Finding Brave Epis 330 - Being 40: Letting Go and Embracing Who You Are, with Stacey Lindsay

Hello everyone.

This is Kathy Caprino and welcome to my podcast, Finding Brave. I've created the show for everyone who longs to create something bold and brave in their life, to rise up, speak up, and stand up for who they are and to reach their highest and biggest visions. Each week I'll be speaking with inspiring guests from all walks of business, leadership, entertainment, the creative arts, and the entrepreneurial world. And they'll be sharing their intimate stories of finding brave, and offer their best strategies for building your most rewarding, joyful, and meaningful life, business, and career.

Hello everybody, welcome, welcome to another episode of Finding Brave. I'm just, just so joyful today at what I get to do and the people I get to speak with, and Stacy Lindsey is one of those. Stacy, in your beautiful pink gorgeous sweater that matches your magnificent book. Thank you for joining me today. I know you're in the middle of a crazy book launch, which we were chatting a little earlier, that can make us just want to fall on our faces and cry.

You know it.

Well, happy, but it's a lot. I'm so happy for you, people. We are talking to Stacy about her new book. Let me get the title perfectly correct. I have it. Where is it? Being 40: The Decade of Letting Go and Embracing Who We Are. I truly wish I'd read your book when I was 40. And I know that so much went into this book. And so people, I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me just tell you a little bit about Stacy. Stacy's so humble. I was saying she gives me one line of a bio, whereas some people, I, you know, I need, you know, a binder. Just scroll through it. Stacy Lindsey is a journalist, an author, and an incredible senior editor of Maria Shriver's Sunday paper, which is— since I met you, I devour everything about it. It's so wonderful. It's a bomb for the soul. A bomb, not bomb, balm for the soul. It's what I need to read and what I need to remember. And I know you're the, what are they called? Agents for change? No, there's this—

Architects of change.

Yes. There it is. And you were so kind to make me one of those friends.

Oh, you are one. You are one, my body loves you.

Oh my goodness. So what I want to do, Stacy, is dive in. First of all, a little background on the book, but for anyone listening who has big dreams, You know, I want to be a journalist, a broadcaster, an author, a speaker. You know, I work with a lot of people with big dreams, and sometimes what drives those dreams— yes, many of us want to make a big difference, many of us want to make that, you know, architect of change, but sometimes we're focused on numbers and metrics and how we're going to get over and what it looks like. And you were sharing that in this entire journey you had a different approach. Can you just start there for us before we talk about being 40? Because I think it's instrumental and educational for people about ways to remain sane and tethered to who you really are in a process of when you're coming forward.

Will you talk a little bit about that? Tethered to who you are. May I steal that right now, Kathy Caprino?

See, look at journalist. Yes, you may.

That's profound. That is so true. That's what's kept me going in this process. And I have to say, this process of writing a book has been incredibly beautiful and incredibly challenging for me. And I'm proud to say that because I have dedicated my career to words, to to storytelling, to writing. And so when I, you know, as a journalist, a TV journalist and a print journalist, and I've worked with words for so long and I've helped other people too with their stories, writing their stories for them. And when it came to this project, it was daunting. I thought, oh my gosh, this is gonna come easily, right? Because I've been writing for so long. It was really, really, really daunting. So I feel in many ways that was maybe a gift from the start. The fact that it was daunting to write something in its totality about my beliefs and my desires, even though it is a deeply reported journalistic book that includes other women's stories, but it's really anchored in my story. So the fact that it was daunting, I think, was also maybe humbling from the beginning, and it brought me back to the basics of why am I doing this book? Because as you know, it's fun some days, but most days it kicks your butt. And that bringing me back to the why am I doing this, it was humbling, and it was such a reminder. I'm doing this because I'm feeling so things as a woman right now, as a woman just in her 40s, as a woman in society unlearning so many things. And I know the fact that I'm feeling this, I know other women are feeling this. And as I discovered in my interviews, so many other women are feeling this. And we'll of course unpack what this is.

Please, let's do it.

That, that helped me though in this process of writing this book is for that other woman out there who needs to hear this. And hopefully she can then give it to a friend who needs to hear this. And that kept me grounded in this process of, I'm writing this for that, that reason, not for trying to get on some best-selling list, which would be amazing, of course. But if you just aim for that, that's just maybe going to bring you some grief, or it's going to maybe bring you not a lot, not all of the joy in the connections that I think writing a book and ultimately finishing a book can bring you.

Oh, I love it all. And, you know, sometimes what people do to become best-selling authors, you know, they're They're doing a lot that games the system a little bit. Not everybody, don't get me wrong, but I think what one lesson is, whatever we put out in the world, we also want to be grateful and proud of how we do it. The how lasts. So bravo to you. Now you said something fascinating. Oh, I have so many questions. Um, one is I want people to share this with others who need it. Yeah. So, and no, before I ask that, what was most daunting? What was most daunting for you? I have ideas about what it could be, but I, if you don't mind me asking, I'd love to know.

Getting real about what I was feeling. I would write paragraphs. I would write words about my experiences. My body was changing. I approached 40 and I still felt I had prove myself in a lot of ways. And at the same time, I was feeling this primal desire to finally interrogate these societal stories and put them down. I was feeling so many things, Kathy. And what was daunting was getting real with myself and really letting it go on the page. And thankfully, that's where a beautiful editor comes in, right? So, why am I happy?

I don't think you were really saying what you want to say there, right?

Yeah. Or, "What do you mean by this?" Or, me "Give an example or tell me the story of what really happened. That was daunting. The biggest thing too is worth. And I know this comes up in your work so much. Am I worthy of telling my story? Am I worthy of sharing my experiences? Are they unique enough or different enough or big enough or all the things? That was daunting. And then I realized again, there are other women going through in their own way, in their own version, something similar to this. And I think this is how we heal. This is how we evolve. When we really share what's going on with ourselves.

So the daunting piece for you, I'm interested, was it that as you sat down to write, you realized, I have a glimpse of what I feel, but I don't really know it to the depths of my soul? Or was it, no, I know very well to the depths of my soul what I feel, but am I brave enough finding brave enough to say it. Is that what it was?

The latter, definitely. Finding that bravery. And with that also comes when I find you tell a story, oftentimes it's not always glossy and glamorous too, especially a story being as a woman facing your demons and facing your unlearning and facing your new desires as an evolving woman. They're not always pretty stories. A lot of times they are, But they also involve some grit. They involve a lot of messiness. Of course, it involves leaving, which I think the whole idea of leaving needs to be reclaimed because I think when you leave something, a job, a relationship, you're so often going towards something bigger and better. But that's a big thing. And that's a thing that I know that women wrestle with in society is how am I going to be perceived if I tell my truth? How are people going to think about me? If I really say how I feel, am I going to make people uncomfortable if I declare myself in this way? Or I say, I don't want this, I never wanted this, I do want this. That's a big, big part of this. And that's where the bravery comes in.

Oh, it's so true. And you know, just personally speaking, I'm 25 years older than that. And there are things that have happened in my life throughout But it's going on now. There's disruption in the world that's impacting me directly. You begin to see— how do I want to put this— all the people in your life when you're going through a time that isn't veneered and varnished and beautiful and perfect. I mean, sometimes we have those times where, woo-hoo, we're flying. Sometimes we're flopping, failing, the wings are broken, we can't even, we can't even do this. You begin to see who in your life is comfortable with that and who just isn't. And this is really important, people. And I know you touch on these themes, and I have to say that there wasn't one story in the book that I couldn't relate to in some way. Oh wow, I thought it was so, so specific, but I call it— it was the universal in the spec—

specificity. Beautifully put. I thought it was so universal.

But you will begin to see who in your life can support you when you're not feeling on, you're not who you were or who you thought you were, and when you're leaving something behind— your 30s or your 50s. Or it's just an incredibly beautiful book. So thank you. I have— do you mind me just peppering you with questions here galore and then let—

You, Kathy, pepper me all day long.

Pepper. When did you know you wanted to write a book about this decade? When did it come as an epiphany one night or did you think about it at age 30? I'm interested.

Isn't that always fascinating? Because I'm interested too, 'cause I'll give you the answer, which is so truthful, of course, but then I always feel as though there's more to it that we don't even know when it comes to creative things. And I think as we get older too, start to look back and think, oh, maybe I actually was writing this book a lot— started writing it a long, long time ago, and I didn't even realize. I say that because I've always been so fascinated about writing for and about women. I think this evolution that women have been going through forever is just fascinating. I think the feminist movement goes through a different wave every day, right? We, we take 3 steps forward, 2 steps back, all of us, but we persevere. So that has always been really interesting to me. So in some ways, maybe I have I've been wanting to write this book since I was in high school, and I don't even realize it. But more specifically, it was— so I'm 44. When in my late 30s, I started really focusing my journalism on to women's stories specifically.

In your late 30s, you did?

In my late— in my late 30s, I did.

Wow.

So I became really interested in just focusing on women, women's health, women's identity, women's sexuality, all these things that we— what it means to be a woman today. And in that landscape, I started organically writing about growing older to women in aging, aging in society. And I was fortunate to have some really incredible conversations with women who were owning it in their 60s, in their 70s, in their 80s. You know, Jane Fonda just pops up, right? It's just these women who were going, it doesn't matter how old I am, I'm going to start anew. I'm going to do all these things that I want. So that really grabbed me. And I originally thought this book was going to be a collection of stories just about women owning their age and aging with power unapologetically. And it did start going that way. And I started writing the proposal for that. At the same time though, I was going through what I was going through. I was in my late 30s and then just turned 40. And I was feeling all these things, just changes in my body and what, again, wanting to let go of these stories. And I thought this, this decade is fascinating and I wasn't finding anything specific on the '40s around me that I— to read. And that's, I would say, the moment of clarity I had. Okay, I'm interested in women, I'm interested in aging, I'm interested in breaking through societal expectations, but I want to hear it specific to this decade.

There wasn't a lot that you saw?

Not a lot. A lot about midlife, which is gorgeous, but I think too, part of me— yeah, it's a large span, but nothing specific to this decade. And when I started asking other women too, how do you feel about this time? How do you feel about turning 40? How do you feel about being in your forties? They just kept talking. I mean, there wasn't enough time to keep talking about it. It is an electric, fascinating time. So I wanted to really, really dig into it.

You know what I also just personally so appreciate? I will just be brutally honest here. A year and a half ago when things started to shift, that DEI, you know, is being abolished basically. I really— I see it now very clearly, but I went underground. I, I, I got so dysregulated, um, because— and, and I didn't quite understand it at the time, but, you know, I've been around long enough that work wasn't in some ways even safe sometimes for women. You know, I had sexual harassment and bias and discrimination and all sorts of things. So for me, um, seeing this happen triggered me in a lot of ways that we— I felt like we were going backward, truthfully. So when your book comes out and it's about women in their 40s I just felt it was such a celebration of life in all its complexities in a pivotal time that can be joyful. It can be everything. It can be sad, it can be confusing, it can be joyful, it can be so difficult. We're comparing ourselves a lot to other people.

Absolutely.

Oof, a lot of comparison. Yeah. So I just wanna thank you because And Maria's work too, it's so enlivening that it's focusing on these deeper issues that I think some people have been afraid to really embrace. Does this make sense at all?

It speaks to my soul, everything about what you're saying, truly. And I appreciate you saying a few seconds ago too, just about how it can be so many things, right? We can feel joy, but we can also feel anger and rage and confusion and grief, all these things. While I focus this book on this decade, I'm having beautiful conversations with women who are in their 20s and 30s and many conversations with women in their 50s and 60s and 70s who are saying, this actually relates to me as well. And agree, I think that's what's so beautiful about Maria's work too. She gets to it. Let's cut through all this noise and let's really talk about what we are up against, what we want, what's making us mad, what's making us feel alive. And we have to say that for ourselves because Again, the world we live in is not cut out to make things easy for women, and as it isn't, you know, not for marginalized people as well. It's just these systems that hurt so many of us, if not all of us, in some way, on some level. And we have to, we have to keep saying this out loud, truly. But it is, it is a beautiful thing to realize that a time in our lives can be hard and trying as the forties are, because I am, you know, very rah-rah about this decade and also in this book, very realistic about this decade because this is a time where many stressors compound. If we have aging parents, children to care for, evolving ideas about what we want in our careers, that's tough stuff in the world at large. But what I love is when we keep talking about this and when we really look at the things that we've been carrying that never served us and will never serve us, ideas about how we should look, how we should be, how we should mother, how we should act. When we start to put those down, I found we actually free up a lot more energy to put toward our strength to face the hard stuff and then find more joy.

Oh, I love it. And the final thing, and then I, that I wanna say, and then I wanna ask a lot of questions more. I also loved how, and I think anybody reading this, even men in, in those specifics, I think what we feel is more human. And, and yes, you know, my world is, is often the lenses on women's issues, but I've worked with so many men who have very similar— now it's, could be shaped differently, it could be communicated differently, it could be internalized differently, but it's such a human condition to be lost, to be confused, to be comparing ourselves, to be thinking, wait a minute, what happened here? This is not what I thought when I was growing up. Oh, who doesn't have these feelings?

Everybody does. Everybody does.

Yeah. All right, so pick it up, pick it up, people. Men too. So I didn't prep you on this, but if anyone listening could get just 3 things out of this book, 3 revelations— I know It's hard. You have 4,003 things. But what, just personally, what would you say, or another way to look at it is you're a journalist. You've been researching these topics for years. Were there any big surprises that you felt, oh wow, if I had known this earlier, things would've been a little different? Those are two different questions. Which one? Whichever one you wanna answer.

Well, we've touched on this already in our conversation. What actually surprised me was the genuine appetite for this conversation and vulnerability, the willingness to talk about it and the need for the permission. So we are in a time where we are talking about this more, thankfully, when it comes to our bodies, our wellbeing, our desires, but we want so much more of it. And I found this immediately in my interactions with women that I would ask one question. What are your thoughts on motherhood? What are your thoughts on not having children? How do you feel about partnership today? Whew. It would just open up. Open up. So I was really surprised and enlivened and emboldened by that vulnerability because then it just gave me more permission to continue writing this book, of course, and continuing doing this, this work, because in our lifetimes, we're not going to be done. I hope we really continue to make waves, but we're not going to be done. We need to keep doing this work, this work of, again, letting go, delayering ourselves from these expectations. I am— Wow. Oh, there's so much. I would say another thing I really hope, deeply hope somebody takes from this book is a companionship with oneself. Ultimately, we can become cleaved from ourselves in many ways when we are checking all the boxes, thinking we're doing all the right things, charging forward, taking care of everyone. And so many of these things we're doing are beautiful. And so many of these things we're doing are so in the service of a bigger story, of a bigger societal expectation. That we can really become distant from ourselves. And for me, I know what has gotten me closer to myself is the company of another woman's story. Sometimes that's through a movie, sometimes that's through a book, sometimes that's through a— many times through a Mary Oliver poem. So I hope somebody, wherever they are, if it's a woman who is in on her couch in Alaska and it's snowing outside— I'm just thinking of all these women I visualized as I was writing it— and she's feeling lost and lonely, I hope this book brings her back to herself, makes her closer to herself. And so she knows she's, she's not weird, she's not, you know, off time or off schedule. She's exactly who she's meant to be, and she can continue to get closer to herself, and she can, can continue to move toward herself too. And again, that, that woman in Alaska, she's one of a gazillion women I've, you know, envisioned all around the world, hopefully. Getting this warmth from these stories.

What a beautiful way to put it. Did you actually interview someone who fits that?

I think I'm just dying to go to Alaska.

You're trying to get an Alaska trip out of this.

But I did. That was a— that was a goal of mine that I succeeded in, Kathy. I wanted to talk to such a wide breadth of women in terms of background, ethnicities, locations, religious beliefs, all of this. I wanted to. And of course, the spectrum of what it means to be a woman and identify as a woman in a life, it's endless, right? There's no one neat example.

500 books left to write, you know, if we're capturing 5 million.

It was fun though. I did try to really reach out. And so I have a very diverse, when it comes to this country of where the women were, and that was very fun. And then I spoke to women internationally as well.

Oh my. So This question comes out of my lens, which is when I sit with someone, whether it's a new client or a group of people, or I'm in a, you know, giving a talk to 100 or 1,000, I can often feel what they are feeling. I know that sounds a little woo woo. Not to me. You relate. And in a very short amount of time, I don't want to freak anyone out, but I can tell if what they're feeling has roots from their childhood, early on, who they had to be, what they thought they had to be. Did you find that so many women, when they talked about their experiences in their 40s, hearkened back to something they learned earlier?

Absolutely. I did.

What percent would you say— that's hard, I know I didn't prep you— but what percent would you say talked about, well, when I was growing up, or my mom, or my grandmother, you know, what they learned? 80 to 90% probably.

And the— and that lingering 10% was maybe just— it probably was still there, but it wasn't as explicit. Everybody did. Our stories of origins, the women who surrounded us growing up, whether that was a mother or an aunt, or, you know, those, those female architect— those female figures we have in our life that defines us in so many ways. But so many, if not all the women, hearken back. And what is also really fascinating right now— so the book is completed, obviously it's out in the world, it's getting in people's hands. I share a really raw story about my mother in it, and it anchors the book and it sort of perpetuates so much of the— so many of the other things I talk about. But my mother went through a radical— made a radical decision when she was in her 40s. And now this is a long time ago, of course. Nearly every interview I've done or every talk or interview in a live sense I've given, everybody wants to ask about that. And the other day I had this beautiful community of women I was doing a live interview with. And so many of them came up to me to ask more specifically about my story with my mother, but then more specifically to share something about their stories with their mother for good, for bad, for sad, for joyful. They all wanted to talk about that. So this is, this is incredibly, incredibly huge for, I believe, most, if not all of us. Wow.

Do you wanna share a word about what happened with your—

Of course.

Yeah.

My mother, when I had a very, very loving upbringing, my two parents were so incredibly loving. It was me and my older brother. I wanted for nothing in terms of birthday parties and warmth and food on the table. I mean, I, I was given my needs were met and then some, and I had so much love. At the same time, I talk about my upbringing. It was an incredibly tense house in many ways. My father was an alcoholic, and I say was, he passed away when I was 26, but he was an alcoholic. And I would find bottles of brown liquid stuffed in the cabinets, in the couches, and I would find those bottles and often I would pour them out and put iced tea in them thinking I was doing something because I knew that was one of the reasons why there so much tension in the house. My parents fought all the time. And, and again, I want to underscore, they loved us. They loved us. But it was— I didn't have the vocabulary at the time, but I knew my father, but particularly my mother, had a lot of unlived life in her. And it was very sad to be around. It was almost palpable, Kathy, in our household. And in her late 40s, she left. I came home one day from a weekend away, and she left. And my father was sitting there on the couch and he said, "She left." And I include this scene in the book. And then he broke down and he said, "I did everything right. I did everything right." So this is a situation where you have two people who again are trying to do all the right things, check the boxes, do it all right. But they had unlived life in them and it hurt both of them. And my mother, thankfully, we've gone on to have an incredible healing journey and she's one of my best friends and I love her. And I've learned so much from her story. And she shares it too. I interviewed her for the book, so she wants to talk about it, but she left. And so that was in many ways a cautionary tale for me to listen to any unlived life inside of me and try to nourish it and let it out.

What a story. I remember reading that twice, and I remember the bravery in you for dumping out the dark liquid. That just, that just, I don't know, it touched me, you know. That was— how old were you when you did that?

16. Okay. Which, when she left?

Yeah, I just— oh, you did that when she left. I just saw a child trying to do her best to, to—

yeah, the physically pouring out of the alcohol. I understand that was, that was— I think I started doing that actually when I was 7 or 8.

Yeah, I had an image that you were a little child, and I wonder— it's so small and weird that I want to ask, but what did he do when he would discover that?

Never said anything. That gives me chills too.

That gives me chills. Why does that make me cry?

It makes me cry too.

We're so flawed. We're so— I know, many of us broken, you know, and we're doing our best. And you doing that showed him that you knew. Oh, what a story. What a story.

And we're all having this conversation with each other, whether we want to, whether we realize it or not. We're all communicating. When we walk by somebody on the street and maybe we meet their eyes for one second and we don't— neither person says anything— there's a yearning there to connect, or there's a pain, or somebody picks it up from somebody else. And I'm not saying every interaction, but more than we realize, we're speaking to each other. I need comfort. I'm lonely. I want to feel comfortable, whatever. I want to connect. And in that conversation I was having with my father with the alcohol, it's so devastating because he knew too, and he never said anything. And obviously he was taking swigs, and I laugh because it's not funny, but you know, oh, there's the iced tea again. But he never said anything.

Oh my, what a story, Stacy. What a story. You know, I want— like, can I keep you a few more minutes more, please? And this is, this is not about a humble brag or whatever, but you know, I remember some of the things I remember from being with people, there's— it's still with me. And I remember something like 15, 10 years ago, I did a big talk and there were just a few men in the audience, and I always want the men to feel included as well. And one young guy came out up to me and said, 'I don't know, but you're like Mother Earth to me.' And I thought, 'What does that mean?' And he couldn't even articulate it, but it meant the world to me. And just the other day, someone, a stranger who— we were in the same room together— he came up to me and said, 'You have a luminous spirit. Can I give you a hug?' And Boy, do we love to hear that. And I'm not saying it to brag, I'm saying that I really wondered what that meant. What did that mean to him? And I would also say, I know when I'm not being a luminous spirit. I do know that. And I do know when I'm not being like Mother Earth. And those times can be so painful when one version of you is in direct juxtaposition with the version of you that you want to be. Yeah. Does that make sense at all?

It does. It makes, it makes absolute sense. I'm thinking of that person who came up to you, and what I'm feeling from that is that warmth that he felt, that he both needed and felt from you, and that feeling of feeling acknowledged and seen, which we all want. And it's so beautiful. And it's also so sad because there's a dearth of that in our world for reasons of performing or breaking ourselves against these ideas of what we should do or capitalism to all these things that are just causing our culture to be starving of this warmth and this connection. So he felt that from you and he was needing it. And I think it's so beautiful that he came up and told you.

That's brave. I wish I knew his name.

Thank you for that. That's beautiful and brave, but we're sending love to him because that's brave to do that.

Beautiful. Thank you, my dear. And I think I'd like to add, I think there's so much bifurcation. I don't know if that— you're the journalist, is that the right word? But so much, um, fractiousness. Why am I not saying simple words? There's so much division that I think we're all feeling I think no matter what side you're on, no matter what views, the cohesion has kind of shattered. Even maybe it was an illusion, but I think people are struggling every way. Thank you for letting me, um, diverge here. Can you— we've talked about some of the things that are difficult for women. I think we've touched on that in their 40s. Were there any, you know, triumphant, jubilant things that you heard that you thought, okay, look at us go, that you maybe were surprised about that we need to—

Tons. That's the fun of this. We're holding it all in these, on these pages, right? And hopefully these pages are just a small marker of a start of a bigger conversation, which is what we're having here, of course. And I've been grateful to have— there's so much triumph in this as well. There's the hard And there's also the light and the bright and the gorgeousness. I've talked to so many women who say, I finally left whatever it was. I left this job. I left this partnership. I left this situation. And I've been wanting to for years. And I moved toward this. I finally embraced the fact that this is who I am. This is how I am. This is the way I operate. I don't want to apologize anymore. There's this—

Wow.

Just radical coolness about this decade. And it may come for some women at 41, it may come for someone at 49, it may come for someone again in their 30s, in their 50s. But this decade does define this time when women say, this is me, this is me, like it or not. And if you don't, okay, send you love, go on. Or maybe we don't even send you love, right? But that's okay. I'm getting my— and then we start attracting more and more of our people, right? Or keeping the people we have close. But so many joyful exclamations. And the book is peppered too with women saying, "This age gave me the permission slip to finally do what I wanted to do." This was a— I have interviewed Keontae Lomax. She's so fantastic. She said, "When I turned 40, it was 'y'all better watch out' kind of energy." Something— I'm paraphrasing that, but "y'all better watch out, this is me." So it was fantastic. So exciting. And for myself, Kathy, I mean, This isn't a suddenly I arrived in this decade and I have it all figured out. If anything, I'm messier more than ever, right? I'm figuring it out on a daily basis. But I know now again, the things that have been making me really feel bad that don't need to be in my life. Life is hard enough. Taxes are there. Death is always gonna be happening. Job, we have to work. We have bad weather. We have traffic. We have global news that's so upsetting. These things aren't gonna go away. But the things that we can start to let down, and again, the things that are saying you're not enough, or you have to fix this about your body, or you have to say, be polite in this way at work, or you have to make yourself small, or you have to explain why you are not a mother, or you mother in this way, or you're not married, or you're like this type of per— whatever. You don't need that. We never needed it. We don't need to carry it anymore. And That's the ultimate declaration of all this work I've done. And hopefully people find from this book is there are so many things we can go, this isn't for me. I have so many other better things going on.

Oh, I love it. And you know what I'm sitting here thinking, and you know, I want to thank you for quoting me a little bit in the book. That was beautiful.

What you— Oh, I loved our conversation.

I loved it. And I don't know if I mentioned this, but when I turned 50 is when I felt like I'm part of a new club. Yeah. And this club feels good. So I took too— well, I was gonna say too long. Nothing's too long. We're all on our own journey. But I didn't have that in the '40s. I mean, I was raising kids. I loved my life, but absolutely. But it was something about being 50 that it was like, I'm not gonna truck with this nonsense anymore. This is Maybe because it was ever so much closer. Like, at 50, I think one can actually envision that there could be potentially fewer years ahead than behind. And maybe 40s we can too. But I'm inviting everybody to read this book and not wait till 50 to join the club that says— Exactly, right? Don't wait. Don't wait. If you need a new tribe, if you need to purge some of the friends, if you need to cast off roles that don't fit, this is the calling for it. Would that, would that be accurate?

Yes, absolutely. And I appreciate you saying that. It's been one of my favorite parts of talking about the book is the intergenerational conversation amongst women. And we've been talking about Maria throughout our conversation. And I had a conversation with Maria about this recently and I asked her, how did you feel in your forties? Did you feel any of this declaration and clarity? And she said, no.

I think the older we get, the more we realize we didn't have it at 40, right?

And that's what's so beautiful. And I get so emotional talking about this, Kathy, because I have such reverence for you. You're older than me. What you have endured that has then taught my generation and the women before you what they endured and the spaces they did not have to have these conversations and to do this work that didn't exist. It was in us. Oh, it's always been in women, this desire, this this burning desire to say things out loud. And we say— we see through history what women have done. But these collective conversations, they're getting bigger. And even— they're bigger now than they were 10 years ago, than they were 20 years ago. So I love this conversation amongst different generations because I'm hearing that from a lot of women who are older than me. I didn't quite have that in my 40s yet. Actually, it was my later 40s or my 50s. Or Maria, I feel like it was her 60s. You know, she's You know, so it's quite fascinating. And I'm hoping again, this is paving the way for women to have this radical clarity in their teens, right? In their 20s, that they don't have to do this stuff ever.

Oh, I love it. And your book is really a map to that. Any final words, Stacy, you'd love to leave, leave us with anything at all?

I want to say thank you to you, Kathy Caprino. For your warmth, for your curiosity, and for the work that you've done for all of us for so long. The work that you've done, so grateful, beyond words grateful. And it's helped me do what I do. And I'm proud to be a woman because of women like you. So being in the space with you makes me proud for all my messiness, for all the stuff that's great and not so great. I'm proud. I'm owning it. And I want to thank everyone listening too, because these things When we talk about this stuff again, it still is hard and it's still a brave act. And I'm pulling on that bravery word from you, but it still is brave to show up in ways, whether it is picking up a book like mine, a book like yours, listening to a podcast, cuz it can still unlock things that maybe are uncomfortable, that maybe we're like, oh gosh, I feel this, but I'm not ready. That in and of itself is such a revolution. So I thank everybody who does that.

Oh, that is so beautiful. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. You're such an inspiration. Everyone, please read this book or give it to someone or talk about it or share it or share this podcast. Follow Stacy's work wherever you see it. Uh, I know that you will be inspired and uplifted. Something meant to— something will speak to you, I believe, and unlock something that is waiting for that door to be open. So thank you for joining me during this crazy, wonderful time of book launch. I'm so grateful, and I'm so grateful that you wrote the book. It's beautiful, truly. I hope you're very proud.

I'm proud, Kathy. Thank you for having me. And I have to say, this has been fun. Let's all have more fun, right? Oh, fun!

I'm so glad. Thank you for letting me just—

Thanks for the good time.

Pour questions at you and answering them so beautifully. All right, folks. Please let us hear from you. What— read the book or listen here. What did you think? What— you don't have to agree with us. What is— what are the 40s like for you? That's the whole thing there. If, if there's only one picture of it, we've, we've missed the boat entirely. There's billions of pictures of it. So we'd love to hear from you too. Please, let's all be in that community where we're learning from others and we are unlocking each other's doors for just a more tethered to our soul life where we can be who we really are. All right, my friends, thank you again. Thank you so much for coming.

Thank you, Kathy.

And have a wonderful 2 Finding Brave weeks, and we will see you next time.

Thanks so much for joining us today, and please don't forget to check out findingbrave.org for more programs, resources, tips, and and tune in next time for your weekly dose of Finding Brave.