EPISODE 335: When Your Body Finally Says No: Chronic Stress, Hormones, and Redefining Success in Midlife with Lisa Corduff

00:00:06:29 - 00:00:33:12
Lisa Carpenter
You built success that looks damn good on the outside, but inside it's costing you your health, your relationships, your energy. And no matter how much you do, it never feels like enough. Welcome to Congruent. I'm Lisa Carpenter, the coach. High performers call when they can afford to burn it all down, but they can't keep living like this either.

00:00:33:14 - 00:00:58:24
Lisa Carpenter
Here we rip off the mask of success and expose what's real. The patterns that you keep running, the price that you've paid, and how to build success that fuels you instead of empties you. Real success is agency. It's powerful self leadership to run your life instead of being run by it. To let your drive and your well-being finally work together.

00:00:58:27 - 00:01:11:10
Lisa Carpenter
Because the real win is success. That actually feels good.

00:01:11:12 - 00:01:30:21
Lisa Carpenter
But if you're honest, your body's been screaming at you for a while now. Maybe it's the persistent low mood you keep telling yourself will pass. Maybe it's collapsing into bed, exhausted, but your mind won't stop racing. Maybe you've been doing all the right things. The movement, the food, the boundaries, and still you feel like you're running on fumes.

00:01:30:23 - 00:01:53:15
Lisa Carpenter
Welcome to congruent. I'm Lisa Carpenter, and this podcast is about the truth. Vinny's success, the cost you carried. The wake up calls you couldn't ignore. And what it really takes to build success that actually feels good. Today's episode is different. You're about to listen in on a conversation between two close friends who walk through the fire together for nearly eight years.

00:01:53:17 - 00:02:14:06
Lisa Carpenter
I first reached out to Lisa caught off back in 2017 because I recognized something in her story. I had walked the path of loving someone trapped in addiction years earlier, when my partner went into rehab and I could see she was in it. Little did I know that reaching out would be the start of one of the most powerful and deeply intimate friendships of my life.

00:02:14:08 - 00:02:43:12
Lisa Carpenter
We've navigated business building and business, burning down multiple begin again moments, growth, tears, tantrums, and every messy moment in between. We've held space for each other through separations, death, and nuclear bomb explosions going off in our lives. Parenting through it all, from toddlers to adult children and learning to let go. When everything in you wants to fight, to hang on.

00:02:43:14 - 00:03:12:20
Lisa Carpenter
And now the midlife reckoning of perimenopause and menopause and figuring out who we are when we're not performing anymore. Lisa built $1 million business while barely holding it together behind the scenes. Her husband, Nick, was struggling with addiction and mental health, and she was also solo parenting three young kids. She was creating nonstop, showing up everywhere because her work was the only place she felt purposeful when her real life was chaos.

00:03:12:23 - 00:03:43:23
Lisa Carpenter
Then in 2019, Nick died and Lisa kept going. Because that's what you do when you're the only parent, and three kids are depending on you. This year, everything shifted for her ADHD and autism diagnosis in her 40s, estrogen levels in the tank, despite doing everything right and a wake up call that the frantic version of success she'd built no longer fit the woman she's becoming, or the presence her teenage kids need.

00:03:43:25 - 00:04:10:28
Lisa Carpenter
We talk about what chronic stress actually does to your body when you're carrying it all alone, and how perimenopause symptoms get marked by legitimate life stress until you can't tell what's hormones and what's just being overwhelmed. About the shift from proving yourself through constant content creation to becoming what Lisa calls a lighthouse voice showing up when it matters not just because you have to feed the algorithm.

00:04:11:00 - 00:04:36:10
Lisa Carpenter
We also go there on the unsexy stuff nobody wants to talk about grief addiction. Advocating for your own health. When doctors dismiss you and the reality that sometimes the most loving thing you can do is let go when everything in you wants to hold on tighter. This is what happens when two women who've been in the arena together finally slow down enough to ask, what does success actually mean?

00:04:36:15 - 00:04:56:16
Lisa Carpenter
When you're in your wise woman era, when you're no longer willing to sacrifice your nervous system, your presence with your kids, or your actual life for revenue targets, if you've ever wondered why you can't seem to do better, even though you know better, if you're exhausted from caring at all and suspect your body is trying to tell you something.

00:04:56:18 - 00:05:05:03
Lisa Carpenter
If you've achieved the success but it doesn't feel like you thought it would. This conversation is for you. So let's dive in.

00:05:05:06 - 00:05:20:07
Lisa Carpenter
Hey. Hey everybody welcome back to congruent. And today we're going a little bit off the beaten path of how these episodes have been structured. Because I have my good friend Lisa Kordofan, who is on the opposite side of the planet for me, and we became friends. How many years ago now?

00:05:20:07 - 00:05:25:18
Lisa Corduff
Lisa got 2017 was 2018.

00:05:25:20 - 00:05:59:21
Lisa Carpenter
And oh, the iterations that we have gone through over the years, the massive life transitions, bumps, nuclear bomb explosions in our lives. So this episode is really an invitation for you to kind of come behind the scenes while Lisa and I just jam on, I don't know, everything from perimenopause, menopause, being in our wise woman era, sharing less, but actually being more present in your life and wherever else this conversation goes.

00:05:59:21 - 00:06:05:17
Lisa Carpenter
So pour yourself a cup of tea, or maybe a shot of tequila.

00:06:05:20 - 00:06:29:13
Lisa Carpenter
And buckle up. I know. Right? No pressure. Lisa. And we'll just dive in. So, Lisa, bring me up to speed on the things that you are most focused on in your life and your business right now, because you've been a, content creator. You've been online for, I think, as long as I have, maybe even longer.

00:06:29:16 - 00:06:34:28
Lisa Corduff
2012, started my blog and Facebook page.

00:06:35:00 - 00:06:44:09
Lisa Carpenter
Wow. And that was just about helping, like taking women along the ride with you to make healthy, easy meals. Snack, correct?

00:06:44:12 - 00:06:50:16
Lisa Corduff
Yep. Yes, indeed. And I was I was selling a kitchen appliance at the time. Lisa.

00:06:50:18 - 00:06:53:29
Lisa Carpenter
Oh my goodness. And you had three three babies back.

00:06:54:00 - 00:07:14:09
Lisa Corduff
Oh I had two, I had two, I had just had my son and a little baby. And yeah, we moved to a new city and I was like, I've got no friends. I to talk to someone, but I, I had this background in TV and video production and all that sort of stuff. So I was looking for an outlet, right.

00:07:14:09 - 00:07:41:05
Lisa Corduff
And I just started it and, and it started to take off. You know, that that moment where you realize more than just your friends are following your Facebook page and you think, oh, all right, this is this is exciting. And, I just followed I've followed my nose ever since. And to be honest, I actually and I go through stages like I know you do too of like, hang on, is this a job that I want to be doing anymore?

00:07:41:08 - 00:08:06:07
Lisa Corduff
I remember after it was 2022. So the first year after Covid and a friend of mine is a psychologist and career coach, I was like, I just can't get moving with this. I just feel like my feet, in mud. And we were talking about that sort of hangover from the Covid years. But she said, Lisa, you're also you've been doing the your job for ten years.

00:08:06:07 - 00:08:34:21
Lisa Corduff
So that's kind of a long service leave moment. Like where a lot of people get to a decade of work and take a big break to just reset was like, wow, what a concept. Entrepreneurs don't think like that. We just don't because we're responsible for our income. And you know, that relies on us. If you're a small business owner or, you know, a brand or whatever, when you stop working, the money stops rolling.

00:08:34:21 - 00:09:07:13
Lisa Corduff
In a lot of cases, of course, that's not always the case, depending how how what you sell and your team structure. But it was a really cool mind, too, like it's you're not meant to be on all the time. And since then I've, I think I have just consistently struggled to get back into a kind of momentum that I really felt came quite naturally to me at pre those Covid years, and there's lots of different reasons for that.

00:09:07:17 - 00:09:19:12
Lisa Corduff
But this, this year in particular, I had a few challenges that just made me quieter than usual.

00:09:19:14 - 00:09:22:10
Lisa Carpenter
Tell me and tell me about those.

00:09:22:12 - 00:09:33:25
Lisa Corduff
Well, I, you know, you know, you it's hard to know when you're in it what it is.

00:09:33:28 - 00:09:39:26
Lisa Carpenter
I have no understanding of that at all. Yes. When you're in it, you often can't even really see how deep see it.

00:09:39:26 - 00:10:07:20
Lisa Corduff
Yeah. And and you can and you tell yourself stories about like what is going on for you. And then something will happen that makes you go, oh, what it was that. So I at the start of was the start of 2024. I knew I'd been traveling with my kids for months in 2023, and I was working closely with my son on his schoolwork to help him continue along with school.

00:10:07:27 - 00:10:36:17
Lisa Corduff
And I knew my youngest daughter was most likely autistic and I so and and with my son, I just saw that there were issues there that I hadn't fully recognized for what they were with his learning. So I knew I had to get them tested and, assessed for certain things. And I just decided I'd go first. As the leader of the family, I began to suspect that probably there was a little bit of neurodivergent in myself.

00:10:36:20 - 00:10:57:28
Lisa Corduff
And sure enough, I got a ADHD diagnosis. But during that process, the, the psychologist was like, have you ever looked at yourself through the lens of autism? And I was like, no, actually, no. It's just the most people I've loved, autistic. Some of my best friends are autistic. So my kids were sick. She's like, Lisa, there's something in that.

00:10:58:00 - 00:11:23:27
Lisa Corduff
And I thought, oh, and so there was always this kind of thing in the back of my mind, because ADHD doesn't fully describe my experience of the world and neither does autism, but ended up getting that assessment this year. And sure enough, I'm considered both autistic and ADHD. So that combo. So I've got that like, oh my gosh, let's just see stuff, do stuff, do stuff and make it exciting, make it really fun.

00:11:24:02 - 00:11:48:11
Lisa Corduff
And I'm probably not going to start until right at the last minute. And the part of me that literally needs systems and structures in my life in order to feel like, balanced and okay. And, you know, I've lived on my own now since when Nick left at the start of 2019. Like my own space, my own little rituals, I do things very, very the same.

00:11:48:13 - 00:12:10:21
Lisa Corduff
And I like it a lot. But then I get bored and then I want to change things up. So my life is that constant sort of tug of war. And there's so many different ways that so many different frames that we can use to describe those sorts of personality traits and understanding brains. I'm fascinated by functional neurology. So the right and left brain hemispheres and how they interact.

00:12:10:21 - 00:12:35:08
Lisa Corduff
And yeah, I do think that the words that we've got for neurodivergent brains right now will not be the way that we describe things in ten years time. There's just so much we don't know. But for right now, they're the words. And it kind of threw me to be honest, I, I was like, oh, so not everyone is like me or things like me, and am I embarrassing myself?

00:12:35:15 - 00:12:59:20
Lisa Corduff
Have I been just like, wow, oversharing, blah blah blah, like, what are you doing, Lisa? What is this all about for you actually, why are you doing the work that you do? And so I just I had a it was a really big moment of self-reflection. But that's also in amongst you know, I kept waiting for the hot flushes, Lisa.

00:12:59:22 - 00:13:11:26
Lisa Corduff
I kept waiting for the very, very obvious signs of perimenopause. And I didn't realize that my just sort of persistent low grade mood.

00:13:11:29 - 00:13:13:25
Lisa Carpenter
For.

00:13:13:27 - 00:13:41:03
Lisa Corduff
Maybe two years. Yeah, was absolutely a sign of my disappearing estrogen, because as soon as I started it, I mean, I have tried everything natural because I'm like, I don't want to. I was sort of against the idea of hormones. And I'm like, no, I am going to do all the right things. And, you know, so I get my food in order.

00:13:41:05 - 00:14:10:05
Lisa Corduff
I have a beautiful morning routine where I go out for walks. If every morning I am in the sun, I move my body. I have great connection with people. Like I get enough sleep, like I really dialed things in and none of it was. It did give me a little bump, but I would come back to this kind of shitty place and so estrogen just it was almost like waking up out of a fog, like.

00:14:10:08 - 00:14:15:13
Lisa Carpenter
Oh yeah, there she is. It's quite crazy. And it was a week.

00:14:15:13 - 00:14:16:03
Lisa Corduff
Lisa.

00:14:16:06 - 00:14:40:14
Lisa Carpenter
I, I remember, I remember well although I'm on the I'm like maybe I need less estrogen now. So it's like a moving target. Hormones. Yeah. And I think it's really important to mention that both of us have had some seriously major life incidences that radically impact your hormone levels, regardless of how well you take care of yourself.

00:14:40:14 - 00:15:09:16
Lisa Carpenter
Like, I've always taken really good care of myself. Sleep, rest or sorry, sleep movement, food, all of those things, right? Like I ticked the boxes and thank God I did. But when your body is under extreme amounts of stress, it doesn't matter because your hormones are working overtime. And as you start to come out of the stress, that's really when everything starts to tank because your body's like, okay, safe to rest and then everything you know goes in the toilet.

00:15:09:16 - 00:15:20:00
Lisa Carpenter
I started hormone therapy, man years ago. I started with progesterone because it was like low. I would drop a pen and I would be teary and I was like, I.

00:15:20:00 - 00:15:21:04
Lisa Corduff
Remember what is.

00:15:21:04 - 00:15:41:20
Lisa Carpenter
Happening to me. Like had all the tools and could not understand what was happening to me, only to find out, oh, this is the progesterone blues. And I remember recording a video on my car being like, oh my God, my life has just changed because I am now on progesterone and I feel happy again.

00:15:41:23 - 00:16:05:02
Lisa Corduff
Lisa, I remember you. I remember Vox's from you. Like, I just don't know why I'm crying. And I'm like, I don't know what to do. And and it was such a it was it was just this. It was like a light went back on in your life. And so I'm not I haven't been anti hormones for other people.

00:16:05:07 - 00:16:09:24
Lisa Corduff
But there's also this part of me like when everyone's doing something.

00:16:09:24 - 00:16:12:13
Lisa Carpenter
Oh I'm the same way. I'm going the opposite direction.

00:16:12:13 - 00:16:37:29
Lisa Corduff
I'm like, I'm sorry you guys, you guys. Yeah. You guys are just eating up what you see online. That's not and but I tell you what it was it was when, I did these all these tests for this, appointment and I came up as clinically depressed, and I was like, the hell I'm not. I know, I'm not depressed.

00:16:37:29 - 00:17:01:26
Lisa Corduff
I know that's not what this is. I've been through hard things in my life. I, I this is not what it is. But that's how I was presenting was just I just couldn't get it together. Lisa. And so starting that my has has really, really changed things for me. I didn't I really was waiting for big crazy stuff.

00:17:02:03 - 00:17:30:02
Lisa Corduff
And I also just didn't want to be like everybody else. I wanted to do things a different way. And I am that is a that's not a trait about myself that is helpful in some circumstances. I had to just go, actually, let's just deal with and and I think this is what I'm figuring out in, in midlife is like, we get to really like, look at the rules we've set for us of the expectations that we've set for us.

00:17:30:02 - 00:17:54:25
Lisa Corduff
I've had to drop it sometimes, like, hang on, what do I need right now? So 24 year old Lisa came off the pill after eight years. I was put on it for painful periods and no one did any digging about why they were so bad and why I had vomit every month with pain. And but I came off them and I was like, oh, I, as am I just walking out of a cloud.

00:17:54:25 - 00:18:23:06
Lisa Corduff
I, I it it wasn't. I was swore from that moment onwards I would never, ever take hormones again. The contraception was really the only context I had for that at the time. I mean, who's thinking about menopause in their 20s? No one was actually talking about it back then. And so I sort of made this commitment to myself that doesn't fit the frame of my life right now, the context of my life right now.

00:18:23:06 - 00:18:46:02
Lisa Corduff
I had to really sit down and talk to myself about why I was making this harder than it needs to be, and and why I wasn't open to new ways of doing things. And, you know, we get to do that, right? But we have to really I really had to sort of sit down and have a little bit of a talk to myself.

00:18:46:08 - 00:18:49:16
Lisa Corduff
And, and I thought, what have I got to lose, really?

00:18:49:19 - 00:19:28:14
Lisa Carpenter
There's so much that we normalize that isn't normal, but because it's such a slow burn, like, what does that saying, like, how do you boil a frog just slowly turn up the heat? I think for a lot of us, these symptoms, it's such a slow burn over such a long amount of time that we don't notice. And as somebody who and I really have had to do some work around, forgiveness towards myself and towards my body because I've always, like I said, I've always taken really good care of myself, except when I was not, when I was really wanting to manipulate everything, like, oh, but I'm going away and I don't want my period.

00:19:28:14 - 00:19:50:21
Lisa Carpenter
This weekend, so we'll just take three of these birth control pills to change things, right? Like, there was a lot of playing around with my hormones when I was, when I was younger, and I find it really interesting now that we will give young women contraceptives like you want some? Here you go. Like candy. But then when it comes to menopause and perimenopause, we're having some.

00:19:50:21 - 00:20:18:15
Lisa Carpenter
In some cases, we're having to fight to get the support that we need. Like it's so backwards, like, here you go. Here's all of them. Even though we know the the side effects and the like, the downside when we're younger, we're not educating women around how to actually know their cycle. I've got a I've got a couple friends in this, arena and, she her name is Jen Pike, and she teaches the perimenopause project, which I said, well, I guess it's not for me.

00:20:18:15 - 00:20:37:13
Lisa Carpenter
I'm in menopause, so it's too late to learn. And she's like, no, no, Lisa. But I was so humbled learning this stuff because I'm like, I was never taught this. I still have a hard time remembering the names of the cycles that we go through every month. Never learn that. Never learned how our bodies will naturally sync up with the moon.

00:20:37:13 - 00:21:02:23
Lisa Carpenter
I thought that was like pseudoscience. It's actually a real thing. Like there's just so much about women's health that I knew nothing about. It was like, take the pill, don't get pregnant. And that was it. And now here I am in menopause, and I'm just trying to figure out what's going on and getting my hormones regulated sometimes feels like I'm herding cats because I get one in line.

00:21:02:25 - 00:21:11:13
Lisa Carpenter
And then if something else goes out or something happens in my life, and now this one tank. So it has been a journey.

00:21:11:15 - 00:21:39:17
Lisa Corduff
Yeah. And and I think also this stage of life often brings with it some big transitions that you can like I was like, oh, I'm just feeling like this because, you know, I've got the kids on my own or, you know, went through, you know, Nick dying. And so, I mean, I mean, I'm, I don't know if people who listen to your podcast know the story, but I separated from my husband in early 2019.

00:21:39:17 - 00:22:20:08
Lisa Corduff
He was a, he was struggling with his mental health and addiction and, he died in September 2019. So my kids are now 15, 13 and 11. They were five, seven and eight when he died. And so, you know, there is also just a reality of life being a lot, doing all the things, being that the only parent and, and then the Covid years and then, you know, another significant relationship that I was in ended and then I talked us all up and went traveling for four months.

00:22:20:08 - 00:22:42:18
Lisa Corduff
And then, you know, kids are starting school. And then I remember like high school teen years. So there was so much that I thought was going on that I, I almost just didn't regard what was happening internally for me as being literally physical based, like hormone based stuff.

00:22:42:20 - 00:22:47:00
Lisa Carpenter
And body was in a high stress response for years.

00:22:47:02 - 00:23:27:15
Lisa Corduff
He gets like, I it was so stressful and something it's funny because something happened recently to someone I really care about and Lisa hearing her voice, talking her through what that like she was in a real crisis moment. It was like my body remembered. I got sick two days later. I couldn't sleep that night. My whole nervous system and I don't leave my day to day life consciously remembering what it was like to basically manage my husband.

00:23:27:17 - 00:24:00:00
Lisa Corduff
Yeah. And leave through leave through what I lived through with the active addiction and recovery and that was it was such a reminder. It happened last week. I've literally been fighting off sickness since and feel just tired and drained, and it was a reminder to me of what I lived and how far I've come in myself to create a sense of calm in my life, in my day to day life, in my day to day rhythm.

00:24:00:02 - 00:24:46:06
Lisa Corduff
And that's with everything that has to be managed. Being a sole parent. And, you know, people often ask me how I how you do it. And I think single parents get asked that a lot. That's not just a Lisa thing. That's like a people look and go, how are you doing this when they've got a partner able to, you know, help me, help, you know, live with them and, and do all the things and I always say, well, I think that being on my own, not relying on someone, giving me the things that I need, giving me space or time to exercise or socialize or, you know, pursue hobbies or do anything like that.

00:24:46:06 - 00:25:07:26
Lisa Corduff
No one's I'm not sitting there going, you never, I never get the job. It's like, I've got to do it. It has been. Being riding solo has been a fast track to self-care that I never would have expected, and taking personal responsibility for the things that I want in my life. Like, no one's here to give it to me, so how can I make this work for me?

00:25:07:28 - 00:25:23:26
Lisa Corduff
And that and prioritizing rest, Lisa. Like I just go to sleep. I sleep. What, why why why do we fight it? Why don't we give our bodies like women, just as tired.

00:25:23:29 - 00:25:34:10
Lisa Carpenter
Women are tired and it's. I've always said that rest is the number one success strategy I like, period. Like straight up like that.

00:25:34:10 - 00:25:54:00
Lisa Corduff
Those that chronic, that's real stress state. Everything goes off everything. You can't out hormone stress. You can't, you know, even have the most nutritious lifestyle. But if you are chronically stressed, it's going to win every time.

00:25:54:03 - 00:26:30:11
Lisa Carpenter
Yeah. And chronic stress isn't just from the external things happening in our lives. Chronic stress is also created by the beliefs that we're carrying about ourselves. If you are constantly in a state of wanting to control everything or people pleasing or over caretaking other people, that is a state of stress in your body. And we don't talk about that because we're like stresses out here, not even realizing that how we're living, how we're coping our way through our lives is putting us in a constant state of stress, and that impacts us.

00:26:30:13 - 00:26:59:01
Lisa Carpenter
So it's just a different, you know, like I think about, well, how did women in the past go through perimenopause and, and menopause? Like, why is this so new that we are we're finally starting to look at it. And it's because it has to be looked at now because women are really facing, Such implications of the lives they've been living, regardless of how well they've taken care of themselves.

00:26:59:01 - 00:27:29:09
Lisa Carpenter
Right. Like I like to use myself as an example. Take good care of myself. Everything still went to hell in a handbasket because of some of the internal chronic stressors in my life. With you. You know, when Nic passed, I think of what you went through very similar to when somebody has a child and say their child is on the other end of autism, like highly autistic, non-verbal, you know, needing stim, right?

00:27:29:12 - 00:27:53:05
Lisa Carpenter
There's no time to really pause and grieve and take the space you need because you have to be in it as a parent. Like, what do I do next? And when Nic left the planet, you had to grieve while still showing up and taking care of your kids, running the house like there was no pause when when shit blew up in my life, I was like, pause button.

00:27:53:07 - 00:28:03:24
Lisa Carpenter
I'm out of here by myself. For an entire year, in and out. I had the I had the luxury and privilege of doing that. But so often other women don't.

00:28:03:27 - 00:28:05:03
Lisa Corduff
So it's it's a lot.

00:28:05:04 - 00:28:24:24
Lisa Carpenter
On our bodies. It's a lot on our nervous systems. It's a very heavy lift for our bodies, with our hormones. So for me, you know, I was talking to you about this in Voxer. It didn't matter what I did. Even though the stress of my life has now passed. Right. We're on the other side of that. Things are really good.

00:28:24:24 - 00:28:47:18
Lisa Carpenter
And I'd be sitting here going, why do I feel like I have no life force energy then? I'm always depressed. I'm not motivated. I'd go into the gym and I would literally die after two sets of an exercise, which I've been training hard for years, right? I know how to push through and my body was like, no, no, we're not doing this.

00:28:47:21 - 00:29:09:25
Lisa Carpenter
And it was only when I found out that my testosterone, I didn't have any, I didn't have any. And the impact on women with no testosterone, it's like our life force leaves. Our libido leaves. I was losing all my hair, so I was having anxiety. I'd get in the shower and have anxiety about washing my hair because handfuls of my hair would come out.

00:29:09:27 - 00:29:39:26
Lisa Carpenter
It was. It was insane. And that has been a real journey. I've had to really go to battle for myself, trying to MacGyver my hormones, because in Canada and I think in the US as well, and in Australia, you would think that giving women testosterone would be like asking for our arm to be amputated. Yeah, women need testosterone just as much as men, and it really impacts us when we don't have any, like lifeforce energy gone.

00:29:39:28 - 00:30:04:25
Lisa Carpenter
So after I think I've been on it for about three weeks now. Energy back able to move through the gym like a normal human. Like it. It's just been so unbelievable. The difference it has made in my life. But we're giving women estrogen, we're giving them progesterone, and we're saying, oh, that. But this one doesn't matter. So you don't need this.

00:30:04:27 - 00:30:06:10
Lisa Carpenter
You know, it's funny because.

00:30:06:12 - 00:30:34:24
Lisa Corduff
Well, I had to get tested for it before I got the estrogen and progesterone. So I had to get tested. My testosterone, was. Yeah. Well, it's, she's a really good GP, but I talk to loads of women who ask for the details of my GP, like, because I can't get the what you were saying before. It's like, you know, prove it, that you need this.

00:30:34:27 - 00:30:53:06
Lisa Corduff
I think that they're all just suspect on women who were watching social media, you know, take hold of this conversation and suddenly were advocating for what it is that we think we need. But it seems like it's just a trend. And yeah, Covid.

00:30:53:06 - 00:31:15:14
Lisa Carpenter
Change things for people. I think Covid really woke a lot of people up to, wait a minute, maybe I'm not just going to blindly trust. Maybe I need to look more at my health, my choices, what's going on for me. And I love that people are asking more questions, but I think it makes doctors wildly uncomfortable because for decades we just handed it over to people in white coats.

00:31:15:14 - 00:31:38:21
Lisa Carpenter
They must know. And now we're realizing, like not all doctors are created equal. Not all of them stay up to date on their, education. I mean, my doctor will call her my doctor. She wouldn't run any laps for me, I so I had my naturopathy doctor run them for me, and I paid for them myself because she was like, no.

00:31:38:23 - 00:32:00:01
Lisa Carpenter
I was like, okay. And, she literally said, like, I treat people who are sick. And I'm like, well, I'm here to look to partner with a doctor who's going to support me in my wellness journey. Like, what can I do to be proactive, to stay well, to stay healthy so that I'm not ending up in the medical system because now and I'm ill.

00:32:00:01 - 00:32:20:12
Lisa Carpenter
But that's not how we're approaching health. So I think more and more women are looking at like where our responsibility lies in creating our health and wellness. So ask questions and if you have a doctor that pushes back, consider finding another doctor, because now more than ever, we need to advocate for ourselves in all ways.

00:32:20:14 - 00:32:48:14
Lisa Corduff
Absolutely, and I do I find it interesting also that I mean you and I have worked with lots of women over the years and I have seen mothers go in to bat for their children and they, it's so, it's so clear to a mother something's off here. I am not getting the answers that I want. I will do whatever it takes to find out what's happening with my child and how to support my child.

00:32:48:16 - 00:33:19:01
Lisa Corduff
And so often we don't give ourselves the same. We just expect ourselves to continue being there for everybody else. At some point will get a moment to focus on ourselves and what we need without recognizing, like we are the center of our own lives and we give to others better when we're taking care of ourselves. It's I mean, God and I, I am in this category too.

00:33:19:01 - 00:33:29:01
Lisa Corduff
It's easy for me to like, make appointments for my children, but getting my own self up to all of the places terrible.

00:33:29:04 - 00:33:40:06
Lisa Carpenter
Well, in in all fairness, once you've got three kids all taken care of, that's a lot of appointments and a lot of time spent, right? Like in all fairness, that is that is a lot.

00:33:40:08 - 00:33:41:03
Lisa Corduff
It's a lot.

00:33:41:05 - 00:33:54:24
Lisa Carpenter
Yeah. Of running around, of driving, of being in all the places. So I can understand why you're falling to the bottom of the list. Because it's a one more thing on your already very long to do list, and you get to prioritize you as well.

00:33:54:26 - 00:34:25:06
Lisa Corduff
But the thing is, I think this is the thing. I am the only parent. It's like I was forced into you got to really take care of yourself as the golden goose in this scenario. Like take care of yourself because they need you and there's no fallback position here. So it's kind of had this. It's like a, you know, double edged sword, like sucks so completely and has given me a lot of gifts.

00:34:25:08 - 00:34:25:28
Lisa Carpenter
Yeah.

00:34:26:01 - 00:34:27:28
Lisa Corduff
Into and yeah.

00:34:28:00 - 00:34:45:23
Lisa Carpenter
I have a question for you about success because you and I have both been online a long time. So if we look back at Lisa ten, 15 years ago, how did you define success back then versus how do you define success now?

00:34:45:25 - 00:35:29:02
Lisa Corduff
It's really interesting. You asked this question last week. I was invited to speak at a business mastermind retreat, and I was asked to speak about the mindset of $1 million a year in business. So we're and it was so funny to be asked that because I'm like, wow, I just, I, I'm just not in those circles anymore. I am not in that circle of, you know, where pretty much all the conversation for a number of years, like the Holy Grail, was getting to that million dollar a year in, in business, in business revenue.

00:35:29:05 - 00:36:01:23
Lisa Corduff
And and you know, we cracked that, you know, and awesome. But I just when I was thinking about it like what it took what what shifts I kind of had to make in myself around mindset around that time. And then now what I see as success is not running a business that makes over $1 million a year, like at all.

00:36:01:23 - 00:36:22:01
Lisa Corduff
And it's not a drop in, like my abundance codes or shit like that. It's like I just, when I was when that was happening, I also had to be really clear with these women, it's not just mindset.

00:36:22:03 - 00:36:22:08
Lisa Carpenter
Right?

00:36:22:15 - 00:36:48:00
Lisa Corduff
You you have to have a dialed in message. You have to have tiered offers. You have to really clear entry points for people to come into your business and make their way through your product range. You. I was I was creating nonstop. I was it, I was it was like a manic kind of it was like a dance party that just never kind of the lights never went up.

00:36:48:01 - 00:36:55:18
Lisa Carpenter
I remember it was just like, you are just go, go go go go. And I was like, dude, like it was unbelievable.

00:36:55:18 - 00:36:56:07
Lisa Corduff
Not believable.

00:36:56:07 - 00:36:57:14
Lisa Carpenter
To watch.

00:36:57:17 - 00:37:24:27
Lisa Corduff
But but it was also like it was it wasn't. There was it was, there was a healthy aspect and there was a very unhealthy ass. I but to me, my business saved me in that time. So my story of all of that is that was hectic, but my life was hectic. It was a matched energy to what was going on, and I was so frightened that, I was alone with these kids.

00:37:24:27 - 00:37:53:25
Lisa Corduff
Like my life was absolutely falling apart behind the scenes. Nick was not okay. You you remember all of the times, and I had to keep it going. I and I would disappear into my work and my work was the place. I felt purposeful and things made sense, and I was good at it, and I was helping people. And that that was feeling me when, you know, I literally wake up every morning.

00:37:53:25 - 00:38:14:24
Lisa Corduff
We talk about chronic stress, like I would just be. I still find it. I still struggle to get back to sleep if I wake up because, like, everything spikes, like I've just for years and years and years, I would just wake up and be like, what's taking a break? How's he going to wake up today? What? And, you know, it was it was really, really hard.

00:38:14:24 - 00:38:46:06
Lisa Corduff
And my business was playful and and fun. It was freedom for me. And and yet I, I was not I did not have healthy boundaries around my time and energy and, and then I, you know, I, I raised the roof on it through that very hard as times because now I have to take care of my family.

00:38:46:09 - 00:39:11:10
Lisa Corduff
And this is the only way I know to earn money and so I just can't go back to that. I can't go back to that frantic ness. Like, success is not like, worth it to me. Being able to be present to my kids like a hello. Teenage years. What the hell? What the hell are we having conversations about right now?

00:39:11:12 - 00:39:46:25
Lisa Corduff
And it is requiring a huge amount of my mental energy is like, whoa, we're here. Okay. Bloody hell. New things are happening all the time. People are pushing against me in ways that they haven't really before. Like wanting extra freedoms, me figuring out what that looks like and how to hold a line with, you know, a testosterone fueled, you know, lovestruck, very social, very active boy to man.

00:39:46:25 - 00:39:50:00
Lisa Corduff
I don't know what's going on. Lisa and the.

00:39:50:03 - 00:40:14:13
Lisa Carpenter
Teenage years are full. They require a lot of emotional labor, a lot of presents. And I don't know if your kids are the same way, but every night I swear to God, you know, when I have zero capacity left, Jake will come in at, like, 930. Yeah. I need I need to talk to you. I'm like, it's 938, dude.

00:40:14:13 - 00:40:22:03
Lisa Carpenter
Like, where was this conversation at 8:00 in the morning when I was driving you to school with my cup of coffee?

00:40:22:05 - 00:40:24:22
Lisa Corduff
No, not be dark.

00:40:24:24 - 00:40:25:18
Lisa Carpenter
Yeah.

00:40:25:20 - 00:41:07:06
Lisa Corduff
No. So I say success to me now is. And I think there's something. I don't know if you felt this too, but, you know, with my work, it's like I can't show up in the way that I used to because I'm not the same person. But I've found that a really tricky thing to sink into it, like almost you said before, Wise Woman era, I don't know if I feel fully wise, but I feel a knowingness of myself, and of things that I don't have to prove to myself or anybody else anymore.

00:41:07:07 - 00:41:35:03
Lisa Corduff
It's a different energy. And I see it. I see it a lot with women like us who've grown up through this, online, like sharing things in our lives. And it's like, yeah, nah, I'm not gonna. Yeah, that doesn't feel the same to me anymore. I don't want to, I go through my phone to try and, you know, find some pictures to post something, and there's nothing there because I'm not documenting my life in the way that I used to.

00:41:35:06 - 00:42:06:00
Lisa Corduff
And and also, I still do need to do an element of that if I want to continue this work. So it's been about me recognizing and honoring that I'm in a different stage and business can look different, and showing up can be on my terms and and just allowing a different sense. I will not get into urgency and craziness with my work in the ways that I used to.

00:42:06:02 - 00:42:38:10
Lisa Corduff
Although I do need deadlines, I need to work towards a thing. I don't get motivated unless I'm massively interested in something, or there's some sort of deadline or, you know, I want to win. Like that's the other thing. At least. It's like the ADHD, you know, like, I'll be in this. Let me really give this a crack. Like, that's why I like selling stuff because I'm just like, let's just see let's see where this goes.

00:42:38:10 - 00:43:01:28
Lisa Corduff
Let's put something out there. It feels like a game to me. And I think when I, when I was really sort of struggling to know what to do, I realized that I boxed myself in a little bit to an idea that I thought other people had of me and ways in which I was showing up. Or, you know, the Lisa who I'd been.

00:43:02:00 - 00:43:31:18
Lisa Corduff
And then I was sort of I didn't want to go back to that, but then I didn't know what was coming next, and I had lost that playful sense of freedom that my business has always been for me. Like, I know I can help people with this. Maybe I can create something that's blah blah, blah, blah blah, and maybe we do it a different way to everybody else, because that feels fresh and new and and when I allowed myself to step back into that, just these last few months, my creativity has come back.

00:43:31:23 - 00:43:56:06
Lisa Corduff
My capacity to create, to work with people like I shut everything down. Lisa, I couldn't have women in containers with me anymore. I had no capacity for them. I was just barely managing my own life and I and in integrity, I could have kept showing up. I could bring it for an hour a week or do whatever. But it didn't feel good to me.

00:43:56:06 - 00:44:23:18
Lisa Corduff
I wasn't bringing my best version of me. I didn't want to feel resentful or have icky feelings around it. I had to go quiet for a while, and now I just finally feel like I'm back. And I am re defining what success looks for me as this woman who I am now, where my kids are at now, what I want team to look like, what I how I want to serve the world.

00:44:23:20 - 00:44:35:15
Lisa Corduff
Not in this hectic way, but in a, in a really sort of, I don't know, it knowing way.

00:44:35:16 - 00:44:36:13
Lisa Carpenter
Yeah.

00:44:36:15 - 00:44:40:03
Lisa Corduff
Like I want like the what? Like the auntie vibes and.

00:44:40:06 - 00:44:55:29
Lisa Carpenter
Vibes and like that. That's one of the things I love about you. You've always just been who I have this idea. I have this thing, I want to share it. I'm going to go build a thing. And I would always just be like, Jesus, she just she just goes and builds the thing. Like I've always I've always loved that about you.

00:44:55:29 - 00:45:17:11
Lisa Carpenter
And I always appreciated about that about you, because I feel like I'm so much slower out of the gate. Although now that I'm more than halfway to dead, I move a little bit faster. But it's true though, I have less years in front of me than behind me, that that is just a mathematical truth. Unless I live to, you know, 110.

00:45:17:13 - 00:45:44:01
Lisa Carpenter
I don't know if I want to live that long. The planet's kind of crazy these days anyways. But what I found when life blew up for me in 2023, I was so grateful for my clients because that is work that I love. I love so much I could do it with my eyes closed, but when it came to running the business, I literally handed the entire ship over to my team and said, good luck, it's out.

00:45:44:03 - 00:46:07:17
Lisa Carpenter
And they did the best they could. But for a long time, you know what I said to them? The metaphor I used, it's like you guys are on the main pirate ship, and I'm out in a rowboat with one or screens going and screaming directions that you like, which just was not there. So, you know, when things settle down at the beginning of this year, what year are we in 2025?

00:46:07:19 - 00:46:33:15
Lisa Carpenter
Oh my God. We've got like pre and post Covid. We've got pre and post 2023. And you know when I when I came back into my life after that year of traveling and figuring out who I was, what I wanted, like what was my life, when I plunked myself down and into my chair again and said, okay, I'm ready to be back, you know, behind the wheel of my life, so to speak.

00:46:33:18 - 00:46:56:18
Lisa Carpenter
And then I was like, but what? Where are you going? Like, I just assumed I would settle back in and it would be like status quo and off we'd go. And soon to realize that I was not the same person. And how was the ship going to look different? And what do I really want? And, I don't need to make $1 million in my business like a school.

00:46:56:18 - 00:47:16:11
Lisa Carpenter
Fun. I still have it like an audacious goal, but not at the expense of everything else. And the reality is, is I don't need to make that much to have an extraordinary life. I want to have the time to be present with my family. I want to have the time to travel. I want to do work that is meaningful and impactful.

00:47:16:13 - 00:47:32:02
Lisa Carpenter
You know, some people want to impact many. I like to impact like one deep and then they go out and impact many. Right. Like I don't minimize the work I do because it's not, you know, one too many model. I think that 1 to 1 coaching is kind of a dying breed, and I like that. I'm part of it.

00:47:32:07 - 00:48:04:03
Lisa Carpenter
I like that this is what I love to do the most and this is where I focus. But it took some time for me to realize, like things weren't congruent in my business, which is why we switch the podcast, create more direction. Got really clear on, you know, who I'm here to serve, how I want to show up, and how the past couple of years of my life really reshaped me and really gave me, I think, the biggest thing I walked away with a lot of lessons from those years, but one of the biggest was that I actually live and breathe the work that I do.

00:48:04:06 - 00:48:27:28
Lisa Carpenter
I didn't learn it in a course or program, like what I coach people on is what I live and breathe every day, and that was so powerful for me to see my own process in action in my life and then say, Lisa, you do more and you have more depth than I've ever given myself credit for. So now there's a lot more playfulness in my business.

00:48:27:28 - 00:48:44:27
Lisa Carpenter
Like I'll just decide I want to do something and then I'll, oh, you want if you want to do this thing with me and people say yes. And I'm like, oh my God, it's that easy. Like Lisa caught off was on to something. You just something. I'm like, yeah. People say yes. So you know really creating the experiences that I want.

00:48:44:27 - 00:49:07:16
Lisa Carpenter
So when I look at my own success, no, you know, when everything went to hell, the things that I thought matter didn't matter. I was grateful that there was money in the bank, but none of that mattered. So now, in this like, wise woman era where, you know, I'm not sharing as much as I used to because honestly, my life isn't that exciting and I kind of really love it.

00:49:07:16 - 00:49:28:00
Lisa Carpenter
Like the simplicity of my life, I really value and appreciate now simple things like grocery shopping or hanging out on the couch watching TV or having a conversation with my kid. And I feel like I spent so much of my life trying to move away from that because it wasn't good enough, it wasn't grand enough, it wasn't bold enough.

00:49:28:03 - 00:49:49:16
Lisa Carpenter
And I still love to do big, audacious things. I still love to travel, but I really love the simple, you know, quote unquote boring life that I live. Like I'm so much more grateful for what I have. Because when you lose all of that, right, you just you see things through a different lens. So success for me is defined very, very differently now.

00:49:49:16 - 00:50:03:12
Lisa Carpenter
Like my time freedom, my energy freedom. It has very, very little to do with money. I love money, but it has very that is one of the smallest markers of success that I measure.

00:50:03:14 - 00:50:20:26
Lisa Corduff
Yeah. Same. I, I find this the best thing about getting older is the appreciation I have for things like sunrises.

00:50:20:28 - 00:50:21:26
Lisa Carpenter
Oh, God. Right.

00:50:21:26 - 00:50:50:14
Lisa Corduff
The simple. Like, I just, you know, a chat with my neighbor as I'm walking home with my coffee, the fact the kids and I go out for breakfast still once a week, we do our little Waffle Wednesday and the conversations that we have around that table and that, you know, the older kids, like my son, still gives me a kiss goodbye, you know, middle of a cafe to go and get his bus.

00:50:50:14 - 00:51:15:21
Lisa Corduff
And I just I just grab those my they matter to me and and I pay attention to them in ways that maybe back in the day, I wasn't, I wasn't as present. I was just so rushing. It was just one thing to the other, to the other, to the other. And such a busy, busy, busy mind creating like just having appreciation for genuinely simple things is would have to be.

00:51:15:21 - 00:51:28:23
Lisa Corduff
It makes you realize that you can still chase the big stuff. Like you can still have all the bells and whistles. I still have goals. I still yeah, and and yet my day to day life is richer.

00:51:28:25 - 00:51:29:28
Lisa Carpenter
Yeah.

00:51:30:01 - 00:51:55:03
Lisa Corduff
Because of the, the small things that I, I appreciate, I don't know, I like and you know, it's so funny you saying that, you know, because you're, halfway to dead or whatever. I think that with Nick dying, and he was 40 when he died, it just gave me this sense of, like, you don't have. We don't know how long we've got.

00:51:55:05 - 00:52:19:22
Lisa Corduff
And so, you know, it was just a few weeks ago, I was at a small business event, and I was sitting there listening to all of these people, and there was a lot of conversation about, you know, founder led content and, you know, with I like just be real self and, you know, and this is stuff that I have been like, I created a course called Keeping Video Real back in the day.

00:52:19:22 - 00:52:27:17
Lisa Corduff
Did you ever do that closely? So I like I have been talking about just being a human online and as a business strategy.

00:52:27:21 - 00:52:28:19
Lisa Carpenter
For a really.

00:52:28:19 - 00:52:48:28
Lisa Corduff
Long time. But as I was sitting there, I'm like, oh no, they're missing a really big part of this. And, you know, which is that it's not as easy as it sounds. Maybe, maybe you're people who like getting up on stage and, you know, all of that sort of thing. So, yeah, you're going to throw a camera in front of your face.

00:52:48:28 - 00:53:09:19
Lisa Corduff
For a lot of people, that's really hard and very exposing and a really vulnerable thing to think, oh God, I have to be myself. Like you just said, I'm not even that interesting. Lisa. I made doing puzzles interesting. You can do. You can make interesting. The thing, and I'm like, I'm going to I've got to create something, I've got to do something about this.

00:53:09:23 - 00:53:27:19
Lisa Corduff
And so I literally just go away and I think about what I know, how I can structure it in a way that will give people tangible outcomes. And I write it and now it'll go on sale next week because I want to get it done before the end of the year, because I, I can see something and there's something that's activated in me.

00:53:27:19 - 00:53:56:27
Lisa Corduff
I don't know why I would wait, Lisa, why would I wait when this has to come through? It's like and and and I don't want to, you know, I feel like I actually have I've been and I think that was a frustrating thing about this last year or two has been like, where is that part of me? Where is that part of me who sees this and and who gets activated and wants to help, like, wants to use what she knows and like, put it out in ways that will help other people?

00:53:56:27 - 00:54:17:21
Lisa Corduff
It was like I thought maybe I'd lost it and what I'd lost was a string and what I'd lost also. Because what happens then, and I don't know if you see this in your clients, is it's like a spin off, lack of confidence. Like, because I wasn't doing because I wasn't living my life in the way that felt really good to me.

00:54:17:23 - 00:54:33:00
Lisa Corduff
Then I then I just started to question everything about who I am and, and what I wasn't, what's possible anymore at all. Like, maybe I've, maybe I've had the glory days and now I'm just an old maid and.

00:54:33:02 - 00:54:53:05
Lisa Carpenter
Well, one of the things that I've said is, you know, what you feel is real, but it doesn't make it true. And I think that that's when it comes to hormonal stuff. It's like we need to pay attention to how we're feeling. But in your you know, it wasn't true, right? Like what you were feeling was real. But that who you are, this ability to create.

00:54:53:05 - 00:55:11:27
Lisa Carpenter
She wasn't gone. She just didn't have any estrogen. So, you know, same as me. I had no testosterone. So things weren't going to work the way they were supposed to. So, you know, when you're feeling off again, it's that going back to like, how can you advocate for yourself and get wildly curious about what's causing you to feel that way?

00:55:11:27 - 00:55:37:22
Lisa Carpenter
Because if if you know something is off, then something is off. And don't let anybody gaslight you or convince you. That it's not. And then just, you know, coming back to your content creators and putting stories out there. One of the things that I have come to realize, which was kind of a hard realization for me, I've always found social media interesting.

00:55:37:25 - 00:55:56:21
Lisa Carpenter
Like, I love stories because they're easy for me, right? I can zip on, do a quick story. While they're not usually quick, I usually have way too much to say. I'm working on that. But I took a I took a vacation this year with my family and shared nothing like went completely cold. And you know what happened in my business?

00:55:56:24 - 00:56:26:01
Lisa Carpenter
Nothing. It changed nothing. So when I actually started looking at the data, I'm like, is this even doing anything or am I just adding to the noise out there? Is this actually creating results in my business? And the bottom line was, no, it's not. So I think that the days of the Wild West, like when we first came online and it was like this new thing and people were like, oh, like, I want to know you.

00:56:26:03 - 00:56:42:28
Lisa Carpenter
Now, what I'm finding is more and more of the women that I talk to are like they're wanting to move away from social media because they don't know what's true and what's not anymore, what's AI and what's a real person. I mean, you and I have been around long enough that, I mean, we got history built up, right?

00:56:43:01 - 00:57:11:14
Lisa Carpenter
But what I'm noticing in my business is it's really about creating, in real life opportunities. So this is why I don't feel compelled to share as much anymore, because the juice isn't really worth the squeeze. So if you want to, if you want to be in my world, I put out a podcast episode every week. You know, there's other places where you can join me, but really getting discerning about where I'm spending my time and my energy.

00:57:11:14 - 00:57:30:29
Lisa Carpenter
Because now more than ever, it matters so much. I'm not 20, I don't have all the abundant energy, and I know what it feels like to have no energy, and I know where I want to be spending my time and energy, so I can't just waste it in places that aren't actually of any benefit.

00:57:31:01 - 00:57:37:21
Lisa Corduff
Oh gosh. So, so much. I mean, it was it was 2020.

00:57:37:24 - 00:57:39:21
Lisa Carpenter
Three.

00:57:39:23 - 00:58:02:26
Lisa Corduff
Yep. And I was like, fuck social media. I don't want to do this anymore. I hate how I'm having to show up. This is gross. Now, I had started to infiltrate, and I just made a decision in myself that I would not share anything online anymore that I didn't feel mattered or was a good story. I just I made that decision overnight.

00:58:02:26 - 00:58:18:19
Lisa Corduff
I was like, I'm not doing it. If if I'm going to have to do this, it's on my terms. And yeah. So then the next thing I did was I shared this little story. It was in a reel. And you say stories are easy for you to create and like, just put them on your bloody grid, Lisa.

00:58:18:19 - 00:58:22:22
Lisa Corduff
Like just it reels like you create stories. Anyway, I.

00:58:22:24 - 00:58:26:23
Lisa Carpenter
I mean, for me reels feel like so.

00:58:26:24 - 00:58:30:09
Lisa Corduff
Heavy the story. Oh okay. We'll talk about this.

00:58:30:11 - 00:58:46:02
Lisa Carpenter
They feel super heavy. That's why I don't do them. So stories. It's just like talk talk talk talk talk talk post done. So my team will go in behind me now. So I think I did a good story. They'll they'll make it into a real. But man I just can't be bothered with so.

00:58:46:03 - 00:59:08:22
Lisa Corduff
Well I was feeling the same. And then I'm like, I'm going to make this easy for myself. I'm only going to share when I really have something to say that I think is worthwhile, instead of just posting for the sake of posting. I hate that. Like, give me some a good like, look at the accounts that I follow and and I got 160,000 views, for free to post it.

00:59:08:24 - 00:59:32:06
Lisa Corduff
I was like, and then I and then I just tested again. I do not show up every day. I do not do anything like that at all. And my account continues to increase because I share good content that lives in the algorithm and keeps bringing like months later, I get followers from certain reels. I don't know how it's working, Lisa, but I'm, I'm I'm not.

00:59:32:08 - 00:59:56:22
Lisa Corduff
But it's it's because people just think that they have to if they want to grow a business, have got to do it certain ways that people are telling them to do it. It's just not true. And it is not true for for women. We are so much more interested in quality over quantity, in something that says something that we can connect to feel something, a level of depth.

00:59:56:24 - 01:00:21:20
Lisa Corduff
That's what I feel is really important. And and so in what I'm going to be sharing, I'm helping women figure out the light House voice. I'm calling it people are looking for the light houses right now. There is so much uncertainty in the world. I, I am like, whatever it is that you do, don't be the expert. Be the lighthouse.

01:00:21:20 - 01:00:49:11
Lisa Corduff
Like be sharing, be like, be it. And it doesn't. It doesn't have to be huge. Like Lisa, simple messages said in a conversational tone. As a story, it's just, that's how we want to connect. That's what. And when we've overcomplicated it for ourselves, we lost our way and I is just going to make it even worse and so much more boring.

01:00:49:11 - 01:01:08:12
Lisa Corduff
So it's like the only differentiator now is you and the simple things about you. Just the fact that you lift such fucking heavy weights. I'm sorry, but I just watch that stuff because I feel inspired by it. It's the same thing for you every single day. But for me, I don't see it every day. And so I'm like, oh yeah, I've really got to make an appointment.

01:01:08:13 - 01:01:27:16
Lisa Corduff
That exercise physiologist so I can find out my special exercises that I do. Just keep showing me, Lisa, keep showing me what a what a like a strong body looks like in your 50s. That's cool. It's got, you know, I, I think we just we overcomplicate this stuff for ourselves and really like, just be that light house voice for someone.

01:01:27:16 - 01:01:28:23
Lisa Corduff
One person.

01:01:28:26 - 01:01:46:13
Lisa Carpenter
You know, it used to be so easy for me to sit down and write. I think back in the era, like when you were talking about how you would drive into your business and your business would give you everything you needed, right? That used to be me too. Like, I would have these hits where I needed to channel something and I needed to reach out to the people.

01:01:46:16 - 01:02:07:01
Lisa Carpenter
And now I'm like, it's just not that way for me anymore. I don't know if it's not seeking validation or approval or whatever. And quite often, like if I do have a download, then I don't remember it 20 minutes later when I sit down to sit down to write it. And I think that that's why stories are so much easier for me, because I can just turn on the mic and talk.

01:02:07:03 - 01:02:29:01
Lisa Carpenter
Which is also interesting because I once hired a visibility coach because I was terrified of being on video. Like it was a whole thing, like air your struggle. Yeah, periscope was my first, like, we're going live on video. So before that, I hid behind my words. I would write all the time, but then video made it so easy for me.

01:02:29:01 - 01:02:52:14
Lisa Carpenter
I actually stopped writing because now writing takes more time and more thought. Like it? It it doesn't give me energy. It takes my energy. We're shooting a video. It's just like it's it's a no brainer for me. So working through social media is still a thing. And I'm still looking at like, do I want to do this? Do I need to do this right here?

01:02:52:14 - 01:03:25:15
Lisa Corduff
Do you need to that? That's and what a great question. What a wonderful place to be in your business that you couldn't just disappear. No one notices. Same as me I can disappear, people don't. Whatever. It doesn't sort of change things. I, I think we are in a really different time, but I worry about the amount of women with really interesting things to say with a take that is, it's a gift to the world for for women to use their voices at the stage of life that we are in.

01:03:25:18 - 01:03:51:20
Lisa Corduff
And I don't want I to mute us. I don't want it all to be given over to ChatGPT. I want to try and help women find easy ways to share, let you use their voice and share their messages because we need them. Like we need the lighthouses right now. And and so yeah, that's I'm just sort of a little bit that's kind of my current deep dive, my current special interest.

01:03:51:22 - 01:04:14:05
Lisa Carpenter
You think about everything we've been talking about perimenopause, menopause and hormones. We even be having this conversation. If women didn't have the courage to speak out around things that were happening to them, right? Like we are only having these conversations because women started going like, this isn't okay. Like what's happening is not okay. There must be something, am I crazy?

01:04:14:05 - 01:04:34:29
Lisa Carpenter
And that then the information started to spread. So it is important that people have their voices out in the world because they don't know who they're going to impact or how you're going to get someone to think differently. You know, if I look at me pre-COVID versus now, there's stuff on my radar. It's like I went into upside down world.

01:04:34:29 - 01:04:58:16
Lisa Carpenter
I'm like, what is all that? Like, I didn't know any of this existed over here simply because I was open to listening to other perspectives that people were sharing. It's not coupling one over the other, but if those people didn't have the courage to share the perspectives they were, I probably would have never even questioned some of the things that I'm really grateful that I questioned, and I still continue to question.

01:04:58:16 - 01:05:05:09
Lisa Carpenter
Now I question everything, which is also exhausting. So we need we need voices out, isn't it?

01:05:05:12 - 01:05:37:23
Lisa Corduff
Lisa, I think the most valuable thing that I've ever done, and I have made no money from it, is talk about addiction and grief. These really unsexy topics that I get messages all the time from women. Just saying, oh my God, thank you for saying what I would never be able to say, well, you've just given me permission to blah blah, or I feel less alone.

01:05:37:26 - 01:05:58:29
Lisa Corduff
I thought it was just me. And that's it. It's intangible. It's been a gift for me to put that those stories out there. And I know I always check in with Nick if he'd be okay with me sharing. And I know, like, we started to create a documentary about his recovery.

01:05:59:02 - 01:05:59:28
Lisa Carpenter
Yeah, I remember.

01:05:59:28 - 01:06:24:14
Lisa Corduff
Because we wanted to we wanted to show people how hard it was and also obviously that you could get to the other side, but I haven't made a business out of that. But that aspect of sharing that story and me showing up as a woman unafraid to say I was married to an alcoholic and I have no shame.

01:06:24:20 - 01:06:56:24
Lisa Corduff
He should have no shame. Addiction is not a flaw. And it's, I think, probably the thing that maybe I'll end up being most proud of and talking about grief, like far out. Like, why don't we talk about this more so we need to talk about grief. We need to talk about what it does to you. We will need to talk about collective grief as the world continues going down the path that it's going.

01:06:56:24 - 01:07:12:05
Lisa Corduff
And when we lose so, so much in the next few decades, people are going to be very sad and they're going to be grieving. And we we do not have we just we just don't have as a good understanding about what it means.

01:07:12:05 - 01:07:18:04
Lisa Carpenter
So having I don't even think that people have properly grieved Covid or just like.

01:07:18:07 - 01:07:19:00
Lisa Corduff
Lisa.

01:07:19:03 - 01:07:43:03
Lisa Carpenter
And the. I'm starting to see that I knew we were going to see the fallout, but people try and avoid the grief process. Like and the the only way to to move through grief is by moving through grief. Like you can't you can't avoid it. It's like the child having the tantrum that's wrapped around your leg. If you're trying to walk and it just keeps coming with you screaming.

01:07:43:03 - 01:07:46:14
Lisa Carpenter
So maybe we'll have to do another episode where we talk more. We can.

01:07:46:14 - 01:07:47:02
Lisa Corduff
Do an episode.

01:07:47:02 - 01:08:02:17
Lisa Carpenter
Of grief. Yeah, because it is a that's a whole thing. And I mean, even addiction. You and I have such, deep, intimate stories around addiction. That's I mean, that's literally how we found each other.

01:08:02:20 - 01:08:22:10
Lisa Corduff
You reached out to me, I, I just want you to know that I have walked a similar path, and I'm here for you. And I was like, what? Who is this person? That's really how it started, you know? And, you have been so, so important for me in my life. It's such a gift for me through all these years.

01:08:22:10 - 01:08:23:16
Lisa Corduff
So I'm so grateful for you.

01:08:23:17 - 01:08:43:16
Lisa Carpenter
Well, I was grateful that you were there to help pick me up when things fell apart again. Because it's, you know, addiction is its own. It's its own beast. Right? So rooted in trauma and so many people don't really understand the nature of it. And then they try and they try and understand addiction. And you can never you will never understand addiction.

01:08:43:16 - 01:09:03:25
Lisa Carpenter
I know I've spent hours and hours thinking about it and, It is nonsensical. And it makes me incredibly sad that we lose so many amazing humans to it, and that we just haven't addressed it in the way that I believe it needs to be addressed. Anyways, we've talked, I agree Tyler.

01:09:03:26 - 01:09:05:25
Lisa Corduff
Oh yes, I've got it. Yeah.

01:09:05:27 - 01:09:07:10
Lisa Carpenter
Cause I know you got,

01:09:07:12 - 01:09:29:07
Lisa Corduff
Lisacorduff. com and like, just come and see me at Lisa Court off on Instagram. I, I probably don't talk enough about the things that I do and share, if people are interested in that, in the visibility stuff, then I can give you a link for them to jump on my email list that I have for for other female business owners.

01:09:29:07 - 01:09:41:21
Lisa Carpenter
Then we'll put it in the show notes so everybody can find out all the goodness and come and follow you, because you are such a phenomenal human being. I'm so grateful that you're my friend and my colleague, and I just, I miss you. You're so far away.

01:09:41:24 - 01:09:42:09
Lisa Corduff
Come back.

01:09:42:09 - 01:09:55:10
Lisa Carpenter
Lisa, I'm going to. I love it there. I'm going to leave winter next year and come and spend it with you guys. Thanks so much for being on. Thanks so much for always being open to candid conversations about whatever. It's the best.

01:09:55:10 - 01:09:57:11
Lisa Corduff
Thank you for having me, Lisa.

01:09:57:13 - 01:09:59:14
Lisa Carpenter
Right. We'll catch you on the next episode.