Birthday Learnings + Unlearnings

Music (00:00:00) – She’s dreaming, she’s drifting. Never been so wide awake. Captured in the moment by the beauty all around her. There’s nowhere else than she would rather be.

Koren (00:00:19) – Hello and welcome. This is Koren Motekaitis. And you’re listening to how she really does it. The place where inspiration and possibility meet. All right. Before we get started. Have you watched season three of Ted Lasso? So, so well written. Love, love, love the show. I’m going to go back and rewatch it. Highly recommend it. Go watch it. A couple of my clients have been waiting for me to finish the show because I was a little delayed with my travels because they wanted to talk about the last episode. Go watch it. I don’t want to do any spoilers. I’ll be talking about it in the future, but go watch it. I just love how TV is transforming and doing things differently than what I grew up on. So how are you? I was pretty beat yesterday.

Koren (00:01:11) – It’s been quite a week. This is the busiest week of my year because it’s the first week of summer swim for the Aqua Monsters. And my birthday also fell on Monday. So there’s the tension of, you know, the long days, the hard and there’s been the beauty of being able to work with my clients who had all sorts of wins this week that were so meaningful for them, as well as allowing themselves to own it and take up space in their life. Not saying that every client had a win or great wins, right? There’s always work to do. And it’s that straddling that tension of the great things and the difficult things. Right? You often hear me say, I live an amazing life and there are shit shows everywhere, and there’s been plenty of shit shows this week and there’s been amazing stuff. One of the things that my clients are often afraid of and let me know if this sounds like you is of being arrogant. This happens so often that we’ve actually on a retreat that I hosted, we looked up the definition and put it on this huge green post-it note of paper, and it’s now stuck in everyone at the retreats mind about arrogant, right? Giving them permission to actually show up.

Koren (00:02:24) – Because the definition of arrogant means having or revealing an exaggerated sense of one’s own importance or activities. So this is really important because as I’m going to talk about birthdays and learnings and then learnings, five years ago, I probably wouldn’t have talked about it because it was like, Well, I don’t want to be arrogant. Why am I sharing this? I’m sharing these stories here with you to give you idea babies to figure out like, Hmm, what do I want? Right? Or oh, that kind of resonates with me or Oh, I really don’t like what, you know, Koren’s referencing here, and I’m going to do it this way. It’s all an idea baby. And it’s not about being arrogant when we take up space or that when we’re really proud of ourselves. So, like one of my clients, actually a couple of my clients this week were really proud of themselves, had a client who got the job that they’ve long desired and in fact had held it as a secret vision for herself for quite a long time.

Koren (00:03:29) – Right. And she was in tears and she was so excited and so proud of herself. And it was so hard to be proud of herself because it’s really vulnerable, right? It’s like, who am I to take up the space? Especially as if we’ve been culturally programmed to take care of others. So being proud of oneself because you’re able to create the life that you want or you get the job that you desire. That’s not about being arrogant. That’s really allowing yourself to take up space and say, hey, I do matter, right? It’s not about being better than others. It’s about saying I do matter. And it’s so important that we take up space in our life and recognize what we do well, remembering it’s not arrogant. Another client who was really thrilled because getting really clear about one of the areas that’s always a struggle. There’s more work to be done, then there’s time to do it. And then how do you also fit in your other choices and obligations? Raising families, connecting with loved ones, taking care of yourself.

Koren (00:04:36) – There’s all this work to do in recognizing what you do well and what may not be in your zone of genius or what may not be worthwhile for you to do, and that there’s somebody else that may be on your team. Maybe working with you, maybe in the company who that’s their area of strength, but they’re not able to do it because you’re doing it right. So recognizing what you do well and what you don’t do well, being able to figure out how to do all the work you’re responsible for and not be overwhelmed. Is so, so important in being proud of yourself that as you’re figuring it out, because this is an ongoing issue that I see with all of my clients. So that’s about being proud of yourself and the client wins that I had this week. And so where in your life are you proud of yourself? Look back. It could be a small moment. It doesn’t have to be a job. Maybe you’re proud of yourself because you made your bed. Maybe you’re proud of yourself because you got up. Another client who he had a really big week of travel, a big event that he was at, and he got up and he exercised.

Koren (00:05:48) – It wasn’t a hard workout, but he put in some work and he took care of himself. And then he dismissed it. When he told me, I was like, no, be proud of yourself. Right? Like own that part that like, look at me. I had a really big week. There were late nights eating, drinking, all of that. We have an early morning session. And before that he had already worked out and taken care of himself. And he’s working on recharging himself, right. Recharging himself so that he can go back out and lead. So going to today’s show, I want to talk about birthdays. As I mentioned in the opening of my show, my birthday fell on Monday. I’m now 51. It’s been kind of interesting to watch my brain about this 51 thing. And, you know, 50 is such a round number and it’s such a big milestone. And last year, you may recall and I’ve talked about my birthday a lot and again, it’s not about like me being arrogant.

Koren (00:06:46) – It’s about taking up space in my life. And I chose to spend the year celebrating my birthday. And part of that came from that. When my husband started talking to me about it probably in April, like, Hey, you’ve got a big milestone coming up. What do you want to do? One I couldn’t even see clearly, right? There was so much going on and I was so busy it didn’t have the brain juice nor the energy. And then two was, well, there’s summer swim, there’s graduations, there’s Father’s Day. There’s just a lot that happens around my birthday. And so at first I was like, Oh, I don’t know, right? Because that’s just easier to say than to actually come up with something. And then eventually I was like, Oh, I don’t have to celebrate it like this week or even in this month. Like, I can celebrate it all year. And part of that, I guess, is the beauty, because there has been this conflict for the last 18 years as I’ve been coaching the Aqua Monsters, that my birthday and summer swim kind of coexist together.

Koren (00:07:50) – So I’ve learned how to, you know, it didn’t have to be that day. In fact, I think the latest we celebrated my birthday was in 2012, and we did it in October just because of the summer and Olympics and all of that. So I’ve had that as a practice and then being able to go, okay, what do I want from this experience? Did I want to have a big old party? And I didn’t want to coordinate that, So what did I want? And I decided last year that I was going to celebrate it all year. And to wrap up, I’m really proud that I did honor that commitment to myself. Commitments to ourselves are really, really challenging and hard, and then we want to beat ourselves up and say, Oh, I didn’t do this. But most of us are culturally programmed, especially if you’re a listener here. My hunch is you’re culturally programmed to put yourself last. Right. And it’s kind of like we’re the evil stepmother and Cinderella all at the same time.

Koren (00:08:43) – We can go to the ball once we get this never ending list done. And that’s what happens with these commitments to ourselves. So I’m really proud of myself that I did honor my commitment throughout the year. I had the vision for myself, and the beauty was it wasn’t always front of mind. It wasn’t like, okay, this is my 50th year. What am I going to do this week for myself? It wasn’t like that, but there come times and I would sit there and go, Huh? Like back in March I was noticing a lot of I had the retreat. I had clients coming. We’re doing a retreat. I looked at my calendar and went, Wow, I’m going to be going to Korea with 20 family members. That’s going to lot be a lot of energy output in August. We’ll do our family vacation. A lot more energy output. What do I want? You know what’s going to take care of me? And then that’s when I went, Oh, I need to find a retreat that’s going to take care of me and support me because that’s something that is my jam right now and I really love to do.

Koren (00:09:47) – So I found that and I created that and I was able to bookend my year with that is the last experience of going on a retreat where I was taking care of where I was supported, where I was able to connect with others, where I could have fantastic conversations and I didn’t have to be responsible for other people. And granted, like I’m 51 now, right? Like I was 50 at the time, I couldn’t have done that five years ago, ten years ago. Right. But I’m an empty nester now. So as I talk about this, this is about the windows of possibility for you. If this is possible for me, what nuggets of insight can you take to create an idea baby for your own life with your constraints, with your circumstances? In fact, when I went away, I’ve really great boundaries like around my clients and around so many other areas and I put all my autoresponders out. And then I asked my family, I said, Please, I’m going to be gone. Please don’t contact me like your dad is home.

Koren (00:10:50) – He can handle things because I wanted that space to be able to think and to be with me. And honestly, when I realized that I haven’t done that, I haven’t had that kind of space to myself since 1993. That was 30 years ago. It took 30 years for me to be able to create that space for myself. That came as the gift of me celebrating my 50th all year long, right? It wasn’t something last June that I thought, Oh, I haven’t had time for myself in 30 years where nobody, you know, could ping me or there weren’t problems that I wasn’t solving. Because oftentimes, I mean, unfortunately, the beauty of being connected is we’re all really connected, right? Like I’ve been abroad and on phones, on Zoom calls, handling texts or emails. I used to travel and work a lot, and I’ve got those boundaries so much better. I’ve been working on this over the last, I don’t know, probably ten years. Right? And I realized, like with my family, they’re old enough now.

Koren (00:11:50) – My husband was home. I could have this time away. I didn’t need to solve problems. They had their dad. They could figure it out themselves. So it was really quite beautiful to end my year that way. So when I think about my 50th year, right, what did I do? I celebrated with family. I celebrated with friends. It was really fun to hang out with my friends, right? I took a couple trips for myself and that was that retreat that I ended at the end of the year. And I learned at a deeper level how to take care of me. And that was really important. And the other thing I did was I didn’t hide from being 50, right? And was really in fact proud of being 50. I always imagined what 50 would be like and look like and feel like. You know, probably when I was in my 20s, it doesn’t feel that way. Right? And I just really have been delighted in being 50.

Koren (00:12:49) – And then on my last trip, things became even more clear for me, right? As I said, I spent 30 years taking care of other people family, my spouse, communities, teams, etcetera. And I realized that the next 30 years I want them to be about me. This may trigger some of you because you may think, Oh, well, Koren’s going to be selfish. It’s all going to be about her. I want it to be about me. And it’s not about an either or black and white, right? Like, Oh, it’s me or it’s them. But it’s about putting me at the front of the list. It’s about taking care of me first instead of putting me in the back to maybe get to. And this has been a work in progress for some time. This isn’t hasn’t been you know, it’s not like a light switch, right? There have been skill sets that I’ve been developing and cultivating and working on and boundaries even on my last trip to be able to, you know, have clear boundaries with my clients about being away in having that time away, you know, with the monsters, those boundaries have become much clearer with other people.

Koren (00:13:58) – It became really clear of like, Oh, I’m going to be gone. I’m going to go dark, right? And then realizing that I needed to let my family know that this is what I would like it to look like while I’m gone. I think one of my daughters we talked about afterwards, she was like delighted that I was going to be gone and she knew I wouldn’t be pinging her, you know, And it didn’t work out totally perfectly. One of my kids did send me a text because she needed a password, too. She’s like, Mom, I’m so sorry. I know I’m not supposed to be contacting you. Can you give me the password? Because she needed something? Because she was taking her dad to a Giants game for his birthday. And she said, I know I should have done this before you left, but I didn’t. So I gave her the password and she got it done, you know? So not perfect, right? Not perfect. It’s okay.

Koren (00:14:44) – But the last 30 years have been about other people. And these next 30 years are going to be about me so that I can be nourished, so that I can continue to show up for other people. One of the things that often happens with my clients is they’re so exhausted, so overwhelmed, they’ve been working hard, right? I work with high performers and I kid you not. When they get overwhelmed, I’ll get on a call and all of a sudden they’d be like, that’s it. I’m done. I’m quitting. I’m like, wait, what? We have this plan. Like, this is the goal that you want. But when we don’t take care of ourselves, when we don’t resource ourselves, when we don’t believe that we’re allowed to take care of ourselves, that we can’t put ourselves first in our own lives, we at some point our fuse hits and we want to quit. So instead of quitting, it’s about taking care of ourselves so we can actually be of service more to others.

Koren (00:15:36) – That’s what I’m talking about. And again, I’m going to say I have been working on this over the recent years, right? Like there’s been so many things that I’ve been sharing over the last, I don’t know, ten or so years. Part of it was learning how to taper into vacation, you know, learning how to have boundaries and let people know that I would be away and that I wouldn’t be working being okay with that. There were so many years that I was like, oh, I can work, I can bring my computer, I can work, that’s okay. But not realizing what the cost was to me or to my family not being rested and recovered or being able to spend time connecting. So I have been developing and cultivating these skill sets. This is my work in progress. We’re always a work in progress. We’re learning or unlearning things, and that goes to birthdays. I’ve been learning and unlearning so much these days, and on Monday I had a little bit of space to think about it.

Koren (00:16:38) – And, you know, especially because texts were rolling in, phone calls were happening. But I’ve been able to, like, learn and unlearn. And so one of the things that I realize is my old way of being was don’t take up space, right? And this was probably like in my 20s, like if you’re important enough, others will celebrate you. Like they have to, like, kind of remember on their own, right? Because it’s not something you’re supposed to do. It’s something that others are supposed to do for you. If you’re important enough, you’re worthy enough, right? That’s a bunch of the BS that we get fed. But here’s the thing. It’s not supposed to be who does this for you or you needing others to do this for you. It’s what do you want? Being really clear, what is it that you want? And then it might, you know, I guess late 20s and 30s, right? I was raising my bonus kids and then eventually having two more kids and I was too busy.

Koren (00:17:32) – Celebrating a birthday seemed rather indulgent as a busy person and I had real stuff to get done, let me tell you. And that was my mindset and I was going right though I would make sure we would celebrate all the kids birthdays, but not my own, you know? And then the last decade has been interesting because my birthdays have been quietly celebrated. And like I said earlier, often at a later date. And that was a gift because I learned that I didn’t have to celebrate my birthday on the actual day that I was born. I could have that agility. And, you know, often I’d be at a swim meet. There was a team camping trip, and the families did surprise me back in 2012 with a birthday breakfast. Right. But again, that kind of feeds into like, if I’m important, if enough, if I’m valuable enough, that will happen. And I’m not saying don’t create those events for people, but also reminding yourself of what you want from it and being clear about that.

Koren (00:18:30) – That’s constantly what I’m working out with my clients. In 2012, I had a secret desire that I’ll share with you all. I was thinking about this. I’m like, Do I share this? So in 2012 it was turning 40. So that’s a big birthday and I wanted to celebrate it. And the other thing that was happening was I was getting inducted in the Hall of Fame that year for my swimming career. That was a really big deal for me. It was a cool award to get to recognize what I had accomplished as a collegiate athlete, and it was just really special to be able to receive that honor, not again about proving worthiness, but it was just really important and it was something that I wanted my children to be a part of. And so I was fortunate because I could have gotten inducted much earlier, but I had requested to wait because I wanted my kids to be a part of this. And so they were at 12 and ten at the time. And so I was quite delighted.

Koren (00:19:24) – But one of the things is that I didn’t tell people right, And I remember being at the meet and having to leave early and people were like, why are you leaving early? And I was like, oh, I have to go. So it was really stealth-like. And I left and I invited a couple people because I didn’t want to obligate people to come and celebrate me because I didn’t want to be arrogant, right? And I didn’t want them to have to spend money to go to this, you know, rubber chicken dinner and because who am I to ask for that? I would have loved to have more people there because I love people. I love the people in my life. But I didn’t ask. And that actually backfired. And I’ll talk about that. But one of the things I thought of was like, oh, they don’t need to pay for the rubber chicken dinner, but we could have a party afterwards. And it can be a celebration about the Hall of Fame and about my 40th birthday.

Koren (00:20:11) – But I was like, I don’t know what time that will end and it may be 1030 and that’s too late because I was still stuck on and just realizing this, as I share this with you, I was still stuck on it had to be that day, so I didn’t really do much. And there were a couple people that I did invite outside of my family. We went to the event and then we had a small little gathering from people that were there. We said, Hey, come on over to the house. That was as much as I was willing to do. I had a secret desire and I had, you know, in a longing. And then I had the reality. So. That’s what I was willing to do for myself. But let me tell you, remember this whole 30 years of taking care of other people. What I do for others is pretty damn amazing. So my husband was inducted in the Hall of Fame for the American Swim coaches back in, I think, 2018.

Koren (00:20:58) – And so when he got that notice that was happening, I started thinking about it and I was like, hey, we need to have a party. And he was like, no, we are not having a party to celebrate me. And I looked at him. I go, It’s not about you. It’s about thanking all the people that you got the privilege to coach. And on those parents who supported you so that you could be in a position to earn this award. Right. And part of that was learning from that falling down time of 2012, the backlash that I got from the people that I didn’t tell that I was getting inducted and I didn’t allow them to be a part of that experience. They wanted to celebrate that experience with me because I was afraid of being too much, of being arrogant, of taking up space in my own life. I shut them out. So I learned in 2012, of course, for my husband, I was able to do this. It was a two day shindig.

Koren (00:21:56) – I guess that’s partly where I’ve learned how to celebrate my 50th birthday because we did it in the summer. It wasn’t in correlation. It wasn’t at the actual event. We had 500 people. It was an amazing bash. We had so much fun. People could pick and choose. I had this saying that I created a long time ago. It’s an invitation, not an obligation. It was fun to see where people could slide in and slide out and some people couldn’t come. But we did it. It was great. We had so much fun. And then a couple of months later we went to the actual Hall of Fame and it was fun to see who showed up there, right? Like that was another event. So people had choices. Did they come to the one in Davis? Did they go the one in LA? They had choices. But remember, like I for somebody else, have a party for 500 people, it was like a wedding. It was a two day event that we put on and it was so much fun, right? And then even when going down to LA, that was quite delightful.

Koren (00:22:52) – And then it was delightful to see the people that would show up and say, I want to come and celebrate, right? This was an important time in my life. You impacted me, whatever it was. And they were brave to show up and do that, right? So often we’re like, oh, maybe I shouldn’t show up because I didn’t get an invite. I’m so grateful for those former athletes that showed up, those friends that showed up. And then fast forward to 2023. My daughters graduated from Cal Berkeley and my mom was going to come out for the graduation. And we were trying to figure out like, okay, how do we do this? We have family coming. How do we do this? Berkeley is an urban setting. Like, you know, how are we going to have this happen? She lives in a small apartment. She also had teammates who wanted to have a party together. And then it became clear that it was only going to be teammates. And then, like their parents.

Koren (00:23:44) – Right. Or their immediate families, not extended families. So trying to figure out all this. And finally I said to her, I said, why don’t we just have a party, a graduation party at our house, like a few weeks later? And because part of it was we had travels and stuff, so we couldn’t do it immediately. And she had means to go to and we did that. And guess what? We had 90 people, right? Like it was about thanking the people that were a part of her life growing up and to be able to celebrate. It was so much fun. It wasn’t about putting her front and center right, but it was so much fun to do that. And remember, it’s always an invitation, not an obligation. And notice it’s so much easier for me to do for others than it is for myself. I’m still a work in progress, but all of the learnings that I’ve had through the years of like what? It doesn’t have to be on the day.

Koren (00:24:35) – I mean, I can say that’s the gift of running the Aqua Monsters and being a swimmer because sometimes things had to wait and that was okay, right? And I’ve been able to incorporate that into other arenas of my life and say, okay, what do I want from this? So for me, the learning that I have about birthdays is not taking time for myself, right? There were times for many, many decades I didn’t take time for myself, right? The unlearning is unlearning the kicking things down to some day or one day I’ll do that, right? Really being much more deliberate, I’m unlearning, expecting and secretly hoping others do it for me, like magic. And here’s the funny thing. So I wanted to have a family dinner, and it’s graduation weekend for my youngest daughter. So her teammates and friends are graduating. And I have another daughter that’s, you know, in another town. And so what we’re doing is tonight we’re going to go out to dinner with one my youngest daughter in town, because she’s like.

Koren (00:25:41) – Mom, you know, really want to go to graduation parties on Saturday and we can’t get down to my other daughter until Saturday anyways. But for my daughter down in Berkeley, I was thinking my husband doesn’t even know this, but this is the script in the back of my head of like, Oh, maybe he’ll contact her and let her know that this is what I want to do because I didn’t want the vulnerability of putting myself out there and saying, Hey, I’d love to have dinner. You know, there’s this my favorite restaurant in Alameda. I love that dinner at this place. Would you be available to go? Like asking for what I want with my daughter. And I wanted my husband to do it for me. So here we go. I’m still unlearning that, hoping others will do it for me. And again, it’s not about me needing to be the center of attention. It’s about my desire to do what I deeply love, which is connecting with others, which is what others want to do.

Koren (00:26:36) – And they also get the opportunity to say yes or no. My daughter had the opportunity to say yes or no. I’m still unlearning that. I thought I had it down and I noticed it creep up this week with the Saturday dinner. I’m unlearning the rules of what’s supposed to happen on her day, right? That it can only be on one day or one evening. And this year. Right now I have five things set up for my birthday, the two dinners with my family. I have a couple dinners with friends, right? I have a day for me and I haven’t planned this out. But one of the things that I was thinking about on my birthday was what do I want? And I want space for a day for me and maybe I’ll go go someplace. Maybe I’ll go up to Lake Tahoe and just sit there and look at the water. I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I’m going to have a day planned for me, something that just delights me. It’s local.

Koren (00:27:26) – I don’t have to like get on a plane to go and do that experience. I’ll be something for me. So the rules of what’s supposed to happen and I’ve got that one really pretty good in my bones, right? I gave you a lot of examples. This has been something that I’ve been practicing for a long time and it’s been able to ripple over, like I said earlier, to my daughter’s graduation, my husband’s Hall of Fame party. It wasn’t there for my own Hall of Fame party, right? I could have done a big event afterwards. It didn’t have to be that they had to go to the event. We could have just celebrated, right? And I could have thanked people that couldn’t come to the Hall of Fame. The other thing I’m unlearning is that birthdays are frivolous and I have important shit to do, right? Birthdays aren’t frivolous. They’re the day that we were born. There’s so much meaning of that day. I know. For my mom, there’s a lot of meaning for that day.

Koren (00:28:19) – I was her first born. She really desired to have a baby. I think about the day my kids were born and I remember those experiences. So birthdays aren’t frivolous, right? But for so long I discounted it because I wasn’t allowing myself to take up space. And I’m learning to make myself a priority in my own life. This is a continual work in progress. I’ve been learning this for a long time now and I’m continuing to learn. There’s other areas. There’s places to clean up. There’s like the secret scripts that show up, right? There’s areas where I may fall back to old behavior. So I’m continuously practicing this and I’m learning to choose what I want. What is it I want? Right. What is it I want? Like this. I kid you Not this. We found this restaurant, my daughter back in the fall. And I just love this little restaurant in Alameda. It’s so yummy. And I want that, like, there’s other places, but that’s really what I want.

Koren (00:29:17) – And I’m really learning to choose what I want for my kids for their birthdays. They get to choose what they want, like what do they want for their birthday dinner? You know, what do they want for their if they want a cake or an ice cream cake, Right. Like what? What do they want? Giving myself that gift. I’m also learning to create what I want versus others to magically do it for me. And as I shared right, it was just this week that I was magically thinking my husband would contact my daughter because I didn’t want to have to ask for what I wanted. But I’m reminding myself this is another thing to learn, and I’m learning that birthdays are an opportunity to connect and to create connection and reflection with ourselves as well as connection with others. Right. And here’s the thing. Like, I was at the pool on Monday night and one of the ten year old girls came over to me and I was sitting there and she came over to me and she had made oatmeal, chocolate chip coconut cookies.

Koren (00:30:20) – And they’re ginormous and a card. And she was so proud to be able to show up and give this to me, right? There was a delight in her and I was really delighted to have this. And they are so amazing, right? So like when we don’t allow ourselves to take up space, we may shut off the opportunity for others to take up space. She has got this incredible skill set of baking. She’s ten years old. She created this card, right? To do something and to be able to give something to somebody is so beautiful. So when we don’t take up space in our lives, we diminish that opportunity for others as well. I’m learning to continually learn and accept that I get to take up space in my life. It’s not just about taking care of others and supporting others, right? Like that example of that ten year old and her to be able to give that to me. By me being able to take up space in my life and receive allowed her to be able to shine in her light.

Koren (00:31:25) – So what I did love about my birthday this year was that I was totally able to accept the day and what it was. It was a non birthday day and I loved all the texts and the cards and the calls. I had got flowers, you know, there were cookies, you know, it was fun. And it didn’t mean that I needed to receive stuff. It was fun. But some people were delighted to be able to give, right. And I received it that day. And then still days after, people asked me like, how was your birthday? Or Happy birthday? Right? We get into sometimes magical thinking, like, Oh, what did you do? My mom was like, well, you’re going to go out to dinner with Pete tonight. And I was like, Mom, we have practice. It’s not happening tonight. But we have this way that it’s supposed to be. And I said, Well, we’ll have dinner later this week. So for me, it was about the connection that I got that day, connecting with others and allowing myself to be seen.

Koren (00:32:20) – As your next birthday comes up. My question for you is, what do you want from your birthday? You want a year celebration. Time for yourself, connections with others, a trip. What is it that will recharge you so that your light can shine? And when your light can shine, it allows it to create lightness in the arena. And it allows spaces for other people’s light to shine. Just like I was talking about with the ten year old. That is something to think about. What do you want from your birthday? What do you want? A really vulnerable question. You may not get it. What do you want? And then what are the pivots you can make? All right, before you go. I’m really excited. It’s kind of on the theme of connection, right? But I’m really excited to share with you all that we have a new event that we’re planning, and it comes from this desire to connect because the desire to connect is huge. Like I said, I was recently on a retreat in that it was so beautiful to be with people and to be connecting and to have enriching conversations, right? And so I thought about, how can I make this easy for you to connect and have enriching conversations? And what I’m going to do is I’m going to be putting together a bunch of dinner parties where all you have to do is sign up and show up, and myself and my team will take care of the rest.

Koren (00:33:48) – I guess there’s one more thing you need to do. I want your ideas. Can you help me? Give me some ideas of which cities or towns for me to go to to create these events where we’re going to have dinner parties and we’re going to have conversations and all you have to do is sign up and come as well as maybe spark the idea. Give me an idea maybe of where would be some delightful places. So yes, I may be coming to your town or your city and hosting a dinner party. And there will be invitations for it once we get clear on the places we’re going to go. So my ask of you is to help me by going to the show notes and submitting your town and why it would be a great place. And maybe if you have a couple of restaurants that you think would be fantastic to have a group of maybe, you know, probably between 8 to 12 people to be able to come and gather. And all you have to do is show up. You don’t have to bring the other people.

Koren (00:34:51) – You don’t have to think about what are the interesting conversation pieces? Yes, it could be vulnerable, but dinner parties can be so delightful. So go to the show notes and submit your town, as well as possibly a couple recommendations of a restaurant where we can host 8 to 10 or 8 to 12 people. I’m really, really excited to meet you all on the road. I’ve loved this. How she really does a community for the last 16 plus years and I really want us to come together in the physical environment. All right, my friend, I’m smiling big for you. Hey, if you enjoy listening to this podcast, you’ll love my weekly emails. I know you’re thinking, Corinne. Really? Do I want another email in my overflowing inbox? Yes, you do. Yippee, Skippy, you do. These are short. They’re sweet. On Fridays, I send out the Friday podcast. It’s a great reminder that there’s a new show and it comes straight into your inbox of the latest episode.

Koren (00:35:53) – Awesome. You click on it, you go straight because we all need reminders. We have busy, full lives. And then on Sundays I have my Sunday Love column and these are emails I write from the heart. They’re filled with love. We need more love. We all do, myself included. These are short emails where you get a quick takeaway so you can incorporate this into your life because people often want to know what to do and how to do it. And maybe sometimes it’s a story that you get. Or there’s like one time I wrote about the ten Ways to Practice Gratitude, and that became such a great tool when one of the readers was struggling in the middle of the night, because it can be a scary place in our brains in the middle of the night. And she remembered the email that I sent about ten ways to practice gratitude, and she was able to practice gratitude and fall back asleep. And that was an awesome lesson for her to incorporate into her life. Go to the show notes and there’s a link in the show notes where you can sign up and get these emails in your box.

Music (00:36:59) – She’s dreaming, she’s drifting. Never been so wide awake. Captured in the moment by the beauty all around her. There’s nowhere else than she would rather be.