Embracing Audacity: Anne Marie Anderson on Transitioning Boldly Through Midlife

Dr. Mindy  

On this episode of The Resetter Podcast, I bring you Anne Marie Anderson. Now, some of you, if you’re listening to this on your headphones, may realize that Anne Marie’s voice is familiar to you. If you watch this on YouTube, you might recognize her face because she is a three time Emmy award winning broadcaster and a keynote speaker. She has over 30 years experience in sports television, so she has covered over six Olympic Games and major sporting events like the Super Bowl and the NBA Playoffs, and she is known for her contributions on ESPN Sports Center, and what she’s bringing to us today is the information and the and the thought about what it looks like to live a bold and audacious Life. This is a part of her new book called cultivating Audacity. And if you’re one of those people that is like, well, I don’t really want to live an audacious life, or maybe you have a negative connotation of what audacity means, I want you to rethink it. And those of you that are in the middle of a life transition, which is a lot of us, especially as we move through menopause, especially as we change careers, we’re empty nesters. We’re moving that in those transition moments, we can either find our confidence, we can find a new path of boldness, or we can slip back into a smaller version of ourself that is comfortable staying the same. This is really a conversation about mastering transition, and how do we do it in a way that is authentic to us. So this is why I wanted to bring her to you. Is so many of us are on new journeys in our life, and what you’re going to hear in this conversation is, how do we deal with the inner critic? How do we know what we want? How do we even figure out what we want? How do we surround ourselves with people that make our transitional moment so much easier, and at the end, you’ll hear us even land on what is the health benefit of living your true, authentic, audacious life? It is a really applicable conversation. That’s what I want you to know. Like you’re gonna walk out of this podcast and you’re gonna have some tools. This isn’t just Ann Marie and I just batting around some ideas. You’re literally gonna have some tools for time management, tools for that inner critic. It is. She is no nonsense. She is inspiring, and she is bringing forward something to the world, especially to the menopausal world that really needs to be heard. Which is it? This is our moment to finally live life on our terms. And how the heck do we do it? Anne Marie is going to teach us. So enjoy. In her book cultivating audacity is out, we will leave links you can dive into it at the end of this podcast, she even talks about all the things we can expect in there. So really great conversation that I know many of you will enjoy and will walk away from ready to continue to live life on your terms. Enjoy. Welcome to the resetter podcast. This podcast is all about empowering you to believe in yourself again, if you have a passion for learning, if you’re looking to be in control of your health and take your power back, this is the podcast for you. You AM. Let me just start off by welcoming you. Ann Marie, to the resetter podcast. I not only do I want to have this discussion with you, but I’m pretty sure my listeners are dying for this discussion. So I just want to say welcome,

Anne Marie  

thank you. We’re gonna have fun. I love to talk about this.

Dr. Mindy  

Yeah, and you know, it’s funny, as we were preparing ahead of time before we hit the record button, I was thinking about this moment of 50, that what happened to not just me, but my friend group. And it was, it was fascinating, because on one hand, like for me, I am 55 I got into my 50s, and all of a sudden I hit the peak of my career. And I think that’s that happens to a lot of women when they go into their 50s. On the other hand, I have some amazing friends that are incredible mothers, and they. Were stayed at home, and they hit, like, full on, launching their children out into the world. And they were looking at, like, what that next level is. Were they going back into her career? Were they gonna go learn like, I have one friend who’s a philanthropist, and like, were they gonna go learn something? And I’d say all this. Because I think as we enter our 50s, this is the moment in which so many women are like, whoa. What do I do now? Yep,

Anne Marie  

just second act, right? Yes, it’s your second act. I mean, whether you’re in a career you love and you just want to kind of level it up, or, you know, shed any kind of inhibition about it. Or you’re somebody who’s having a change in your life, the kids out, and you’re thinking, maybe I did I miss the boat, like, yeah, am I? Am I too late? And the answer is, no, no, you are not too late. You are right on time. Truly, there’s so much that can be accomplished at this stage of life without a lot of the insecurities and ideas and hang ups about what other people think. Yeah.

Dr. Mindy  

So how do you when you hit them that moment? I’ve got to say that even when you’ve gone from such a structured life, especially if you’ve got kids, especially if you had have had a career, or both, it is terrifying to all of a sudden realize you have the freedom to choose yourself. Yeah, it now, if my 40 year old self had heard that, she’d be like, What are you talking about? Terrifying. I just want to go to the bathroom by myself, but but it there is something terrifying about hitting the moment and realizing that now you get to choose you. How do we help women go from that place of constantly giving themselves away, constantly people pleasing, constantly doing what’s for everybody else, and then making 180 degree shift into what do I do? That transition is a very circuitous one, and I believe much of your book can help us with that. How do we make that transition? Well,

Anne Marie  

I think about the way that I’ve cared. I have three children. It’s all the way that I care for my children and the way that I thought, I don’t want to control what they do. I want to guide them to explore to their best path. It’s the same thing in the way that we talk to ourselves is, you know, you don’t have to control yourself and say you have to fit into some kind of box after 50 or, you know, I have to play, play between the lines. I mean, I feel like after 50 is when you get to color outside the lines and kind of see what feels right and feels good. And so I think the first step to doing that is to figure out not just what it is you want to do, but why you want to do it. Because I think that motivation is so important if you want to do it to prove somebody else wrong, or, you know, to get noticed by somebody, those are all motivations that don’t work. They’re external motivations. But if you can really pinpoint why you want to make this new step, new change, then I think you’ve really got something going, and it can be for any any reason. I mean, it can be anything from wanting to leave a bad relationship so you can live more in peace, to, you know, working, you know, moving your to a little beach town because you want to have a better quality of life and working from home. That way. It can be anything you want, but it is about like, why do you want to make the change for what reason?

Dr. Mindy  

And my experience with a lot of women at that transition is we, we don’t know why, and I think part of that is because we’ve never actually sat and with ourselves and asked ourselves, it was never important everybody else’s opinion, everybody else’s needs, came in front of our own. And I’ve told this story before on my podcast here last July, I actually hit a moment where I finally sat with myself and asked myself what I wanted to create in my life. And for about a week, and here I am, like, I’ve written books, and I’ve got, you know, a big following, and I had an amazing clinic that I closed to keep writing more books. And when I sat with myself for one week asking myself, What do I want? Don’t know, you can’t think about your spouse, you can’t think about your career. You can’t think about your kids, Mindy, what do you want? What do you want? I literally came up empty. And it took me interesting, yeah, and it took me some real soul searching, because I realized I have spent my whole life thinking and caring for everybody else, and I. Ever really trained the neurons in my brain to actually put me first? So is there a strategy before we go into the why you would want to change? How do we even go before that? Where? How do you cultivate this like relationship with yourself, like, how do you help yourself? Help yourself. Does that make sense? Yeah, for sure.

Anne Marie  

I mean, for me, I the way that I kind of looked at things, right, because I’ve had a career in television for 35 years. I’m still a broadcaster for ESPN. But I wanted to take more control. I wanted to hire myself. That was the thing for me. I wanted to hire myself. I was tired of asking other people, and so I kind of made, and it’s in the book, too, an inverted triangle where I put at the top, what do I love to do? Like, what do I really enjoy? And then like, from that, I made it like, kind of like a filter. I called this funnel. And then the next thing was like, What am I good at? And it goes along with the ikigai principles, right? What does the world need? And what can I get paid for? And it was interesting to me to kind of see what would bring me joy. Like, what does bring me joy? And I’m right with you, like, friend group. What friend group? Right? I got, you know, I got my text friends and the parents of my friends on their sporting teams, yeah, like I wasn’t nurturing, like, my own friend group, yeah. And I thought I, you know, I need to nurture that a little bit. How do I plug that in my life is so busy, so it’s about, like, what asking yourself continuously, and it sounds like you did this, like, what actually brings me joy, and what do I want to have more of in my life in any way, whether it’s relationships with girlfriends, whether it is travel, whatever it is, is kind of tapping into, like, what brings me joy, what makes me happy? Yeah, and then seeing from there is like the seed of what your next move is. Got it

Dr. Mindy  

okay? And what would you say to the people, and this wasn’t me, but to the people that are like, Well, I’m not I really, what brought me joy was being needed. I was needed by my children. I was needed by, you know, the I was the ultimate soccer mom that brought the snacks, and I was needed, and now I’m not needed that people pleasing part of women sometimes gets overrides us so much that that we actually have this sort of toxic relationship with people needing us. What happens if that’s what brought me joy? And now I’m asking myself, well, what? What brings me joy now? And it’s like, well, I need, I need to be needed, but, but all the people that needed you are gone,

Anne Marie  

yeah, except you need yourself at this point. That’s one and then two. I mean, I feel like everything’s a clue always. So I feel like, okay, if you’re if what makes you happy is service minded, right? Other people needing you. Then when you talk about what fills your cup, what kind of service do you want to provide to the world? What kind of service makes you most happy? I mean, if you’re if your identity, and I’m with you, is, this isn’t me either. But if your identity is, you know, providing service, feeling needed that way. I think you can build the next step in your life to filling a need for others. It’s just not going to be, you know, closely. It just really won’t resemble, necessarily, what it’s like to take care of your kids and take care of your family. To me, that feels a lot like you’re not necessarily taking care of yourself or paying attention to your own needs. So that’s like, that’s the first question I’d ask somebody who has that response is like, how do you make sure you have what you need to be able to give Have you really been taking care of yourself that way?

Dr. Mindy  

Yeah. You know, it’s interesting. I believe in there’s always a balance. I Krasno on the podcast, and he just put out a book called Good stress, and we talked about how there’s always a balance of of energies in within the physiology of the body. But I think what you’re talking about there is, like, if you, if everybody is needed you, how do you need you? Like, how do you, how do you balance yourself back? Because you’ve been giving, giving, giving, giving, how do you, how do you balance yourself back? So, so I can see it through that lens in what you’re saying. I wonder

Anne Marie  

too, if there’s some guilt about needing, you know, like, if like, something in our mind says, like, I shouldn’t, I shouldn’t need anything. I’ve got everything in the world that I want a healthy family, whatever, whatever it is. And so there’s some kind of guilt or shame inside, because I think sometimes you word need, and people may think, well, that’s selfish, yeah? And, you know, so it’s kind of. Releasing some of the preconceived ideas we have about certain words, you know, certainly like Audacity. There’s, yes, there’s all kinds of preconceived notions about what audacity is cocky. There’s a story in the book about how, when I was 11, my father said, Anne Marie, you’re getting kind of cocky. Now my father, like, was my biggest supporter, but just always in my front row cheering. One time when I was 11, he said, Ann Marie, I think you’re getting cocky. And I held on to it forever, because I had these ideas of what cocky meant. And, yeah, gosh, I don’t want to be cocky. I don’t want to, you know, always. And I even let it hold me back in my television career for a while, because I didn’t want to come off as cocky and Mindy. It was only when I was writing this book that I looked up the definition of cocky, and I was so surprised. The definition of cocky is so sure of one’s abilities that it annoys other people. Oh my gosh, right, that’s beautiful. I want to be cocky. I was like, I thought it was like, you’re so sure of your abilities, but you don’t actually have any, you know, talent, but. But I was like, Wait a second, so sure of one’s abilities, yes, to your point, especially when you get to like, that 50 point, yeah, I know what I can do that. It annoys other people. Yeah, my teenagers would call that opp other people’s problems, like, and it just completely released me from that word. So I wonder if the word need also has some degree of selfishness for other people. We should look up that definition of what actually need means,

Dr. Mindy  

yeah, you know. And it reminds me. So, as we were saying beforehand, I’m writing another book on this journey that women go through into menopause. And one of the things that in my research, that I found is a feminist philosopher who, back in the 1980s started to at teenage girls and found out that it was actually in our teenage years, I think it’s hormonal, when the hormones kick in. That wasn’t her stuff. She was a philosopher, so but when in our teenage years, that is when the culture started to train us to be selfless and that you were a good girl if you were self less. And I have a theory that when the hormones come in and the culture giving us that message of it’s now you be you’re a good girl, if you’re selfless, if, if you put everybody’s needs ahead of you, then you’re worth some, worth something. And I think when we go into menopause, as those hormones go away, all of a sudden, we’re like, hey, no more of that bullshit. I don’t want to be selfless. And so we have this like awakening. And it’s in that moment that we’re actually don’t know what to do, because we’re like, Hey, I don’t, I don’t want to please you, but I don’t, but pleasing you also gave me joy. So now where am I going to get joy from? It’s a very weird transition into the second act, as you put it so audacity seems like a really important trait. How do you how do you not to pull not to sound too trendy with your title, but how do we cultivate Audacity? Because I think every woman going into their post menopausal years should be Yeah. Now is my time to be cocky and audacious, and how the hell do I learn how to do that?

Anne Marie  

Well, that is exactly why I wrote the book, because I’m tired of people telling us, like, just go for it, swing for the fences. And we’re all like, how, how do I do that, right? So the point, the first moment, is I was not born audacious, and I don’t think many people are born audacious, right? But the audacity, by definition, is the willingness to take bold risks. So if we’re not born with it, we need to grow it. Thus the title cultivating Audacity. And it starts with those micro moments, as you were just talking about all of a sudden, you get to this moment, and you’re like, I don’t want to please people, so you start with the word no, right? No, but without everything that comes after it. Like, no, I can’t, because I have this other thing that, no, no, just no. Do you want to help out with it? No. So that’s like the little micro moments. I

Dr. Mindy  

wish everybody could see your face. That was really good, but, I mean, it is right,

Anne Marie  

like, for me, you know, the school calls, hey, do you want to help with the yearbook? No, you know, like, just, yeah. It’s just not offering any more explanation, but to actually cultivate Audacity. Look, there’s three things com comprise having an audacious identity, all right? The first one is your mindset. Everybody loves talking about mindset at heart, Audacity is really about optimism, right? It’s this belief that things are going to work out. They may not work out the way you want them to, but they will work out and you’ll be able to survive the outcome. And the example I always give being a sports person is you’re playing in a basketball game. You’re down by 12 at the half. Why even bother coming out and playing the second half? Right? Because you think, Well, maybe if we. At our offense together and this and that we might be able to win this game, but even if we don’t, I’m not gonna die. So it’s just that mindset of, like, optimism. I’m gonna be able to figure it out, I’m gonna be able to do it, but you can sit on your mother’s couch all day being optimistic and nothing’s gonna happen, right? So combining that with audacious behavior, which starts with the no and moves into doing the unexpected. Just do something. I tell people at the beginning, like when we’re just talking about audacity, early in the book, I tell them, just do something different today than you would normally do. Oh, given whatever I love that, you know, if you play tennis, go swing a golf club. I you know, just do something different today, unexpected when you marry those two things together, the consistent optimism and the consistent action, that’s when you go from what is Mindy doing to that’s Mindy she swings for the fences, because it becomes your identity that you’re not this predictable person who’s gonna follow the masses all the time, and so I think that’s your best starting point for cultivating Audacity. Is thinking about, what would I typically do here? How can I do that differently? Or what can I do that’s different from that, and getting comfortable with different. Okay,

Dr. Mindy  

and so with different this is something I’ve been learning a lot in my own life lately, is that when you go to break a lifelong habit like saying no, instead of saying yes to everybody, you’re saying no. And instead of doubting yourself, what I hear you saying is actually you’re betting on yourself instead of the same routine you had forever, you now break another routine from a neuroscience lens that is, like, you don’t have the neuronal pathways in your brain to be able to, quite like, fit into that new groove. So it does take the consistency and then those neurons start to form, but in that initial No, hey, I’m betting on myself. Hey, I’m doing something different that actually can feel horrible to some people. It can be anxiety producing. What do you is there a trick when you’re first taking on this audacious lens, when you’re everything in your body is like, no, no, no, no, no. What are you doing is, are there tools that we can use in that moment? I think

Anne Marie  

a lot of that is like your inner critic, right talking to you and saying, This feels terrible. You’re being selfish. You’re not You’re not good at this. You’re not ready for this. This is not nice to use your phrase also, which is a big one would get put on us. And so for me, the trick is separating that voice from myself. So, for example, I started late having children, so I still have a 12 year old daughter. Oh, God, and I’m with you. I know right. Keeps people from guessing my age 50, right? So, so. But when I picked my daughter up from school one day, I said, Hey, you know, how was school? And she goes, Well, I’m stupid. I can’t do math, and, oh, by the way, I’m fat. Oh God, whoa, right, like a middle school aged girl. I was like, Yo, that’s a lot to unpack. So of course, we talked about it, and I said, you know the typical like, would you say that to somebody else? Would you say that to me? And she’s like, No, of course not. And I said, so if that’s not something you typically say, then it’s really not Lena, my daughter’s name. It’s not Lena saying it to you, because that’s not the way you speak. So let’s just pick a different name for that voice, some name of fictional character that you don’t know, just to separate that idea. And so she picked the name Jerry, and I said, What would you say to Jerry if he came up to you and said, you’re not smart, you can’t do math, and, oh, by the way, you’re fat. And she goes, she thought about it for a while. She goes, I’d say, like, shut up, Jerry. And so I said, Okay, you know, so starting to see that voice outside. So still, when I hear her at the kitchen counter doing her homework, and she’s like, Oh, I can’t do this. We don’t even say shut up at my house, but I will yell down, shut up, Jerry, just to, like, break you out of the moment. So I think separating that voice from ourselves is a really important first part of it is saying, like, Wait, who’s who’s telling me that this is selfish, and, you know, it feels horrible because it’s different. But there’s, you know, fear is an invitation to grow. So if I’m feeling afraid of it, it’s about shifting that mind to like, okay, they said it was going to feel terrible. So I guess I’m on track, because it feels terrible, right?

Dr. Mindy  

Yeah, I’ve had a lot of a lot of very close friends that are also, you know, professionals in the in the mental health space, say to me that that guilt is when you feel guilt that actually it’s you knowing that you’re breaking a pattern of people pleasing. And that actually you are putting yourself first. You are deciding what you want is just unfamiliar, because you’ve people pleased your whole life. I

Anne Marie  

love that. Yeah, and I guess we’re midway through the day, and I’ve learned something. I love that.

Dr. Mindy  

So just knowing like when that guilt that has been helpful for me, because I’m I am a classic co dependent human that wants to make everybody happy around me, but when my hormones changed and my neuro chemical system changed, as I went into menopause, I could no longer do that. And like you and I talked about like stuff came out of my mouth, like no, or my behaviors changed, and that became very startling for a lot of people around me, the deeper I get into menopause, the less I can go back to my people pleasing ways. And so I love this idea of labeling and naming the the voice in your head that is an old is not there to serve you. That was That was beautiful. I also love the idea, like I said, of these feelings that we’ve attached to being negative actually are indications we’re heading on the right path. What are do you have any tricks? What do we do when you start to step into your innate audacious be you know, behaviors. I’m gonna call them innate, because I think they were there when we were born, and everybody around you looks at you and is like, what happened to you? What’s going on? Why are you acting this way? Do we have a strategy for the people around us, or do we just let them be

Anne Marie  

a strategy to answer that question, yeah,

Dr. Mindy  

yeah. How to interact with them? If somebody, if you have a relationship, I’ll, you know, I’ll use my children as examples. My daughter is 25 and my son is 22 and, you know, they would call, and I would pick up the phone, and immediately, you know, whatever they needed, I would do for them. And now I’m like, Oh yeah, I’ll call them back at the end of the day. If something’s wrong, they’ll, you know, like, there’s just a little bit more of a pause, like, Hey, I just want to take care of what I’m doing right now. I’ll get back to them. And now, luckily, they’ve been fine with that. But there is a shift as you go into these 50s, 60s, post menopausal time, where all of a sudden you’re just, you just won’t do it for everybody else, and everybody else can have problems. They do. I mean, they have, I’ve seen it happen.

Anne Marie  

Yeah. So there’s two things. One I think you have to figure out is this somebody whose opinion you care about. Laura gasner Otting wrote a book called limitless, and I loved one phrase she had in there that said, Don’t give a vote to anyone who shouldn’t have a voice. So the first thing is, like, if it’s your children, obviously you want to work with them and help them understand your reality of the way that you’re changing and you’re expressing yourself. But you can cut out a big chunk of people if you are thinking, I actually, I don’t care what they what they think there. So that’s the first thing. And then for me, in terms of strategy, especially living audaciously, I have groups of people that I call my front row, and I invite certain people, and I literally use the words, hey, will you be my front row to be supportive when I’m trying to do something different. And here’s who’s not in your front row most of the time, it’s not your mom and it’s not your best friend, because they want you to be safe. And I think that’s what you’re talking about when people kind of push back sometimes is like they felt safe with the way that you were right, always jumping and doing things for you and your mom and everybody just wants you to be safe, and their own perceptions of what risks might be out there are kind of clouding. So your front row is like carefully curated people who are doing big things on their own. Usually doesn’t have to be in your field at all, but who will check in? Hold you accountable. Do you give you different ideas? Tell you the truth. There’s something about asking somebody, will you be in my front row? Hey, I want to write a book. Will you be in my front row that gives them significance in your life? Because now you have given them a role in your life where they feel like, okay, I am officially a tagged supporter of this person, and here’s how I can best do that. Of course, it doesn’t work in a vacuum. You need to also be in the front row for other people as well. But I think that’s one way to start looking at the people who are uncomfortable with your you know, evolution? Yeah.

Dr. Mindy  

Okay, so how do you how do you cultivate a front row I love this because where my brain is going is, like, I think we always talk about the last period, and a year from the last period, now you’re in menopause, and like, end of conversation. And what I want to do is, okay, that’s not the end of the that’s the beginning of the conversation. And. And the beginning of the conversation involves, like, your time now you’re not people pleasing. And now I’m going to add this front row idea. So you know, what would what does it look like to cultivate a really hardy front row? Like, give me example of what your front row looks like like. What are the qualities of those people, and how did you hand pick them. And

Anne Marie  

I have different front rows for different aspects of my life. Oh, I should say that, so I have a fitness front row. And if I don’t show up to class, these these people are calling me and checking and saying, Where, where are you? Why you not doing and I always joke with my friends. I’m like, I need new friends because, you know, I don’t want to work out that hard that particular day or whatever. But these are people who are working out straight for their health. Not all of them are postmenopausal. Actually, some of them are, like, I have three friends, and a couple of them are Olympians, which is why I always say I need new friends, because they’re still training.

Dr. Mindy  

That’s a hell of a front row for fitness. But

Anne Marie 

yeah, two of them. Two of them are but like, what do I need to do after menopause? I need to lift weights. And who better to lift weights with than people that are, like, crazy fitness people, yeah, who? You know, one of them’s post menopausal, trying to gain muscle as well, and the other one is on her way, you know, so, like, that’s that front row and that, because that’s what I needed from them, somebody who’s really interested in the health part of their fitness, and who wants to do the same things, gain muscle, etc. Then there’s your front row. Like, when I got divorced, I had a front row of people that I went to for that, and they weren’t necessarily divorced. They were just people who I thought could be really empathetic, who knew me and knew like, the shame that I felt, the disappointment I felt like, why couldn’t I save this marriage? And it helped me release myself from the shame of other people who shouldn’t have a vote, right? And how I how I felt. So I picked those people because they were empathetic. And honestly, the people in my front row loved my ex husband too, and that was really important to me. And like my college roommate, said to me, I love Matt too. And I said, I know, so do I, but we can’t make the marriage work. So I didn’t. I didn’t cultivate a front row or curate a front row people who were going to be, yeah, he was terrible at all. I didn’t want to hear that. I wanted to hear how we can move through it, professional front row. People who are doing their own big things want to create their own path there. So I’m looking, when I’m building a front row, I’m looking at, what are the things that are important to this person, what is their tolerance necessarily for change and risk, and how can I help them? Because it doesn’t just work that way. So, you know, as I was writing my book, another friend was starting a speaking career, it’s, it’s about like, kind of moving forward together, and it doesn’t do you any good if it’s all one sided, if it’s all about you, you know, you, you, you, you, you, then eventually it’s not going to work, because the significance for each other is what builds a great front row. Do you

Dr. Mindy  

have people that cross into to multiple places, multiple front rows, yeah? Like, you can be in my fitness front row and in my career front row, like, yeah.

Anne Marie  

Like, my my friend Holly is a perfect example. She’s a three time Olympian, right? So she’s in my fitness front row. She is a broadcast partner of mine as well. So we had our professional front row there. She was very helpful when I got divorced, and then when I started writing the book, I was talking to her, and I said, you know, I can’t get any time alone to write this book like I got people all over me all the time. And she said, Hey, we have this back apartment. Why don’t you just come and for a couple of days and hide out and write there. And it’s honestly, I didn’t even tell my ex husband this. It’s right down the street where she lives. Oh, wow, down there for two and a half days because I thought, Why fly somewhere? I went down there for two and a half days and was in her back apartment, and she would bring food to me. So nobody saw me, nobody knew where I was. My family just knew I was away and writing, yeah, and I got a great head start on the book,

Dr. Mindy  

Yeah, amazing. But you make a formal ask to them,

Anne Marie  

it’s a formal ask. And I use those words too, by the way, I use the words, you know, will you be in my front row? And when I’m delivering a keynote, I, you know, share this concept with people, and I had somebody come up to me after a keynote last year was an educational conference. And the woman to me, Hey, I’ve been a teacher for 28 years. I really want to be an assistant principal. Found the keynote very helpful, and I said, so I just tried to figure out how to do that. And then she happened to mention our conversation, the principal was there in the audience. And I said, Wait, your principal was here. Yeah. Did he hear my keynote? Yes. And I was like, Okay, so let’s start there. Go ask him if he’ll be in your front row. And she said, Okay, well, I had to chase her three times, chase her down three times during this conference. And said, Hey, I’m leaving soon. I need you to do that before I go. And I said, and give me your phone. So I stood there. I told. Took a picture of her from far away. He didn’t know I was taking a picture, as she was asking. And I said, I wanted you to see like the moment that you had the courage. I wanted to see yourself actually asking. And I said, How’d it go? And she said, I asked him, will you be in my front row? I want to work to be an assistant principal. And he said, I’ve been waiting for you to ask. Oh, my God, I was so like proud mom giving birth again. Six weeks later, she sent me a text, hey, I start July 1 as this assistant principal. Wow, I look better than that. Me too.

Dr. Mindy  

And if we tie that into what you where you started this, I bet it’s now going to be easier for her to ask some of to, you know, to have somebody who intimidated her, perhaps in her front row the second time, because now she’s broken a pattern and has done that so she probably has. It’s going to be easier and easier to keep asking people to be in her front row,

Anne Marie  

right? And when you had talked about, like, how uncomfortable it is and it feels horrible. Well, I told you I had to chase her down three times during the conference, because it felt horrible and very uncomfortable to her. But I just needed her to, like she was, she came up to me and talked about it, which, you know, takes some guts anyway, at that point a stranger that you don’t know. So I was like, Okay, you came to me and so like, let’s just go a little bit further, and then it was, you know, like a dam breaking.

Dr. Mindy  

Wow. What is it about rejection that we fear so deeply?

Anne Marie  

I love rejection. Can you believe that? Because I have had so much in my life, and I used to have the thinnest skin, we fear rejection because we think it has some kind of value. It places some kind of value or lack of worth on us, right? We’re not enough, and it could be a relationship rejection, certainly. But for me, like in television, it’s an incredibly heavy rejection, heavy business. And so it was like, well, if, if they’re rejecting me, I must not be good, which means maybe I shouldn’t be trying this. Maybe it’s not cut out for me. And so what I had to do to desensitize myself to that rejection, because I was never going to make it on air. If that was the case, is I sought it out actively, and it was a crazy, fun experiment. And people are like, What do you mean fun with rejection. But there was a certain executive producer at a network who I knew was a bully. I had heard about it and this and that, so I went to him to try to get an interview, to get on air. And he was, of course, a bully and dismissive and this and that. And I was like, Fine, that’s exactly what I expected. But what I decided to do was keep asking him every time I saw him, to get him to reject me again and again and again until it didn’t hurt, bizarre, bizarre idea. But every time I’d be at a press conference and I’d see him, I’d go, hey, hey, how are you? Anne Marie Anderson, we met before is today, the day you’re gonna hire me. And he was like, What? What? No, and I mean, but then three months later, I’d see him, hi, Ann, Marie Anderson, Is today the day. No, no, no, no, no, because I just thought he can’t fire me, right? Like he didn’t hire me. And I just literally was like, I have to get over this, this blow of rejection happening. And a year and a half later, he hired me, he came up to me and said, Hey, today’s the day, you know, I’m gonna hire you. And I worked for him, and he was a bully and dismissive and everything that I knew, but I already had that in my head. And then when he tried to hire me a second time, I said, No, thank you, because I was like, I got what I needed out of it, which was desensitive, and then I’m not gonna work with somebody who’s a bully. So we’re all good. That is brilliant.

Dr. Mindy  

I, you know, I did that with fear for a long Oh, yeah, I really, I hated change. I didn’t like new things. And I finally decided, Oh, I’m gonna make friends with fear, and I’m just gonna meet it head on, and anything that makes me scared, I’m gonna double down and do it until fear really started to not become something that owned me. And it was, it was all around change. And then all of a sudden I realized, like, oh, wait, like me and fear are friends, yeah, and then and like, right now, I mean, full transparency, I’m me and grief are learning to become friends. I’ve just had, I lost a really good friend. About six months ago, I my home was in the Palisades fire, and I’m just learning how to grieve. And I’ve never, ever, ever had a relationship with grief before, and so I it’s a really interesting I like the way you say that, where it’s like you’re meeting it head on, as opposed to trying to run from it. Because when you run from it, it’s almost like it gets more, it gets bigger and scarier, and we don’t think of emotions like that, or something like rejection. Who would think to become friends with rejection? That was brilliant. Yeah,

Anne Marie  

to have fun with rejection. First of all, my condolences both for your vlog. Of your friend and your home? Yeah, those are incredibly tough. And, yeah, well, what are you gonna do you have to swim in the grief, right? Here’s what I feel. Here’s where I feel it, in my body, you know, for fear, that’s what I always say, is make friends with fear, because that’s where the growth is. I mean, that’s why it’s so painful to be afraid, is because it’s an unknown. Yeah, right. You’re afraid of something that hasn’t even happened yet. It just so,

Dr. Mindy  

yeah. So if you keep doing it over and over and over, it’s no longer unknown. Now it’s known, yeah,

Anne Marie  

and also, it’s never as quite as big as you think it is, like, it’s this projected outcome, like, you know, my first time on television, I was like, sobbing outside the stadium, you know, because it wasn’t a small it was supposed to be, it’s a little small regional network. But instead, I got put on ESPN to my first time, and that was in 70 million homes, and I was just falling apart, wow. But, you know, yeah, I was horrible, and I really didn’t want to go. And I was like, I’m gonna throw up on live television. I know this is gonna happen. And I was like, Okay, what am I afraid of? I am afraid of being bad on television. I am afraid of being exposed, judged, embarrassed, you know? But clock was ticking. I had to get on air, and afterwards, I was bad and I was judged and I was exposed and I was embarrassed, and I survived, right? And I survived, and I could congratulate myself for taking the action and surviving the outcome. And then I got up, you know, the next week to do it again. And the only thing that was better about the second time was that it wasn’t the first time. It was still just awful and felt bad and everything else. But the more I did it, the easier it got, and I improved along the way, you know? So it’s like I made the fear lose its power over me by continuing to put myself in that situation. Yeah,

Dr. Mindy  

so, and I just want to point out, says the woman with three Emmys over the over her shoulder, because if you’re not watching later, yeah, if you’re not watching this on YouTube, she literally has three Emmys lined up over her shoulders. So you whatever you did in that moment must have worked out. Okay, long term,

Anne Marie  

yeah, exactly. I mean, who knows, but like when we talk about the very beginning, the motivation for doing, I didn’t have Emmys in my head. I didn’t have anything like that in my head. It was about like, I’m not going to let this fear or this rejection or this bully control me, yeah, and that’s why I’m doing the thing.

Dr. Mindy  

Yeah? So beautiful. Talk about the to do list. You have thoughts on organizing your to do list so that it works for you, not for everybody around you, can? You can? I think it’s a really interesting one, because I’m of the classic, like, let me do everything for everybody else, and then I’ll do it for myself afterwards, right? And that’s we need to talk Mindy, yeah, exactly. It’s shifting. No, it’s totally shifting for me now. But it used to be I shifted it as I changed my routine of my day, and I got up the first two hours every morning is for me, was so it had to be a logistical change. But how do we even know? I mean, I think sometimes we get caught, like, just innately doing everything for everybody else, and then the half of the day is gone and we’re like, shoot, I didn’t do what I wanted to do,

Anne Marie  

right? And so I call it the urgency fallacies. What you’re referring to, right? Because somehow, along the way, we got sold this idea that if something’s urgent, it must be important, and you have to do it right now. So things that are urgent is maybe like answering a text, replying to an email, signing the permission slip, making dinner, putting in a report, whatever it is. And then the things that are important, that move us closer to our values, visions, who we want to be, whatever our goals are, we have a tendency to say, okay, when I get rid of the things that are urgent, when I take that stuff off my list, check it off, check it off, check it off, then I will do what’s important. But the trick is, urgent never ends. It never ends. It is constantly So becoming aware of what’s urgent and what’s important. And here’s an easy way to figure out what’s urgent. Urgent things usually are a response to a request from someone else. They have sent you something, or you have a report that you need to get to somebody, or something like that. Things that are important, often don’t have any kind of a deadline. They do have consequences. If you don’t, you know, don’t get to them. So separating those things out, and then I want to ask you, like most things that are urgent can wait 15 minutes, right? Yeah. So when I went to write a book, right? I’m a keynote speaker, a full time broadcaster, a mom, and I decided to write a book in what my spare time like? Yeah, right, that didn’t exist.

Dr. Mindy  

So just decided. I

Anne Marie  

decided I was gonna get up at 430 every morning and write for an hour before things went and that lasted like a week, because it was horrible. I mean, I was exhausted by the end of the day. I’m not terribly creative as a writer at 430 in the morning, you know. So I just I was like, this isn’t working, but I still need to write for an hour every day. How am I going to do that? So for me, because I was in the thick of it with the kids still being young, it was 415 minute blocks throughout the day that were scheduled. That text can wait 15 minutes, that email can wait 15 minutes, and you guys don’t need to be fed right now, that can also wait 15 minutes. And I wrote this book, I swear to you, in like, either on planes or in 15 minute increments, locked in my bathroom on the floor. Oh my gosh. How Where else does a parent get away from the kids demands and and I had people knock on the door and be like, Mom, I’m hungry. And I’d be like, Yes, same buddy. I’ll be out in 15 minutes. So it’s about creating that space. You know, some people it’s 320 minute blocks. I had a client that I was helping who did it in two half hour blocks, like a half hour in the morning, and then he and his wife worked out getting their toddlers into the bath together, and then she would take care of the bathing for half an hour while he took care of his he was studying for a real estate license, and then by the time they got out of the bath, he was back with them for book in bed. And it’s about like creating the non negotiable space and recognizing that just because something is urgent to somebody else doesn’t mean it takes precedent over what’s important to you. And then start noticing, how long could that urgent thing wait? And is there enough space for you to carve out 1520, minutes, a half an hour, you know, to create a path to what you want to do? Is

Dr. Mindy  

there a point at which there’s too too many people trying to communicate with you. I’ve had this thought recently that, like, I need to offload all the people I’m communicating with and make a real clear decision that I’m going to keep an inner circle. And maybe there’s a bigger circle beyond that. Would that fall into the to do list too? Like, maybe some people just need to fall off your communication list. Yeah,

Anne Marie  

I totally agree. I call it weeding your garden if they’re like, nice people, and maybe you enjoy their company a bit. But I can’t be like, there’s very few friends of mine who, when they text me, I will text right back. But if they text me, hey, I need you, I’ll call them, you know. So it’s like those people know, but the other people that are just, I don’t know, casual acquaintances, friends and stuff, yeah, I don’t give them the same attention that I do to that close inner circle my family or myself, which is something that we talked about that can be hard for people. Sometimes I, you know, when I go to bed at night, I go to bed really early, and so I will say to my kids as I’m leaving, that concludes my parenting for today. Enjoyed it. And I’ll be upstairs, you know, and they always laugh. And so, you know, sometimes I’d be like, you know, give me a grade on the way up, and they’ll be like, A, B plus, because you didn’t let me have dessert. And I’ll be like, I can live with that. And, you know, but it’s a joke, but it’s like, I cut off the time that I’m available. This sounds terrible, but to my own children at night where I am like, sounds amazing. Now I need to go to bed. And so that concludes my parenting. Hope you enjoyed it. It’s the best.

Dr. Mindy  

So good. I actually feel like I want to do that. I mean, my kids are grown now, but I want to, like, do that with like work or even like conversations, like nd now, office hours are done and I’m moving. I think that’s that’s just brilliant, that isn’t it,

Anne Marie  

the way it used to be years ago, like our fathers came home from work and had dinner and whatever else. And now it’s like we got our phones and people can text us at any time and, yeah, demand email. And so it’s about, like, shutting down. And for me, like, when we talk about what you need, I could easily, like, never shut down. I could just keep going. Keep going, keep going, keep going. Me too. It’s so unhealthy, so I have to make time really specific. I am not going to be available to anyone during this period of time. Yeah,

Dr. Mindy  

amazing. I like how you when you’re like and I hope it, I hope, I hope you enjoyed

Anne Marie  

enjoy. You enjoyed it. Yeah? Grade, you know, and if it’s been kind of a rough day, I’ll say, I’m not sure it was my best work, but that’s what I had today. Yeah,

Dr. Mindy  

that’s so good. I’m going to start saying that a little bit. Talk about how confidence and Audacity isn’t just a mental skill or a mental benefit, but there’s a physiological one as well. Can you talk a little bit about like stress and burnout when we’re just giving Go, go, go, and when we’re not operating from this self reference, confident, audacious place that we’re actually draining our vital forces? That’s the way I read. That for sure.

Anne Marie  

Well, first of all, there’s a difference between confidence and Audacity, right? Confidence is the belief in oneself, and Audacity is the believing and taking action. So it’s like the next step for me, Audacity is the next step, which requires confidence and moving forward. And then it’s about like, what’s draining you? I mean, there’s everything drains our limited capacity for the day all the time. So if it’s some people complaining that’s draining you, you know, you’ve got to cut that off. If there is unhealthy habits that you have, you got to look at that. I just got one of those little sensors for the back of my just got that today because I was like, Yeah, you’re gonna see, like, how different foods affect me, and it’s that, right? You know, it costs money to buy that, you know thing, it’s not terribly expensive by any means. But I was like, I’m making a little investment into my health, not that anything’s wrong. But then I’m curious, like, it’s about replenishing my own resources at that point. And I think in terms of physiological, you know, and psychological, it is about like there is a limit to how much you can do, how much you can handle. And if you don’t protect that, you’re not going to be good for anybody, including yourself. So it’s kind of paying attention to those signs in your body of, how are you feeling? How are you sleeping? Do you feel clear headed or refreshed? If not, how can you get there? Yep, it’s I’m a big believer in all of that being obviously tightly connected.

Dr. Mindy  

I recently had a realization that when I feel anxiety in my body, it’s because I’m actually moving away from what I want to be doing, what like, like. I’m not speaking up for myself. I am. I’m trying to adapt to other people. And then I can feel that anxiety hit my body, and I’m like, oh, there it is. Yeah, that’s right. Okay, Mindy, what do you want? What do you want? And then I think about what I want, what I want. What do you want to do right now? Okay, yeah, and then the anxiety goes away. It’s like, I get so cool, yeah, it’s like, my body becomes like a barometer for I got off course, and I really, it’s been really helpful to have that kind of signal.

Anne Marie  

I had something quite similar, where I was, like, feeling bad, like, tight in my chest. And I was like, Okay. And the years ago, I wouldn’t have done anything, but I was like, what, what is that feeling about? Like, there’s something I don’t even know what it is that’s making me feel bad, this and that. And then I was like, Oh, that’s right, it was, I think it was, like, a cost estimate of something that was way over what I thought it was going to be. And I was like, Okay, so now we know, I think for a lot of times, I didn’t want to pay attention right to what the feeling was. That’s like, Ah, just gonna push through it. Maybe I’ll eat it away. Maybe I’ll do whatever right? And now it’s like, I like, we’ve talked about I dive into it, where I’m like, whoo, that that pit in my stomach is not feeling great. What? What is that about? Yeah, I don’t really want to do this. Or this person is mad at me, and I wish they weren’t. Or what I just identifying it is what releases it, right?

Dr. Mindy  

Yes, yeah, it’s, it’s pretty once you create a pattern with asking your your fear, your anxiety, your all of that, what it wants, it is really interesting how it will quickly tell you it’s,

Anne Marie  

it’s the same for your inner critic as I was talking about before, once you separate it from yourself and give it a name and then have some kind of phrase to it. I mean, for me, what I say is, that’s not very helpful. Right now, when my inner critic or doubt comes up, I’m like, that’s, that’s just not helpful. Yeah, right now, I have other friends that have mantras. You know? I have one who’s a keynote speaker, but deals with speaking anxiety, and she has like she looks at the wall, where the where the back wall and the ceiling meets, and she’ll repeat to herself, where, where the wall and the ceiling meets, a wonderful feeling, or something like that, just to take her out of the moment, Yeah,

Dr. Mindy  

beautiful. Yeah. Is there a difference between being bold and being audacious?

Anne Marie  

I feel like audacious is a bigger swing, but I think, I think they’re very carefully done. I mean, bold is something unusual, and then there’s a certain risk to audacity, in terms of not knowing what the outcome would be. It’s interesting. Mindy, I had to change the subtitle for my book. It’s currently, it’s dismantled doubt and let yourself win. It was dismantled, dismantled doubt and take bold risks. People, when we tested the title, freaked out at the word risk. Freaked out, they were like, I don’t want to, I don’t want to take any risks. No, I don’t want to. I, you know, risks sound sound bad to me. And so it was like I literally had to say to myself, Okay, for them to understand what I wanted. I needed to change this title, to say like instead of like, take bold risks. Get out of your own way. Really let yourself win. Yeah, by, you know, taking some chances by being bold. It was really interesting. The the reaction to the word risk,

Dr. Mindy  

Yeah, isn’t that funny? Even a negative word where, like, no, no, don’t give that to me. You know, my my feeling is audacity, and being audacious is doing something that is it that is unusual for yourself, so you’re stepping up for yourself with certainty, knowing that you are going to get the outcome. There’s a almost a level of cockiness that comes with Audacity. To me, bold is like just a statement you make, but it doesn’t necessarily attach to your self worth. Audacious, to me is like, I’m gonna step up and do something big, knowing this is the right thing for me. That’s how I would like that’s just my own feeling.

Anne Marie  

I don’t know if you know, though, with something that’s audacious, if it’s the right thing for you, so I’ll, I would tweak that for myself and say, knowing that I’ll get some information and data from it. Ooh. So when I fail, I don’t even use the word failure anymore, but you know, by other people’s terms, when I fail, for me, that’s all data. Like, if you don’t do the thing, you have no information. People think that, like staying the same is safe, but it’s not. It’s the only thing that’s staying the same safe. Staying the same is, is ensuring that no growth is possible. So for me, Audacity isn’t knowing that it’s going to work out by any means. It’s about knowing that you’re going to get some information out of this action, whether it’s positive or negative, so you can keep moving on a path. I

Dr. Mindy  

love that because I love that because if you if you’re not worried about failing, if all you’re doing is data collecting, then you go and do something big and bold and audacious, and you get feedback, and then you decide your next move. It sounds like it could be that simple.

Anne Marie  

Yes, it is. It is that simple, and it’s really freeing. Yeah, it ties into everything we talked about, like, with rejection as well. Like, okay, I went for that job. I didn’t get that job. I always ask, like, could you give me any feedback on, you know, is there something I should have done differently or better, a skill I needed to acquire and all that, because now you’ve got some information, even if you apply for a job and don’t get it, apply again later, don’t get it and apply a third time. You know, when you have more information, you have been adding skills and more data to your bank of

Dr. Mindy  

knowledge. Yeah, that’s amazing. Let’s finish up on this. What can people expect from your book? And I you know, why did you write the book? Because I can tell you, as a as an author, decision to write a book, for me, is usually because something’s not being said that needs to be said. And I’m just curious your process and then invite us into people who are interested in diving into the pages and what they can find there.

Anne Marie  

Thank you. Well, I think the reason I wrote it is because there’s, you know, sometimes I’d have people say to me, like, you’re lucky, you’re lucky that you did this. And I’m like, am I? And I think

Dr. Mindy  

that’s interesting. I don’t think that’s what it

Anne Marie 

And so I wanted to share with people, because I really have been living my life this way, audaciously, and it comes out of a situation when I was like 23 years old, when a colleague of mine, an older person who I had interned for, was 37 and collapsed and died suddenly at work, right on ESPN Sports Center newsroom floor, and I had performed CPR in him, and it was unsuccessful, and he passed, and I remember being right there beside his body as they were trying to reach his wife, who had just gotten married. He had just landed his dream job. He hadn’t even been on air yet at ESPN. It was super fit. And I remember thinking like, Wait a second. If, if you can be newly married and super fit and land your dream job and have it yanked away in a second, I’m not gonna wait for anything ever again. Yeah. And we always kind of hear that, like, don’t wait. But there’s something about having it right in front of you as a 23 year old, that I was like, forget it. And so I started asking for things that I never would have asked for before. Hey, can I do the Olympics? Can I move to Los Angeles to be la Bureau producer? Can I do this? Can I do that? Sometimes the answers are yes, sometimes the answers were no, but I lived audaciously, and so the reason I wrote it is because at 50 something, I decided to write a book. At 37 is when I decided to go full time on air like I didn’t do anything early, and I realized that some of my friends and colleagues that I was having conversations with were like, oh, man, I missed that opportunity. And I’m thinking, I don’t think you did. No, I think it may be right there. I wanted people to understand the opportunity can still be right there, and you’re just reading into it in a different way. What people can expect from the book is this, there’s one of four things through my studying that is always in the way between you and the thing you want to do, and it’s either fear, time, money, your inner critic, or a combination of those four. So the first thing in the book we talk about is, like, what do you want to do? What if you don’t know what you want to do? That’s where the filter comes in that I talked about earlier, and figuring out what it is that really excites you and that you’re good at, right? Because I love to garden, but nobody’s hiring me to garden. I kill everything, yeah, everything. So, like, it has to be the combination. Then we go through the barriers. Some may resonate more strongly with you, but each one is asking questions and giving examples about the way that these barriers can impact us. And then at the end, there’s a reevaluation loop, because you’re not done. Audacity is never done. I know you know, this Mindy from like, writing another book now and creating and the way your life has evolved that we’ve talked about, yeah, it doesn’t end. And so constantly reevaluating, okay, here’s my, you know, health and wellness. Here’s what’s my score is. It’s actual score thing. And what was interesting to me is, when I wrote the assessment, I then took it. After I wrote it, I took my own assessment. Oh, that’s amazing. Professional career going well, yeah, health and wellness, I’m doing okay. Relationships, wa, wa. Like I wasn’t connecting with my friends, obviously, you know, no partner at that point, and I was thinking, Okay, what do I need to do to make that more satisfying for me. Wow. And that’s why the reevaluation loop you would want to do again several times, because maybe then you have a great relationship and your career is great, but you’re not taking care of care of your health or your wellness. So it is a process throughout the book where you can kind of pick and choose where you are.

Dr. Mindy  

Yeah, amazing, amazing. Well, you know, as as a fellow author, it is no small task to write a book in 15 minute increments is even more impressive. So thank you, yeah, yeah. So good, so good. But thank you. Ann Marie, this is just awesome. I love what you’re up to. I love the way your mind thinks. I love what you’re bringing forward. And I think for through the menopause lens, I just this is just a perfect book and a perfect conversation for women to really learn how to live life on their terms, because so many of us have been doing it on everybody else’s terms. So yeah,

Anne Marie  

that’s one of the reasons I made the first chapter free. The first chapter free is on my website, at Ammon henderson.com, because I thought I don’t want you to have to make an investment. When you’re unsure, read that first chapter, and then you know, if it resonates with you, go buy the book. Chances are it’s going to resonate with you. Because it’s about like, Wait a minute. You can do it now. Now is exactly the right time. But, yeah, for anybody that’s curious about it, but not sure, you can get the first chapter free on am Marie anderson.com, perfect,

Dr. Mindy  

and otherwise, book anywhere books are sold. Yeah, amazing. Well, thank you so much. Appreciate you. And I just, I love this conversation. I’m excited for people to hopefully step out of their comfort and become more audacious. So thank you.

Anne Marie  

It was great talking with you. Yeah, thanks.

Dr. Mindy  

Thank you so much for joining me in today’s episode. I love bringing thoughtful discussions about all things health to you. If you enjoyed it, we’d love to know about it, so please leave us a review. Share it with your friends and let me know what your biggest takeaway is. You.