlfriends, share it with your kids. Get it out there. All those things feel so scary and so shameful and so difficult. Cause they really will get. Those big monsters will turn into tiny little nothing. What a way.

Totally. And I love too that you never know, like you dyeing your hair or not dyeing your hair. Then you have this whole new career as a supermodel in your. I don't know how old you are. 60.

I'm 63.

It's 63. Like, if you didn't dye your hair and you're trying to be like everyone else, like, you might not be a supermodel. Right.

Well, I'd be a really, really weird looking 20 year old. Be like, okay, where'd she come from? I'd be like, I'm a model. Oh my gosh. With those really old hands.

Oh my gosh, that's hilarious.

Talk about feeling uncomfortable when you're young. I was told I had man hands once because I don't have those long, slender. And I sat on my hands for about three years because of that. I was totally humiliated. Then I was told I had a really big forehead. So then I wanted to cover my forehead and I cut bangs. So I would cover this huge forehead. But then the wind would blow and I'd have to cover the. Hold the bangs down. So then my man hand showed and I was like, what do I do? You're like all the girls that don't go to the beach and have a black because they think they look horrible in a bathing suit or, you know, I'm not gonna go do that. Try that fun thing.

Totally.

Because I look clumsy and I don't ever want to look clumsy. And you end up this little doll, this little perfect little doll. And maybe there are a lot of people that are attracted to that. But then you don't trust who your friends are because they don't know you for who you really are. They haven't fallen in love with you and all your flaws, as we call them. And you become very lonely. Beautiful and lonely.

Mm, totally. And I think all women can relate to that. Like, I know I can. There's. I can think of so many events I didn't go to because I thought I looked fat or something like.

Yeah. Oh, my God. Stupid. The beauty of age. One of the wonderful things about, you know, and you could be 8 and be full of age, or you could be 80, but you get to look back in Hindsight, which is 2020, and see that for what it is, you know, to really See it. And they are stages of life in our particular society. So we do. We can be gentle on ourselves. You know, don't beat yourself up for having gone through that, but give yourself a little pat on the back for having realized it and for sharing it, sharing it with others so they can maybe go, oh, maybe she's got something there. Yeah, most definitely.

Very cool. So I'm curious on you created Boom by Cindy Joseph. Can you talk to us about this and why you created it and what it's all about?

Yes. I had a young male friend, kind of a surrogate son, who's now my IT guy, Ezra. And a lot of my customers and fans have met him. He was living with me in New York. He was from California. He needed a place to stay so he could go to acting school. Smart guy, ambitious, thinking all the time. So one day he saunters into my room and he says, oh, my God, I've got a great idea. You could start a cosmetic line because you were a makeup artist for 27 years. Now you're this famous model. Put them together. How about that? I was like, ezra, you're the greatest. You're so smart, you're so clever. And it's a really good idea. The world does not need another tube of lipstick. I cannot participate. It's just another red. How many cosmetic companies are out there? He really did. He got me to thinking. And I thought about all the cosmetic companies, from Urban Decay with green lipstick and nail polish to Chanel. All the classics, CoverGirl, the expensive ones, inexpensive ones, Prescriptives, Clinique. They're all like clubs. You know, there's the sensible club and there's the sophisticated club, and there's the corporate club. And so they're all different marketing schemes. It's basically the same cosmetics, but we pick the one we like because we relate to it. We relate to the way it looks, the way it feels and all of that. But every one of those clubs is an anti ageist club. And when somebody like me goes to have some fun and buy some fun makeup, I get to the cosmetic counter and I'm looking at all the pretty, shiny, whatever it is. And the salesperson says, may I help you? And I'm like, well, I'm not sure. I'm just looking for something. I don't even know what I'm looking for. And they're like, follow me. And we go past all the pretty fun stuff, and I end up with them handing me a jar of anti wrinkle cream. Anti aging cream. Kind of takes the fun out of it. I'm like, see ya. Go to another department. So I realized that every single cosmetic company in the world is anti ageist. And I thought, bingo. I'm going to create a line of cosmetics that are pro age, that tell women they are exactly the right age and the right shape, color, texture, as we were talking about earlier. And there is going to be no foundation, no concealer, nothing to hide. You don't have to put on your face before you leave home. It's actually going to recreate the look that a woman's face takes on when she's happy. Her circulation revs up. She becomes colorful because of it. Not just her cheeks, not just her lips, but you actually become colorful in a lot of areas of your face, actually where the capillaries are close to the surface. And that's why in the days when women didn't wear makeup, they'd pinch their cheeks and bite their lips to get that circulation going. That's what happens when a woman's turned on and happy. Her skin also becomes very dewy and radiant. So that's what I created. It's the most pared down, simple. You don't even need a mirror to put it on. There's three little boomsticks, very easy to use, and a really amazing moisturizer, which is handmade by my friends in Hawaii who are beekeepers. That's all the technical stuff around it. And I named it Boom originally because I wanted boomer women to relate to it. And then I realized I was committing reverse ageism cosmetic line only for women over a certain age. And then I realized every woman wants to hear this message, and every woman wants to use safe cosmetics with no parabens and phthalates and, you know, like that. And pare down that makeup bag to just three little sticks you can throw in your gym bag or whatever. And also, when you wash your face, you don't feel like you look like a totally different human being. As you know, when you had your makeup on, it's just time. It's just time. So that's what I did. I created Boom by Cindy Joseph. And another thing about it is women will get together over superficial things. It could be a sweater sale, it could be cosmetics, you know, going to the beauty salon to get your manicure. But once we get together, we start sharing and talking about things that are very deep and very profound and very meaningful to us. And Boom is the cosmetic where we come together, but the conversation that ensues once we've done that. I have A Facebook page, and it's so active, and, you know, women really share their points of view about age and beauty and. And all of this, and it's just been magnificent, and it's really what I would say launched the Pro age revolution.

Beautiful. I love that. I love the name boom. I use boom all the time. And for me, boom means, like, celebration.

It's like, I love it.

It's like, boom. Boom.

Yeah, boom. Bada boom.

So that when I first started, that was my experience of it of, like, celebration, like, boom. Like, bring it. Bring your natural beauty.

I love that. Boom is also the sound of a revolution, right?

Yes, totally.

Big ideas, big movement for a revolution.

Yes.

So, yeah, boom took on a lot of other meanings. And boomers, too. They're included.

Okay. So I love it. And I have. I am going to order today, actually. I have it on my list to order the three stuff. And I watched. I have a little story for you. I watched your. I forget the color. The color one. What's that one called?

Boomstick color.

Boomstick color. Okay. So I like. I said I haven't really done much makeup stuff, but you were talking about the capillaries and where a woman is when she's happy. And you put it up here, and you put it a little here, and you put it here and here and here.

That's right, baby.

So I was like, ooh, I have just some red kind of whatever, right? So I'm like, oh, I'm gonna try that. So I did what you said with this little red. When I went to the farmer's market, and I passed one of my girlfriends, and she's like, you look beautiful. And I was like, no way.

Isn't it fun? Oh, my God, I love hearing these stories. One woman said, I wore it to my yoga class. She said, after we did our meditation, and I opened my eyes and looked at myself in the mirror, it was like, oh, my God, I look so beautiful, so funny. And it's amazing because the demonstration I do. I have no makeup on, no eyebrow. I always do a little bit of eyebrow because my eyebrows have faded. But I did nothing because I really wanted to show what happens with just a bare, naked face when you just add the color. And it's amazing. And it's what we do when we go running, when we're laughing, when we're making out, when we're dancing, we are already. Our skin naturally does that. So it's really, really fun to just kind of imitate that. Yeah.

Okay, so talk. You don't have the concealer, you don't do concealer or anything about that. So tell us why what I mean, you know, because I know that there's a lot of women with skin issues and I've had skin issues for a while.

And number one, when you hide the flaws, the so called flaws, there's. If you have ill health and you have dark circles under your eyes because of allergies, or you've got a rash, or you have a case of acne, your skin is trying to tell you something. Alert, alert. Find out what it is. Maybe you need to cleanse your liver. Maybe you need to go to your doctor and find out something about your body that you don't know. Maybe it's time to start meditation because you're stressed and emotional and it's causing problems in your complexion or, you know, the whites of your eyes or something like that. So if you're covering that all the time, you don't see what your body is trying to tell you. Number two, you're hiding. You're putting a mask like foundation, evens out the skin tone. Well, you lose seeing the blush. You lose seeing if you go pale out of fear or something. Other people cannot read you as well because you've got this perfect, flawless mask on all the time. My daughter actually wrote a really fabulous essay about this and I posted it on my Facebook page. So if you go to Boom. By Cindy Joseph Facebook page and scroll down, it's the story about foundations and she really, really goes into detail and articulates it really beautifully. When it comes to showing emotions and also covering something that might be a sign about your health. And totally aside from that, what's wrong with uneven skin tone? I mean, who decided that skin had to be perfectly even like that, you know? And again, you're not fooling anybody. The minute you go for a swim or wash your face or cry and it comes off, they're gonna see you for who you really are. And if your skin tone is a little ruddy or uneven or you've got those beautiful dark circles that come from being Eastern European, we used to actually do that on purpose to the models in the 80s when I was in Paris for all the European fashion magazines, because it looked smoky and sexy and mysterious and there's a real woman. So the things that we consider flaws, you might get other people's opinions. Like, you know, have you ever maybe gotten a mosquito bite or a pimple right before a party? And you go to your girlfriend or your husband or whoever and you're like, oh, My God, I feel so awful. I gotta cover this up. And then you try to get covered up and they're like, it looks worse. I didn't even see it until you told me about it. And as soon as you told me about it, the more you went on and on about it, it became bigger and redder and worse in my mind, because you've got so much attention on it. Covering it looks ridiculous because it's all crusty and like, just let it go. So it's really interesting. I do this little exercise and I call it going naked, where I wear no makeup at all for at least a week in every situation, an interview, a go see, which is where I go to try to get a job as a model party, you know, and until I can fall back in love with my face, also experience other people's reactions. To me, it is the most freeing experience. And then when you wear makeup, and I'm not saying don't wear bright red lipstick or bright blue eyeshadow if you want to play, but that's the difference. You're putting it on because you're trying to fix and change and look like somebody else. Are you putting it on because it's like, oh, that'd be fun. Let's do that. You know, that's a whole nother thing. Then when you're wearing makeup, you're really doing it out of pleasure and fun and having a good time with it. And of course, if you have a job that requires you to look very polished or a certain way, absolutely use it for those reasons. And it's also interesting, like, if you're uncomfortable not wearing that bright red lipstick, putting the lipstick on is not what makes you look better. It's the calm confidence, walking out in the world confident. And I always thought it'd be so cool to have women be in front of the mirror, do the hair, everything exactly the way they feel good. Film them walking in and then film them walking out in such a way that you can't see the details, but you can just see how they carry themselves, and it'll be completely different. And it's the confidence, the self confidence. And you know, hey, if you want to get your self confidence out of a bottle, but the bottle can break, no, you may not have that. So you got to kind of count on yourself for that. Yeah.

Wow, that's so amazing. I love. I mean, you said so many amazing things. I love the. The going naked. I know. For me, that was definitely a of part. Like I said, I haven't done a Lot of makeup, But I used to wear a lot. I used to wear eye makeup, like, everywhere I went. I had to wear my eye makeup if I was playing sports, like, I was an athlete, but I had to have my eye makeup on, whatever. And I remember just asking myself, why? Like, why do I need to do it? And then I started getting really comfortable naked. I'm like, I'm beautiful without eye makeup. And that was, like, a revelation for me, because I didn't feel beautiful unless I had those booming eyes and, like, ooh. And it was just. It was very. I mean, it's still a work in progress for me, but I. It's a beautiful thing. I love that you. That you suggested to do that.

Isn't it so freeing?

Totally.

And that's the thing about youth. It's like, if youth is so great, why are we so neurotic and insecure? You know, it's like the beauty of getting older is letting go of all that and just feeling solid, confident, knowing in your skin. You feel good in your skin. Wonderful.

Oh, my gosh. You are so amazing. I just got goosebumps thinking about, you're such a role model for us women and just really standing in that power and the confidence and accentuating your natural beauty if you feel inspired. But that. You are enough.

Yes, that's exactly right. You're more than enough. You're awesome. Each and every one of us. And, you know, the difference in the way we look, our different sizes and shapes and colors and everything. How wonderful. I mean, if everybody looked like the latest fashion model, we would be so bored with our fellow human beings. And I think the crooked smile and the little nuances and all the things that the media tries to convince our friends flaws are actually our beauty. You know, the cool things. Like, I have this tooth that sticks out a little bit. We call it the Beave. Right. My beaver tooth. And I have obsessed about this tooth, and it seems to be coming out more and more as I age. And I thought, oh, I've got to get it fixed. I'm a model. I got to remember, all my friends love it. They're like, that's part of you. That's part of your unique cindiness. You know, so it's like, okay, we'll keep the beef.

Okay, so I'm curious. Talk to us about the body. You know, I mean, what. You are a supermodel, and you're in the media. What is. Tell us about your body, your relationship with your body, and how women can kind of own their actual shape. And size and be comfortable in their own skin.

You mentioned mirrors a while ago. Get rid of the mirrors. We spend way too much time standing in front of a mirror criticizing ourselves. And we go to the mirror looking for something wrong instead of going to the mirror to look for something, right? So you can have a little mirror to make sure you don't have stuff in your tooth or your nose is clean, etc. Like guys, you know, they just look in there to make sure everything's relatively acceptable. If you're going to stand in front of a full length mirror before you walk in front of it, decide you're going to find everything that's right. And it's an exercise and it takes practice. So you stand there and you look and you might notice the color of your eyes and you might actually approve of that. So out loud say, I really love the color of my eyes. And then you might notice the shape of your shoulders and you might say, I really like my shoulders. If it's like, nope, don't go there. Look at everything. The shape, the color, the texture. And just keep listing all the things that you approve of and you'll find something very magical happens. The more you approve, the more approving things you find. So if you start finding good in your world, you'll start finding more good. So what you put your attention on grows. Just like if you put your attention on that pimple in a half an hour, that sucker is twice the size. And what you put your attention on grows. So start approving of yourself when you look in front of a mirror. Boy, there's so much to say about all of this. And, you know, it's an ongoing conversation. Just keep having it. Come up with your own ideas. You know, think about, wow, how can I feel better about myself? One of the things that I mentioned to a lot of boomer women and women getting close to 50 is looking at the graph of life that we've been given. The graph of life looks like this. It's a mountain, right? And so we're born here, and we go up the mountain, up the mountain, up the mountain, and then we hit this thing we've called the prime of life, right? The prime. And it may be at 30, it may be 35. Maybe nowadays it's 40. What happens after the prime? After you've hit the crescendo, one way downhill. So at age 35, life is downhill from there. The average person lives to be 76 years old, right? And that's the average person. So you are over 30. A larger percentage of your life than you are under 30. So after this crescendo, the rest of your life is downhill. Well, thank God it's make believe. It is not science, because science is discovering that many, many areas of your brain and your development improve as you age well into your 60s. And I have plenty of friends in their 60s who are climbing mountains, going to the top of 14ers. And the young kids may pass them by, but by the time they get to the top, there's nobody there. And then the kids show up later because you have more stamina, more endurance, and you can actually have more strength as you get older. I think there's more explosive power when you're younger. More endurance, but less stamina. So there's all this science there, which we can go to Experience Life magazine viewer conferences to find out this information. Not claiming to be an expert in that area, but I certainly read about it. So what I've done is I've taken this paradigm, turned it upside down. So this is the new graph of life. It's a V. We're born at the base of the V. And as you live your life, you add more to your life. You become more. It expands. You don't take anything away.

You, there you are.

You add to your life, you add to your experiences, you add to your skills, your knowledge, your understanding about everything. So life actually gets better and it becomes more expansive in the universe.

Beautiful. I love that.

Yeah, it seems to make more sense to me.

Totally.

I mean, I haven't hit a crescendo. As far as I can tell. My prime is now. And the next now is my prime.

You're always in your prime.

Right this minute.

I love that. That's so great. Okay, so I have to ask because, you know, Pilar came out here and. Pilar, mutual friend. And she'll be in this interview.

Series editor in chief of Experience Life magazine. We love her.

And we love her. She is one of the most extraordinary human beings that I know. I love that woman. But she was saying, we were just talking about you and we were talking about pleasure, actually. And she brought you up in the context of pleasure. She's like, Cindy just does everything for pleasure and whatever. Just. We were having a great conversation. So I've got to ask you about pleasure and joy and celebration, you know, because there's. That isn't the common way of living for most people. So how do we do that?

We grew up in a society that's pain oriented. And what that means is we all relate about pain. We Deal with pain. When we feel pain, we try to get rid of pain. You can go out into public and talk to total stranger on a bus in a restaurant about how miserable your life is. Oh, I've got a cold, my mother in law drives me crazy, my car broke down, I lost my job. They will jump right in and share that pain with you. Oh yeah, that happened to me too. And Lalala, if you start talking to a total stranger about pleasure. Oh, I went to the beach yesterday, it was so beautiful and I got this really nice tan. I'm loving the way my body looks and my husband and I made out last night. It was so lovely and the sun is shining and I just want to celebrate. They're going to think you're a nutcase. Number one. Pleasure is highly suspicious in our society. Now you can talk about the pleasure of a good restaurant or a great symphony or something. But again, a little bit at a time or it sounds like you're bragging or you're on drugs or something like how can this person be so happy? You can also get out of work because of pain. You call your boss, my mother died, my car broke down, I'm really sick. No problem, take the day off, take the week off. But if you called them up and said this is the first day of sun we've had since winter and I'm heading to the beach, I won't be coming into work today, they'd say, well, you're not coming into work anymore if you do that. So that is some examples of what pain oriented society means. We are a success oriented society. We are about ambition and succeeding and producing. So that brings us to the difference between men and women. Men are producers, women are producers as well. But we also are based in pleasure. We function according to what pleasures us. We are pleasure seeking creatures. And that's why people like being around us so much. Men and women, because we know how to create the party, right? The man will say, okay, we need a dwelling to protect us from the elements, boards, you know, material. And we're like, let's light some candles in there, let's put some pretty fabric on the bed. We are pleasure oriented and if you look at our bodies just you know, anatomically, men, women, we all have these similar body parts that function for us and we can also receive pleasure from those same body parts. There's one body part between the two of them that's only on a woman and the only function it has is pleasure. So that's an indication that we are pleasure oriented creatures. Now, this was all new information to me when I hit about 30, 40 something years old and I met a group of women who were living their lives according to what pleasured them. And in a group of people living that way. And I really perked up my ears. And I'm like, what are you talking about? It sounded a little frivolous and a little irresponsible. And it's like, you just do what's fun. Like, so how do you get the kids through college, etc. And they're like, oh, we love hard work. That's really fun. We love making sure that our family's happy and fed. And, you know, we love creating this corporation. It's like, okay, wait a minute. According to pleasure, what pleasures you? Well, sometimes coming up against a challenge and going through fear and anger and all that stuff is really pleasurable. So if you take a look at your life and how you're living your life, there's nobody holding a gun to your head to make you do what you're doing. So we will complain about things, but we're the ones driving this vehicle, got ourselves into it all. If you really take responsibility for your life, you created it all. You are exactly where you are because you put yourself there. Now there is fate. We were all dealt a different deck of cards. So I was born in 1951 to Reed and Trudy Miller in Seattle, Washington. I don't remember planning that. So there is a big mystery around that. But what you do with what you've been given really is up to you.

So.

I decided to try it, to like, try living my life according to what pleasured me. So I moved away from doing what I felt obligated to do to be successful and just started doing what suited my fancy. I created a business. I've accomplished so much since I've done it, and I've got this wonderful default that happens because when it stops feeling good, I pay attention and I shift things until it starts feeling good again and I make the right decision every time. And then I heard this great quote. If you go for success, pleasure is 50. 50. If you go for pleasure, pleasure, success is guaranteed.

Totally, totally true.

Isn't that something? And we see all these people who are monetarily successful, so socially successful, but they're not happy. Yeah, totally. And then there's Joe Blow down the street with some debt and, you know, etc, etc. But they're going for pleasure, got a happy life, they're dancing in the street. It's pretty fascinating concept. And this is Just the slightest little superficial description of what it's all about. I've actually taken courses on this, and it's a big subject. And, you know, anybody listening to this now, I'm sure could come up with a myriad of questions and challenges to this concept. So it's just something to toy around with and play with. And if anybody's really interested in learning more, there are places you can go to learn more about it. But I'm having a blast experimenting with it.

Nice. I love it. Yeah, I created a whole conference on pleasure called the Pleasure Advantage.

Ooh, I want to hear about that.

Yeah, it's very cool. So on entheos, we have it. And it's just literally of having life be like, letting pleasure be your guide, because I'm in that. I kind of had that realization a couple years ago, and I've been moving more in this direction. And especially when I had my child, it felt very intense and my life totally changed and there was a whole bunch of mundane stuff to get done. Yeah, I just became a mom, you know, and there was a lot of mundane. And I was like, wait, what happened to my fun life? And so I created the Pleasure Advantage, where my son was like six months, and I was like, you know what? Exactly what you said. I need to reorient and create pleasure and fun. I am responsible for this. So it's still a work in progress for me. You still have the moments of being driven by success, and this is what people tell you you should do with business and your life. And you're like, hold up. I don't want to do that. So, yeah, I love this conversation.

Fabulous. Absolutely fabulous. And, you know, for some people, for some women, going after a very male oriented type goal turns them on, and it's extremely pleasurable. So, you know, this concept we have of masculine, feminine, male roles and female roles is you let go of all of that. You let go of all of that and really follow what turns you on. And it might be something that is generally in the category of a more. More male oriented. And men and women are much more alike than they are different, you know, but socially, we're really raised to be more different than we actually are. But men are responders. They are naturally and hormonally production and goal oriented. And women are, you know, they set a goal and they go for it. They're linear. And women are. We have cyclic hormones. We're random. You know, everybody uses multitasking as one of the descriptions. But, you know, men are here. Male is the most Masculine male is here, and the most feminine female is here. And we all fall somewhere in between. None of us are one or the other. It's a continuum. Gender is a continuum. But wherever you fall, you can still go for what pledges you.

I love that, too, because I think that there is a lot. With the masculine, feminine dynamic that a lot of. I love that you said that you can go for whatever pleasures you. Because there's this idea sometimes with the feminine movement or feminine power and all this, that there's goddess. Yeah, the certain stuff that it looks like, like. And you need to be doing it in a certain way and, you know, and it's like, no, actually, I don't like to do that. You know, for me, I have a course that I teach called Rock youk Goddess Life. And I'm not your typical goddess. I'm not your typical. What you would think would be a goddess, but I feel like I am standing in my goddess power, my authentic self. And that is hot.

Yeah, absolutely. And you go back to the archetypes. It's like, which goddess do you relate to? She could be the warrior with the, you know, the sword and the. What, a spear and all of that. Or in the shield and. Or she could be, you know, like, feathers and airy and all that. And that's what's so fun, I think, about astrology and enneagrams and all of that. It's not something you have to believe in. It's just something you can relate to to find you your more of yourself, your authentic self. You know, One friend of mine, when she turned 40, she said, I'm finally free. She said, it took 20 years to become who I was. And then it took 20 years to undo all the conditioning to uncover and discover who I really am. And I just thought that was brilliant.

Totally brilliant and so true. I mean, I feel like I've done 15, 20 years of doing that right now, you know? And it's like, oh, my gosh. Like, this is who I am. And really owning it, which I love about you, too, is like you completely own who you are. So great.

That's right, baby.

I need to have a damn good time.

This is it. What you see is what you get. Yeah.

Very cool.

Somebody say, reality may not always be what you want, but you can sure as hell count on it.

That is awesome. Cool. So is there anything else that you would like to share on aging? Oh, I do have one other question for you. You obviously are stunning and gorgeous and look radiant and healthy. Do you have any Recommendations for people to, to not anti age, but be more radiant. Like, do you have any tips for that? For beauty, for health, for radiance?

Yeah. Fall in love with yourself. Start living your life according to pleasure. There's a great quote that was credited to Jane Russell. I'm sorry, Rosalind Russell. Big difference. Rosalind Russell. Taking joy in living is a woman's best cosmetic. I really, I really follow that. And also beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And you are a beholder. And you can see beauty in yourself because you are the eye of the beholder. And you know, you just, you know, paid me a nice compliment, which I appreciate. And what you see in me, whatever it is that you see in me that you find beautiful, is because you do see that in yourself or you wouldn't be able to recognize it. And when you see somebody out and about that you're kind of drawn to, often it can be somebody who has evolved and developed something in their character that you're yearning to find in your own character. Again, if you didn't have it in you, you wouldn't recognize it in them. So it's, it's an interesting dynamic that happens. And you know, I've gotten comments on YouTube and, and Saturdays with Cindy, which is my vlog. I don't think she's so beautiful. I think she's weird looking. And it's kind of like, okay, little stuff. And then I'm like, oh, well, that's there. That's what they see because they're looking for something else. And hey, that's fine. You know, it doesn't. It's just the way life is and it's the way humans are. So I think if you're striving for something that is judged by, judged externally, you'll probably never succeed striving for something internal, an acknowledgement that you give yourself internally. You know, then that's the relationship with yourself. Because you can please some of the people some of the time, and you can please some of the people all the time. Please all the people all the time. I think Bob Dylan said that. Inside job. It's definitely an inside job. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know, when you really look at any given situation, you only have three choices. From when you're born till the day you die. Any given situation, you have three choices and you have two ways to win and one way to lose. So the odds are always with us that we can have a winning experience in our life. And the first choice is get in agreement with it. The second choice is change the situation to something you're already in agreement with. And the third choice is to lose. A real simple example is you and I decide we want to play tennis together. You come over, we're ready for a sunny day, and it starts pouring cats and dogs. Now we can just be bummed. We wanted to play tennis. We've been talking about it for so long, I can't believe it. And I really needed to exercise like that. Or we could get in total agreement with it and go, whoa, this is good. Because what I'd really like to do is build a big raging fire and just pour some wine and sit and talk about life for the next three hours. That's getting in full agreement with it and naturally making the best of it. The second choice is changing it to something you're already in agreement with. Let's look up the tennis courts that are covered. Or let's go play tennis in the rain. That's like. Or we could just lose. Really interesting, because I've taken that template and laid it over every situation in life, and every single time, those are the only three choices we ever have in any given situation. So if you choose to lose, it's your own decision. All that from a very wise man named Victor Barranco, who has since passed away. But he created a really amazing school called Lafayette Morehouse. And a lot of the courses I've taken about women, pleasure and communication, and la la, la, la. Pilar's taken some of the courses, have all come from them. And the quote about success and pleasure, the quote, the other one I forget now came from them. Gotta get credit where credit is due. Yeah.

Awesome. Beautiful. Well, thank you so much. Oh, my gosh. We covered, like, so many amazing areas.

It was a blast. And the time went by like that.

I know.

So much fun staring into your light, glowing, happy, sparkly face. It's just been really, really fun talking to you.

Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you. It's been a delight talking to you and so, so much pleasure, and I am definitely more turned on from talking to you.

Does it look like we have.

Do we look glowing and beautiful? So please share where people can find more about you. Buy some boom sticks if they want, and all of that goodness.

Oh, sure. Yeah. So Boom by Cindy Joseph is the name of the cosmetic company. Five products. Moisturizer, three little boomsticks. One of them is a moisturizer and boom touch, which is essential lubricant. And then we have three more products coming out, but it's just the three boomsticks in pocket size so you can just pop them into your jeans and head out. So it's all purchased online@boombycindyjoseph.com and you will also find the blog and some press and all kinds of things on the website. So snoop around and read about the Pro Age Revolution, etc. And you can also find us on Facebook.

Gorgeous. Fantastic. Fabulous. Amazing. Thank you. Thank you.

Takes one to know one, baby.

I like it. I like it. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Mama Goddess. Sending you lots of love and blessings. If you'd like to connect more, go to mamagoddess. Com. Until next time, keep rocking it and have an awesome day.