So we wanna talk a little bit about what is a badass. When we talk about a badass, what does that mean to you, Gabriela? Well, I’ll tell you what. I was looking on Pinterest, and I found a quote that says, every woman that finally figures out her worth has picked up her suitcase of pride and boarded a flight to freedom, which landed in the valley of change. So it’s not just about being great at the end of the moment, but it’s the journey that has taken you and has given you those lessons to get to the point.
Now, also, that doesn’t mean that when you get to be a badass that you don’t continue to reinvent yourself, because I feel like we do. Right? I I feel like I’m constantly reinventing myself and learning more about myself, learning all the time about how to unset limits for myself. Yes. That’s one of the things that I wish that I could tell my younger self.
So all the young people, you decide if you’re young. But all the young people, stop waiting for the right moment. Stop waiting for someone else to give you the leadership crown or the or, you know, to have that nighting ceremony, and just start trying to figure out what are you passionate about? What drives you to be a better person? And I think Debbie talks a little bit about, you know, constantly reinventing yourself and constantly learning new things.
Those are all part of it. And if you start to learn something and you hate it, go learn something else because it’s that process of change and evolution that makes you a badass. I remember one time, you’re gonna find this funny, my mom was reading a book, and she felt like she had to start at the beginning of the book. And she didn’t like the book, but she wanted to know how to end it. And so this is what I said.
I said, just go to the ending, and then you can be done with the book. So don’t be afraid to skip some pages in your badassness. If things aren’t working, stop the madness and just pick a different route. Yeah. And that’s the other thing that I think that we should have a conversation about.
Badassness is not just when you reach the top of the mountain and you’ve been getting recognition or you got a promotion. It’s the challenges. It’s being authentic to that whole process of finding change and finding yourself because who whatever age you are at, the person you were 10 years ago is not exactly the same person that you are right now. And so badass and badassery has so many different definitions that you get to define. I think that’s my favorite piece is we get to define it for ourselves.
By talking to this woman, we’re gonna see and learn how they defined it for them, and then we get to decide what pieces of their journey we like, we don’t like, that we wanna try out, really taking control. And I think control is a key. We are told so many fairy tales when we’re young as women. You know, prince charming and all this perfectionism. Guess what?
Life is messy, and being a badass can be messy, the journey on the way, and that’s okay. What I learned in all my years is that if I don’t enjoy the journey, there is no badass at the end. Because if you keep waiting to find your happiness at the end of the rainbow, you’re missing out on the happiness of the here and now. Yeah. I gotta say that’s one of the things I really appreciate about this new generation, at least for my daughter.
Adriana will not like a job, and she has no problem saying, I’m out. Deuces. Onto the next job. And I think that that’s something that older generations that we have struggled with because, you know, we were taught, like, just keep your head down, work hard, it’ll get better, or you’ve been invested so much of your time already. For me, especially through divorce, 20 years, and I kept hearing, well, you already put up with it this long.
Why not keep going? So I love that the new generation is really saying, I’m not passionate about this, or I don’t enjoy this, and they’re finding other things that they are passionate about. So if you have the ability to do so, I definitely would encourage a lot of self reflection to what does what makes you happy? What are the things that you need? And sometimes it is financial, sometimes it’s security, sometimes it’s just being able to express yourself.
Sometimes it’s just being able to do nothing on a weekend instead of having all these to do lists that we give ourselves as women. It’s okay to take a break. It’s okay to fill yourself up because a true badass knows they have to take care of themselves to be able to be a badass and do things for other people. Yeah. Actually, that’s one of the lessons that I’ve really learned this year because my boss at the end of last year brought me in for my, beginning of the year, and she’s like, you had no vacation last year.
I cannot have you put your heart and soul into your work when your cup is empty. You are no good to me. And I was like, oh my god, Natalie. How could you say that to me when I’m working so hard? But it really made me realize that she understands that I’m probably, you know, bitchier, grind whinier, and not as pleasant when I’m overwhelmed or feeling stressed out.
And so I really have made it a point this year to read, which is one of the things that I really find a lot of satisfaction in, whether I’m learning about something new or just to be able to escape to someone else’s story has been really instrumental for me, but then also to take time off. I know that as an entrepreneur, we leave our 9 to fives to work, you know, 24 hours a day, so sometimes that’s hard. But where can you build in time to actually take care of yourself? To take care so that you’re not stressed, so that you can serve your clients better. And so how do we find those ways?
It’s by hearing how other people do it. I mean, I’d love to know even with you, Debbie, like, how do you get to the end of your mailbox at the end of the day so that you’re at 0? I don’t know if you are, but I never am. And it’s a goal for me. I’d love to one day have zero notifications on my phone.
I don’t know that that’ll happen. So, you know, that’s a great question because I’ve been an entrepreneur now since, 2013, and I did not turn off my email and go on a real vacation where I, like, shut the world off until last year. 9 days. And I promised my team I would not look at my email. I would not answer any questions unless there was some type of emergency where they reached out to me.
And so I I’m an email checker. Right? I’m checking it at 8 o’clock at night. It’s ridiculous. We’re all tied to our phones somehow.
And so what I did was I took that email and I put it on the very last page of my phone, so it wasn’t the first thing I saw. And some amazing things happened. I figured out where the holes were in my organization, which is important for any entrepreneur. You really need to do this science project. I promise it’ll reap you great results.
Secondly, my team handled a crisis while I was gone. They didn’t handle it the way I would have handled it, but my client was happy. And that was the most important thing, and it was a great lesson for me to learn. Everything didn’t have to be done the way I thought it needed to be done. And that really was free ink because that allowed me to develop people more to get that break I needed for our next big idea for our company and really understand where we wanted to go and what we wanted to do.
Yeah. So taking a break or taking time out for yourself is not always about spas and manicures and pedicures, although sometimes that is enjoyable. But it could be just about stepping away from what is going on so that you have a different and a clearer perspective for your business or for your career. I know that it sometimes can be difficult, but I think, at least for me, part of it is the letting go. Like, do I trust that if I leave, someone else would do it the way that I would have done it?
I do trust it, and they probably don’t do it the way I would have done it, but it got done. So, you know, right now, I’m in this phase where I’m like, if I don’t hate it, let’s just run with it because otherwise, we’re not gonna move forward. And and I think that’s so important because in the first episode, we talked a little bit about perfectionism and how we’re taught perfectionism and to be the perfect wife or the perfect sister or the perfect aunt or the perfect grandmother. And we fed these stories about what they’re supposed to be. And the lesson I’ve learned is you make your own story.
It’s the story that rings with you, and the memories that you create with the people that you love or honor or work with, those are the important stories. It doesn’t have to be somebody else’s story. Yeah. I really wish I would have learned that a long time ago because I was always trying to be the perfect wife. But I wasn’t trying to be the perfect wife that I thought I should be.
I was trying to be the perfect wife for my husband or the perfect wife that my family thought I should be. And so there’s a big difference between trying to be the perfect of whatever and from whose perspective are you trying to do that? Because a lot of times, actually, they won’t match up. And so, again, self reflection and really understanding what kind of person you are. I know I got divorced, second marriage.
And one of the first conflicts we had, I remember I got home really late, and my husband wasn’t having it. But I was at work. So I’m like, well, do I work and stay out late, or do I make you happy? And we had to have a conversation. And I I don’t know if he took it the right way that day or that night, but it really kinda set a different direction for our relationship when I was able to stand my ground and say, I’m home late.
I was at work. And it was kinda like deal with it, but in a nice way to just help them understand that there might be late nights. I can’t be the wife that’s gonna be at home, you know, cooking and cleaning the house. That’s not the type of wifery or wife role that I want in this 2nd marriage, and I love it because it’ll be 10 years in October. And he does the cleaning, and he does all the food, and he does all the laundry.
I don’t know that as a wife, I would have ever thought I would never have to cook or clean again. I I love it because my husband also does the cooking at my house, and he is there to help me out when I need help. And I I think that’s so important as women, and I think what this younger generation really is getting in sync with is there don’t need to be traditional roles. We just need to help each other out and figure out what each of us is good at and use those gifts to help our marriage, help our relationship, help our partnership, and talk to each other. I think that’s so important.
Best advice I ever got from my mom was don’t tell your girlfriends and your friends what’s going on. Talk to your partner and have those hard conversations so you can work things out among you. Definitely. I think that when you have conversations, it’s important to know what you want from the conversation. Right?
Because sometimes I’ll bring stuff up, but I don’t really have a solution, and then it’s hard to move to the next step. But one thing that I have really also as I’m learning about myself is that I can come across very mean or very strong, which I want to be that at work, but sometimes it doesn’t help with my relationships. Right? And so really being conscious of okay. Let me just hold your hand as I talk to you because if I’m holding your hand, I can’t be that mad.
Or if I’m looking in your eyes, I can’t be that mad. But these I say that because these are all things that I’ve learned in the last couple of years that, you know, no one teaches you how to be a wife or how to have a great relationship with your partner or with your kids. So what are the things that you’re doing to learn that? And, again, back to the podcast, how do we share the stories of other people’s lessons learned so that we can pick and choose and actually see a different way? And I’ll share with you very briefly.
When I went to college, it was the first time I realized that my family was not normal because I just figured everyone else’s family was like mine. Then I get there, and they’re like, no. That’s not how we function. And I was like, what do you mean that’s not how everyone’s supposed to be like that. So as you start to explore new things, you realize, oh, this doesn’t serve me.
Let me do this thing instead, but it’s your choice to do so. You know, I think the language we use, especially as badasses and to each other as women, a strong man, he’s assertive, and he’s great. A strong woman, there’s adjectives like bitch, and, they are unpleasant. Right? And the woman could have done and said the same thing as the man, so I’m encouraging people out there to rethink how we talk about each other and rethink how we do things.
There’s a great episode from the intern, if you’ve ever seen that movie, where, she is a high level executive owner running a company, and, the chauffeur is taking the daughter to a birthday party, and all the moms have made homemade desserts. Well, this gal doesn’t have time to make homemade desserts. She is supplying jobs to a huge workforce, has very important things going on, making sure she’s taking care of her daughter and her family. And so she bought the dessert, and the women start nitpicking at the dessert she brought. And the guy looks at them, and he says, isn’t it great that one of your own is working right now and providing jobs and doing all these great things?
And the woman stopped and looked at this situation differently. So I think as badasses, we’ve really gotta look at each other differently and lift each other up. Yeah. I think that that’s gonna be for me, it’s been a shift because I really did not have, like, a big friend circle. And sometimes when we get into friend circles, as long as everything’s fine, we’re all on the same page.
But as soon as there’s any conflict, we start nitpicking at each other or we start talking about each other. And so, again, this podcast for me is an opportunity to really celebrate. There are so many amazing women doing great things, but we don’t all know each other. And so this will really give our audience an opportunity to meet them, to get to know them, to learn from their challenges, but also from their successes. And then especially if you feel like, oh my gosh.
I’d love to meet this person. I’m sure that they’ll be accessible for you to reach out, have a cup of coffee or even lunch with them, and learn from each other because at the end of the day, that’s what we’re trying to do. And celebrate our differences. Because as women, we all have differences out there, and we can learn from each other in those differences and how we handle different situations, how we think about different things. I can’t tell you how much I’ve learned from people that think differently, but from than I do and how I can take that knowledge and utilize it in my everyday life or at work or in developing my teams.
I think the that diversity and difference of opinion is so important for us to listen and clearly hear other people so we can be badasses ourselves. Yeah. Definitely. I really feel like that’s been a huge learning point for me the last 3 years that I’ve been at Cortex because we have a small team. I think right now we’re about 15 people, but every single one of those people is amazing, but they all process things differently.
Some people like really strict structures. Some people are like more innovators and visionaries, and I’m like all over the place. And so sometimes I also have to understand that if I’m approaching you with an issue or a concern or even a project I need help with, I have to be mindful of how I present myself. And I’m learning all these different ways of attacking or solving problems in the organization that I would have never thought about because I had never had the opportunity, but being open to there’s more so than one solution. There’s more than one way to process.
And sometimes having a little bit of strict opportunities and strict processes, it could be really helpful, but not necessarily by everyday style. I think there are so many women badasses out there. You you’re not even identifying yourselves or acknowledging your greatness. And I hope when you hear some of these stories, you say, if she did it, I can do it. If she’s got the capacity to do it, I’ve got the capacity to do it.
I hope these stories inspire you to make the changes that you’ve been delaying in your lives or the things that you’re scared of. I hope they give you the courage to say yes, Because lord knows we say yes to too many things, and I’m gonna encourage us to also learn this two letter word called no. Do you know that word, Gabriela? I’m trying to learn it. There’s a good song in Spanish.
I’ll have to play it for you one day, where he says, what part do you understand? Do you not understand? The n or the o? When we talk to some of these badass women, they’re gonna tell you how they learn to say no, and very successful men get very focused on what their goal and objective is their objectives are, edit. Very busy men get super focused on what their goals and objectives are and learn to say no to things outside those perimeters.
I think as women, we’re taught that it’s bad to say no, and I would encourage you to exercise that muscle. The no muscle will help you with your badassness. Definitely. I think it will also give you more time. It’ll give you opportunities that maybe you hadn’t thought about because what happens sometimes is our calendar is so full that we don’t even have time for the things we really would love to explore or those opportunities where it would stretch us a little bit.
I know for me, I was just so busy trying to do the the day to day grind that I wasn’t able to say yes to speaking opportunities, which is really where I wanted to go. And once I started to say no and I got a taste of the speaking opportunities, oh my god. I got hooked. So now I’m glad that I can better handle my schedule even though sometimes I get mad at my secretary, which is me, because she schedules me back to back. So trying to do a better job of that as well to make sure that I’m leaving time for family, that I’m leaving time for the business, that I’m leaving time for the job, and then I’m also leaving time to do nothing.
I think that last one is super important. The time to do nothing and leaving quiet time for ourselves. We’re allowed to be still, and I sound like I practice this all the time. I have a hard time with still. I’m like my mother of 2 speeds, on and off.
Yeah. Definitely do not think that because Debbie and I are doing this podcast that we’re experts in any way because we’re not. But this is an opportunity This podcast is also an opportunity for us to hold each other accountable because we’re working on things. We’re working on saying no. At least I am.
I am also working on saying no. And you know this crazy thing I realized? I’m in charge of schedules. I’m too busy. Guess whose fault it is?
Us. Ourselves. So, again, we are by no means experts. We really are just sharing stories because we’re trying to hold ourselves accountable. But more than anything, we wanna make sure that we’re celebrating each other.
Because the success of every woman should be the inspiration to another. We should raise each other up. I so agree. And by raising each other up, we get our voices heard. And by sharing stories, we’re gonna ensure that the generations that follow us have the tools they need to get their badassness done.
Yeah. So let’s do it.
