EP 6 More Purpose, Less Hustle with Laura Rebell Gross | Deep Work Out Loud
Julie Harris Oliver: Welcome to Deep Work Out Loud. I'm Julie Harris Oliver. This is the podcast where I sit with another professional coach and we do some work around a single concept, a piece of inspiration, a topic we've seen come up in coaching.
If we're very lucky while we're talking about it, we might demonstrate what coaching might look and feel like, but we'll see how this goes. It's all an experiment, and with any luck, you'll leave with something that you can apply and use in your work or in your life, or both. Today I'm here with Laura Rebell Gross with 30 years of experience as an organizational leader, school founder, educator, and national expert in girls education, fundraising, and leadership development. Laura brings a deep understanding of mission-driven work team leadership and human-centered strategy to her coaching practice.
She currently serves on the executive committees of three boards and has extensive experience in board development and governance. She's also a seasoned public speaker and delivered a TEDx talk on educating the whole [00:01:00] girl as a certified executive coach through the Hudson Institute of Coaching, she integrates frameworks like positive intelligence and mental fitness into her work, helping clients lead with greater clarity, resilience, and impact. Outside of work,
she's a mom to three college age daughters and has been married to her husband for nearly 25 years. They live in Park Slope, Brooklyn, where they've raised their three phenomenal girls and one exuberant Labradoodle. She's a passionate, long distance runner, voracious reader, enthusiastic traveler, and avid theater goer.
Hello, Laura.
So good you to see you. Are you?
Laura Rebell Gross: I'm happy now that I'm with you. This is the fun part of my day today.
Julie Harris Oliver: Excellent. So what are you thinking about today?
Laura Rebell Gross: It's interesting hearing you read That bio reminded me about all these years that I've worked with and raised girls, and I think these days, and today I'm thinking about women more than I'm thinking about girls.
Okay. And part of that has [00:02:00] to do with transitioning more and more into being a full-time coach and really finding that I love working with women, particularly women in transition, whatever that means. You know, oh, you are speaking to me. Say more. Well, whether it is that moment in life, whether it's hormonal, perimenopause, menopause.
Leaving a relationship, divorce, changing career, becoming an empty nester. The women around me, the women, I sit on these wonderful boards with the women who are my friends, who I run with and go to theater with. These are the conversations that we're having all the time right now is, you know, life is changing and what is that third act going to look like for us, and what do we.
What are we no longer willing to negotiate and what is it that we want to make sure we're doing? Sound familiar,
Julie Harris Oliver: like all of those [00:03:00] things all at the same time. Throw in a little elder care and Yep. You have it nailed. Yeah. So, God, it's so much and it's so much to unpack. What parts in particular are you?
Are you focusing on, like is it transition, is it identity? Is it, what do you do now?
Laura Rebell Gross: Yeah. I think for me I'm really interested in. The finding joy of it all in the end of the pleaser era and the start of the please me era, maybe
Julie Harris Oliver: the all out of fucks situation.
Laura Rebell Gross: Yes. The all out.
Julie Harris Oliver: Maybe finding ourselves in.
Laura Rebell Gross: Exactly. Exactly. And so I'm very inspired by the women that I'm working with and the women in my life by seeing them carve their own paths, whatever those. Whatever those choices are. So you're right, there are certain challenges, physical, emotional, financial that come with leaving [00:04:00] a job or taking care of a parent or, finding yourself in an empty house all of a sudden.
But I think there's also. The wisdom that comes with 50 and 60 years of life of saying I have limited time left and I'm not willing to do it this way anymore. And I love helping women figure out what it is that they want to fill those years and those hours with, I'm trying to figure that out myself.
Julie Harris Oliver: So what does that really mean to. Start to focus on yourself and your own needs. Yeah. When it's in everybody else's needs for so many years. Yeah.
Laura Rebell Gross: It's interesting. For me personally, I always say I wasn't a burnt toast mom. You know, that stereotype about you all have the toast and I'll have the burn toast.
I grew up with a model of a mom who. Took great care of me, but also took great care of herself. She cared about her health, she cared about her friendships. She's very much still that person. [00:05:00] And so I do think that I have three daughters 17 18 and 20. And I do think that they've seen me nurture friendships and get myself massages and take out time to go for runs and all the things that.
Give me joy. They've seen that, but they've also seen that I'll drop any meeting to have a phone call with them. I'll, fly across the world if they're having an anxiety attack. Like I'll do anything. And I'm still that way with them. So I don't know if it's about, it's all, it was always about doing for everybody.
And now it's about doing, for me, at least in my experience, I've done for me all along as I've done for them. But for example, for me personally, it's this realization that I don't wanna work for anybody else. I don't want a boss. Nobody's the boss of me
Julie Harris Oliver: so hard. I don't want a boss.
Laura Rebell Gross: Yeah. Yeah.
Julie Harris Oliver: Why?
Laura Rebell Gross: There are some great things about having a boss. There's some great things about having a salary
Julie Harris Oliver: and healthcare.
Laura Rebell Gross: Yeah, and healthcare and [00:06:00] not being the final decision maker. There's some relief in that and certainly in those years of raising children and having so much. That you're balancing not having to think about how to send a W nine on your own is a good thing.
Right.
Julie Harris Oliver: But the thought of anyone else having any say over how I spend my time
Laura Rebell Gross: Exactly.
Julie Harris Oliver: Or when I take a day off or when I No.
Laura Rebell Gross: Or where I spend my time or where I'm sitting when I'm doing it, or what time I start. Exactly. Right. No, that's such a, a. Such a visceral feeling that no.
Julie Harris Oliver: Yeah,
yeah. Oh, I feel it deep in my deep, deep, no.
Laura Rebell Gross: Yes.
Julie Harris Oliver: And I'm aware that's a very privileged position to take. Yes. Let me just say that.
So when you're working with people who may come in, like, I'm very clear on the No. And what I'm not gonna do.
Yeah. Right. I have no idea what I am gonna do or what I want to do. Where do you even start?
Laura Rebell Gross: Yeah. [00:07:00] Or I'm really, which has happened to me more in the coaching. I really don't want to do this anymore. This is not the right place for me. But until I figure out that next piece, I have to be here. So the feelings stuck in the, which, as you said, it's a privilege not to be in that place.
I think that. The where to start is in that self understanding. You can't go anywhere positive if you don't know where you want to go. So it's in the ideating about how do you wanna spend your time, what do you want to, what would success look like for you? What would being at peace look like for you?
You know, what are the emotions you wanna feel? What would make you proud to say you had accomplished? I think there's a lot of thought at this age about legacy and where am I making my impact in the world too. At least for I work with a lot of people who have spent a lot of years in schools or nonprofits, which is the world where I come [00:08:00] from, and those are pretty mission-driven, change the world people, but they're also pretty burnt out people that are tired of.
Kind of the bureaucracy of whatever system they're a part of.
Julie Harris Oliver: Oh, especially right now. It's gotta be so hard.
Laura Rebell Gross: Yes. And especially right now. And there is that feeling of self preservation and I'm just coming to this too exhausted. Too burnt out and have to figure out how to find some peace and some joy.
Julie Harris Oliver: So where do you begin?
Laura Rebell Gross: Listening. Coaching is really about listening. That's what I'm learning. I'm still at the beginning of this journey. I'm, I have a beginner's mind. A year ago I was still working full-time in a nonprofit space and feeling a lot of the feelings that I was just describing clients having.
And there was a time in my younger life where I was. My own boss, where I was an [00:09:00] entrepreneur. I started a school in my early thirties when my kids were very small and I wasn't being paid for that. And I was, figuring out how to put together a board and how to start a 5 0 1 C3 and how to hire a principal and how to recruit students and all these things that were completely new to me.
And I look back on that sometimes and I try to get. Inspiration for my younger self. And I do think that there is a, that's a good tool to use in coaching too. Have you ever felt this way before? Describe that time. What? What did you do that, where you surprised yourself, you know? Mm-hmm.
What
did you do that you were proud of?
How can you apply that now? Because a lot of times people have really lost their confidence and they start to think especially, as older women, where am I relevant anymore or who, who would want to work with me? Or is there time for me to do this new thing? [00:10:00]
Julie Harris Oliver: I have found this exact experience you're describing right now of going back and looking, who was I when I was 20?
Yeah. Who was I when I was 25? And coming back to so many of those aspects that you lose when you start piling on. Responsibility and work And jobs. Yes. And family and all the things that don't allow you. In my case it was go back and be an artist. Yes. Like I was Betty Business for so many years.
Laura Rebell Gross: What kind of artist?
Julie Harris Oliver: It's gonna sound so incredibly cliche, but I've gone back to pottery.
Laura Rebell Gross: Not, I mean, not at all cliche. My husband does ceramics and most of our bowls are his in the house, and I am so in awe
of people who can do that. I think it's such a beautiful art.
Julie Harris Oliver: Well, it's so fun. And I remember when I was 20, I was running around.
You know, I was acting at the time and dancing and doing all these things. And playing violin and playing piano and pottery just stuck out so much. And I found myself with some time and I was like, as part of Life Forward, which [00:11:00] we went to. Yes. I was like, I really wanna go back to pottery.
I think that would be great.
Laura Rebell Gross: So you've done that in the last year?
Julie Harris Oliver: Yeah. Yeah, I'm doing it right now. I'm going tomorrow night. I go twice a week. I'm obsessed and I've met a bunch of women who are empty nesters and we've all said on the first week, oh, it's my first week, but I did it, you know, 30 years ago, everybody.
I did it constantly that 30 years ago. I love that. And this is my first time back.
Laura Rebell Gross: And how does it feel familiar?
Julie Harris Oliver: Oh yeah, it's like riding a bike,
really. Like I,
you still need to completely learn how to do it again, but the the muscle memory is there and the feeling is there and it's like, oh, I remember, I remember this and I remember me.
Laura Rebell Gross: That I remember me. I remember me. That's so
funny. I had a friend visit last week from from Israel, and I had spent a lot of time with this person when I was in my twenties leading teen tours. And he was the Israeli counterpoint the leader of those teen tours and, and it, I told my kids it was like having a visit with my 23-year-old self.
Yeah. It was, you know, just having that conversation and being in company of somebody who [00:12:00] knew me so well then who I haven't spent so much time with in the last few years. But I always say if you asked your kindergarten teacher to describe you in three adjectives. Those adjectives would probably still apply.
Right? Like the essence of who we are. Wow. Mm-hmm. Never changes. What do you think somebody who knew you at five would say were the three adjectives to describe you at
Julie Harris Oliver: five? That's a really, that's a hard one for me 'cause I don't remember much of that at all. But I have often said. Like your real friends in your forties are the people who listen to the shit you said in your twenties and they still love you.
Laura Rebell Gross: Totally.
But I, I think when you say like that back to you and the artist in you and it feels so familiar and exactly right to be doing pottery. I have a similar thing that so after seeing this friend, he sent me a video that he had that he dug up somewhere from those [00:13:00] days in the 1990s.
And the first thing I'm doing is like belting out and song on the video. And that's of course, that's so me, me too. I just love to sing. And I was thinking about how much I loved in high school and college singing in choirs or, you know, I actually didn't get into the acapella group I wanted in college.
But how that was such a lost experience for me because nothing gives me more joy. I don't know that I'm very good at it, but nothing gives me more joy than singing in a group.
Julie Harris Oliver: Yeah.
Laura Rebell Gross: And. Then I had the thought, like I would tell a client like what's stopping you from doing that right now? You're in the pottery class.
Is there a I live in New York City. Is there a choir
I could find? Is there a, yeah, is there a,
Julie Harris Oliver: what's
stopping you?
Laura Rebell Gross: A fifties acapella group, right? Yes.
Julie Harris Oliver: What's
stopping you right now, Laura?
Laura Rebell Gross: I'm gonna Google it right after this. I'll do it. It
really, yeah, I mean it's, it really does give me so much joy just to sing.
Yeah. And that's the kind of thing that [00:14:00] I think can or doesn't have to lead to a career choice, but just to exactly what you were saying earlier about, nobody's gonna tell me how to spend my time. That's what. There was that book years ago based on the Virginia Wolf book called The Hours, and it, I thought it was such a great title for a book because that's all, every day is, it's the hours, how are we spending our hours?
Julie Harris Oliver: And part of it feels as work, becomes a smaller bubble on our chart. What are the other bubbles gonna be? Yeah. And so it might be, you may not have to change your career, you might have to make the other parts of your life bigger. So that, feel more fulfilled and feel better and feel like you're doing something for yourself.
Laura Rebell Gross: Yeah. And all some of those things that I named at the beginning about the transitions that women go through at our age. Some of them are inevitable like the menopause, and some of them are choices, like people who are choosing to leave [00:15:00] relationships or choosing to move from their, the home they raise their families in or choosing to leave jobs.
It's, I think. Being aware that we have choices and that there is a wise self somewhere inside of you that knows what makes those hours worth living, what you know, how you wanna spend your time.
Julie Harris Oliver: And part of that, what you're describing is also a lot of endings.
Yeah.
And I, I learned very in stark relief over the last year.
That you may need to spend some time recognizing and honoring those endings. Yeah. And how do you wanna do that? I found myself a year ago, left Hollywood, left la, moved in with my new husband. In Tennessee in a different house. All my kids went to college. It's one chapter of another.
Laura Rebell Gross: Julie, you are like the
Yes.
You're doing it
all. Every
transition
Julie Harris Oliver: was like, and I would go to my [00:16:00] coach. Just an absolute mess. Yeah. All over the place. Like I think I'm good with change, but this is everything. This is a lot. All at once.
Yeah. Yeah.
And I think I need to mourn some of these things. Yeah. And acknowledge them. And a big one that came up, which I think is.
Relevant right now, although I'm not sure when this will get published, but last Christmas for the holidays all my kids came home and I had this feeling of it's not really my job anymore to make sure everyone has a Merry Christmas. Oh. And it's not really my job anymore to put on Christmas, and I don't want to.
Yeah. I don't want that job. So then I had to spend some time with, okay, then what are we gonna do differently? Is there a new tradition that we can all create that's very different from what we used to do, or the pressure I used to feel? Or how, with. Little Santa.
Laura Rebell Gross: What did you used to do?
I've never celebrated Christmas, so I'm fascinated. Yeah.
Julie Harris Oliver: It used to be, we had a very secular Christmas, but it was, yeah, Santa Claus and the tree [00:17:00] and the decorating and Christmas morning, all the presents showed up and yeah. Filling the stockings and also what does everybody want and how do I get all the gifts and like all the things.
Yeah. One year my son really wanted that giant teddy bear from Costco. Oh yeah. So I had to somehow buy it and sneak it into my house and then hide it at my nanny's house, and then someone came over Christmas Eve to help put it on, the whole thing. First of all, I want no part percolate and yeah.
I want no part of any of that.
Yeah.
But I also, we should have some sort of tradition that feels like a holiday that we can all do together. What we landed on. Yeah.
What
we are now doing, and this will be the second year we just booked it we're having PowerPoint night.
Laura Rebell Gross: PowerPoint night
Julie Harris Oliver: where everybody comes with a PowerPoint presentation uhhuh of something they feel very strongly about that matters.
Not in the least.
Laura Rebell Gross: So it's gimme an example.
Julie Harris Oliver: Like an example. My PowerPoint was, I just installed a ring camera 'cause I made that house into an Airbnb. Yeah. And so my PowerPoint was [00:18:00] the top five entrances and exits as seen through the ring camera. Like stupid. My daughter did. Milli Vanilli was robbed.
And then an entire presentation. Oh my God. On why their cancellation was h content. Hilarious.
It's hilarious. And that is h fun. Hilarious.
Laura Rebell Gross: That is amazing. Yeah. And so does that eradicate the need to get gifts or fill stockings
or make a meal?
Julie Harris Oliver: We're still doing
all that. We're still doing all that.
I don't make, I stopped making meal years ago. I put out charcuterie, and that's what we eat all day.
Laura Rebell Gross: I could
eat charcuterie for every meal.
Julie Harris Oliver: Yeah,
I know. Wouldn't that be great if we could? Yeah. So we're still doing that part of it. Yeah. But it's more of a shift in my attitude and what I think is my responsibility.
Laura Rebell Gross: It sounds like it's also a shift in Yeah. In the weight of who owns the night or who owns the day and is responsible for making everybody happy. Now everybody's, it's bringing something's.
Julie Harris Oliver: [00:19:00] Yeah. That's it.
Laura Rebell Gross: Yeah. I love that. Yeah. And I also just, you just reminded me that the, this is. We are coming up on that season that always feels so depleting.
One of the things that stresses me out is not just my family at the holidays, but it's all the people that help my family throughout the year, whether it's my kids. Teachers or, whoever it is. Just the getting gifts for people, the acknowledgements, the holiday cards I've always done.
It's so expensive. It's so exhausting. It's so endless. Like the labor. Yeah. Is there a way to just say no to all of that? I love that.
Julie Harris Oliver: Yeah. Yeah. And honoring the feeling in your body. Yes. Of, oh, this feels like I'm headed into a storm of drudgery. I don't want, I don't want drudgery, my holiday poverty.
The
whole thing. The whole thing. I don't want that. Yes. Yeah, I don't want that. And so then how do you work out, like how do we make that different?
Laura Rebell Gross: Yeah. And you're doing it in a new kind of combined family situation too, so you're, I love that you're [00:20:00] creating a new tradition. Yeah. That's for this new version, right?
Yeah. Does everybody come home?
Julie Harris Oliver: It's complicated getting everybody in places with all of their parents. Yeah. For the holiday. So this year I think it'll be my kids and one step kid. And we do PowerPoint night, like New Year's Eve or a few days. We're not doing it on
Laura Rebell Gross: PowerPoint night.
I just love
it. It's such,
it's such a
unique idea. It's so much fun.
Julie Harris Oliver: Yeah. My daughter brought that idea. Yeah. I was like, yes,
yes.
Laura Rebell Gross: I love that. But I think, yeah, what is the feeling I wanna have and going back to coaching, I love that you just said that about the body, because I often will ask a client, as you're imagining that.
That next step, which as you said, you might have to grieve, you might have to mourn leaving that job or changing your house or whatever it is, or just your kids going to college. How does it feel to imagine that next step in your body and how does it feel to imagine not changing it? So how does it feel [00:21:00] to imagine just doing things as you've always done it right.
Julie Harris Oliver: And that, and you can
feel visceral resentment Yes. Before it's even happened. Yes. That's something to look at
Laura Rebell Gross: Yeah. I do think the body doesn't lie and less. Yeah.
Julie Harris Oliver: And to be able to have a process where you don't have to make radical change because you can talk it all out and imagine it all out and do some experimentation before you make some giant radical change.
That's such a gift.
Laura Rebell Gross: Yeah. One major change for me since I've I'm still a little bit tied to my organization where I worked for so many years, and it's interesting that you said that about like creating the time to grieve it and to really make the process out of letting that go. You can't make those changes.
You can make them very quickly like you did, but there's a consequence to that. It can make you feel all kinds of things crazy. And when I, yeah, and when I did life forward. And we had this exercise where we had to name. Where we [00:22:00] were in the lifecycle what is it? The doldrums and the, cocoon, the cocooning, and then it was the, what's the, let's go stage, the yeah, let's go.
I was sure I was in the let's go. I was like, I'm ready to leave my job. I'm ready to start being a full-time coach. I'm ready to be my own boss. And I was so not even in the doldrums yet. Like I had such a long way to go before I was ready to make that transition, but I just,
Julie Harris Oliver: where were you
actually?
Laura Rebell Gross: I was actually in the doldrums.
I was feeling uneasy, burnt out, tired. I also was having some personal feelings about just the state of the world and where my organization sat and where I sat and I just felt like this isn't feeling good anymore. But I also. Built a long time career in girls education at an organization that I believe in and love working with people that I love and.
I needed to honor that and be there [00:23:00] for a year plus more. 'cause I'm still I was able, thanks to the team there being very generous. Like I was able to work out a part-time transition out role that hasn't been such a harsh, you're gone. Goodbye. And that's been helpful because suddenly finding myself with a long day ahead of me that I need to schedule myself.
That sometimes includes coaching clients and sometimes includes board work and sometimes includes. Watching, nobody wants this in the middle of the day which is great.
Julie Harris Oliver: A
perfect day.
Laura Rebell Gross: Yeah, perfect day. To not have to, I love to run, to not have to get out of bed at 5:00 AM to get my run done so that I can be in Manhattan by nine o'clock for my first meeting, but instead be able to walk.
My daughter, who's my youngest is a senior in high school now, so my bio lied a little almost college age. To be able to spend that time walking her to the bus and then go for the run. And then, think about starting my thought process around work [00:24:00] around 10 and maybe have my first client at 11.
That is such a luxury. Oh, that's a completely different pace. Yeah. But it can also make me feel unmoored. I look at my closet and I think, God, I have all these great work clothes. Where am I wearing them?
Julie Harris Oliver: I keep buying them. Having no place to wear them. I'm like, oh, I love that Ann Taylor, blah, blah, blah.
And I'm like, I'm never gonna wear that anywhere.
Laura Rebell Gross: Yesterday I had a board meeting and
then a board dinner
and there was a 45 minute between them and I changed, and everyone said to me. You changed. Why aren't you wearing the same thing you wore at the board meeting? And I was like, 'cause I have nowhere to wear my outfits.
So this was a big deal. I thought about these outfits a lot. What I'm gonna wear in the daytime versus what I'm gonna wear in the nighttime.
Julie Harris Oliver: These outfits needed to get out of the house.
Laura Rebell Gross: They need to get out. They miss me. Yes.
Julie Harris Oliver: That's
amazing.
Laura Rebell Gross: I'm in vuori all day, every day. Yeah.
Julie Harris Oliver: There's another piece I was thinking about. Something you said sparked it. And I'm curious if this is also true for you. 'cause it's definitely true for me and has [00:25:00] been for a lot of the women I talk
to, is that along with this time and this transition and the burnout, really working your ass off for 30 years.
Let's be real. Yes. Let's be real. Is ambition itself has such a huge shift that Yes. I was not expecting. Yeah. Did you, do you have thoughts about that?
Laura Rebell Gross: Oh, I was gonna say to you, say more. I,
such a coaching prompt. Say more Julie. Yeah. But it, no somebody actually mentioned that to me last night at the dinner that I was at, that like it was that I am not willing to.
Burn myself out every day to schedule, ambition requires a relentless energy toward one goal. And I think at this time in life, for many of us, for many of my clients and friends and myself, there are a lot of things that we want. And we're chasing a feeling and a, and I hate the word balance, but we're chasing the ability to have.
All of those [00:26:00] things that we want in our lives without compromising ourselves. So a lot of us wanna be in bed at eight 30 most nights. A lot of us
Julie Harris Oliver: is that wrong?
Laura Rebell Gross: Want a quiet part of the day where we don't have to talk to anybody? And you can't be so ambitious. You can't and it's it's contrary to the ambition.
I have a goal around building this coaching practice and it really has to do with connecting to my clients and helping them figure out, what they want their impact to be. But I'm not willing to. Take any client or, we're, and it, as you said, it is a privilege and it is an adjustment to not have that guaranteed salary and figure out how to budget so that you can have more of those hours.
But it's also just an attitude of more peace. Less hustling.
Less hustling. Yeah.
Julie Harris Oliver: That for me, that's it. Like I. I lost I [00:27:00] dunno, lost is such the word, but any desire or feeling like I had to climb corporate ladder as high as I possibly could. Yes. It fell off a cliff. Yeah. Like abruptly.
I'm like, oh, no.
Laura Rebell Gross: 'I'm much less Interested in. How it sounds when I describe what I do or what some, some accolade that somebody's gonna use and much more interested in how did that day feel? Yeah. How did this year feel? So I think one thing that just came to me was, you don't wanna purposeless, I don't wanna sit around and watch.
Nobody wants this all day long, every day. That would make me feel like I'm wasting my life. And my life. I care about my life and I care about. The work that I'm doing and it's purpose. Without hustle, you can have purpose without hustle. Yes. Yeah.
Julie Harris Oliver: Yes. I love that you use that word hustle. Yeah.
Laura Rebell Gross: And there, there are times, like I was describing to you, that it just so happens that a lot of things come together.
You might have a presentation or you're doing a group [00:28:00] coaching engagement, or you have a retreat of some kind where it's intense for a little bit,
Julie Harris Oliver: so you're busy.
Laura Rebell Gross: So you're busy, but then you build in the not busy on top of the busy so that you can not get to the end of the day with nothing left. My husband used to say to me our marriage would be great if you were just as nice to me as you are to the dry cleaner.
We have a really charming, dry cleaner, but I,
Julie Harris Oliver: I'm not even sure I was nice to the dry cleaner.
Laura Rebell Gross: Exactly. Exactly. But what I was coming home with. At the end of all that hustle and at the end of working so hard to be kind to everybody else in my orbit was not much left. Certainly for him. I'm trying with the kids, but sometimes not enough left for them too.
Julie Harris Oliver: Yeah.
Laura Rebell Gross: Because you come home and you're burnt out from spending so much energy, hustling.
Julie Harris Oliver: Yeah. Yeah, and I just don't have it anymore.
Laura Rebell Gross: I don't have it. I don't have an interest in it. And I feel like there are a lot [00:29:00] of women in that head space.
Julie Harris Oliver: Just about everyone I talk to.
Laura Rebell Gross: Yeah,
basically
all of us.
Basically, if you were born between 1968 and 1980, you're done with the hustle, right?
Julie Harris Oliver: You're done. You're
done. We're gonna figure it out a
different kind of
way.
Laura Rebell Gross: Even if you don't have the privilege of leaving a job I think there are ways that we can communicate. And I work with some of these people that we can communicate boundaries, that we can learn how to delegate.
That we can not look at our email 24 7 and that we can put ourselves and that peaceful time we need into our own calendars.
Julie Harris Oliver: Yeah. 'cause here's the thing, I also learned with experience. There's actually no reward for checking your email at three o'clock in the morning.
Laura Rebell Gross: There's except your rumination and your Yeah, exactly.
Julie Harris Oliver: And your peace.
Laura Rebell Gross: No reward.
Julie Harris Oliver: I notice now that I don't have Sunday scaries
That I'm not
freaked out if [00:30:00] someone in particular wants to talk to me or calls a meeting or pops up on my calendar. I don't have any of that dread. Of, oh, this meeting's gonna be hard. Yeah. Or, oh, this, I don't have any of that.
And that alone is worth.
Laura Rebell Gross: It's weight in gold. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, it's true. I love the exercise and I didn't make it up. I think my coach last year gave this to me of, describe your ideal the ideal cadence for your day and what you would do in an ideal day. And of course, there is no ideal day because there's an ideal vacation day.
There's an ideal day with your family. There's an ideal day of work. But for me, every one of those days. Starts with coffee in bed,
like that's like the number one every single one of those days. It's not a good day if
I can't have a relaxing cup of coffee in bed. And what I'm trying to make the transition to now is that cup of coffee not being accompanied by email and an iPad and just having it [00:31:00] be, quiet.
Maybe I'm reading a chapter of a book, maybe I'm talking to my husband
Julie Harris Oliver: also, maybe Wordle.
Laura Rebell Gross: Maybe Wordle, right? That sounds good. Yes. But just an easing into the day and and truly, coffee is one of the great loves of my life, and that first cup is just, yes.
Julie Harris Oliver: Yes,
Laura Rebell Gross: Jerry Seinfeld says it. It may very well be true that you get to the end of your life and you say that kind of sucked.
But the coffee was good. And I relate to that.
Julie Harris Oliver: ok just circling back. Yes
to the beginning of this conversation because I feel we've veered off to, here's have a live here, how to figure out how to have a life where you get to have coffee in bed. Although that can be beautiful side effects
Laura Rebell Gross: or whatever. But
I do think it's a good question of, not what's your ideal day, but.
What needs to be true every day for you to have what you want in your life. So for me, it might be coffee in bed for somebody else, it might be I need to get outside for a half an hour every day. Or I,
yeah. I
need to connect with my daughter every day or whatever it [00:32:00] is.
Julie Harris Oliver: And I wanna do meaningful work, and I don't wanna be in the grind.
Yes. And who do I have to be to make that happen? Yeah. And what choices do I have to make in my life, and how do I have to set up my life to make that be true?
Laura Rebell Gross: And what are the nos I need to say? It's such a cliche, but it is so true that most of us women who have gotten to our fifties have had a lifetime of doing things we don't wanna do because we feel obligated to do them.
And saying too many yeses. I really admire the few women that are not that way. But the no is a complete sentence is a really important part of making room. For exactly what you just said. Having a life without, with purpose, but no hustle, or little hustle. Yeah.
Julie Harris Oliver: Amen.
Where can people find you?
Laura Rebell Gross: Oh I am going to be launching my website LRG Coaching in mid-November. So maybe this is coming out even after that. I'm getting ready to do that, but for now I'm on LinkedIn, Laura Rebell Gross. Instagram Laura Rebell, Gross, [00:33:00] and Facebook. And all of those are public, but you're gonna see a lot of pictures of me outdoors running.
Yeah.
Julie Harris Oliver: Do you have a, do you have a URL for your website?
Laura Rebell Gross: lrgcoaching.org. I'm actually planning to do a women's coaching circle starting in the new year, all around this topic of women in transition. I think one-on-one coaching can be so helpful for people, but I also think being in community with other women, and I'm envisioning this as six to eight women. Meeting bi bimonthly for about three months.
And then having one, one-on-one coaching session with me to talk about these transitions and how to navigate them and to identify really what it is that they want to bring more purpose and less hustle into their lives is the vision for what I'm designing. So you'll be able to find that on my website if anybody's interested in joining that circle.
Julie Harris Oliver: Beautiful. I would like to name your circle more purpose, less hustle. [00:34:00]
Laura Rebell Gross: I love it actually. Okay. Done. Yeah.
Julie Harris Oliver: We'll work on a logo for that.
Laura Rebell Gross: Yeah. Perfect. I love
it.
Julie Harris Oliver: Laura Rebell Gross. Thank you so much for doing this.
Laura Rebell Gross: I have loved
talking to you, Julie.
I learned from you and I just like being in your space. It feels like not a hustle just to hang out with you.
Julie Harris Oliver: Likewise.
Laura Rebell Gross: Yes. Thank you.
Julie Harris Oliver If any of this resonates with you, please subscribe and leave a review at all the podcast places. If you'd like to work with me, you can find me julieharrisoliver.com and let me leave you with this. If you're dealing with a big change or a lot of big changes or a shift in your identity, what parts are no longer serving you that you are ready to let go of and what new parts of yourself. Are you ready to embrace or return to? How do you get to a place of more purpose and less hustle?
Thanks for listening. See you next time.