Reinvent Yourself

Latest Episodes:

134 Reinventing the Way the World Thinks About Imperfect (Emily Rapp Black) Jun 11, 2021

Show notes

“I grew up with a disability. I had an artificial leg since age four. I didn’t realize it was anything. The goal was to pass and be as normal as possible. At puberty that screeched to a halt.” So begins CoveyClub founder, Lesley Jane Seymour’s fascinating conversation with Emily Rapp Black, author of the upcoming book, “Frida Kahlo and My Left Leg.” Black, whose previous memoir, “Sanctuary” is a brutally honest portrait of a mother struggling to balance the joy of motherhood with the tsunami of grief of losing her first born to Tay-Sachs disease-- says her disability meant she was “always really open. I never had really any privacy. People were asking me rude questions in elevators since age four.” Black, who is now an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at UC-Riverside and at UCR School of Medicine intended to follow in her minister father’s footsteps by attending divinity school, says she was in Korea on a Fullbright when she “had a breakdown...I’d never thought about being a disabled woman.” Her new book was inspired by a visit to Frida Kahlo’s home La Casa Azul and the exhibit of the corsets and braces and artificial limbs Kahlo wore that she saw on display. “I had a huge body emotional reaction,” Black says. “I had a back brace and the leg…[Kahlo]’s such a pop culture icon. There are CVS socks with Frieda Kahlo’s face on it. But what does it mean? No one remembers she was an amputee.”

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#133 When Trying CBD is Your Aha Moment (Kerrigan Behrens) Apr 30, 2021

Show notes

After college Kerrigan Behrens, now Co-Founder and CEO of Sagely Naturals (https://www.sagelynaturals.com/), grabbed a job at UBS because her brother seemed to like banking. Her hobby was creating lists of restaurants from which she advised friends and co-workers like a concierge. Deciding restaurant management would be more fun, Behrens entered business school, eventually landing a stint with Wolfgang Puck and later Taco Bell. “I loved new experiences, the high and the low,” she says. “But I found myself writing my own job descriptions for restaurants which couldn’t pay me.” Behrens met weekly with a friend from business school (Kaley Nichol) who was thinking about quitting her own banking job. “Then I used CBD,” says Behrens who had long suffered from endometriosis and lower back pain. “I realized I could feel better, not because I took a Vicodin!” With CBD products hard to find in 2015 she and Nichol quickly launched Sagely Naturals, a collection of CBD, hemp-derived roll-ons and creams, and rose quickly into 15,000 stores across the country (including CVS, Sprouts and Ulta). Then Covid19 hit and Sagely Naturals had to pivot to online. “Pain, stress, trouble sleeping; every problem was exacerbated during Covid19,” she says. Luckily too, “people were looking for help.”

#132 It Gets Greater Later (Bevy Smith) Apr 23, 2021

Show notes

Imagine that at 45 you nab your first TV show, your second at age 50. You snag your first book deal at 53. Now imagine that you decide your passion project is acting. You get called in for one scene but they like you so much they call you in for a second episode. As Beverly “Bevy” Smith, author of the new memoir, "Bevelations: Lessons from a Mutha, Auntie, Bestie" (https://amzn.to/3qVjRAZ), claims: “There is one mantra to live by: it gets greater later.” And she’s got the receipts to prove it. Smith grew up a nerdy, shy but “spoiled” kid in Harlem trying to fit in with “a bunch of mean girls.” She broke into the cliques by dressing well, dancing, and having a quick wit. Attitude served her well and made her tons of money as a fashion advertising executive when she landed at Vibe Magazine, just as hip-hop was scaling. “They didn’t have luxury advertising,” Smith says. “Systemic racism assumed that black and brown people would not be interested in fabulous clothes. And if they were interested, they couldn’t afford them.” Smith showed them otherwise, hobnobbing in Paris and Milan, breaking Gucci and Dior and Dolce & Gabbana. She left to do the same for Rolling Stone magazine until she left there to reinvent again, or as she told her boss—“to write, act, juggle, be a helicopter pilot.” Smith says: “When pivoting, be an explorer. We don’t know where the [next] gift is going to come from.”

#131 Breaking Down So You Can Break Through (Laila Tarraf) Apr 16, 2021

Show notes

“Life was good,” says Laila Tarraf. She was head of the internet division at Walmart, then Chief People Officer for Peet’s Coffee and Tea. “I had a good circle of friends, a daughter. I was strong and capable.” Then one day her husband passed away accidentally of a drug overdose--a mixture of alcohol, pain pills, and antidepressants. “He always drank a lot,” says the daughter of immigrants who moved to the US from Lebanon when she was seven. “I never really understood there was a problem.” Tarraf says she “was really numb. Nothing like that had happened to me. I tried to tuck it away but feelings kept coming back. And I had this little girl who was grieving...I didn’t know how to comfort her.” So began Tarraf’s journey into therapy, deep work and her examination of the stories she had always told herself about not needing anyone or anything: “My mother was more like a child...I jumped in to take care of her. But I didn’t want to do that with my daughter.” A short while later Tarraf’s father and then mother passed away. “In four to five years I’d suffered three big losses,” she says. Tarraf left her corporate job to get certified as a coach and write her first book, “Strong Like Water: How I found the Courage to Lead with Love in Business and in life” (https://amzn.to/2Qji649). “I grew up in a home where mom and dad fought a lot and I didn’t want to feel. It happens that qualities that saved you once, now hold you back...You have to go through the valley and break down to come out,” she says. “If you don’t there is no healing or transformation.”

#130 When Getting Laid Off is the Biggest Shock of Your Life (Linda Fears) Apr 09, 2021

Show notes

Linda Fears had been the Editor-in-Chief of Family Circle magazine for 12 years when four years ago, she was suddenly laid off. “It was the biggest shock of my life,” she says. “Was I stupid? Naive?…I felt sorry for myself for a few months and was really depressed.” But Fears, who was only in her early 50s, wanted to keep working. “It was clear the magazine industry was on a deep downward slide,” she says. “Of all the magazines I worked at only one is still in existence.” Fears took her interest in health and food (she loved cooking since a child), grabbed a nutrition certification at her alma mater Cornell, and started coaching friends, then clients on how to eat better and lose weight. Later, she began the blog GoodFoodRx.net, a weekly themed newsletter that dissects a nutritional issue and offers a corresponding recipe. Covid forced her coaching online but Fears now has clients from different states. “The silver lining for me in the pandemic is that people are eating poorly and not moving or exercising,” she says. “I thought I’d really miss my old life. But I’m really happy to be in charge of my own hours and not clock in."

#129 If it’s a Passion, then Just Do It (Jennifer Degenhardt) Apr 02, 2021

Show notes

So here’s the problem. You’re teaching Spanish in highschool for a total of 24 years, and early on you notice your students are bored out of their minds. “I was, too,” says Jennifer Degenhardt. “I said, they need a story.” So she gathered up the “themes” and the vocabulary demanded by the curriculum and made up more interesting stories that put characters who mirrored her students--Hispanic, from underserved communities, a boy in a wheelchair, LGBTQ, or from economic disparities--and put them at the center of the action. “After three to four years of teaching [my first] book, I published it and kept writing,” says the author of now 17 books in Spanish, 6 in English, one in German, and three translated into French. Encouraged by her students, she self-published her first book on Kindle Direct, a subsidiary of Amazon. “It’s made my life very easy,” says Degenhardt. It’s a “step by step process...and you’re in charge of your own products and you can fix your own mistakes.” Her favorite quote which she put on her refrigerator and looked at every day? “If you can’t stop thinking about it, don’t stop working toward it.” And that’s just what she did.

#128 From Lawyer to Walking Guru (Joyce Shulman) Mar 26, 2021

Show notes

When Joyce Shulman, CEO of 99walks.fit (https://www.99walks.fit/aboutus), came home in a bad mood one day during high school, her father suggested she go for a walk. “I didn’t know what was bugging me. I waked out the door and walked for two miles. I vividly remember feeling that when I walked back into the house my whole mood had shifted.” Shulman now offers her 12,000 members daily walking classes with coaches and meditations, and preaches the research that shows just regular walking can add seven years to an individual's life. But her path to walking wonderland was not a straight one. Shulman began life as a commercial litigator in New York City. After marrying, she and her husband launched the “world’s first nutrition bar for dogs. which grew to include cats and horses.” The business eventually fell apart and these serial entrepreneurs began creating the first pizza boxes with 4-color advertising. Fifteen years later they launched an e newsletter for kids and families, and then, upon noticing the health crisis among women, 99walks. “The country was getting bigger and less well,” Shulman says. “And I was watching the rise of the loneliness epidemic…For me, walking with friends and for community has tremendous value.” Best of all, walking engages those “left behind from the fitness industrial complex.” She says: “Some older women never had a meaningful fitness program. They don’t feel like they have a place for them.” Shulman hopes that walking can also help be an answer to the depression and lack of movement caused by the pandemic.

#127: Rebecca Moses (Pivoting in a pandemic from fashion designer to covid community builder) Mar 19, 2021

Show notes

Rebecca Moses knew from an early age she wanted to be a fashion designer. Graduating from the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), she landed her first job at Pierre Cardin and launched her own clothing line. On a trip to Italy to check out a factory, she fell in love with the owner. For 20 years Moses lived and worked outside of Milan and raised her two boys. But when her husband died suddenly in 2010, she tells CoveyClub founder Lesley Jane Seymour, her world turned “upside down.” Returning to New York City to raise her boys, she wrote a book (Rebecca Moses: A Life of Style https://amzn.to/3sYyC8k), and dove into painting, illustration and animations for organizations like the Fragrance foundation and Bergdorf Goodman. The pandemic was “a frightening time for the entire world,” she says. “My family in Italy was in a very bad way. I could hear the sirens of ambulances which drove me crazy.” Feeling “helpless” and like she had to do something, Moses went onto Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/rebeccamosesofficial/) and asked women to share the stories of their lives during the pandemic. She offered to draw them. “Letters flew in—humorous, sad, inspirational from six continents.” Moses “painted like a mad woman and didn’t sleep.” 400 portraits later, her project which she calls the Stay Home Sisters is going strong. “These women come from all walks of life: there is diversity in backgrounds, religion, careers. What happened next is the women connected with each other and said, ‘you’re not alone.’ It became a movement.” Moses is still taking entries! Some of the series will be shown at the Guggenheim and the portraits of nurses will be touring a hospital. “This past year witnessed lost of people revaluation gather lives,” Moses says. “Ask yourself, ‘is this the life I want to live?’"

#126: Dara Kurtz (When letting go of grief lets you move on) Mar 05, 2021

Show notes

For 20 years, Dara Kurtz had a successful career in finance. “It was based on society’s definition of success—done with dollar signs and size of house.” At age 42, the words “you have cancer” stopped her dead in her tracks. “After that I changed. I decided I [didn’t] want to go back. [Finance] didn’t speak to my heart.” Despite resistance from her husband, Kurtz quit her job and began to write a blog. “I didn’t know what I was doing....I didn’t know how to get from point A to point B.” Kurtz had always been a journal writer, penning her thoughts about the day to her daughters and placing her journal on their pillows to read. They would write back. “Going through breast cancer, that stopped. None of us were in that space to communicate,” she says. Years later she rediscovered the journals tucked away in a desk drawer. Also uncovered, a Ziplock bag of letters from her mom and grandmother. “I was blown away by how much wisdom they contained. I had a conversation with my mom 20 years after her death. I sat and sobbed... I could feel her personality and hear her words….I knew after reading those, she would have never wanted me to be stuck in grief or let her death impact my life. It was permission to go on with my life.” From that insight, her second book, “I Am My Mother’s Daughter: Wisdom on Life, Loss, and Love” was born. (https://amzn.to/3qkV0pY)

#125: Leisa Peterson (Using spirituality to reinvent your relationship to money) Feb 26, 2021

Show notes

“I use the heart chakra in relationship to money,” says Leisa Peterson, Founder of wealthclinic.com and author of "The Mindful Millionaire”(https://amzn.to/35ZzkZ8). “The heart is about receiving. How great are you at receiving money? It plays out when you’re running a business and you don’t feel comfortable being paid for the value you offer to an employer or [to a] client. When we understand that this is a symptom, we look inside.” Peterson, who grew up in Northern California, began her career as a fit model to pay the bills, eventually segueing into an MBA in finance. In 2014, after losing her father, she decided to merge her interest in spirituality with her interest in finance and helping others build their businesses, create their brands, and messages. “The journey of maturing in life is what chakras — really an ancient form of psychotherapy — inspire… I found money is merely a physical manifestation of who you are.” For some, Peterson says, "fear is what’s under it all.”

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