Something shifted. You can feel it. You just can't name it yet.
Stand Tall & Own It is for women in the second half of life who are high-functioning on the outside and quietly disoriented on the inside. You built your life inside systems you trusted completely — until you realized you couldn't tell what was actually yours from what you'd just learned to navigate well.
Host Andrea Johnson doesn't offer formulas. She offers honest thinking, sharp observation, and the kind of conversation that makes you pull over and sit in your driveway.
John Maxwell says, “Experience isn’t the best teacher, evaluated experience is.” What have I learned since I first ventured into the world of “The Intentional Optimist?” Well, some pretty big life lessons. I’ve been rather open about my quest as a 50+ year old woman to determine what I stood for, who I really am, and how I want to show up in the world, and I’m sharing the top FOUR lessons for me.
Topics discussed in this episode: The top four lessons I’ve learned are:
4 - Figuring out who I am, was and IS, the “hardest” part. 3 - Most of the time, it’s the FIRST thing you thought it would be. 2 - The answer is less literal than you think it is. 1 - Not everyone will appreciate you.
You're listening to Intentional Optimists, the public house for unconventional leaders, where you'll find inspiration, learn to discover and develop your own strengths, and hear some inspiring women just like you who are making a difference in their community. Who knows? You just might find yourself stepping up as the next unconventional leader right where you are. I'm your host, Andrew Gentleman, the original intentional optimist. Welcome to episode 111. Why do you always have to learn the hard way? This from my mother, standing in the doorway, right hand on her hip. These memories play across my mind from about age three until, well, if I'm honest, 50. And they all pretty much look the same. To her utter consternation, I am just one of those people who needs to learn, quote, the hard way. To her, this looked like stubbornness, disobedience, and lacking discernment or wisdom. I mean, who wouldn't want to learn from other people's mistakes? Or who wouldn't want to avoid hardship when possible? Evidently me. I wouldn't. The question for me was always, why can't I learn my way? Why wouldn't you want to experience things for yourself in order to then know what works and what doesn't? Granted, we're not talking about huge life-altering issues, and I was not a rebellious teenager. I just saw things a little differently, and I needed to gather information through my own experiences. This particular disagreement continued with my mother right up until the end. We lost her to breast cancer when I was 50, but that last year or so something shifted in both of us. Though she saw me as a quote, late bloomer, she began to acknowledge my wisdom, hard one though it was, and I found a competence to stand taller in the reality that 50 years on this planet, learning as you go, can accumulate a good bit of wisdom if you work at it. Oh, and I worked at it. John Maxwell says, experience isn't the best teacher. Evaluated experiences. When you fail to learn from your own experiences, just like history, you'll repeat the same thing over and over until you do. So while I've learned much over the years, the art of reflection and evaluation is what's made a difference in the last five or so. I wanted to reflect back and look at some of those big lessons I've learned since I first ventured into the world of the intentional optimist. I know that not everyone is like me. Many of you do prefer to learn from other people's mistakes. Remember though, that you all have the ability to learn from every one of your experiences. So I'll walk you through a little of that process as I share. What have I learned over the course of the last few years? Well, some pretty big life lessons. I've been rather open about my quest as a 50-plus-year-old woman to determine what I stood for, who I really am, and how I want to show up in the world. And these, I think, are the top four lessons for me. And we're going to count them down. The fourth biggest lesson is figuring out who I am was and is the hardest part. Personal growth is not a destination, it's a journey. I say it often, mostly to remind myself. As soon as I think I figured me out, God blesses me with just a little more awareness, wisdom, insight, and everything shifts just a little more. The biggest challenge here has been both acceptance and allowing me to be me. It's not just others who needed to accept me. I had to accept and allow who I was created to be and then show up. Even when it seems a little scary, like quitting my job and going full-time as an entrepreneur. At my age, I can see why my mom would call me a late bloomer, to a society with a fixed set of expectations about what it looks like to succeed. For instance, going to college, get a job, find a spouse, have some kids, get promoted, or in some cases, stay home with the kids, and then work until retirement, my journey is different. Yes, it looked like it took me a long time to figure out my path, but I wonder how unique I really am. How many people are truly honest about their journey? You see, I think I'm right on time. I'm blossoming exactly what I'm supposed to. And the more I learn about and understand who I've been created to be, through trial and error, study, experimentation, reflection, coaching, and even feedback, positive and negative, the more confident I become in my skills, abilities, strengths, and my calling. I'm still learning to allow myself to become the teacher I know in my heart that I am, and I know it will continue to clarify as I grow. But identity shifts are a big deal. It's almost easier to say, I'm a leadership coach, than it is to say, I'm the creator of a personal growth philosophy. And it's way easier to say, I train people to communicate more effectively, than to have the audacity to say, I teach people the mindsets and attitudes they need to employ to live a life of excellence. So, yes, figuring out who I am, accepting that, and stepping into that leadership role is a big life lesson. These are revelations that have come through coaching, podcasting, blogging, and writing, and I know it's just the beginning, because personal growth is a journey, not a destination. The third biggest lesson, most of the time, it's the first thing you thought it would be. In other words, trust your gut. Prior to leaving my corporate job, I was fond of saying things like, I'm gonna leave here, and just like the Pied Piper, I'm gonna take as many women with me as I can. Of course, by the time I did leave, I was mostly just happy to get out and terrified at the prospect of figuring out just how to make it work on my own. I've watched myself and my clients come up with the realization of who they are and what their mission is only to wander away from it because it just feels too out of reach or too difficult, too scary, or too much. Look, just because you don't know how to do it right now, or didn't know how to do it back then, doesn't mean what you've meandered over to is the actual answer. I've watched it time and time again. I know, we know what it is, but we're afraid. And yet we keep circling back to it. For example, I finished writing the six tenets of intentional optimism in the fall of 2018. They still needed some refinement for sure, but for the most part, they were in their final form. I began to slowly share them with friends, colleagues, and I got plenty of positive responses. My vision included teaching and coaching through the tenets and even writing a book. But figuring out how to actually make money doing that was completely different. I didn't believe I had the authority to just start offering it to people. I mean, what do you say, right? Hey, I just came up with this new philosophy, you want to hear it? I mean, I know there are people out there with the competence to do just that, but I was not one of them. I also wasn't certain how to talk about the tenants. I knew that somehow they would be pivotal to that initial vision of liberating me and other women. But that had to come over time through living in them myself. I can't say I ever truly lost my vision of being a liberator of women, but gosh, when that road gets rocky or steep, and you just want to figure out how to make sure you can pay for insurance, you start looking for the different ways that you can generate cash flow so that your business can survive long enough to ever accomplish your vision, let alone now. There were times it looked like I was throwing that proverbial spaghetti against the wall through the different types of communities I've created, the different coaching offerings I've had, etc. But I was always looking for how I could help liberate women from those same fixed set of societal expectations of what success looks like. Then I started this podcast in August of 2020. No, a podcast was not on my original list of ways that I could share my vision, but in May of 2020, isolated and homebound during the height of the COVID pandemic, I was pulling weeds and listening to a podcast and heard the one question that changed the trajectory of my business. Heather Sager asked, Is a podcast your next stage? I straightened up, told all the birds in my yard that yes, yes, a podcast was how I was going to deliver my vision. This platform gave me the opportunity to talk on a weekly basis with either a guest or directly to you and work out how I could share intentional optimism with you, what it really is, a philosophy, a plan, a set of attitudes, which is it, and how to use it to change your life. So, yes, it's the first thing I thought it was. It's still liberating women one at a time by implementing and using the tenets of intentional optimism. Number two, the second biggest lesson. The answer is less literal than you think it is. For instance, I've said many times that I was longing for community, truly. Community, or that moving together for the collective flourishing of all involved, is one of my core values. It encompasses the idea of harmony and camaraderie, which should tell you how much I don't care for conflict. So I figured I'd just start my own community based on the tenets of intentional optimism and the values of freedom, authenticity, and of course community. I started a Facebook group. Have you ever started a Facebook group? It's not all it's cracked up to be. It's a lot of work. Mine turned out to be mostly me talking and women listening. And it was really nice to have nearly 500 women who wanted to listen, but no one was really talking back. Yes, there are plenty of Facebook groups out there that are very active and collaborative. That's what I wanted, but it just wasn't working. So I decided to just share my message over on my business page, and everyone still got what they were looking for. Thinking I'd go a little smaller, I started a group program through Marco Apollo Channels, where I literally did most of the talking via videos on a daily basis. With feedback from a beta test, we added a Zoom call each month to create a little more connection. And over the course of the next six months, I realized that what we all really loved were just those Zoom meetings where we get to set and review our goals and then encourage each other. So we cut everything else out. Now we meet twice a month, and I've come to love the intimate setting of this group. It's not what I expected, but it has become a lovely small circle community where we truly do work together for each other's flourishing. However, over the course of the same three years, I've also built a network, interviewed over 50 women, and created some great working relationships. Looking around, I realized that I feel like I'm part of a community. It's made up of all these things. All these women. It could not be manufactured, nor was it in any way literal. It's just so much bigger than that. But the biggest lesson, number one, that I have learned, being the intentional optimist, is that not everyone will appreciate you. Especially if who you are is not what they expect. I heard a speaker at a conference a few years ago put it this way. You know, you can spot a grower miles away. If you're growing, people will see it. If you're changing, especially in a way that will leave the landscape, the community, or the culture in which you operate new, changed, or different, you will encounter resistance, even opposition. Some may outright reject it, the change, or you. And if you're listening to this podcast, you're likely a woman who is working to figure out how to show up in the world as the leader you were created to be. And when you figure out how to be you, it will scare people to death. I know that sounds dramatic, but it's true. They will be threatened and some will be outright hostile. Anytime you step outside that quote norm, people will notice. So, if you have a goal or a dream, or if you actually step into the leadership position that you were made for, you're basically messing up the choreography on the stage. Or maybe even you're messing up the lines or the characters in the play. This is very upsetting to most people. I know not everyone listening to me wants or even feels a pull to be an entrepreneur. But if you are listening to me at all, you likely do want to grow. You want to change and become bigger and more effective at whatever it is you do. You're looking for true personal growth that leads to excellence and success in all areas of your life. That's just gonna scare people. What's interesting is that while I've been experiencing a very good bit of this lately, I also experienced it 25 years ago. It's like it just cycled back around. There's something about me that's intimidating to people. My son, of course, thinks that's hilarious because who could be intimidated by you, Mom? I mean, right? But here's the thing, and I can say this from personal experience on both sides of the coin. There are very few things more intimidating than a woman who knows who she is and what she's called to do. Let me say that again. There are very few things more intimidating than a woman who knows who she is and what she's called to do. That's a strength and a confidence that is inexplicable to those who lack it. And we all mock what we do not understand. And here's one last tip on this one. Strong women are way more threatening to other women than they are to men. Back in 2018, it was a big year for me, I claimed Ephesians chapter 2, verse 10 as my life verse, and this is what it says. For we are God's masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus so that we can do the things he planned for us long ago. The Andrea translation of this passage is, I am free to be me. I made wallpaper for my computer and my phone, and for nearly four years, that's what I looked at every single day. So when I say the top four lessons I've learned are things like figuring out who I am is the hard part. And most of the time it's the first thing you thought it would be. It's your gut reaction. The answer is less literal than you think it is, and not everyone's gonna appreciate you. It also includes I'm not a late bloomer. I am blossoming right on time, and that's where I get it. I am free to be me. Who, what, and when I am created to do it. And so are you. So if you're still young, and by that I mean pretty much anything under 35, consider this advice from your older sister or aunt or mother or whatever works for you. If you're closer to my age, hitting that mid-stride or later, I present this as encouragement to stay the course, do the work, do not go quietly into the sunset. If it means turning your life upside down, do it. If it means changing careers or starting a business, now is the time to do it. If it means looking in the mirror and asking that woman who she is, even if it seems irrational and crazy, do it. The result is worth it. Knowing you, knowing what you're here to do and finding peace and fulfillment in the journey, the work and the destination, all worth it. I am free to be me. And you are free to be you. Now, if you're not familiar with the six tenets of intentional optimism, especially after I've talked about them this whole podcast episode, I have a free resource for you and I invite you to start employing the attitudes and mindsets in your life. There's a link in the show notes. Get you on your way. And my passion, as I said, is to liberate women. I usually say it in this way. I equip and empower you, especially the next generation of female leaders, to help you learn to think critically, create imaginatively, and lead effectively in any situation, team, or organization. My hope is that all of the information I bring you here on this podcast will inspire you to move forward and take action with confidence and strength, to lead in your own unique and beautiful way in your personal and professional life. So where do you begin? Well, start with those six tenets. And then the other set of guidelines, I usually call them guardrails for your journey, is understanding your core values. I mentioned earlier that mine are freedom, authenticity, and community. And I even have a mini course that will help you with that right now. It's called Uncover Your Core Values, Live in Alignment with Your Own Non-Negotiables. This simple four-step process will provide you guidelines to live with full authenticity. Understanding your non-negotiables is the first step to knowing who you are and where you're going. The link for the course is in the show notes, but it's also right at the top of my website and it's on my main links page. Give yourself the gift of clarity as you determine where you want to go and who you want to be. And before you leave here, scroll down, hit that five-star button, and comment with your biggest takeaway from this episode. And then click the link in the show notes and get started on your core values and employing the attitudes and mindsets of intentional optimism. This is your first step to understanding who you were created to be. Because you, my friend, are free to be you. Until next time. Oh, good, you're still here. Because I have one more invitation for you. My newsletter, Optimistic Living, is full of good stuff, delivered straight to your inbox. So for weekly encouragement, tips, and even some special offers, hop over to my website and sign up. Because unconventional leaders meet at every level in any area using their unique gifts. And you, my friends, are a leader. You are the future of leadership and the role models for future generations.
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