Celebrating 'Too Much Woman' with Gina Hatzis - Ep 84.

Are you wearing your 'too muchness' like a cloak of invisibility or a suit of armor? Gina Hatzis, a beacon of boldness for women in communication and confidence, joins us on this week's podcast to examine how embracing our radiant selves can transform our lives and she shares how each woman's midlife awakening is a call to live a Brave, Bold, Unapologetic Life. Gina champions women to celebrate their Too Muchness and confidently live a regret-free life.
 
Striding boldly into midlife can feel like navigating an intricate maze, but it's also an opportunity to cement self-trust and muster Charisma, Confidence, Courage and Communication . In this open discussion, we illuminate the sectors of the 'wheel of life' where self-awareness can be a make or break and how to build a foundation of self-trust and courage to not only face change but to embrace the charisma and confidence that come with it. Whether reshaping your career path, deepening relationships, or redefining financial success, Gina shares how warmth and competence intertwine, urging you to start where self-trust is most needed in your wheel of life. She discusses  the resilience required to both enact change and weather its outcomes at midlife.

This episode culminates in a powerful introspective journey, one that challenges you to align with your core values and let them guide your communication and your 'too muchness'.  Gina shares how to peel back the layers of transformative realization, when aligning with  authentic values - courage, freedom, self-expression - will catalyze a wave of positive change in all midlife women's lives.  Ellen and Tish step up to challenge themselves to reevaluate their own values, understanding that true fulfillment, purpose, and joy spring from this congruence of values.

And as we delve into the Once Upon a Woman project led by Gina, we celebrate the wisdom of community. By claiming your 'too much woman' superpower, you enrich not just your own life, but those around you - here's to charisma, confidence, courage, and communication.  Gina shares her new journal with 100 days of prompts , her master classes and other ways you can work with her.

Gina Hatzis - www.ginahatzis.com
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Chapters

• 0:20 Embracing Too Muchness and Cultivating Charisma
• 14:16 Building Self-Trust and Courage in Midlife
• 27:02 Reevaluating Core Values and Communication
• 43:01 Embracing Community and Empowering Women

Transcript

Tish: 0:21

Well, we are into the new year with all its possibilities, and our new year always gets me geared up about accomplishing new challenges.

Ellen: 0:32

You know, tish, I love that idea of the new year and really focusing in here what we want to work on, and we're not into new year's resolutions. We both know that We've talked about this on the show before. We're rather into making life changes and setting goals and challenging ourselves. I love we did so many challenges last year in 2023.

Tish: 0:57

Well, Ellen, let me ask you this have you ever been told you're too much?

Ellen: 1:03

You know, I know you have Tish, but you probably can guess that I have not. I have been told more that I'm nice and I've been lucky. Most things, I think, minimize me when they're said to me or that things have come easy to me. I don't know why people say that, but you know, I would love to be told I'm too much Tish to be really honest with you. I'm going to set that as something to work on in 2024.

Tish: 1:33

Well, our guest to Jay, Gina Hatzis, is such an inspiration because she embraces her too muchness and I've been following her on TikTok and I just love her message of empowerment. Now. Gina has more than 25 years of experience as an international corporate and public speaker, specializing in soulful leadership, conscious communication and epic empowerment.

Ellen: 2:01

You know, Tish, you turned me on to Gina about four, I think four or five months ago, and I love her. She makes my day every day. She is a confidence and communication educator for women and I think here at Midlife we need to hear what she has to say. She's going to bring this amazing energy that champions women to celebrate their too muchness, and we're going to find out what too muchness is as well and how to be confident and live regret-free. So all really good midlife messages. But before we get to Gina, you know I love this part of our show, Tish, what do you got for me this week? What is your obsession?

Tish: 2:42

Okay, so it has been raining it feels like almost nonstop around here, and it's so unusual for the Charlotte area really and so I'm focusing on sunnier days ahead, and so my obsession this week is I want to plan a white party for my girl, tribe here and by pretty white dresses and go out, and I don't know. It's just something about putting together a white party to kind of celebrate that spring is coming. So that's my obsession this week, and I have a couple of really cute dresses that we're going to put links in for.

Ellen: 3:18

I guess it's winter is not coming for you. When is it over?

Tish: 3:23

When is it over? I love when it's coming, I love fall and I love when it's coming. But now that the holidays are finished, I'm like, okay, done, I'm ready for the warmer weather. But what about you, ellen? What is your obsession?

Ellen: 3:37

this week, okay. Well, I'm going to actually show you my obsession, since we're on video. It's the Republic of Tea and I don't know if you know about this tea, but it's fabulous. They have so many flavors. But I'm addicted now to this daily green because I have gone off coffee here as part of my can.

Tish: 3:56

you were, I know it's here we go, here we go again.

Ellen: 4:00

I am not nice right now I am not nice, I'm a little salty, but this daily green is helping me, the people's daily green, and this brand is from right here in Marin County, where I live.

Gina: 4:12

So check it out.

Ellen: 4:13

We'll put a link If anyone else has gone. Coffee free for 24, think about the daily green.

Tish: 4:21

I love that. Well, we're going to welcome today Gina. She is a Canadian native author, speaker, coach, host of Once Upon a Woman. She has two sales of intergenerational wisdom events. She has two viral videos that amassed over 50 million views. That is not an easily accomplishment and she has been on global tour as a visionary of this too much woman movement, which is a platform for women to celebrate their too muchness.

Ellen: 4:57

I mean this is amazing 50 million views. We are so lucky to have Gina here today. I'm just going to say two more things about her. She was named Top Inspirational Speaker by SpeakerSlam in 2021, top 20 Disruptors of 2022 for Disruptor Magazine, which I think is amazing, and Woman of the Year in 2019 by Soful Image Magazine. So so many accolades. Bring Gina to our show and welcome Gina. We are excited to have you as one of our first guests on the podcast for 2024.

Gina: 5:34

Hello, what an absolute joy to be here, and I'm giggling as I'm sipping my coffee and in Toronto, I'm laughing at your springtime welcome, because we have a snowstorm today. So what a joy to be here, hi everybody oh great.

Tish: 5:52

Now, Gina, I wanted to start with if you could tell our audience more about this idea of embracing too muchness. What does that mean?

Gina: 6:04

Well, if I may, let me just start with a quick little story. I was born a too much little girl and there was an energy in me that was too sensitive, too emotional, too loud, too dramatic. And there's an ongoing joke in my family like I was called the drama queen up until I was probably 22. And so there was this story. There was this feedback that I was too much in so many ways, and as I got a little bit older, those things that were jokes within our family became marks of shame in my life. I became too ambitious, I was too opinionated Boys don't like that. I was too smart, and so I started this collection almost of pebbles of my too muchness and I realized that if I was going to get along and go along I needed to subdue or change myself.

Gina: 7:03

And as a public speaker, particularly as a woman, I started off very young in my career. After I left journalism, I was a young woman in a sea of middle-aged white men and my vivaciousness, my too muchness, all the parts about me that were wrong, labeled wrong. I realized I wouldn't have success unless I kind of assimilated the best I could. So part of my story is this evolution of rejecting all the parts of me that were too much. So the fact that I was too sensitive. I started to become more stoic, I was too dramatic. I started to subdue all the parts of me that I believed were wrong about me. I started to morph and change, and part of one of the viral videos that you're referring to the too much woman is the story of that evolution, where I came to the point that I realized that subduing those parts of me was actually self-betrayal and those parts of me were the most brilliant, most delicious, juiciest parts of who I was, and unleashing that really changed the trajectory of my life.

Tish: 8:11

I love that. I love that. You know, as I listened to all of your text talks, Gina, I found four themes in them, right, and they really kind of revolved around charisma, confidence, courage and communication. And I would love to talk about how that, those different topics, and how do you morph those in with this idea of too muchness. You know, what really struck me was especially the ones about charisma. You never hear about people building charisma. You know, this idea that charisma is something that can be cultivated was something really new to me, right? So I thought that would be a really great place to start.

Gina: 9:02

Yeah, absolutely so what we've learned because my backgrounds in journalism what we learn about charisma is that it's not something that you're born with. We have this idea that you've got it or you don't.

Ellen: 9:14

Someone walks into the room and they fight over it or they don't.

Gina: 9:18

So you're either one of the lucky ones or you're not. And what the research tells us is that charisma, while it is natural for some people, is actually something that can be learned. So what is charisma? Charisma is actually the intersection of warmth and competence warmth and competence. So warmth is are you someone that, when other people are around you, they feel relaxed, they feel connected, they want to lean in, they have a sense of trust about who you are? You really see them, you make them feel at ease? So that's warmth. And then there's confidence. Competences do you have what it takes? Can you get the job done? Do I respect what you bring to the table?

Gina: 9:57

And what's so fascinating to me, especially working with really incredible, brilliant women around the world, is we are so focused on competence. So I know a lot of people who are very smart, who have lots of degrees, who have lots of accomplishments, and we're trying to show ourselves, improve ourselves, and then we focus less on the warmth and what happens is people can see that we're credible, that we have a lot to bring to the table, but they don't necessarily trust us. They don't necessarily, you know, feel good about us and so you can be the smartest, most brilliant person in the world, but if people don't trust you, if they don't want to be around you, work with you, time with you, then it's a move point. So it's really understanding that. It's the intersection of that and then what I teach our cues on how to elevate one or the other.

Gina: 10:47

Now there are some people probably a lot of your listeners who excel in terms of warmth attributes. So warmth, those are all of us who identify as recovering people pleasers. You know, as women were socialized to be nice, as you mentioned, to be the good girls, to keep the peace, to be easy going, to not ask for too much. So those are warmth competencies, and so we may be rewarded for those more as women, and so we are at a balance. So people really enjoy being around us. They think we're fantastic. However, we often feel like we're being taken advantage of. We feel like we don't have we have porous boundaries, and so we have a hard time saying no, and so what we really need in terms of charisma is a balance between the two. So I help women achieve the balance that's right for them and for the circumstance that they're in.

Ellen: 11:42

You know, gina, I just have to say I this is something I've worked on because I am a recovering people please are, and I have been told I'm nice and I'm warm and I I really took like six months and I went, instead of working, like you're saying, on these cues and balance, I was like I'm just going to go in the other direction, I'm going to start with F. No, all the time it's that's going to be my default for like six months and I'm going to see what changed. And you know it helped me because I think it changed some people's perception of me. This was in work, this was in a work environment, but if I had really understood this intersectionality of these two things that we both we always bring to the table and where they are, it would have worked a lot better. So I'm I'm really interested and I know our listeners, because a lot of us midlifers are recovering people please, or will be interested to dig deeper in this area. Definitely interesting for us.

Gina: 12:44

It's also really fascinating for those of us especially. Midlife is such and I know we'll talk about this, midlife is really an awakening for a lot of women. And so we come to a point where we're looking back with maybe some regret, maybe a little bit of wishing that we had done things differently or that we could do things differently. And it's this, it's this transition. It's almost like in the Wizard of Oz when Dorothy gets to the crossroads and the scarecrow is like which way are you going to go? Is it going to be more of the same, or are we going to do something different?

Gina: 13:16

And so a lot of women that I work with, like you, are like I've been this way. I've been a people pleaser or two nice my whole life. I've been the good girl, and I'm going to actually swing the pendulum all the way to the other side because I'm I don't want to be that anymore, and so that can cause a lot of repercussions as well, and so we want to find a place where we settle somewhere in between. That's right for you, and I think it's different for every woman.

Ellen: 13:42

Yeah, and I know I read you are too much.

Tish: 13:45

Yes, yeah, I read this article from Vanessa Van Edwards and she's the author of cues master, the secret language of charismatic communication, and she talks about this groundbreaking study from Princeton University and again she talks about that inner section of warmth and competence and meeting the unique blend how, how do you teach people to balance things more?

Gina: 14:17

Yeah, so first, first, there's an awareness of where, where we tend to lean, and it's important. We always start with the wheel of life. So I just want you to imagine a circle and slicing that circle up into little slices, like you would a pizza, because everything is food related. For me, every single slice is a different area of your life. So there's your relationship with your work, there's your relationship with your body, there's your relationship with your sensuality or sexuality, there's your relationship with finances, with your relationship with relationships, and that even divvies up further. You know your work relationships, your parents, your kids, your spouse, your friends. There's your relationship with your spirituality, and you can really slice it up as much as you want. And then getting really curious in those spaces in terms of where you sit, where the dynamic sits. I know some women who tend to be very warm in relationships, or swing warm in romantic relationships, where they tend to soften. They have porous boundaries, they tend to be a little bit more comfortable with it, maybe pick people who aren't available for them, but then, when it comes to work, the quotient is flipped and they tend to be a little bit more on the competent and less warm side, and so I think it's really important to get curious about the different areas of your life and what's not working for you. Again, it's different for everybody. So one of the measures that I really like to start with and this is going to kind of steer us in this, I think it's important to mark is when I start working with women and we look at that wheel of life, what I ask them to do is to rate themselves in terms of how much they trust themselves in each of these areas on a scale of one to 10.

Gina: 16:03

So my work is really rooted in self trust. How much do you trust you? And a lot of people think self trust is about do I? Do I know that I'm going to accomplish something? Do I know that I'm going to be successful? But I define it as the assured reliance that I will do right by me, that in any given instance, I will do right by me. I will have my own back.

Gina: 16:25

So if you use that measurement and go around that wheel and ask yourself, how much do I trust myself when it comes to my finances? How much do I trust myself when it comes to romantic relationships, what we start to see are areas where we don't trust ourselves as much in areas where we do so. We want to start in the areas where we feel less trust, because what you'll notice is there's a direct correlation between the areas where you don't trust yourself and your level of confidence in that area. And charisma is really building our confidence muscle in any one area. It's being able to step into relationship, work, the office, the bedroom, the boardroom and being able to show up for yourself.

Gina: 17:05

So connecting self trusting confidence is where I start. So wherever on that wheel of life you have the lowest grade for yourself, that's where we like to start. And then I start to ask more curious questions what, what is going on there? Where are they in terms of the warmth and competence scale? And then I start to teach specific habits where they can build up one or the other.

Ellen: 17:30

I love this idea, gina, and I think that's a really important work at midlife and, of course, at any stage of life. But really, like you said, we're at this crossroads, at midlife, and I think really understanding this, rating your trust and then showing up for yourself are such big parts of, you know, having this best midlife and maybe doing things differently. So I think some really good deep work for our listeners to do here. But let's move on to courage, because we could talk to you all day, I can tell you, we could talk to you all day long.

Ellen: 18:07

I have a favorite quote from Brene Brown courage and daring are coursing through your veins. You were made to live in love with your whole heart. It's time to show up and be seen. So tell us about courage for women at midlife.

Gina: 18:25

My favorite quote I'm going to add one to the mix here is by the late great doctor, my Angela, who says courage is the most important virtue because without it we can't practice any other virtue. And so when I look at my core values, I do work, intentional work with clients to really look at their five top core values. For me, courage is the top of the list always, and what I recognize for myself in midlife is that again it comes back to self trust. If I want to change anything at this course in my life, if I'm looking back at the first half saying, hmm, what did I like, what didn't I like, what do I want more of, what do I want less of, it requires courage.

Gina: 19:08

Now, courage isn't something that we just flip a switch and decide we're going to be courageous that day. It's very romantic to think that courage is something just snap our fingers or wave a magic wand and have. Courage comes from a deep seated, rooted sense of self trust. And again I want to go back to it's not the courage to say I'm going to speak up at work more or I'm going to speak up and hold stronger boundaries. It's not knowing that that's going to turn out the way we want it to.

Gina: 19:40

But it goes back to self trust. Courage means I'm going to speak up and I trust that, no matter what happens, I will have my back, I will do right by me. And so I think courage and self trust really go hand in hand. How can we be courageous if we don't trust that we will be able to manage whatever the other side of the equation shows up for us? On the other side of courage because courage, as romantic as it is, you know we can say we want to be courageous and speak up at home or at work, but there's going to be some fallout. So courage is right. Do I trust myself to follow through and be able to do what I need to do?

Tish: 20:20

on the other side of that, I know courage for me is kind of this letting go and getting comfortable and familiar with kind of taking this leap into an unknown right. But I think that's one life gets really interesting and fun. We take that leap. You know how? What can women do to start building themselves, to be more courageous right and to get comfortable with taking those leaps?

Gina: 20:52

What's most important. I know that there's a lot of energy around the idea of courage and we think of courage as like running and jumping off a cliff, like taking these massive leaps into our life, like I'm going to quit my job, I'm going to leave the marriage, I'm going to write the book, I'm going to start a podcast, like whatever that big thing is. However, for me, courage really begins in the smallest moments. Courage is facing my regret. Courage is having the difficult conversation with a friend where I feel like she hasn't been reciprocating the energy in relationship. Courage is me getting confronting my health and getting very honest about what I've let go and what changes I need to make. So for me, the very first step is courageously being honest with ourselves about what we need are being mad, and so I know it's very exciting and it's it's way more fun to talk about being courageous in big ways. What I'm interested for women is to demonstrate to themselves that they can be courageous in small ways, because again, I'm going to beat this like a dead horse, but it's these small measures of courage build our self trust muscles. So I want you to imagine as midlife women for the first half of our lives.

Gina: 22:17

Many of us have played small. Many of us have prioritized other people, their needs, their wants. It could be kids, it could be our family, it could be our parents, it could be society. And so here we come, to midlife and we're like it's my time, it's my turn, right. But it's like going to the gym and not having lifted weights in 20, 30, 40 years and suddenly going I'm going to lift this big weight like our muscles are like. Hold on.

Gina: 22:45

So these small measures of self trust build our courage muscle, and it starts with five pounds. And maybe that first five pounds is sitting with yourself and getting clear about changes you want to make, or looking at your health, or, and maybe then it's 10 pounds, we're actually going to make a plan to meet with someone to strategize your nutrition or or check into your menopause symptoms and what do I want to do about this. And then maybe it's 15 pounds, which is, you know, committing to some other measures. So for me, courage really begins with the small, small steps with ourselves and then and then branching out from there.

Tish: 23:28

I like how you started courage with internally and building on and building that confidence and then you can do things that are kind of outside of yourself. But I love this idea because that's like a new one to me building courage from within.

Ellen: 23:47

For me too, tish and Tina, I have to say I love that. It's small. We've talked a lot about atomic habits and some other things on our show, microjoys. It's starting internally, like Tish said, with ourselves. It's being courageous with ourselves, not with grand gestures, and I think I always think of courage as grand gestures and for me, I'd love for this idea of courage and building this muscle to become second nature to me here at Midlife. I think that that could be a really important skill to build and to learn.

Gina: 24:29

It also makes it more sustainable. I just want to say, when women finally come to work with me, oftentimes they are at a crossroads for themselves and they're up against the wall and they're desperate. There's a sense of desperation and the feeling is I'm so desperate, I need to make a really big change. I need to shape my head or get a tattoo or quit my job or leave my marriage. There's this sense and I believe that social media has a hand in that. There's this romanticizing of changing our life, this big upheaval, and at the same time, I think that's not sustainable, because we throw ourselves into these big changes without really thinking through the implication. And maybe we are successful at those things, maybe we do decide to sign up for a marathon and we run it, but that's not sustainable.

Gina: 25:19

Ongoing what's most sustainable is to and we can have those big dreams and goals. That's wonderful too. And what makes it sustainable and we've learned this from Atomic Habits, we've learned this in so many ways is making small, incremental changes and then noticing at the end of the year wow, how far we've come. So that's super exciting to me.

Tish: 25:40

And I love how you're talking about a lot of these concepts that they intertwine. These aren't all by themselves on an island, so I want to pivot to talking about confidence, and we're into reading a lot of supporting stuff. So I read this article from May 2023 from a UK publication called Telegraph and it talks about the midlife confidence crash and this article cites burnout and anxiety and self-doubt are the new midlife crisis. It's not that going out and running out and buying a sports car that shows that midlife pressure, but there are serious signs that can prompt what you were saying. You shouldn't do this courageous leap into the unknown. It starts small, but this crisis can prompt these huge U-turns in your job or your life.

Ellen: 26:37

I just have to say, as somebody who's been in technology for years, I do feel more distressed and self-doubt in the workplace, and I see why at midlife this can happen. So I really am interested, gina, to hear what you have to say about this.

Gina: 26:57

So this is such an exciting topic to me. Oh my gosh, I wish we had hours together. What's fascinating to me is when we are approaching midlife and it doesn't happen in a day. We think there's a switch and we've arrived, I'm here, but there's this slow. I know for me. I'm in my very late 40s, so there's a slow burn. There's this slow. It's almost like this doom, this cloud that's like, and I can brush it away in my late 30s and maybe early 40s, and then it won't shut up anymore. And what it was for me.

Gina: 27:35

And again, the women that I've worked with and I won't speak for every woman, but what I hear often is that there's a falling away of these old measurements of success, these old expectations of what we think it means to be a woman. And suddenly we come to this place where we're like measuring myself by chasing that title, chasing that body, that figure, that idealization of beauty, like chasing. These measurements aren't working for me anymore, like that's not doing it for me anymore. So now what? And it's really the rebuilding of our North Star, it's really the rebuilding of. What are the new measurements of? And I hate to use the word success, but what are the gauges that I'm doing okay and I'm doing well, because if we continue to measure ourselves against the old standards, we're going to always feel like we're falling short. Right, because we can't keep up with that. So, for me again, the work that I do with women is to really give them a compass, a blueprint of their North Star, and the way that I found it to be most impactful and most powerful is to really get clear on what your top core values are.

Gina: 28:46

And if I could just say one thing about this, a lot of women when I was on tour I was on a global tour for three years before the pandemic hit then I would ask hundreds, thousands of women what's most important to you? And there's a knee jerk, automatic knee jerk response, top five answers. It's like health, family being a good person, my kids doing good work in the world. Like there was not even a thought, that's just what we said. And then, when I would sit with them and we would take it down a notch and really breathe into that space and provide a little bit of playfulness and curiosity, there's way more than that, and so what I've learned is that we are living by values that our parents have given us.

Gina: 29:30

We were raised by values. I was raised in a home where one of their values was security and safety. You make safe decisions, you pay off your mortgage, you find a nice guy to marry, you get the degree you work out like safe choices, and I woke up in my 30 saying why am I not happy? I made all the safe choices, I have the merit, I'm doing all the right things, but I'm not happy. So once I discovered my core values, while I do care about safety and security, it's not my top five In. My top five are courage, freedom, self-expression, and so when I understood that and I started to make decisions based around those things, that's when things started to shift for me, and so I challenge women at midlife.

Gina: 30:18

This is such a good exercise. There's lots of ways to do it. I have some suggestions that I can share with you. I can send you some references, but really get clear on your top five core values. You can value 100 things, but you can't live by 100 values. I can value safety and I can value risk and courage, but at some point they're going to cross each other up. So I've got to decide what's most important, and when I know that, then I spend my midlife looking at making decisions in alignment with my core values. And one final thing our sense of fulfillment, happiness, joie de vivre, our sense of purpose comes from how aligned we are with our core values. But most of us don't know what they are. We're just living by the values of our parents, by society and by the world at large.

Tish: 31:16

And don't you think at midlife, our core values have shifted. Some, like the core values that we hung on to when we're raising small children, are now different than when we launched them into the world, and I think that's where this uneasiness for women comes from is. Wait a minute. I aligned myself and who I thought I was based on, all these other people that I take care of in my life, and that midlife shines this light on. Excuse me, who are you? What's important?

Ellen: 31:49

and and I love this idea of Really reevaluating what those core values are- I agree, tish and Gina, and you know, I know we've said this phrase Also on the podcast if not now, when we are at midlife and I cannot wait to do this core value Exercise, gina, because I'm I think it's gonna be fascinating, I don't think it's gonna be what I would I would spout off those same five that those women on your global tour did.

Ellen: 32:20

But now I know Conversations. This is you have to have this congruence, nists of these core values, this alignment to, to have joy, confidence, you know, all of these things, courage that we're talking about today. So I like this is kind of the foundational piece, right.

Gina: 32:44

And there's a lot of one thing I'll say because I do this work Constantly with women and they're always shocked, first of all, at what comes up. I mean shocked in that, wow, that's so true, it's like that's me, this is who I am, this is the blueprint. It all makes sense now and also shocked at how Unconsciously they've been living according to other values. But what's interesting is I want to say this about core values, and this is where the work gets really interesting is we have put a value system, a sense of rightness, morality, around certain core values. So if you ask any parent what their core values are and if they're, one of their core values isn't parenting or family or prioritizing their kids, there's a sense of doom and shame around that, like Right and wrong for values.

Gina: 33:33

Like we as a society support a woman whose core value is her family or even health. Health is such a moral. People always think that health has to be their top core value, like it should be. And so when we start to soften a little bit and allow ourselves again this goes back to courage a little honesty around what is true for me right now, and you make such a great point To show that this changes, so I always invite women. I like to do it on my birthday. I always reevaluate my core values and sometimes they shape shift a little bit, and they should.

Gina: 34:07

You know, I have two children who are teenagers. My core values have certainly shifted in the course of of their growth. Give yourself permission to to shape shift.

Tish: 34:20

Yeah.

Ellen: 34:21

I love that idea and you know I'm a recent empty nester and I feel like Everything's changed at this point. And you'll get there, Gina.

Gina: 34:29

To One is out and the other six more months, so go.

Ellen: 34:36

You are right on the cost, all right. So let's get to our final C, which is communication, and I feel like the way I communicate has changed so much at midlife. I am so much more direct and and authentic and real in my communication, and I've often heard this. You know, the older we get, the less filters come on our Communication. What about you, tish? What do you think about your communications?

Tish: 35:01

Here's the thing I think communication has changed so drastically with social media and, and people are texting and there's less face-to-face conversations. I think, just in general, how, how we communicate has changed greatly, and sometimes there's a lot of conflict that comes from that. You see these social media posts and you're like, oh, I'm not living up to this grand whatever, and so I think we need to go back. For me, I think we need to go back to a time of Communicating more directly.

Ellen: 35:39

I like that and I know, gina, I watched one of your tip talks where you talk about the five things to stop doing in Communication, so maybe you can share that while we chat about communication. I really enjoyed that.

Gina: 35:53

Yeah, well, one thing I will say about communication, particularly at midlife, the women who come to me. They're like I don't care. I've come to a point where I don't care, like no filter, I'm gonna say what I.

Gina: 36:05

And while I champion women being more honest, more vocal, more self-expressed, giving themselves really permission to say what they need, what they feel, what they want. So all of that, yes, and this actually takes us full circle back to the first C, which is charisma, because Understanding what great communication is about is understanding how to get your point across in a way that the other person will receive it. So it's not just saying what's on your mind and flipping the finger to everyone. Great communicator, because I'm authentic and I say what's on my mind. Well, yeah, relationships, the quality of our relationships, determine the quality of our lives, as Esther Perrell tells us, and so we can burn a lot of bridges that way in the name of self-expression and honesty and midlife giving no, not giving a rat, if I may.

Gina: 37:09

So what I'm interested in is how can we communicate Powerfully? How can we communicate what's on our mind? What we need be direct and do it in a way that doesn't shut down communication, because what is the point of going around burning down, bombing, you know, bridges and relationships and friendships and marriages and and businesses so many of us are entrepreneurs and business. What's the point of doing that in the name of self-expression If we're gonna destroy relationships, the very thing that is the essence of life. So back to charisma. Full circle moment is how do we communicate, communicate effectively, but maintain the warmth and integrity that's necessary to build relationships? I think it's possible. It's not black and white. We can do both, and that's what I care about teaching people.

Tish: 38:03

Oh my gosh, that is really a full circle moment. This idea, and again we keep showing how all four of these are interconnected. You can't have one on an island by itself. You can't just work on being charismatic and not learning how to communicate within those confounds. To me, these are basic things, but it's like earth-shattering putting all this stuff together. That's what's so exciting for me about this.

Ellen: 38:39

I agree, tish. I feel like Gina. Covering these three forces has really made me hungry and more curious. That's what I love is when we find something that speaks to us so much On every one of these four areas. I have learned something today that I am going to immediately put into practice. I just want to say thank you for that, because that is really profound.

Tish: 39:10

Gina, can you tell our listeners how they can follow you? What are the different ways, such as your masterclasses series, that you have? What are some ways that people can follow you and start learning from some of this?

Gina: 39:25

Thank you so much. I love when other people get just as excited as I do and I geek out on these things. Thank you so much for that feedback. People can find me across social media. Social media, in a lot of ways, is a way that in midlife that we can connect. We know that women in community, we need community. Sometimes all we have is a virtual community. I'm very present on my socials. You can find me on Instagram Gina has to see. You can find me on Facebook, just Google me. You'll find me on TikTok. I'm very present on my socials. I'm very responsive.

Gina: 39:59

In each one of those spaces there is a link in the bio and it lists a series of masterclasses I teach in each of these areas, each of these Cs that we've discussed. I teach separate masterclasses. They're very affordable, very accessible. You get them for life. They're 90-minute sessions with me, pre-recorded, that specifically look at different areas that we've talked about today and gives you a deeper dive into skill sets. What I care about this is a wonderful conversation. I've got goosebumps the whole time because I loved talking about this. This is the essence of empowerment. The question then becomes how do I do it? Give me the practice. What do I do tomorrow when I wake up? What do I do tomorrow when I go to work and I need to talk to my boss or I need to confront my kid? What do I actually do? The masterclasses are a deeper dive into each of these areas. That's really great if you're not ready for doing it working one-on-one or if you can't catch me at a live event, but that's really the place to start.

Ellen: 41:06

I love that. Gina, I know that you also have a journal as one of your offerings. Tisha and I are journal people. How many times have we talked about journaling, Tisha?

Tish: 41:19

We have collections of journals.

Ellen: 41:21

Yeah, but I'm definitely going to say I wanted to make a journal.

Gina: 41:25

I know for a lot of my clients they either love journaling or they're burnt out from journaling, because it's like I need a direction. This particular journal actually just is hot off the press from just before the new year. It's called 100 Days of Making Space for Me. There's one journal prompt a day for 100 days and the intent is to build self-confidence and self-trust. How do I make space for me? You get one prompt a day and that gives you at least a little bit of direction in terms of what am I going to sit down and write about today. And then there's some intentionality behind it.

Tish: 42:04

It sounds great, yeah, Now Gina, we always ask our guests that come on a question. We want to hear what do you think your superpower is?

Gina: 42:17

Oh, it's undoubtedly my too muchness. It's the understanding that all the parts of me and I feel emotional just saying this, I've said it maybe a thousand times and it's never changed that all the parts that my whole life I was told in word or action that were wrong about me are actually the parts that are so right. Anybody who's listening to this. I really hope that you just take a moment and just let this settle deep into your bones In some way. We've been told that we are wrong. Who we are is wrong, whether it's on the side of being too much or on the flip side, which is the same. Point being not enough, we're told that we're wrong.

Gina: 43:02

My superpower is really leaning into those areas where my whole life I have suppressed, condensed, dismissed, overlooked, betrayed myself and really held it up to the light, dyed my hair red, let my clean show and just show up fully, fully, fully, fully, having the courage, the audacity to lean into those parts of myself. That's my superpower, and it's not because of all the things that it does for me. That's certainly very fun and exciting, but it's understanding that, as women, the permission we give one another. If I had a dollar for every time I heard a woman say this to me message me and say I saw you and I thought maybe I could be that too. That is the reason.

Tish: 43:53

That is the reason. Oh my gosh, that gives me chills. That statement alone gives me chills, because I don't think we do enough of empowering each other Right, and so many times we get into the mantra of what's acceptable in society and what's not and we kind of beat down each other. But this idea that you've unleashed in women yes, it's okay to be too much, but that you also see, in building these different things such as charisma, we can do it in ways, refined ways, things like we said before, small ways, little one at a time, ways to do it.

Ellen: 44:37

We also always ask everybody, our guests, if they have any final thoughts for midlife women, anything that really stands out to you from our conversation today.

Gina: 44:47

Yeah, my gut, I'm just going to go with my intuitive hit is. One of my recent passions is a new project I'm working on called Once Upon a Woman Tales of Intergenerational Wisdom. Currently it's a live event in Toronto, but the methodology behind it that was a shape shifter for me is recognizing in midlife that number one community is everything. As women, we naturally gravitate towards wanting to be in community. But what happened? And certainly through the pandemic and for so many other reasons, we're so busy and maybe we catch a girlfriend and go for wine or we do all these little things as treats for ourselves.

Gina: 45:32

Not recognizing that community, whether it's virtual or live, is essential. But Once Upon a Woman is about is actually daring yourself, to mix it up a little bit. So what that means is maybe you have a bestie that you always see. That's wonderful, but what other communities of women can you be around to start to inspire you in the second half of your life? So Once Upon a Woman is about intergenerational conversations. What can we learn from one another? There are women in their 60s and 70s that I cherish as beacons of experience and wisdom, and my 17 year old daughter has wisdom and perspective that I could not have because of the life that she lived and how she's grown in this in this century, and so it's so important for me to emphasize community, but also diversity within community. Get out there and try to be intentional with the people that you hang out with and really try to find some variety to enrich your midlife.

Ellen: 46:43

I don't think I could have said anything better than community and intergenerational influences and diversity of who you hang out with. To bring new thinking, new thoughts abroad in your horizons here at Midlife is so important, bina, thank you so much, and as we wrap up today's show, I just want to tell our listeners we're going to put links to everything in our show notes, so it'll be really easy for everyone to find all the different resources that we've talked about today.

Tish: 47:20

You know it. Just, it really warms my heart to that. We really saw how the foresees all interconnect and how important that is to recognize that right, and I think our message today and every day is that we determine who we're going to be at Midlife. And part of that is about continued growth and where better to start than charisma, confidence, courage and communication. And so my challenge to our listeners today is to let 2024 be that year that you focus on these foresees and embrace your too much woman.

Ellen: 48:04

I love it. And, hey, everybody follow Gina on her socials, whether you're on TikTok or Instagram. You'll be glad you did, because every day she brings me some joy. Thank you so much. Yeah, no, thank you for joining us today and keep doing what you're doing to empower women all around the world. We are so lucky to have you here with us today and again, thank you Absolutely joy, oh my goodness.

Gina: 48:31

And thank you to everybody for investing their time and to you, ladies, for doing the work that you do. We all have a hand in these ripples. So such a pleasure, thank you.

Ellen: 48:42

All right Till next week, midlifeers.