Reinvent Yourself

Latest Episodes:

#164: Reinventing Your Sleep During Menopause: Solutions! (Hasti Nazem) Mar 10, 2022

Show notes

With a family of 12 physicians, Hasti Nazem didn’t hesitate before going pre-med. Her beloved aunt’s passion for medicine and emigration from Iran had sparked a family-wide love of healthcare. But for Nazem, lifelong struggles with anxiety and depression left her feeling burned out, and she did what few in her family had done before: she chose to put her mental health first and reinvented. Unfortunately, she moved into the world of finance just before the 2008 market collapse. When a personal loss prompted her to return to school, she found herself connecting with two partners and starting a wellness company focused on sleep. Today, Nazem is the head of product and education for CoveyClub sponsor Kindra, a women’s wellness company that focuses on menopause. Listen in to her candid conversation with CoveyClub founder Lesley Jane Seymour as they dig into the science of how to fall asleep–and Nazem’s secrets to staying asleep during these years of hormonal disruption.

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Bio:

With nearly 10 years of experience at the intersection of life sciences, health and wellness, and consumer brand-building, Hasti Nazem integrates product development with technical advancements. She is particularly passionate about drawing from deep scientific communications experience to empower consumers to better understand their health, encourage engagement with the medical community, and bridge gaps often overlooked in menopause.

Key Links:

Kindra special offer to podcast listeners:

Try any of the specially-designed Kindra products for 20% off using the coupon code COVEY20.

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Time Stamps

07:10 - Growing up pre-med; reinventing for mental health

10:16 - When her aunt dies, Nazem decides to return to school, meets partners, launches a wellness business

12:02 - Leaving her start-up 10 days before the pandemic shut-down

12:31 - Learning the signs of burn-out

16:33 - Discovering Kindra; exploring the underlying relationship between sleep and menopause

20:00 - Why is there a lack of visibility for women going through menopause and post-menopause?

25:00 - Nazeem’s 5 unexpected tips for falling asleep

28:23 - Journaling for menopause and better sleep

32:19 - Finding the right bath products during menopause

36:34 - Stay-asleep tips

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#163: Investing Your Life’s Savings in Your Career Reinvention (Janet Gurwitch) Feb 25, 2022

Show notes

Mississippi native Janet Gurwitch was destined to join the fashion industry. Her father owned a chain of shoe stores and she herself graduated college with a degree in retail. After spending 14 years with Houston department store Foley’s, Gurwitch went on to become the Executive Vice President for Neiman Marcus. While there, she met make-up artist Bobbi Brown, then just beginning to launch her make-up line. Although she never intended to become an entrepreneur, Gurwitch was inspired by Brown to start her own business. At the age of 42, Gurwitch left Neiman Marcus and sought a makeup artist with whom she could build a beauty brand. After networking with beauty editors at Vogue and other magazines, she made her choice, invested her life’s savings, and created Laura Mercier. But after 13 years, when Nemain Marcus was sold to a private equity company, their 51% investment in Laura Mercier went with it. Gurwitch was forced to sell and she once again faced a career reinvention. Listen in to her conversation with CoveyClub founder, Lesley Jane Seymour, to learn how Gurwitch joined the private sector and bought five beauty brands in the course of ten years.

FREE GIFT! Don’t start your reinvention without downloading CoveyClub’s starter guide called “31 Badass Tips for Launching Your Reinvention Without Fear!”

Bio:

Janet Gurwitch is an operating partner with Advent International, where she serves on the board of Olaplex, Inc. Gurwitch is the founder and former CEO of Laura Mercier Cosmetics & Skincare, a global brand of high-end niche cosmetics. Prior to founding Laura Mercier, Janet Gurwitch was the Executive Vice President of Neiman Marcus, where she developed strategy and managed 80% of Neiman Marcus’ $2 billion sales volume across 35 doors.

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Join CoveyClub: If you like what you hear, you can support the CoveyCast podcast with a five-star rating, and subscribe for more inspiring conversations.

Time Stamps

4:40 – Growing up in Mississippi and fashion

5:38 – What being an entrepreneur means and makeup brands

7:33 – Giving up everything to start a business

14:16 – The secret to a good elevator pitch

19:00 – The importance of headhunters in private equity

23:13 – Knowing the industry vs educational background

29:50 – How you can work past doubt

30:53 – How to use networking to your advantage

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#162 When a Pandemic Trashes Your Business (Paula Floyd) Feb 04, 2022

Show notes

Paula Floyd is no stranger to transition. After seventeen years working with giants of the beauty industry such as MAC, Benefit, and Urban Decay, she felt the need for a shift. In her 50s, she was making $500,000 a year with an incredible title, but something didn’t feel right. She decided to look at what stood to be changed within the industry, and she found self-reinvention along the way. Leaving her six-figure job and selling her house, she founded HeadKount, a retail education service for small beauty brands looking to get their products into big retail stores. Things were going well...until the global pandemic. “Part of my business model was planning for the worst,” Paula says. Worried she might have to lay off the team-members who were relying on her, she stepped back and figured out how to shift her approach during a once-in-a-lifetime disruption. “How do you sell a skincare item you can’t open up and smell or touch on your hand?” she asks. In this conversation with Covey Club’s Lesley Jane Seymour, Paula explains how the many transitions in her professional life have impacted how she lives and thinks. “Follow what you love,” she advises us. “It’s really true: you’re worth it.”

Time Stamps:

[00:03:16.00] Introduction to makeup and start of career

[00:06:38.00] Meeting the ‘big guys’ of makeup and maturity

[00:11:44.00] Dealing with loss and insecurity

[00:16:10.00] Beauty industry secrets you should know

[00:21:35:00] The pandemic and starting a company

[00:27:55.00] Money, consumerism, and storytelling

FREE GIFT! Don’t start your reinvention without downloading CoveyClub’s starter guide called “31 Badass Tips for Launching Your Reinvention Without Fear!”

#161 When a Literal Explosion Forces You to Rethink Your Professional Identity (Christine Bader) Jan 28, 2022

Show notes

Business was a driving focus for Christine Bader from a young age. Growing up in Manhattan with two parents both working in corporate America, she followed their lead and received her MBA from Yale. Community interest was also a focus for her, working both with AmeriCorps and in NYC government to support misplaced youth. Bader enjoyed serving in communities that needed support, but when John Browne, then-CEO of BP, spoke to her business class in 1998, Bader knew she’d found her company. She went on to work for BP for eight years and fell in love. But then the Deepwater Horizon explosion spilled over 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico and everything changed.

Bio: Christine calls herself a “Thought leader, community/program builder, consigliere/facilitator/advisor/evangelist on all things business and society.” She is the Co-Founder, Storyteller, The Life I Want.co.

Key Links: Christine’s Book: The Evolution of a Corporate Idealist When Girl Meets Oil.

Her website: Storyteller, The Life I Want.co

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Timestamps [00:03:02.650] Falling in love with her job in sustainability at British Petroleum, BP. [00:07:52.990] Working on human rights and community issues in Indonesia [00:14:27.820] What happens when the Deepwater Horizon rig explodes [00:17:35.210] Writing her book: The Evolution of A corporate Idealist When Girl Meets Oil [00:26:13.140] Quitting Amazon and giving up the identity she’d worked to build for 20 years [00:26:45.040] Moving the family to Bali [00:35:50.140] Christine’s 3 best steps for people transitioning from corporate life (plus one you’ve never heard before)

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#160 Science as a Platform for Reinvention (Ariel Garten) Jan 21, 2022

Show notes

Toronto native Ariel Garten was 23 when she had her first collection showcase at Fashion Week. The owner of a budding clothing label that was making newspapers around the city, she was bewildered when her father suggested she leave the industry. Garten went to school while producing her designs at the same time, eventually graduating with a degree in neuroscience Something in her was prompted to follow her father’s advice, and she found herself on the cusp of a radical reinvention. Having worked in neurological research and early brain computer interface systems, Garten decided to commercialize the technology - a process that involved raising millions of dollars from investors. The result was the award-winning Muse Headband collection, a brain-sensing headband that gives real-time feedback during sleep and meditation. At 5’2”, a petite female in a male-dominated industry, Garten was able to fund and create a product that has now been used in studies by Mayo Clinic and other major research institutions. “I was so scared,” she says, “that it wouldn’t be good enough…but at the same time, I had this deep confidence in myself and I had the ability to really silence my inner critic.” In this candid conversation with Covey Club founder Lesley Jane Seymour, Garten explains her choices and the passion that inspired her along the way.

FREE GIFT! Don’t start your reinvention without downloading CoveyClub’s starter guide called “31 Badass Tips for Launching Your Reinvention Without Fear!”

#159: When Career Transformation Leads to Personal Reinvention (Kristine Deer) Jan 14, 2022

Show notes

Kristine Deer knew from childhood that she was meant to create, and when her mother gave her a box of fabric, some duct tape, and a stapler, she unlocked her passion for designing clothes. Fast-forward to college: Deer, of course, majored in fashion design before moving to New York City to pursue her career as a designer. But when The Great Recession hit in 2000, the industry changed. Deer found herself working menial tasks for other designers and witnessing a harsh corporate environment devoid of creative freedom. When she later lost her job, she was disillusioned and bereft. Leaving the city, she moved back in with her parents, determined to begin again. But how? After discovering her passion for hot yoga, Deer began to design her own yoga clothes—in particular the multi-striped rainbow leggings for which she eventually became famous. Eleven years later, she is the founder and CEO of the activewear brand K-DEER. In an intimate conversation with CoveyClub founder Lesley Jane Seymour, Deer shares her journey of reinvention both personally and professionally.

FREE GIFT! Don’t start your reinvention without downloading CoveyClub’s starter guide called “31 Badass Tips for Launching Your Reinvention Without Fear!”

#158 Reinventing When Life Makes You a Double Caregiver (Laurie James) Jan 07, 2022

Show notes

For Laurie James, giving birth to four daughters in five years called for necessary life changes. Leaving her career as a recruiter, she took on the role of a full-time mom. “My third pregnancy were a set of identical twin girls,” she says, “so that was a pretty big shock to the system.” An even bigger shock came when her mother developed dementia. This meant Laurie now found herself raising four children while also managing her mother’s care. “I became one of the first people in my friend group to enter into the Sandwich Generation.” The Sandwich Generation, Laurie says, is described as having at least one child you are supporting and at least one parent that’s over the age of 65. Her attention diverted, Laurie also found her marriage struggling. Turning to therapy and yoga for support, she was inspired when an acquaintance suggested she write a book. Laurie James talks to CoveyClub founder, Lesley Jane Seymour about how she poured her struggles, her accomplishments, and her lessons along the way into Sandwiched: A Memoir of Holding On and Letting Go. The book chronicles her personal journey through the sandwich generation while also revealing many of the dangerous flaws within the caregiving industry. As a result of writing the book, Laurie found new strength in the power of writing and reflection. “Find that time to reflect,” Laurie advises us, “because that’s where our growth happens.”

FREE GIFT! Don’t start your reinvention without downloading CoveyClub’s starter guide called “31 Badass Tips for Launching Your Reinvention Without Fear!”

#157 Running Her Side Hustle on One Hour a Day (Nicole Malcolm-Manyara) Dec 31, 2021

Show notes

What do you do when you have an MBA from Stanford with a focus on innovation and entrepreneurship, but you’re also loving your corporate job? That was the conundrum Nicole Malcolm-Manyara faced after spending ten years at P&G. “I worked in their oral care portfolio for kids...the Gillette business. I worked in their incubator...so it was pretty much like working for a startup but at a big company,” she says. She also worked on their CVS customer team and at Duracell. But Malcolm-Manyara always had “the entrepreneurial bug.” After Duracell, she took a job working--mostly remotely-- for Organic Girl, the salad company. “During that translation this whole idea came to me for Rad Royals,” cool satin pillowcases for young Black girls. Her three-year-old daughter was refusing to tie her hair in a satin scarf or bonnet to protect it from getting tangled overnight. “And so I thought, well, why don’t I get her a satin pillowcase.” But Malcolm-Manyara couldn’t find anything that was made sustainably or whimsically designed to intrigue her daughter. For two years Malcolm-Manyara, who lived on the east coast, worked her day job on California time and used her mornings for motherhood and Rad Royals: “It evolved very quickly into a business, a brand.” She says: “If you really want to do something, you figure out how to do it...That has driven me to carve out time...and be really really focused….I try to say, ok, if i can spend one hour a day on Royals then, you know I’m good.” One of the things Malcolm-Manyara learned when working in the incubator was the concept of figuring out your killer issue. “If you have an idea, you sit down and try and figure out what the two or three things that absolutely have to be true in order for [you] to be successful with this idea...and you solve for those things.”

FREE GIFT! Don’t start your reinvention without downloading CoveyClub’s starter guide called “31 Badass Tips for Launching Your Reinvention Without Fear!”

#156 Graduating from Smith College at Age 67 (Ann Dowsett Johnston) Dec 17, 2021

Show notes

When Ann Dowsett Johnston attended her son’s graduation from Smith College she felt a “deep pang” that she says sounded like, “I will die and never have done this.” With her son’s encouragement, Johnston applied to Smith and moved into the student dorm with 25-year olds the next year. “I had broken my ankle and was in a wheelchair,” she says. “I was as old as many parents or grandparents. It was a phenomenal experience.” After graduating Johnston, a Canadian, who had been a journalist, then vice-principal of McGill University, launched her career as a psychotherapist at age 67 dealing with women in transition--”to post-retirement, wrestling with substance abuse or career disappointment”. When she found she missed writing, she dug into a topic she knew well: alcohol addiction (she is now 13 years sober). In 2013, she wrote the best-selling book, “Drink: The Intimate Relationship Between Women and Alcohol.” Today she runs memoir-writing workshops (“Writing Your Recovery”) in which she encourages women to tell their own stories of triumph over grief, substance, or burnout. “We have book proposals in the alumni group before international agents now,...articles in major magazines... pieces submitted to contests,” she says. “My approach to life is that we live in chapters. When friends are retiring, mine is fresh and inspirational. It’s very new. I plan to work until I’m eighty to pay off my student debt!”

FREE GIFT! Don’t start your reinvention without downloading CoveyClub’s starter guide called “31 Badass Tips for Launching Your Reinvention Without Fear!”

#155 Growth is in the Struggle (Jennifer Pate) Dec 10, 2021

Show notes

“First thing: get clear on what you want,” says Jennifer Pate, the very practical founder of FeelAgeless.com, a site dedicated to making women feel good about aging. “Take out paper and pen and write down how much time [you can dedicate to your reinvention]. Be realistic about what you can do.” Ask yourself, she says: “How much money do I need [to make]? What do I want to do? Can you name it? What are you good at? What do people compliment you on? The more you can define these things—things will start opening up.” That’s exactly how Pate made her way from being a professional dancer to casting director, co-author of a book ( “The Mothers of Reinvention”), and television contributor. Facing empty nest and turning 55 forced Pate to reassess what she wanted to do next and when she discovered “so many women at the height of their creativity and drive [who] felt we weren’t being talked to….I want to change the narrative of what it is to age today.”

FREE GIFT! Don’t start your reinvention without downloading CoveyClub’s starter guide called “31 Badass Tips for Launching Your Reinvention Without Fear!”

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