Angela McCourt 0:00
Let's get ready for some serious shift. This is a podcast shifting Inside Out hosted by your quantum shifter Angela McCourt, we are diving into ways to empower and enable a quantum shift. Inspiring topics hacks and guest speakers take us on a journey around authenticity, challenging status quo, personal power and living a purpose filled life.

episode we talk about Stephanie Guilarte journey, as well as really interesting, amazing work she's doing in the space of embracing a wellbeing culture inside of companies, and the work she's doing with leaders on how to have the conversations about what wellbeing and wellness means to their teams. And it's amazing, because over the past probably decade, maybe not quite as long for many companies, a lot of companies have really started to put programs in place around fitness, and that from a physical perspective, that support system and encouragement and different programs that allow their employees and their colleagues to be able to have more physical fitness in their life. Over the past few years, we've started to see more companies focus on mental health, and especially during COVID, this has become a really important topic. And what Stephanie is focused on and has been for many years now is helping companies to create the culture not just the programs around wellbeing, which is super important, because there are a lot of different pieces to this, that really help colleagues and employees to be able to show up in their best form, to be able to feel like they have the right support, to have the right environment and the right culture to support overall wellbeing. We are human, we do not separate our human selves when we show up to work versus in our personal life. And I just love this conversation with Stephanie. She also goes into a big niche, very big focus that she's doing coming up is called midlife optimized. And this is so important, especially for me, maybe not all of you are in your midlife. But I have found this so unbelievably inspirational, because as you get to midlife, a lot of old conditioning and old programming starts dictating how you're supposed to be what you're supposed to do timelines against everything, and how you're supposed to show up in this world. And what's incredible is if you could break through those conditionings, you actually find that you could be the most physically fit the most mentally fit the most emotionally balanced. And take that into a new way of being in showing up in the world, like writing a book or starting a business. And this is where a lot of people can have the opportunity to take maybe experience and wisdom and skills that they've learned over many years in a career and shift them into something different that they really want to do. So I love this conversation. It is incredible. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this episode. As you listen. You could find me on LinkedIn at Angie belts McCourt, and on Instagram at Angie underscore McCourt. So without further ado, let's hear from Stephanie.

All right, Stephanie, welcome to shifting inside out. I am so grateful to have you on this episode. To get started. Why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself.

Stephanie Gularte 3:36
Hi, Angie, thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited to have this conversation with you today. And I've really been enjoying your podcast, so I'm thrilled to be a guest. Well, my name is Stephanie Guilarte and I am a workplace wellness consultant with my company the energy advantage and I am a midlife health coach with my company midlife optimized,

Angela McCourt 3:56
very good. I love it. I cannot wait to get into this for the listeners. Before we start though, I always love to start with some quick round questions so the listeners can get to know you a little bit better everybody gets the same questions. So first one is what is your morning ritual?

Stephanie Gularte 4:13
I love this. I love this question because I have had an interesting journey with with creating a morning ritual. And and I have without going into kind of the whole journey of it. I will say that I have become a true believer in the morning ritual and have found a way to have both a kind of more simplified morning ritual for myself that I can really commit to every day and then when I have the space and can give myself the time a more expanded morning ritual. So I'll tell you kind of what some of the kind of the essential or the usual day for me a part of my morning ritual. I start off this one's maybe a little bit of a weird one. But I start off with my my lumen, which is the metabolic tracker that I started using a little less A year ago and sitting by my bedside. So I start off with this weird little breathing into my, into my lumen, and really trying to mindfully work on creating metabolic flexibility and learning more about how my body responds. And first thing in the morning is the best time to do that. So that's the first thing. And second thing I do something I didn't used to do when I was in my 30s. Or maybe I started doing it my 40s. But I do it pretty religiously now. And that is I make my bed. Oh, yeah. And I love it. It's such a geeky thing. But it's like a made bed makes me so happy. Now, the next thing I do, and this one I always do, wherever I'm at, if I'm a guest, or if I'm in a hotel, I drink a tall glass of water, rehydrate my body. It's something I don't even have to think about anymore. And after that, I usually go outside, I have a Boston Terrier. So he gives me a reason to have to go outside first thing, but I stand outside and I actually like intentionally let light into my eyes. And that's partly to just kind of it feels good and energize myself. I'm lucky I live in Florida. There's sunlight almost every day all the time. But there's so much good research to that. Letting sunlight into your eyes. First thing in the morning really helps to set your cortisol on your melatonin levels that help you have the energy in the daytime and help you wind down and sleep with appropriate melatonin levels in the evening. Then I brew my coffee while my coffee is brewing, I do a little stretching, just easy's gentle stretching, and then I sit and drink my coffee, I either do a little bit of journaling, or I'll do a little bit of a kind of a mindfulness ritual, listen to something that kind of is inspirational. Or maybe send a gratitude text. And that's kind of the the shake.

Angela McCourt 6:42
Wow, that is beautiful. Yes. So the lumen I've heard that I've done a metabolic reboot with Aaron powers. And she mentioned that it was the first time I'd ever heard of it. But I haven't gotten one. But now you're the second person in like a month and a half that has mentioned that. So I'm like, Okay, I think I need to do that. I think I need to explore it again.

Stephanie Gularte 7:01
If you're kind of a data geek, it's it's a cool thing to have. I have to when I first got it, I wouldn't a little crazy with it. I was constantly like, you know, okay, let me see what after I know, now before I eat before I go to and they want you to do that because it sets you know, it sets to your particular body. But it's it is a good extra tool if you'd like to have a little more data about what your body's doing.

Angela McCourt 7:22
Yeah. Oh, that's so interesting. I love it. Okay, I'm definitely gonna go back and look at that again. All right, number two, how do you renew your energy?

Stephanie Gularte 7:31
Hmm. The number one thing I think for me and renewing my energy is, is being outside, even if it's just kind of briefly. So I find that during the day, I work like so many people I work from from home, I'm working alone most of the time. And it can feel a little depleting, just being alone and being indoors. And so just literally stepping outside, even if it's just walking to my mailbox, or doing a quick win a quick walk with my dog. And then usually when I do that, I'll run into a neighbor who's walking their dog. And so I think that combination of being outside and having a little bit of interaction that's not It's not outcome based, you know, it's just kind of being Yeah, well, a minute. So that's, that's a little one on the bigger like, really resetting and re energizing, travel. And I just I love to learn about new places and new and people and even if it's, you know, it doesn't have to be traveling to a whole new country or across the country, it can just be traveling to a place that's different than my normal surroundings. And changing my surroundings is kind of the common denominator there.

Angela McCourt 8:47
Yeah, it's interesting, too, because my husband and I always say there's so much to do in Florida, that most people have no idea. They haven't even heard of most of what you can actually do, where you can go all of the history and the exploration that you could do like, right in one state. And it's it's incredible when you actually start sharing and opening up to different things. Yeah.

Stephanie Gularte 9:09
And you can get to so many of these places, you could do day trips. And yes, I'm originally from California and the state of California is like that, too. There are so many different, you can be in a completely different kind of landscape. And I'm still I've been in Florida for seven years, almost eight years now. And there's still so much I haven't seen so it it's really just getting get in your car for an hour and drive in one direction and you can have be in a completely different environment.

Angela McCourt 9:33
Yeah, I love that. Exactly. Like I love it too. That's fantastic. Okay, what is your guilty pleasure?

Stephanie Gularte 9:41
Guilty pleasure. It's funny, you know, the idea of guilty pleasure like do we go to food do we go to like, what's that that thing that we watch on Netflix that we like, try and remove from our history so that nobody sees? For me? The thing that comes to mind is I want to guilty pleasures is too True Crime limited series, okay, I am like, as soon as a new one comes along, I am I am in like, you know, what's this story about? And I, you it's, there's this, it's guilty because you can kind of see the way that they tell the stories are a little bit manipulative in terms of like, you know, they set it up for it to be like, these kinds of cliffhanger things. So you have to watch the next the next series, but I think I'm just kind of fascinated by by people's lives and, and there's so many stories that are being being being told now in this particular format. So yeah, to crime to crime drama. Wow,

Angela McCourt 10:37
nice. Now, have you always dreamed of like being a detective or an FBI agent or CIA agent or anything like that? Like, do you have that little kind of fantasy? Stephanie in your head?

Stephanie Gularte 10:52
That's a good question. I haven't really, I hadn't thought about that. But I do. I mean, this does track back, you know, too early. I mean, I was, you know, to, like, from a young age, well, we will remember the law and order, you know, being I mean, I could watch lawn order. When I was younger, I would binge watch, before we had before we were able to binge watch on Netflix, if you had like whatever Bravo or whatever the channel was, and it was on over and over. So I've always been interested, I think in the puzzle of crime, as well as the human psychology behind it, I think it's more like the the my interest in human psychology, like what makes people do the things that they do. And then trying to figure out the motivation. That

Angela McCourt 11:38
usually what it found, because I'm very much into those kinds of shows as well, like, I gotta solve it, you know, I want to solve it. I want to be the hero to solve it.

Stephanie Gularte 11:47
Yeah, if I'm watching someone, I'll pause it and say, so what do you think? sorting it out? And kind of guessing along the way, I'm like, where is this going? Is this person really guilty of what's what's what's really going on underneath here? So yeah, I love that. I love the puzzle that is human beings, and it gets kind of, you know, that it's at its most kind of intensely expressed when we're dealing with with with, with criminal behavior. So yes,

Angela McCourt 12:14
exactly. Oh, that's amazing. Okay. So I am really excited about having you on the show in this episode, because you have just such an amazing journey that you've been on that has led you into starting your own company that has now led you into really, really focusing on the niche of in this middle life, and a call it out middle aged time, where for so many of us, it's this sense of we're on the downhill of life. But your focus is really about shifting people into a different way of viewing and a different way of looking at it. And I would just love for you to start sharing your journey. And just wait, let's get into conversation about what your views are on all of this. So it'd be fantastic.

Stephanie Gularte 13:04
My background actually is in nonprofit leadership. And I started working in the performing arts many, many years ago, actually initially on the stage and then as a director, and then as a leader, and then moved into nonprofit leadership and working as a nonprofit CEO for a number of years. I say all that as kind of the initial kind of foundation for this journey that I've had that's surprised me as much as anything starting off as a young person in my mid teens and early 20s, who really loved the stage. And I loved performing and loved storytelling, and learned through a lot of my training, a real appreciation of the integration between mind and body to bring stories and characters to life. And that kind of seed of that or those early experiences in those early studies really evolved for me over time in very unexpected ways. I found that I really thrived in leadership and had the opportunity to lead organizations eventually outside of the arts as well as a nonprofit CEO. And all through that journey I gathered and kind of independently learned about the connection between physical well being mental well being and leadership and that was my that was really my focus for a long time. In around 2015 I started to kind of formalize my my certifications and studies around wellbeing and leadership receiving a certification as a master certified Low Energy Energy leadership practitioner, a health coach and even a personal trainer because my passion for for physical fitness and really eager to integrate all of those things. And I started my what at that time was a side hustle my business the energy advantage and and started doing consulting and workshops on integration of leadership and wellbeing really helping to kind of bring a dimensional approach to how leaders and managers show up in the workplace and how they take care of themselves and their organizations from the vantage point of mindset and physical well being. And over the last year or so, I've been working on what I'm most excited about, which is kind of the next chapter I think in my own well being journey and that is the launch of midlife optimized. I am in my early 50s. And I am really passionate about helping men and women my age, really look at what practices from a from a physical and mental fitness standpoint, I call it Mind and Body Fitness, we can adopt to really take this time in our lives, which is it is an extraordinary time in life. It's that time where we have built this life experience. We have in many ways kind of many of us are kind of our children are grown or they're at that place where they're moving into their their next chapter, our careers are often kind of, we've reached a point of success. And this is the time to really optimize our lives and what we've achieved and what we've what we know. But many of us are held back, because one we don't have maybe the energy that we want to add to we kind of are given all this pressure that kind of comes at us about what it means to be this age and gosh, the clock is ticking and how much time do you have left? And Aren't you too old for that? So I am extremely passionate. And personally, I've made a significant career pivot pivot. I've experienced in my own life and in my family, the the difficulties of health challenges that can really hold people back and have learned to really adopt a way of promoting mental and physical wellness, that's not dependent upon perfection. It's not dependent upon, well, I can be healthy and live an energized optimized life when or I could do that. If and so that's the the premise the mission is really to help people find what their optimal Mind and Body Fitness is at midlife so that they have the energy, the excitement, the vision, the focus to do all those things that you want to do and to live out not just your midlife but well beyond actively engaged in life. Yeah,

Angela McCourt 17:40
I have a I have a question as you were explaining kind of the the first part of your journey intertwining that with leadership, nowadays, a lot more companies are starting to put an emphasis on wellness and well being not just from the physical perspective, but also the mental health perspective. And not just from a programmatic perspective, like the depth of when a company says we're going to commit to the well being of our employees or our colleagues, like what does that mean to you in your world of trying to get these companies and leadership to really adopt not just programmatically but

Stephanie Gularte 18:21
culturally is such an important question. And I would say that cultural shifts aren't far more important than any programmatic introductions, any initiatives that organizations can can make. So you know, historically, wellness programs and businesses have included biometric tracking, and maybe more recently, let's do step contests. And those things all have, can have great value, but only if they're supported by a culture where human beings can be human beings and work. And I think the old way of approaching business and war and employee kind of what's expected of employees and of leaders is that we kind of leave our we leave our human selves on all the complicated things that come along with that, as well as all some of the many strengths and dimensions to us. But leave those things out in the parking lot before you go into the office or at home or now in the other room if you're working from home, but to really separate out these parts of ourselves. And so the integration of the whole self which what does that look like, part of it looks like just one making it okay to really creating an environment where it is okay to talk about, here are the things that I need. Here's what helps me work optimally. Here are the here are the barriers to that for me, here's what's going on right now that you know, where I'll need some, you know, some adjustments because I can perform more optimally given these other things going on in my life if I'm able to work this kind of a schedule or it's about really having conversations and making this making it safe to do so. There's so many more kind of elements to that, that we can go into if you like. But I think that that's that one. I think it

Angela McCourt 20:10
would be great. Yeah. Because the here's the deal. The listeners, they're made up of leaders, and they're made up of potential leaders is what I like to call them, right. And leader doesn't mean you have to be managing people. Yeah, leader means that you can bring new ideas, and you can drive innovation, and you can future proof concepts. That to me is leadership is bringing those forward state of how do we incorporate more of those conversations around well being, I feel like those leaders, this is an opportunity for people to take a leadership role in that conversation and starting those, what I would love for you to arm them with, how do they do that? How do they even bring this forward inside their company?

Stephanie Gularte 20:53
So one of the kind of essential things I promote for integration of workplace wellbeing culture, is to make it a part of your jet your agenda at your regular meeting agendas. And then I work with companies to help them identify how well how do you do that? Does that mean we have to sit and meditate together for 10 minutes every day? It can. Some, you know, some teams respond really well to that. But not at all it doesn't at all have to be that there are other ways of making well being and doing wellness check ins as part of the agenda that works for your team. And and I'm you know, I've I've worked with with managers and leaders who some of them are very uncomfortable with the concept of well being being even a conversation in the workplace, you know, that that that'll kind of traditional idea of like, we don't talk about this at work. And now as the leader, I'm expected to bring this into our meeting agenda. What? No, please. So helping helping people who are kind of on that end, recognize that, you know, what, have you asked your your team at the beginning of the meeting, you know, scale of one, one to 10? What's Where are you today? That works for, you know, in some perspectives, that kind of very simple calculation works. You're at, you're at a six Okay, is there anything that a team can do to help you get to a seven today or an eight? What would that look like? And for a more, you know, a team that's more comfortable with with wellbeing practices, there's I offer a list of kind of here are the 10 characteristics of well being within teams, spend some time take take up a meeting one month that added an additional 30 minutes to that meeting, takes take that time, and have a conversation with your team where where are we doing really well, from a wellbeing standpoint? And where could we specifically improve? What do we as a team want to work on, because it's essential inside of these kinds of conversations, that there is something that I like to call it positive accountability, which means there is a kind of an agreement within the team that we're going to work, we're going to do something to make these things better. And in order to do that, we all have to kind of agree to to compromise to give a little to recognize that kind of like living in a family or in a community in the workplace. You can't simply focus on your own well being personal well being and ask everyone else to do the same. And then create a culture of well of wellness. Because we we affect one another right? If we don't have we don't have specific kinds of understandings about what does it mean to protect someone's calendar so that they've got the headspace to do the work they need to do and to really show up with with with energy and focus, if we don't have some ground rules around that. Then you can have your personal standards, your kind of personal rules that all you all you like, but you're being impacted by the people you work with. And you are impacting people you work with. And we don't all respond to the same thing. So that those conversations are are so so important. And then I think that this is the thing, that's the hardest for leaders. In fact, it comes up time and time again, is modeling, modeling, wellbeing modeling, what does it look like? To be human, to be vulnerable to be working to to put things in balance? It doesn't mean you have to be the cover of the magazine success story on how to do it, but working on it and sharing with your team. I'm working on this and here are some things I'm doing. Yeah, that makes it creates an environment where others okay, this is this actually mean it? This isn't just a Yeah, you know this? These are just words.

Angela McCourt 24:47
Yes, I found that when it's just words, it does not work, when it's modeled in the authentic way that the words were spoken and the commitment was made. There. Add is when it works, because people are going to mirror what they see, they're going to reflect that. In order to be successful, I have to do what my leader is doing what these other leaders are doing. And if they're on vacation, checking email all the time, it's fine, if you want to check once in a while, but if you're on your phone all the time when you're supposed to be relaxing, and like not thinking about work, so that you can recoup, because that's what ultimately vacation is all about, then the problem is, is that first of all, it shows that you don't trust your team. That's a big issue, right. And that's part of well being too. And it also shows that it's, it's not acceptable to totally check out. And I think where a lot of people are really trying to find that balance of I really want to check out when I go on vacation. I don't want to think about this, that the leaders do have an extra role, very, very conscientious role to play, and how they're doing that. Yes. Another one is, oh, I'm not feeling well, today. Well, especially with remote working. It's like, well, I'm still home. So I'll get on for this call, or I'll do this report. The problem is, especially when the leader doesn't follow through with resting and not working, that their team members won't do that either. And then the sickness stretches out. People can actually feel resentful, because they feel like I can't even get back. I can't even heal myself, I can't even take space to heal myself. Because I feel this pressure or this, like unsaid expectation that I need to be here. Even if I'm sick. You are so right. Yes. It's it's crazy. But this is how we work

Stephanie Gularte 26:42
is I hear that all the time from from staff members, they say, Well, my company says that it's okay to take this time. But there's kind of everyone kind of knows that if you've got a project you're working on, you're really expected. There's there's the unstated and that's something that's really that's serious. And you know, that's that because that that means that not only are you not giving staff members the opportunity to take the space that they need to be healthy to be their most productive. Because from an organizational company standpoint, that is what we want. We want productive or productive businesses. Our people are what will get us there. So when we do things that not only undercut that, but we we combine that with a branding of a dif something else, this is what we stand for, and then we don't follow through on that, then we also lose trust. Yeah, because now we're saying one thing I want at one side of our mouth, that we're actually creating an environment that is very something very different. I think that I want to acknowledge though it is it is really challenging to figure out for businesses and organizations. What is the new metric, then, if if, you know for being a successful, really dedicated member of a team, because that is historically and our generations is something that I talk about in my in my work with mid lifers is like that's our generation, you know, just man just dig in. You just do it, you could do it until it's done. And you know, if it hurts, it hurts. And so that was how we really measured success, productivity, so for leaders to look at their own organizations and define and determine how can we redefine success, not by men by undercutting productivity, that's just that's not going to work. That by understanding like one trusting the productivity actually improves, when people have breaks during the day when people have PTO that's truly PTO, all of these things that were kind of reluctant to, to give they feel like losses to the organization, trusting that and then and then helping again to model. This is what measurement of success is I had I worked with a nonprofit CEO recently who took a three week vacation to Europe, and he hadn't done it since well, before COVID. And and he said, you know, three years ago, I don't think I could have done this without checking in constantly. He said I had I had one check in because I had to meet with my board. But otherwise, I didn't check in at all. And one he said I had empowered my team before I left. Yep. And let them know that this was my goal for my and when I came back, and things had gone really well business had moved forward programs and move forward. I made a really big deal of noting that this is what success looks like, you know, the fact that I was able to do this, and the companies ran just great without me. That's how it should be. And when and when director over here does the same. The same thing shitshow happens. So those are ways of kind of starting to re to shift the narrative around what success looks like in business.

Angela McCourt 30:06
Yeah, and your point about positive accountability, like empowerment is very much a thrown around around word that a lot of leaders are like, Oh, well, I'll just empower this person to make this decision or to do this task. And so while I go on vacation, I'll just say, Hey, you guys pick this up for me. But the missing piece, the jelly on the peanut butter sandwich, is the enablement. And so the opportunity in all of this, I think, is, yes, empower your teams to one speak up to be able to work together, to be able to problem solve together, empower them to make decisions within the team that allow for this dynamic not to be handed off whenever you're not available, but to be part of the whole integration of how we're working together. But then enable them to do that, to give them the tools, give them the training, make sure they feel confident, have the conversations and ask what they need, right. So in that piece of it, when I think about where kind of this future opportunity of measuring how we're doing, you know, a lot of companies have started, like measuring value, their values, and how people are performing their values as part of like performance management or those conversations. But a lot of the values are really honed in around again, getting the work done, not necessarily how we're doing it, maybe sometimes integrity is in there. So that's how we're doing it, but also from a, how are we supporting each other? And how are we how are we allowing ourselves to show up as humans? How can we add those values into the system of measurement and even positive accountability? Like that's, that's like a thing that's popping in my head right now, as you're talking through this? Yeah.

Stephanie Gularte 31:56
And they're, you know, we're I think we're, we're moving in a direction where there's going to be increasingly more data to support what cultural shifts end up producing? Because it No, it is, it's easier to measure. Okay, we have this many hours worked. And this is the result of that, that's that those kinds of measurements are easier and faster to to account for, but things like, well, we're we work in an environment where everyone is expected to take a lunch break and calendar calendars are, are blocked, for calendar blocking is encouraged. And everyone is expected to respect that, well, how do you measure the impact of that, but there are companies like Limeade is one of them that are doing some really interesting and valuable research and starting to put some metrics to the overall kind of benefits of cultures that are adopting these practices. And finding some, here are the things that seem to work work better than other things, but the early data and that the things that I'm hearing and reading are really indicating that, that you have a lot less employee turnover, that professional development is stronger. So you have people who are moving up within organizations, and leaders are reporting a greater ability to, to lead. Because what happens when you're you are talking about a spot on like that ability to not just say I'm going to hand these things off to you, because I'm going to go away, but to really build teams that are empowered with the tools to, to do their to do to lead at their level. So that you whatever level you're adding leadership, you can be a little higher up on the ladder, looking around for more of a macro view. And and when leaders are dipping down, you know, the steps of the ladder to get into the weeds and taking you know, because they don't trust their teams or they don't have the teams they need perhaps that's not that's not effective for the organization that's not optimized for the organization. So these kinds of practices, we are seeing that that leadership is is able to to visualize and innovate more and make just make better decisions. So I'm looking forward to more data around some of these practices coming out. And I think that we'll be seeing that in the coming years.

Angela McCourt 34:13
Yeah, I think it's interesting too, because you mentioned about like, the personal and professional growth and development when what I found in leading teams is when people feel supported to get out of their comfort zone or to go out to their growth edge and to try something new and take on something new when they feel fully supported in that and not just from words perspective, but from a constant encouragement, a tie in a you know, the leader saying, you know, how are you doing with this? What can I help with and really giving that acknowledgement and feedback in a timely manner of how well they just handled something that it may at the surface level not have been like a special event to call out but that they really did well in influencing a conversation. They did well in and breaking through some kind of conflict, like really just acknowledging and being conscientious of that having the time to really put that mindfulness behind how to grow and develop a team, and individuals on that team that takes the connection that takes the personal conversation about what is needed, what is expected, what do they believe, is that person's potential, what are the possibilities they have. And when you do that, like, it's incredible what that person will blossom into. And, you know, this is this is where we talk about building teams and high performing teams. And, and you know, just because your team does a certain level of work, doesn't mean that they can't do it the best that's ever been done, or in a way that's much more efficient, or in a way that's much more impactful to whether it's a customer or an internal customer. You know, there's so many things that benefit when you spend the time, but it really is not a cookie cutter approach. It is individual, it is very conscientious strategy with that person, and also being there to support them along the way. And I think that that's, that's, if you can build in some of those pieces, you can now take and apply that to the well being culture as well.

Stephanie Gularte 36:24
Absolutely. I'm so glad you mentioned that. Because I think personal professional development is essential in creating a wellness culture in business. People want to grow, they need to that's kind of our we are compelled to grow and to learn, and to expand. And everyone regardless of you know how you would kind of as a leader, rank someone's work performance, everyone wants to feel that they're contributing? Yes. And that's where that recognition piece comes into that you mentioned, it's so important. And that goes to when I talked about there are a number of different ways to add wellness onto the agenda. And and another one is to do some recognition, do some some some gratitude call outs, not just use the leader model that that also have the team do that with one another. And that really connects to the fact that we also want to feel one that we have value, as I said, but also connected to one another. And that's something we've definitely, we've taken some steps back on since COVID. And we need to be really kind of intentional about where we can bring that back.

Angela McCourt 37:31
Yeah. And it's interesting, too, because kind of taken a big step back to when we used to leave everything at the door, right, we left it at home where we left it at the door. You know, people have had to work from their bedrooms, people work, that's their workspace, you know, so their co workers have seen their bedroom, right? I can't get a whole lot more personal than that. Yeah, maybe a little bit more personal. But it's, it's interesting, because I almost feel like it's actually helped us break down a lot of barriers that allow for that deeper connection, and compassion and empathy towards each other. So now it's like, okay, well, let's not lose that. Let's let's build on that. How do we build on that, you know, it did

Stephanie Gularte 38:20
create this great opportunity as as challenging as it's been, and there's no doubt and a lot of pain associated with this one, there's been a lot of loss, but the opportunity and that got it, I feel that we are in an opportunity, unlike anything we've seen in terms of really being able to redefine work and, and life in ways that wouldn't have happened at this accelerated rate with this kind of level of opportunity. And this is actually kind of part of the development of a wellness mindset, too is how quickly can we move off of the problem and move into the opportunity. The problem is the problem. And there are things that are within our control and things that are not within our control. But what's the opportunity, and you just said it, we have here we have the opportunity to now that we've kind of we've seen each other's dirty kitchens are we've seen the toddler, you know, screaming in the background, you know, all of the things is really brought leaders kind of in to this kind of equal, you know, less kind of maybe intimidating framework frame of mind frame, you know, perspective. It is an opportunity that let's let's let's intentionally hold on to that because a lot has gotten done. A lot has been accomplished during this time, despite the fact that we've had all of these hurdles so we know we can get the work done. And we can show up as humans together.

Angela McCourt 39:48
That is beautiful. And so now taking that into midlife because you know there's this programming that all of us with lifers have had, which is all around on everything equals hard work. And, and also that there's kind of this linear path. And it's one path. And this is what I do for the rest of my life. And then because it was modeled off of, you know, our parents or grandparents, and so what are your thoughts on like how you envision really helping mid lifers go through this transition of potential and possibilities, what I look at it, because you're not held to the job you've had for the past 20 or 30 years, you're not held to that at all, like there is so much more. And I think for from a well being perspective, that when you take, you know, an approach it from the holistic perspective, yes, there's a new way that we can take care of our bodies are temples, there's a new way that we can create better mental health for ourselves. But there's also other things that we can contribute that we can create, that we can now learn how to do. It doesn't end here. So what what is your kind of mission? And what is your philosophy around this?

Stephanie Gularte 41:10
The first, the first thing that that is the essential thing, and it touches on on everything else is getting into the mindset of being middle aged. And I say that word, middle aged, because those of us who are still hear that, we are like, wait, what. And there's so much judgment around that word, there's so much kind of old baggage of what that means. And so getting our arms around, what that is one of those things we're holding on to consciously or subconsciously, really recognizing them and recognizing, hey, it's not our fault. Like we live in a world and I talked about this in my blog, that, you know, we really not just our generation, every generation is sold a sense a kind of, I call it I call it the fear and loathing campaign against aging. And it's we are a very youth obsessed culture, there are so many beautiful things about youth that we, you know, that we admire and should be celebrated. But the compromise in how much youth has been in and now with social media that more than more than ever, has been kind of the not only what we see, and what we identify what value is and what life you know, living life with Vitality is, we also kind of started to try and absorb the rules of youth, the best practices of youth, the, you know, the lived experience of people 2030 years younger than us. So it's that first first of it is resetting, and really looking at, you know, it's, it's okay, let's let that if I can say, let that go. And then the next is to get into the specifics like what what is holding you back? Because there's there is something you know, if there is something for each of us that we that that we have in our in our minds, or physically, we're holding in our bodies? And I will say usually it is both. And so that's a lot of the work that I do is it the integration of the well being of your body, what your body is able to do for you directly to connect it to your to your mind and the way and your thoughts and vice versa. So I'm really want to help people buy by creating a physiological approach to midlife, that that shifts the way they feel about their body shifts the way they think. And once that happens, the the just the enthusiasm for life and the ability to you know, that idea I had of this thing I wanted to do those suddenly become much more tangible. They become much more Yes, yes. Saying yes to things. And you are so right. And I laughed when you said it. Because I am I am of this generation, the work harder generation. Hey, we do have lots of years in front of us, but we cannot take those for granted anymore. So we got to figure this out. Now. We got to figure this out now, because if we're not taking care of these things, now, we are going to slow down. We're going to slow down faster, faster than we think. So that's that's the the next thing and I think, you know, understanding that we cannot keep kind of thinking that we'll get to that I got I can't slow down. I have to keep working at this pace. And we do create a really strong case for doing that. Because it's so entrenched. Gotta keep working hard. I can't I can't I don't have the time. So we need to get around that and really recognize it. The reality is, this is the time. Yeah, you cannot wait.

Angela McCourt 44:56
Yes. It's so interesting because I hit 50 and January as well. So right there with Gen X, the Gen Xers are the hard worker and just head down and and you know, that's that's the way we were raised and how we do it. But it's interesting because as I've shifted out of the corporate world, some of my conditioning has come unloose, it has loosened up quite a bit. And I think that is so important. When you're talking about that mindset shift. It's, it's not just the thoughts, but it's also the programming and the conditioning that we've had. And this whole like, okay, all of this, what it does is it leads up to retirement. But as I've stepped away from this, and I've gone down a totally different path, I've like realized, my whole view of retirement is very different than it ever was. And I view it as having more freedom to do the things that maybe I haven't necessarily had to do in the past, or had the time to do in the past, because of raising children or, you know, being really focused in the job or, you know, having extra commitments out in the community or whatnot, there's, there's this sense of making space to do the next thing to do the thing that you always wanted to do to go travel to write the book to, you know, do the podcast, whatever it is that inspired you learn an instrument, you know, I mean, it doesn't have to be massive. Although learning an instrument is not easy. I'll make a call out on that. But it's really interesting, because I think there's such a huge opportunity here, this is such an eye opener for how can this generation these, these middle aged people, contribute that much more to society, through creativity, through their intelligence and wisdom? Through their experiences? How can they help generations behind us to skip all the crap that we went?

Stephanie Gularte 46:57
Exactly, I you know, I think that's one of the things that is where we look at kind of the focus on our generation, and what we are currently doing and what we have the opportunity to do one of those things we have the opportunity to do is make aging and this time in life, less scary to the generations behind us. And, you know, do some workshops on on multigenerational teams and how to really thrive and create what well being through multigenerational and one of the things that I talk about is what if we could stop you know, kind of recognize that we really all have different things, we have things to offer every different stage of life, and pay that back and pay it forward. And as well as appreciate what the generations around us have, we become richer, and the life journey for each of us becomes a more healthful one. Because it's, you know, I wouldn't want to go back to being 25. And look at what the perception of aging is at that age, because it seems like a scary, awful thing. I and I write about this too, because I really want to I realized I was I was afraid of aging, starting in 19. I remember thinking, you know, gosh, what's going to happen when I'm 30 and, you know, that's a terrible way to, to frame your life. I mean, when and especially hopefully, if we do it, you know, if things go well, and we're lucky, we get to get old. Yeah. And so let's help to create a story about that a narrative around that in a reality for ourselves and our own well being, but also for the generations behind us. You said something about, you know, we're talking about the work kind of kind of mindset. One of the things that I do when working with, I work with, with a lot of women and one on one coaching with the integration of their professional lives with their, their health and fitness. And the conversation that we always kind of start with start at the beginning, but we always kind of keep coming back to it is work wins, work wins, work wins. And the thing that I'm you know, find happens over over a few weeks of doing our work together is the thing that I say at the beginning is well nothing's winning when you're dividing yourself up and you're the smallest piece of the pie of the how you're dividing things up is your own physical and mental well being like that's that's nothing is going to is going to be optimized when when you do that. So getting to that place of first learning how to carve out what does it look like let's start small because we have so many shoulds on us out there. And so many kind of unrealistic ideas that have this is what you should look like and this is what you should be doing at the gym or whatever. So spring that down to something that's really feels good and doable now, we can grow that can grow over time, but make it an essential Part of your world of that pie. What let it get a little bit bigger and watch what happens to the other pieces of the pie. So we can get past that idea of the work is the thing. Or the sacrifice. Yes, it's is the thing and the sacrifice for others is the thing. It all comes back to if you are feeling better, physically better, if your mind is clear, you are feeling more optimistic, you are going to show up better as a parent, as a partner, as a leader in every aspect of your life.

Angela McCourt 50:36
Wow, that's amazing. I want you to call out your new website. You're getting ready to launch in your podcast if you would. Yeah. So into just some call outs that you may want to recommend to the to our listeners.

Stephanie Gularte 50:47
Thank you so much. Yes. So midlife optimized.com is is is the website and you can read about my blog, her her midlife optimized is on there, as well as some coaching programs on midlife Mind and Body Fitness. And I'm really excited about the launch of my podcast midlife optimized, which will be part of it will be me talking about kind of a lot of these concepts in more detail, but also bring on some terrific guests who have expertise in all sorts of different topics from looking at health factors at midlife to kind of some new new research and data that's out there, as well as bring people on who have really interesting and inspiring stories about about midlife experiences and pivots that they made a woman who wrote her first book and had published it at 52. And she's traveling all around the country promoting it. So I'm really excited to kind of shift the oldest stereotypes about middle aged and engage as well as provide some some really tangible, valuable information on the podcast. And then the, the energy advantage is, as I mentioned, that's the my company doing wellness work within organizations and with leaders. And I have a training program called Live and lead well, that specifically for working with leadership teams to integrate well being learned to kind of answer some of these questions of how do we do this into their organizations?

Angela McCourt 52:17
Fantastic. That is amazing. I love it. Okay, what about okay, so nonprofits, you you obviously worked in that world for a long time you lead in that world? Do you have any specific call outs? Or do you have any other books or anything that you would like to call out as well? Well,

Stephanie Gularte 52:33
I think my call outs would be to the not to the nonprofit sector in general, that the, you know, when it's kind of say, and I love the Nonprofit Leadership Center of Tampa Bay, I'm a trainer there. I'm a co facilitator, and they're doing some incredible work. And then I work with a lot of different nonprofits in the area. So without calling any of them out. Specifically, I will say that there is a a well, leadership well being crisis at it at its own level within the nonprofit sector, because the nonprofit sector is a service driven by its nature, the mission driven organizations. And so I my experience, and I think empathy with nonprofit leaders and nonprofit organizations, is something that I'm excited to work with nonprofits to help them move away from sacrificial leadership styles, and move into leadership styles that really allow allow these important organizations to do their good work in our communities.

Angela McCourt 53:33
That's great. I love it. I love the fact that you're still so involved to in taking all that wisdom and knowledge and having personal experience in that arena. And now adding in all of this additional value that you've created in your own business, back into the industry, really, it's you know, it's kind of its own industry, nonprofits. So I think that's beautiful that you're doing that.

Stephanie Gularte 53:56
Thank you. It's the great thing about being at this time of life, right, as you find the seeds is the different things that you've been planting all along. And they may be growing in new and different ways, ways you hadn't intended.

Angela McCourt 54:07
Yes, exactly. I think that's a fantastic example of the potential and possibilities. Yes. Fantastic. Stephanie, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. I know you're super busy. And I think this is fantastic. In the show notes. I will add in the links to your websites. And also to I'll put the podcast name and can you just give a quick call out which listening channels the podcasts will be

Stephanie Gularte 54:31
on? It'll be on on all of them. Apple, Spotify, and y'all anywhere you're listening to your podcast, it will be there and look for it in late September.

Angela McCourt 54:38
late September. Perfect. Yay. Thank

Stephanie Gularte 54:41
you. So thank you so much. This is great. And thank you for the work you're doing in the conversations. You're inspiring, Angie, thanks so

Angela McCourt 54:47
much. So I have a really great offering that I just launched. And it's on the App Store. Right now. I'm working on getting it on Google for any Android phone holder But if you want to unlock everything about who you are, and I call this like the treasure chest, the treasure chest is what you are filled with when you are born. It's kind of all of this genius, all of this wisdom, all of these gifts, all of these talents that you are actually born with. And over time, what happens is, we end up kind of losing these through conditions a happening around us programming that happens from external sources, whether it's in our family, whether it's in the community, and media, and in our school systems in church, etc. But all of these things that kind of ended up shaping us into who we are today, but leave some of our best self behind. And so what I created was an app. And in this app, this is called the best self activation. There is a seven day free trial in this app, you can go into two different programs. One is called Foundations, which is really focused around how to create mindfulness in your life, and then all areas of your life and being and then there are a lot of meditations with that subscription as well. And then the other track is called transformations. And this is where I go into all of the life centers that basically work on clearing out inner barriers, self limiting beliefs and behaviors, as well as patterns that end up unlocking the treasure chest that is you. And if you want to learn more, you can go to www dot Angela mccourt.com forward slash best hyphen self hyphen activation. This is also in the show notes. You can go to the app store and look for best self activation and download it from there for free. I look forward to connecting with you in the app and definitely want to see your best self unleashed and unlocked. If you liked this episode, you can pop it on LinkedIn at Angie belts McCourt and let me know and if you really want to say thank you please leave a review on Apple podcasts.