Midlife and (peri)menopause can shake our confidence: belly fat in our body, the fear of bursting into tears or rage, unpredictable cycles, and the list goes on.
It really doesn’t have to be that way.
Amy Schmidt of Fearlessly Facing Fifty says we all have a kernel of confidence within us, and if we can tap into it and match it with our new creativity, power, independence, and hard-earned experience, we are genuinely a force to be reckoned with.
Listen to her conversation with Gennev CEO Jill Angelo for information and inspiration.
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Have you experienced a resurgence of confidence and creativity, or are you still waiting for that fire to ignite? We’d love to hear how you’re taking advantage of this very productive time of life or what you need to get going. Join the conversation on Gennev’s community forums.
TRANSCRIPT:
Jill Angelo
We are live welcome to the generic weekly webinars series. I love this time because it’s when we get to get out of our own homes, if you will, and businesses to talk about what other people are doing in, you know, women’s health and in menopause and in the second half of life for women. And today I’m, I’m just really honored to have Amy Schmidt of Fearlessly Facing Fifty with us. So welcome Amy.
Amy Schmidt
Oh, thanks so much Jill. I know it’s a mouthful, isn’t it? I had to run through that several times when I, when I started, when it got the name Fearlessly Facing Fifty. That’s a lot of F’s.
Jill Angelo
My first question and even before you introduce yourself, Where did Fearlessly Facing Fifty come from?
Amy Schmidt
Well, you know what? It came because all of this really happened about six or seven months before I turned 50. So the fearless part was a word that I love because I look as fear at fearless, as being brave and so fearlessly facing being brave, facing 50. Because you know, it’s, it’s a big number. It’s, you know, it’s, it’s out there. I mean, I’m 50 and I can remember my mom turning 50 and sitting there and thinking, looking at her when I was about 12 and thinking that’s an old mom, you know, she’s getting ready for a birthday party and here I am 50. So I think the Fearlessly Facing Fifty part for me is really my story. I just decided that I had been, as you’ll probably hear along this interview on a journey like most women and just have decided I’m going all in. It’s, you know, if not now, when, why not be fearless?
Jill Angelo
That’s great. Well, let’s back up then as we, you marched up to 50, like tell us introduce yourself first of all and just explain what you do.
Amy Schmidt
Yeah. Okay, great question. You know what? I think I’m like many women. We kind of mastered the art of reinvention. I think that’s really what we do. So over the course of the last 27 years, I’ve been married and married my college sweetheart. I have raised three children. My, our youngest is 16, so we still have one in the house, but two are basically grown and flown. One is a young adult working in New York city. The other one is a sophomore in college. You know, when I look back and I think 27 years ago where I was, I was in news broadcasting and journalism. That was my passion, writing, storytelling, broadcasting, and then has the trajectory of my husband’s career started to take off. And I think this is synonymous with a lot of women that were born in the late sixties, early seventies.
A lot of us kind of said, okay, we made the choice too, I stayed home and started following this trajectory of, of Tim’s career. So in 1997, I stepped away from after broadcasting going into corporate America and had my daughter. And from there, you know, art of reinvention, you just pick up, we moved a lot of times because Tim’s trajectory was about every two to three years we were moving. So 11 moves, one abroad for six years, three kids later involved in everything under the sun. Like a lot of women, you know, they immersed themselves in their community. I continued to write I sat on boards, I did all of the stuff that I was doing and enjoying it, but then all of a sudden we moved back to the United States. I had lost my parents gone through some health issues myself and said, you know what, I gotta start doing some stuff for me. And so it was a little bit of a pivot and I just decided it’s my time and I have a voice and I’m very passionate about, as you’ll hear about women and empowering and encouraging women just to put the fear aside and just to forge ahead. So that’s kind of, you know, from broadcasting to writing to community involvement to mom, daughter, wife, all of those things, you know, that’s pretty much my story.
Jill Angelo
It’s a lot of, a lot of roles to fill and and a lot of women are doing the same thing, you know, they’re, they’re doing it all. One thing I wanted to ask you when you, when you knew it was time to start doing something for you, was it a moment? Did it, was it over time and you were just like in this uncomfortable place and all of a sudden you’re like, I got to do something for me or talk us through what that felt like and how did you know?
Amy Schmidt
Ah, that’s a great question. You know, I think it’s through this, this part of life for women. You know, you look at this journey and all of a sudden you get to this point and you’re a wife and a mother and a daughter and a sister. But where did Amy go? And I think it really hit me one time when my husband was getting ready for work and the kids, I’m getting ready to get him off to school and he yells to me and he says, Hey Amy, Hey mom, would you grab the dry cleaning? You know, on the way home, no problem. Of course I’ll drive. Yeah, we’ll get the dry cleaning, but I’m not your mom. I’m Amy. And you have those moments. And you kind of just continue to forge ahead and think. But it was a little bit of a stop me in my tracks moment because I thought, where did Amy go?
You know, you lose your identity. So for me I had lost my parents when we lived in Germany, which was a big part of it is a big part of my story and it’s in my book lost both of them and I wasn’t able to make it back in time to see either of them, which is, is really at this age when we’re dealing with aging parents and caregiving and things like that. And I was a country away. I was in Germany. That was a challenge for me when we got back to the U S I had some issues with just anxiety, which was a lot menopause based, perimenopause based, all of those things kind of culminating. But yet I was having all of these conversations with my friends and we’re all talking about the same things, hot flashes sleepless nights, anxiety, all these things. And I’m thinking, you know what, there needs to be a voice out there advocating and opening the dialogue for women. That was my moment when I said I’m going to do this. I’m passionate about it. My network is broad. I have the wonderful friends and community all over the country and world. So why not start sharing this and inspire each other to start talking about things that otherwise we kind of just push to the side.
Jill Angelo
You know, I think that’s so inspiring because to think that, okay, what I’m experiencing might be something that other women are experiencing. It’s our native. We naturally think we’re the only one or we’re going crazy or what’s wrong with me. And instead you took that and flipped it and you said, I hate, I bet there’s other women that are going through this. Talk us through a little bit how I think that’s brave and bold and thank you. You know, cause you’re, you’re touching women. You like, you’re reaching them. Talk a little bit about. The notion of fear because it’s in, it’s in your, your title of Fearlessly Facing Fifty. Talk A little bit about that because I think fear is something we don’t, we don’t want to talk about it. It makes us appear vulnerable.
Amy Schmidt
Exactly. And I think we do all have fears. I mean, we do, we all have them. And at this age we start fearing things about our health. We start fearing things about our parents falling or not taking medicine or fearing about relationships that are changing and should we have done something different. So fear is a part of everything. And I think that what we need to do as women and what I really love is that we’ve all got this confidence that’s just kind of hidden under these layers because we’ve been doing so many things and so many experiences and we just keep it all going. That’s just what women do. We mastered the art of reinvention and multitasking. And so, you know, you just have to overcome your fear by honoring your confidence and finding that again, finding that voice and realizing that this beautiful piece of art that you’ve created, this masterpiece of all of these things along your journey all fit together and you have an incredible story to share.
And I think that’s where women get stopped because they think, Oh, I wish I looked like I did 20 years ago. Wow, I wish I still had that. You know, that heart of flutter with my husband that I don’t have as much anymore because everything’s changed. Or I wish I could still ski the black diamonds without wearing that. I’m gonna need a knee replacement or something because you know, that’s where we are. We have those fears, but we can’t allow them to stop us. We just have to continue to make a plan to forge ahead. And I think women just need to switch that lens a little bit instead of looking back with that Norman Rockwell-ish, you know, memories of things in the past and the kids with the sweaters that matched and everything else is to shift that to living in looking forward and all that you can accomplish and do, whether it’s enrolling back in school, if you haven’t finished.
I’ve met some incredible women that have just taken on these journeys, these new leaps of faith and said, you know what, just going to do it. Volunteer for an organization, write a book, you know, start a podcast. All of those things you can do. So that’s kind of where, where it all comes from. So it’s everybody’s fearful of things and we are, we have a tendency to do that to ourselves. You know, we, we get so fearful of not having it perfect or waiting for everything to be perfect, that know we just can’t do that. We just can’t wait. We just got to jump in. And like my book is called Cannonball and I’m a big believer in just cannon balling off and making this huge splash. That’s what we have to do.
Jill Angelo
Well let’s, let’s talk about that because you started when you, when you decided, Hey, I’m going to bring my story to life. I’m going to start reaching other women and building this community of, of women like me. You started with a podcast and, and your, your community and your following has grown. And so there’s a hunger for the message that you’re bringing and it’s, it’s culminated very soon in, in your first book that you’re publishing. And so I want to talk about Cannonball. I love the title, but you know, it’s my favorite swimming move. But you know what, talk about where you started and why podcasting. Cause you obviously leaned into your publishing or your media background or your news caster background.
Amy Schmidt
It did. And I do look at that as all little pieces of the puzzle. For me, it’s all allowed me to have more confidence in doing this. So, you know, six months before I turned 50, I said, you know what, I’m having these conversations. Like I said with women, we’re all sharing this common thread. Just now need to start talking about this stuff. We need to start talking about menopause. I never talked about it with my mom. You know, we never had those conversations. And so I put in a local Facebook community group. I said, you know what? Anybody know how to start a podcast because I really had no idea. Was it a button on your computer? You know, who knows? I wasn’t even really an avid podcast listener at that point. And this wasn’t that long ago. And podcasts have been around forever.
And so a really nice young guy, I could be, his mom came over and sat down with me in my office and said, okay, Mrs. Schmidt, tell me what you want to do. And I said, well, first of all, you can call me Amy and next, you know what? I want you to show me what I need to get, but I want to do it. I want to be this, this, embrace, this lifetime learning, which I think we need to do as women. I want to do it soup to nuts, show me what to do. So we added things to my Amazon cart. I became an Amazon affiliate. He set me up to do that too. I had no idea. And you know, many trips to Google, to the genius, I mean to the genius bar at Apple and you know, they’d be like, Hey Amy, what are you working on now putting together this podcast?
And so for me, the interview part of the podcast is very easy because that’s just part of kind of my wiring. I think I’m a conversationalist by nature, so that’s very easy. But you know, the technical part of it, editing and producing and all of that, it’s all self taught. I mean, I learned it. This young guy came in and kind of helped me set some things up, but I do it all soup to nuts. So it just shows that you don’t have to be technologically crazy savvy to start something like this. And so I pride myself in that part of my story because it wasn’t perfect. It still isn’t perfect. And I can still remember that day when I pushed the record button and just went for it. Took a deep breath and just said, I’m just going for it. And with that, it’s just been incredible. And I think I’m a true Testament to the message that needs to get out there to women. Women thrive on community, they thrive on connection and conversation. And in this podcast is just, I love to share these stories. So these incredible women doing amazing things like yourself, just incredible. You know, it makes you path your, your cross paths just cross with such inspiring women. You just want to keep going. You just crave it.
Jill Angelo
It feeds you. It’s feeds you. to pause for one second for if anyone’s just tuning in. We’re live on Facebook and we’re also, I’m obviously recording the webinar through zoom. This is the Gennev weekly webinars series. But this is a special edition one. We had an opportunity to bring Amy Schmidt of fearlessly facing 50 on with us today. She’s got a new book coming out that we’re going to talk about next. But I just wanted to preface Gennv weekly podcast. I’m Jill Angelo, I’m the CEO and founder of Gennev. And again, I’m thrilled to have Amy here.
Talking a little bit about your podcast and bringing stories to light and it fulfilling you. How do you pick the women that you talk to on your podcast? And what do you hope their stories bring to your listeners?
Amy Schmidt
Mm, I love that. You know, and at first it was really just utilizing my network and I think that’s something that women sometimes stand back and say, I mean, I talk to women all the time and they say, Oh, Hey, I don’t, I don’t have a network. I’m not a business person. I don’t have a network. You do have a network. And I think my first guests were people that have been a part of my life inspired me in different ways along my journey. And so I said, Hey, would you be a guest from there is kind of culminated into culminated into women reaching out to me and saying, Hey, I have an incredible story. I would love to share it. You know, in my podcast is kind of a three pronged approach. So I share these inspiring stories of women doing crazy cool things.
And then I have experts that come on and talk about top of mind topics like menopause, women’s health, anything, aging parents. And then I have celebrities as well that come on and share their journey, which is just incredible. But you know, the women, my whole objective with my podcast and when I sign off every time I just take a deep breath and say, I hope that inspired somebody to take action because that’s what it’s about. If something in there resonated and I just, I get so much, it just feeds me in such a way. And I learned so much from each podcast, had a wonderful guest on one of my first podcasts. A young woman who is now probably 51, and her son at 17 had a massive stroke and ended up being in a state of Lockton syndrome, which means he can only move his eyes.
He cannot walk, he cannot talk. He was in division one, signed a university of Fort Mercer college to play division one lacrosse. And here’s a woman who I know through another friend. So utilizing my network and I reached out to her and you can just hear in the podcast, sharing her story. One was so brave, but it also touched the heart of so many people listening. She got reach-outs from women all around the world that said, wow, I’m a caregiver for my child, or I’m 50 and going through this. And that’s, that’s the power of the podcast for me, you know, and that’s really how I find my stories. I do a lot of research of course, but there’s just so many women that have incredible journeys to share. Hmm.
Jill Angelo
That’s it’s amazing, you know. And even that she would come and share that.
I’m sure in a way for her, it’s part of the healing process too, right? We’ve got a talk. Yeah. What, you know, as you, as you you’ve been doing Fearlessly Facing Fifty podcast series for how long now?
Amy Schmidt
I started in October was my first podcast. I really launched Fearlessly Facing Fifty in my company back in, I guess it was about June, June or July. But the podcast button actually was like mid to late October, so yeah. Pretty cool.
Jill Angelo
That’s amazing. And through that, you have been on this journey of creating a book, Cannonball. Tell us a little bit about the book, first of all it’s coming out very soon. Talk a little bit about the book and then let’s, then I want to know what was your journey? When did you say I need to start writing this down or capturing it and, and we need to publish this.
Amy Schmidt
Yeah. Okay. Well, Cannonball is, is, I love the title too. And, and my publisher in New York City, we’ve had to do everything by zoom now, which has been for our first book has been challenging but so much fun. I was a competitive swimmer all my life. I was, that was my identity swimming up and down and following a black line from, you know, early six year old. I think I won the cutest swimsuit in the sixth and under all the way through college. That was me searching for validation and a lot of ways which I’ve uncovered through writing this book, but to Cannonball for me is a visual. And when I talk to women, I have them just take a deep breath and close their eyes and I say, okay, I want you to picture two diving boards, one low board and one high board.
And standing on the low diving board is a woman in her early thirties. Pretty well put together, has a tattoo on her wrist that she doesn’t remember where she got it cause it was a fun girl’s weekend and she’s got little kids and she’s in a bikini and she’s to go to the end of the diving board. But she just can’t quite get there. She just, she’s worried that like keep saying, come on, come on, just go. And she just can’t go. She’s nervous. And then you kind of look at this high dive, which, you know, back in the day there used to be high dives. Now I don’t think they have many more because of insurance, but the high dive, I pictured myself climbing all the way up to the top, not stopping, not skipping a rung, just going all the way to the top and just running and Cannon balling off.
And it’s not going to be pretty, you know, I say in the book, it’s probably going to, you’re going to start ugly. It’s going to be uncomfortable. You might need a you know, some type of chiropractor appointment afterwards, but you’re going to cannonball off and make this huge splash and everybody’s going to be looking at you and it doesn’t matter because you have that confidence. So Cannonball for me is my story compiled combined with women stories, inspiring stories that I have run across in my journey and share them as well. And then at the end of each chapter are strategies and reflections that you can apply to your life so that you can find that confidence to just cannonball off and just, you know, go forward.
Jill Angelo
I love that. And before we start taking some questions, when is the book expected to come out?
Amy Schmidt
May 19th is what we’re shooting for. Yeah, the interior design is going right now and it’ll be available on Amazon. It’ll be available in bookstores too, but Amazon will be the way to get it now. So and I think we’re going to give away a copy on a this, which would be great.
Jill Angelo
And we’ll, and we grabbed, I think, one of the exercises that you’ve got in the book. So we’re going to talk about that a little bit later, but just did it from your Instagram feed. So well, good. Well first of all, I want to invite people to ask questions. We will make this a fluid conversation. I know I’ve kind of been drilling Amy with my questions, but from time to time we’ll certainly take your questions. So please via the chat or via hand raise, you can submit questions either way.
We do have a question that I’d like to take now from Debbie and Amy, This is for you Conducting a job search over 50 can be so competence defeating as age discrimination is a real thing. What are some competence builders you would recommend for the well-seasoned job seeker?
Amy Schmidt
That’s a great question and I would love for this person to reach out to the podcast and go ahead and search Fearlessly Facing Fifty podcasts because two weeks ago I had on Lori Knutson, who talked about this very thing and it’s a two part series. The first part dropped. And it’s all about finding that confidence and selling yourself in your resume and building your resume. And I think one of the pearls that that I’ve learned from this and you know, reapplying in the job force and things is that women, we second guess ourselves right off the bat, you know, we look at the job qualifications and we say, Ooh, I can do that. Not that, Oh shoot. Nope. And then they just say, I’m not going to submit my resume. I’m just not even going to do it.
So I always say in my book, I said something about your finger hovers over the send button cause you just, just don’t think you’ve reached all those qualifications. Whereas men will look at it and even if they don’t have the qualifications, they submit it, you know? So it’s, it’s that difference. So I just encourage you to put together your story of all that you’ve accomplished and what you’ve done and, and you know, and then talk to somebody like Lori who’s a career specialist that can kind of put that in a way in your resume because resumes are different now as we get older. There’s certain things that you do put on there and there’s certain things you don’t and then just go for it. You know, what’s the worst case scenario is kind of how I go through life. What’s the worst case scenario you learn from the experience. Even if you don’t get the interview or the job, you’ve still, you’ve still accomplished so much just in pushing send.
Jill Angelo
Yeah. You know, and I think even to add on to that is stay authentic to who you are. If you’re worried about appearing old, you know, lean into that wisdom. You have experience that a younger 30 something or 20 something won’t have. I was on a just a happy hour webinar with another community the other day and, and they, one individual in particular was talking, he was he was in his, in his late fifties. He had worked at Airbnb and he said, all my colleagues, in fact, my boss was not even 30. And he said, you know, I said to my boss one day, or my manager, like, I’m, I, I’m not contributing in the same way. And the younger individual, which I thought was kind of insightful for a 20, something kind of said, you know, I hired you for your wisdom, not, you know, your tech or digital savvy or your startup savvy. I hired you for your wisdom.
And I think too often we undermine the wisdom that we carry. And I think to even see it, like you said, you know, even consulting with Laurie or even with a man that you might trust, if you articulated your accomplishments, you know, to a guy, I bet they could pitch it in such a way that you’d be like, Whoa, I’m all that, you know. So like, right. Just to add to your comments I think there’s, we undersell wisdom and use somebody else to, to help kind of pitch that back to you.
Amy Schmidt
Yes. Use your resources. I agree a hundred percent.
Jill Angelo
Do you, Amy in, you know, the conversations that you go through, like, do you see trends. Like is it a lot of looking for jobs? Is it restarting careers? Is it dealing with anxiety? Is it dealing with divorce? Like are there certain amongst your community that you see time and again, or is it, is it a huge diverse kind of set of challenges and opportunities?
Amy Schmidt
Great question. You know, it’s a lot of what you said. It’s a lot of reentering the workforce, but it’s also, I recently had a round table with a group of women that have been with the same company for 25 and 30 years and you know, they’re worried that all of a sudden they’re going to go in and they’re being downsized or you get those words, I’m sorry you’re not, you know, you’re not, you’re not going to be in this position anymore. We can offer you this, but you know, it’s, it’s, it’s that whole shift. So I see a lot around career, a lot around fear of getting back out in the career and feeling outdated around technology. I see that a lot. There’s a trend around women thinking, Oh, I don’t know about social media. It makes me too nervous, but yet then we become antisocial and we actually need that connection.
So some things around technology, a lot around relationships whether it be with your spouse or partner, whether it be with your adult children, your parents. I see a lot around relationship changes and just embracing those changes and realizing that it’s all very normal. And silver divorces, that’s something we have coming up on our show notes. It’s very common. We have a lot of health issues. We have a lot of menopausal issues, a lot of questions about hormones and you know, all those types of things that we deal with as women. So it’s very multifaceted and I think that’s why the conversations around midlife and beyond are so important because they are so multifaceted. They really are. It’s driven by so many different things.
Jill Angelo
Yeah. Yeah. You know, I think this next question, we just got another one in. Kind of takes us back to the title of this webinar around creativity and confidence and menopause and during this kind of menopause time of life and this individual, Jennifer says, Amy, how do you think we could use this COVID situation to help grow our confidence and creativity?
Amy Schmidt
Hmm. Wow, Jennifer, that is a great question. I think it’s searching within yourself and I think, you know, women tend to kind of put themselves on the back burner and now with this COVID situation you might be navigating completely differently with a house full of adult kids again like I have. And then there’s that whole new level of stress and sometimes you tend to put yourself on the back burner.
So I think making yourself a priority again is really what we can do at this time. Use this time to, you know, use the time because I am looking at this as a bit of a gift of time that we never have. And when we fast forward six months, we’re going to crave this time when we’re back to our originally scheduled programming. So use this time to kind of turn that lens inward and say, what is it Jennifer, that I really want to do? Where can I really add value? And then take those steps on that journey. You know, it’s something, it’s a, it can be a real time for self discovery.
Jill Angelo
That’s great. I even saw a post yesterday around what things, we don’t want to go back to normal. And I, I thought that was kind of an interesting way to think about how can you use what’s happening that you actually like right now to become your new normal, you know, coming through this scenario.
Amy Schmidt
Yeah, that’s, that’s a really interesting thing because, you know, when do you ever have dinners with your kids and your family all sitting around the table? I mean, those are things that we will crave at times. So just take each day and look at it as a new opportunity.
Jill Angelo
Do you think that as you crossed that 50 year old threshold, your obviously your confidence, you’ve talked about the bravery and the confidence that you’ve had to just like hit that button for the first podcast or what just do it. But creativity, have you felt that it’s gone up or changed as the older you get?
Amy Schmidt
Yeah, I think so. You take more risks around it, you know, because you know there’s always going to be judgers. So it doesn’t matter. Even with writing my book, I mean I have started this book, Jill, I can’t tell you how many times. I mean I really have, I’ve started and stopped it because of fear getting in the way of me not being confident with thinking people were going to read it or thinking it was going to add value. So my creativity is, has really, really grown and I’m wanting to learn different things. Like I really am embracing this lifetime learning. Maybe because I have a little bit more time. My kids are older, I have a little bit more time. I have a great relationship with my spouse who’s able to say, you know, what? Pursue that honey, pursue that passion. So I feel very lucky that way, but I do feel like, yeah, it just, it is a time to be creative and really reflect inward and find out where your gifts are because everybody has them.
Jill Angelo
How how about for the woman who feels like she doesn’t have as much time? Are there suggestions you have for allowing your inner creative to come out or to explore or seek that out?
Amy Schmidt
Yeah, I think it’s just really taking that time again to really self reflect and find where your passions are, whether it’s enrolling in a class, you know, maybe you’ve always wanted to take that art class. I mean, I talked to so many women and that is a common thread. I’ve always wanted to take a watercolor class or I’ve always wanted to learn how to take, you know, wonderful photographs, all of those things. So you have to just, even if you’re busy, take that time, make it a priority and put it on your list of things you want to accomplish. You don’t have to have a massive, huge list, have one thing and set three little goals to get there every day and then you’ll accomplish it. You know, I think there’s a lot of ways we can do that.
Jill Angelo
Yeah. Yeah. One thing that we saw you posted I think in, it’s, it’s called “Reflections on acceptin