This is Starting Over at ages 29 and 36.
Part 2 of our Starting Over series, where we go over
incredible tips from experts like James Clear on Atomic
Habits, Brené Brown on vulnerability, and famous
relationship expert Esther Perel.
Today we're giving you the blueprint to totally reboot,
from vulnerability to habits to game changing relationship tips.
In this episode, we're going to give you the ultimate toolkit
for starting over at any age. Yeah, starting over can feel
really scary, but it's not if you have the right tools and the
right frameworks. And as always, we also have many
exercises for us to go through live to practice these
frameworks. And also for each framework,
we're going to talk about kind of examples that are sort of
like case studies to really learn them better, just like we
do at Harvard Business School. I love this episode and this
topic because starting over is so hard.
If you're stuck or scared to restart your life, stick with us
for this episode. I'm Cherie.
I'm Jean and. We're the Tiger sisters.
We are the Internet's Wall Street and Silicon Valley Big
Sisters. We're the number 8 top business
podcast on Spotify where we talk about money, power and love.
And all of this is to help you build a life that you love.
Welcome to the Tiger Sisters podcast.
We'll get started right after this break.
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Come back. So the first topic we're going
to go over is James Clears Atomic Habits and why it's
relevant for starting over. I'm so excited to talk about
this. I read this book a few years ago
and it's still something that I think about every single week.
Experts say that 90% of people who start a new habit end up
quitting at day 10. And we're going to show you how
to be that successful 10% that sticks with it.
Yeah, because when reinventing yourself, huge goals can be kind
of paralyzing. And so the good thing about
Atomic Habits is that essentially it breaks things
down into mini goals that you can actually achieve, so that
you can be that 10% that actually keeps your goals as
opposed to the 90% that fall off.
In James Clears book Atomic Habits, he teaches to one, make
it obvious, 2 make it attractive, three make it easy,
and four, make it satisfying. It being the habit, yeah.
And I feel like a really big part of his book is the idea or
the concept of being like self identifying yourself with that
habit. So for example, like being like,
yeah, I am a person that goes to the gym three times a week or
like, yeah, I'm an active person.
That's why I go to the gym three times a week.
I think that's like one of his like main premises, right?
That's one of the big takeaways. It's like, how do you make that
your identity? Like I am a healthy person.
What would a healthy person do? They would eat healthy.
They would go to the gym. And when you embrace that
identity, it makes it harder to break the habit.
You want to keep going? Yeah.
So bringing in a personal case study or an example that I bring
this into my life is that I have a habit of trying to go to the
gym every single day for 30 days in a row.
It's really hard to not break that chain.
But something that I do is that I make it very clear and visual.
So I have a calendar that shows each day that I go to the gym.
I put an X on my calendar and it creates this chain that I can
see right in front of me. I don't want to break the chain.
And it is very satisfying when I go to the gym, I come back and I
make an X on my calendar and I'm like, huh?
I feel so relieved that I'm able to keep this going.
So that's one very clear example, James, clear example of
how I bring this into my life. And if you guys want to do
something similar, Gene and I have a habit tracker that we
created for you. It's a digital downloadable that
is LinkedIn. This video description, it's
free, you can download it. It's a calendar and it shows all
the days of the year so that you can track your habits.
Yeah, I think that concept of Don't Break the Chain is pretty
like famous and well known. It's used by a lot of people.
One that I remember is apparently like Jerry Seinfeld,
he sort of forced himself to continue to, like, write more
jokes by doing don't break the chain For like every single day
he would come up with a new joke and like, he would make the X on
his calendar to be like, OK, I came up with a new joke today,
XXX. So that's kind of how he like
got better at his craft. Yeah, and how do you apply
atomic habits to your daily life?
Yeah, For me, I think it's the example of once I became single
again this past year and I started dating, I was like, OK,
the first part of that is just like making myself get out there
and like, interact with people in the world.
So I kind of took on the identity of being like, OK, I'm
a person that says yes to different invitations.
So even if it's something I would normally maybe not say yes
to, I'm going to say yes to it and like try to aim to go to,
you know, three things. I would normally not go to like
3 * a month or something. Like that?
Like an underground Berlin rave. Like what do we?
Sure. Yeah.
Like just anything like I need to like kind of, you know, break
up the old routine and start doing new things so that I can
be, like, out there in the world to meet people.
True. So that actually it worked
really well because I remember this is like back in February,
but one of my friends had a Super Bowl party and it was also
kind of a going away party. And I wasn't, I probably like
wouldn't usually go cuz I don't really like watch football, I
guess. But then I went and then I ended
up like meeting this guy that was his like childhood friend
that I was dating for a while. So I feel like it works.
And it all stemmed from me being, like, taking on the
identity of being like, yeah, I'm someone who says yes to
social invitations, even if even if maybe in the past I would
have said yes to them. Yeah, and when you go out, it
opens up more opportunity and serendipity to meet new people.
So by having that habit and figuring out a way to implement
it in your life, it also opened up many new doors.
Yeah. And it's something I guess like
it's something you can sort of remind yourself of and take on
again and again. Because I will say, like in the
last month, like we've been so busy and just like traveling so
much. Like we were like in Japan, we
were in Asia, we were in Vidcon. Like we were just kind of like
not really, you know, around and just like working all the time
that it's almost like this is a really good reminder for me to
sort of like take on that identity again and be like, oh,
I'm a person that says yes to things.
So that I'm going to like, go back out there and like be
active and meet people in the world.
So it's like a good reminder for me too, even just doing this
episode. For sure, because starting over,
it has such a scary connotation to it.
But I think one take away I would like everyone else to go
away with is that starting over doesn't have to be such a big
monumental thing. There are also little ways that
you can start over and keep your life moving.
Forward. I think often times people wait
until the New Year's for the giant, like New Year's
resolution in January, and that's why everyone gets to the
gym then and then people fall off.
But like, I honestly take, you know, if you can have the
beginning of every month being a starting over point or creating
checkpoints, so it's not just once a year, but giving yourself
many opportunities to start anew.
I think that's a really beautiful thing.
Yeah. And I think like, maybe this is
sort of a controversial take or like a hot take or something,
but I think starting over and like, or more so the concept of
reinventing yourself is really fun.
And like, what a gift, what like a special, like what an
opportunity we have that we can sort of continually reinvent
ourselves all the time. I think that's something that I
didn't really realize until I I didn't really like realize the
power of until recently. Yeah, because change is scary, I
think. Yeah, most people
psychologically and myself included, do not want change.
Like we're very as humans very adverse to change, right?
Like we don't want change averse.
Did I say the right adverse averse?
Averse. We're very change averse, so if
it does happen and it's forced upon us, it can be very
uncomfortable, but it can also lead to very beautiful things if
you take it in stride. And you also have these
frameworks that we're talking about to really put in the right
frame, like frameworks in place so you can be successful.
Yeah, well, and you know how like people always say, oh, it's
not that I feel scared, it's not that I feel nervous, it's that I
actually feel excited, you know? That's just a mindset shift.
So there are a couple of these things that you can do, starting
with James Clear's Atomic Habits, and we're going to get
into the next topic, which is vulnerability with Brené Brown.
I've already been pretty vulnerable actually.
Before we move on, let's do our mini exercise, which is pick one
goal that you have for yourself and then break it down into a
bunch of different tiny steps or like very small habits and then
figure out a way to make it like James Clear says obvious,
attractive, easy and satisfying and then write it down.
Yes, and we'd love to hear from you if you can share with us in
the comments what your goal is and how you're going to try and
break it down. We read every single comment and
we'll try to reply as many as we can.
Yeah, because we want to be on this journey together with you.
And what we've seen from research from Duke University is
that actually 45%, so literally almost half of all of your daily
actions are habitual. And so let's build the right
habits together. And up next, we're going to talk
about how to harness vulnerability through Brene
Brown's research. OK, let's start off with a stat,
which is that 84% of people admitted that they don't even
tell their very closest friends about major life changes because
as they fear judgement. But what Brené Brown has found
in her research is that vulnerability between,
especially between friends is what actually strengthens
connections. OK, Cherie, maybe you can tell
us a little bit more about this framework.
So I think the first thing to note is that it takes a ton of
courage to be vulnerable. It's like a super scary thing to
open up. But what people don't realize is
that it can also open up a lot of opportunities as well.
So the first thing is that if you share what you're going
through with people, especially if you share like a new habit
you want to build, it can create a lot of momentum for social
accountability. So you don't have to do it
alone. For example, if I want to get
healthy for this year and go to the gym, I can share that goal.
They can be my social accountability buddy in that
way. And another way can open up
opportunities is that if you bring vulnerability into your
life. This is 1 very specific example
that I've seen is that with recent layoffs that have been
going on, people have come on to LinkedIn to post and to share
that they've lost their job, which is a really scary thing to
share. And honestly, I don't know if I
would be able to do that because I feel a lot of nervousness and
shame around that, which I don't think other people who are
reading it feel they feel more empathy.
But if you post about that and share more about your life in a
vulnerable way, I've also seen people get job opportunities
because they've shared about their layoff.
Yeah, exactly. I love that you bring that up
because shame versus empathy is one of those really main
constructs in Brene Brown's book Daring Greatly.
And when you admit that you're unsure or that you need help,
you're really like inviting people in to support you.
I think another example that I can think of for ourselves is
just starting on this new venture of Tiger Sisters.
Like that's something that I, I and you have been very, very
open about to everyone from the very beginning, which is that
we're starting this new venture. It's based around a podcast.
It's content to commerce. These are all things that we
have never done. We've never like actually worked
in media before either of us. We've always worked in tech or
finance. And so like I've gone into a lot
of conversations being like, hey, I don't know anything
really or like, I don't even know what I know.
Like I would love to, to learn from you.
And I think that that has been really helpful for us because
we're coming at it from a position of or from a
perspective of being like we're open to learning.
And the first part of that is being like, hey, we admit to not
knowing things. Like we're not experts by any
means. And I think people might view
that as a weakness, but I also view that, like we said before,
as an invitation for help and maybe sharing your weaknesses
could be a strength as well in that way.
If you feel hesitant about sharing your like quote, UN
quote weakness or like being vulnerable in that way, I guess
one way I don't even actively think about it this way, but I
think it's just like inherent to my approach to it is that I'm
like, well, I am not an expert in this area, but I know I'm an
expert in many other areas, right?
Like I believe in my own ability and I know I'm smart and I know
I can like learn. I just have a lot of self
belief, but I just have no experience in this area.
So like there's nothing wrong with being unexperienced, you
know? So maybe that's like a kind of
mindset that you can take on if you want to kind of reveal your
vulnerability to people to be like, yeah, like I am not an
expert in this area. I'm an expert in other areas.
It's just it's good to it's. Like when a recruiter asks you
what your greatest weakness is and you're like, my greatest
weakness is that I can learn anything.
My greatest weakness is I don't know everything but I can learn
anything. Is that what I sound like?
It's just. Funny, I mean, but it and I
think it's just very naturally how you feel and a very positive
outlook because you have a lot of self belief.
My greatest weakness is I have too much self.
You know, it's like when you're trying to make a weakness sound
like a strength in an interview. No, that's when you're always
like, my greatest weakness is that I'm a perfectionist.
Don't say that if you're doing an interview, do not say that
because recruiters will see right through it.
Yeah. And now that I'm older, I'm
like, wow, that really is a weakness.
Actually, it's come. It's come around full circle.
Maybe you can say that again now.
Maybe people should say that again now.
I mean that. Actually is my weakness.
I'm not even, I'm not even bullshitting, you know, that's
my weakness. I talked.
About it before. It is.
It takes me like 10 times longer to write an e-mail than Cherie.
Cherie's like, hey, can you do this?
Bye. Yeah, my emails are very short
and I don't spend more than like if it's a really important one,
I'll spend a lot of time, but if it's like one, I'm just like, it
could be a few sentences and then you sign off and you don't
think about it again. Good morning to you today.
She writes like a Shakespearean. Sonnet that she reads 15 times
over and I'm like, girl, just send the e-mail out.
Just send it it. It's not it's not that deep.
I'm like top. Of the morn, yeah.
We digress, We digress. OK, we do have a mini exercise
for you for this section that we'd love to share.
So if you can think of 1 vulnerable moment, we would love
for you guys to share that with a trusted friend.
We have studies that show that 90% of people who opened up to
others feel less lonely, but most importantly, they feel even
more motivated to move forward because they've shared something
with their friend and they have more social accountability in
that way. After you've shared with your
friend, observe how this impacts your mindset.
And tell us in the comments, Harvard Business Review actually
found that leaders who practice vulnerability, such as admitting
to a mistake or asking for feedback are 20% more likely to
foster high performing teams. So like however that you know is
defined, they did this whole study about it.
So it's not just in your like personal life where it's, it's
fruitful and actually effective to practice vulnerability.
It's also can be applied in your career and your work life
strategically. OK, we're going to take a really
quick break. And then when we return, we move
on to Esther Perel's idea of rewriting your story.
Hey friends, it's Sheree and Jean from Tiger Sisters.
We need your help. We just dropped our very first
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Why? Because we want to create the
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description, please fill it out. Thank you for being a part of
this with us. Tiger Sisters is just getting
started. I'm really excited to talk about
this because I think reinvention should be part of everyone's
life. And we talked a little bit about
this before, but if you think about the major celebrities out
there like Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, Leonardo DiCaprio, I
think all of these. Not the Leonardo DiCaprio Miley.
Cyrus. Miley Cyrus.
You don't like Leonardo DiCaprio?
I was. Just I don't know where you're
going, Leonardo DiCaprio. I feel like he constantly
reinvents himself in the roles that he takes.
Oh, I thought you were like first he's someone who dated a
27 year old, then he's someone who dated A20. 4 year old, no, I
mean, and Christian Bale, I don't know.
I just like, feel like when you look at celebrities and the
longevity of their careers, the ones that have staying power are
the people who can reinvent themselves constantly.
Like Miley Cyrus. Like Miley Cyrus.
Oh, I love her. Go girl, go girl.
She's incredible. Yeah, I mean, if Leonardo
DiCaprio were to reinvent himself and date someone a
little bit older, I. Think that might also.
Have some staying power too in the media, but alas.
But I think this is just so fun because we can talk about
reinventing ourselves at any point in our lives.
And the concept from Esther Perel is not just reinventing
yourself, but it's specifically the idea of rewriting your
story, right? Rewriting your narrative.
In Esther Perel's book Mating in Captivity, she specifically
talks about this concept in the sort of framework of romantic
relationships. So basically, she says, you
know, you can rewrite your story because if you're not the same
person now that you were in your 20s, why do you have to be the
same person romantically? Often times we forget.
I forget that we outgrow different patterns from earlier
in our lives. And that could be dating, that
could be friendship and outgrowing relationships and
friendships. That's very much a thing that I
have to keep top of mind because it can feel super painful when
it happens. But that's part of growth in it
of itself. And in her book, Esther Perel
says that you can reframe your identity as someone who fails in
relationships or friendships to someone who learns from past
mistakes and actively builds healthier dynamics.
And I feel like this mindset shift is game changing because
honestly, relationships fail because you're dating.
But like at the end game, you're only supposed to marry one
person. You know what I mean?
So like, they're supposed to fail up until you find the 1.
So I think that's like just a reframe of it, all right?
Like they're meant to. You're supposed to date many,
many people. So you're saying we should
romantically fail upwards? Yes, exactly.
Take a page out of the book of every man you've ever worked.
With Oh my God. And fail upwards romantically.
Yeah, I mean, I I think that I realized this or maybe I like
internalized this very recently. Like not, you're not supposed to
keep all your relationships right?
You can only keep one. At the end, they're all supposed
to fail except for one. Yeah, and this actually reminded
me of the James Clear framework, because she's saying, like,
reframe yourself as, you know, someone who learns from
relationships and sets up new, healthier ones.
That's the same idea of taking on the identity.
Yeah, internalizing. I am someone who learns from
past relationships and forms healthier ones.
Exactly. Wow, putting together all the.
Frameworks live. We're doing.
It live. You're here with us.
You're doing it live. OK, I feel like one example I
could sort of uniquely give is that I've mentioned before I
ended an 8 year long relationship and engagement this
past year when I was 35. So I guess like one way you
could look at yourself is to be like, Oh my God, like I'm
someone who breaks engagements and that's like a failed, like
fails and only broke. 1 So I feel like if you've broken
multiple, a la Runaway Bride, you might take that identity.
Don't be so hard on yourself. Or like you could be like, you
know, you could think of yourself.
One could think of themselves as like, oh, I'm someone who fails
in relationships. Or maybe you can think of
yourself. By you, I mean me.
You can think of yourself as like, wow, I'm someone who is
brave enough and you know, I guess sure enough of herself to
end A8 year long relationship, even when it seems like from the
outside seems to be perfect on paper, seems to be so great and
like you've already invested so much into it.
I'm someone who's brave enough to step away from that in search
of something that is actually better for me, like when this is
actually something that no longer works.
It takes a lot of courage. It takes a lot of courage.
You, you are someone who is courageous.
That's a very courageous thing to do.
Yeah, yeah. I just came up with that just
now, guys. I was not.
I just came up with that just now.
But yeah, I feel. That do you feel that in your
bones or is it hard to internalize that?
I mean, it's not something honestly, like it's not
something that I've ever said out loud.
Like, this is the first time I've ever really said that out
loud. But it is something that other
people have said to me. Like when I have told people,
you know, oh, yeah, like, I broke my engagement.
Like, we were together for eight years, blah, blah, blah.
They're like, wow, like you are are so brave, like you're so
courageous and not in a way. Where they're like you're so
you're. So brave for posting.
That not me. Without makeup, you're so brave.
You're so brave for wearing that bathing suit, that outfit.
I could never wear that, but you're so brave.
But no, I like when people say it to me.
Like I can tell that they really mean it because it is something
that is so scary. Like it's so it's, it's kind of
incomprehensible. And even to myself itself, like
even to me two years ago, three years ago, like a year and a
half ago, it would have been incomprehensible.
But like we said earlier, that was a different person.
Like that's that was you were a different person.
I was a different person. That was like the old me.
Now this is the new me. I'm reinvented, bitches.
What you gonna say? About what you gonna do about
it? What you gonna do?
About that, yeah. This is your reinvention era in
so many ways. Yeah.
And it's you guys are a part of it.
It's live. It's happening.
I think an interesting like exercise people could do.
This is not the official mini exercise.
This is the side mini exercise, side quest side quest I just
came up with. If you guys are inspired.
To do so, is that like maybe you can sort of go through that same
exercise I just did? And if there's something that
you're still, I guess, like processing or like a part of you
that is starting over is to like think of what other people say
to you when you tell them about your change or your like
reinvention or your new narrative.
And then start to, like, say, like, say that out loud about
yourself for the first time. Like, I just did it.
It's kind of wild. But I've never said that about
myself to be like, yeah. And I'm really courageous and
brave for choosing to do what I did as opposed to, you know,
staying in a relationship that seemed, that seemed perfect in
so many ways. It's weird.
It's weird to like, I think it's good though to like say it out
loud and like take on the identity and like experience how
other people are viewing you. Yeah, because in some ways, I
feel like people can see you more clearly than you can see
yourself. Not the situation, but just like
your perception of yourself. And people are able to, and at
least the ones who are able to share that with you that you
really respect or like, wait, I respect you and you respect me
now. And like, wait, now I can
understand what you see. It's a crazy thing.
Yeah, that's the off the books mini exercises.
Bonus mini exercises. Great.
We'll give that to you for free. So the official exercise, if
you'd like to try another one, is to write down the old story
that no longer serves you, put it down on paper, and rewrite it
in a way that reflects your growth and your future
aspirations. What is your new story, your new
narrative that you're going to tell yourself?
Share that story with a friend or with us in the comments if
you're open to getting feedback and having Jean and I read that.
So yeah, we'd love to see what you guys come up with.
OK, so just to recap, in today's episode, we covered James
Clear's atomic habits, Brene Brown's concepts of
vulnerability, and Esther Perrell's ideas around rewriting
your narrative. And I think putting the three
together, this is like the perfect toolkit for starting
over, whether you're 2936 or any age.
Thank you guys so much for tuning in for this episode.
Please remember to like, comment and subscribe.
It is super important if you follow and subscribe us because
then you'll get notified when our next episode drops.
Yeah, and I also really want to hear what you guys have to say
in the comments, especially because I spoke so much about my
own experience this time. So like, I want to hear you guys
talking. About she's being vulnerable.
If you like that jeans being vulnerable and opening up about
her life and I'm opening up about mine, please give her some
support in the comments. We read every.
Single part of our community and want to know you guys are out
there. And also the conversations I
think are really rich and a lot of other people are reading
other comments as well and feeling very encouraged by your
story. And also make sure to sign up
for our newsletter, which is LinkedIn the description and
also follow us on Instagram at Tiger Sisters Podcast.
Thanks guys. See you next time.
Bye.