Bringing Your Whole Self: Rethinking Professionalism Neurodivergence & Midlife Feat Gretchen Wegner

Your travels have brought you to the Surfing Your Edge podcast,

where we explore what it takes to create the bigger,

bolder, badass life you know you were born for.

Not a life that simply looks good on paper,

and not another spin on the self-help hamster wheel.

If you're ready for more joy, more peace, and more contribution,

you're in the right place.

I'm Kristine Goad, the Surfing Your Edge coach.

Let's get surfing.

Gretchen Wegner is the founder of the Anti-Boring Learning Lab,

where she helps educators and coaches understand the brain science

behind study strategies that work and executive function skills

so they can make learning more effective and a whole lot less boring

for their students.

I've had the privilege of working behind the scenes

in Gretchen's business for many years,

which means I've also had a front row seat

as she surfed her edge again and again,

both personally and professionally.

I've watched her question old assumptions,

experiment with new ways of working,

grow a business that reflects more of who she actually is,

and keep asking some pretty brave questions

about what she wants next.

So I knew I wanted to have Gretchen on Surfing Your Edge

not just to talk about the work she does,

but also to talk about what it looks like

to become more fully yourself along the way.

In this conversation, we'll talk about

bringing your whole self to your work,

learning in public, neurodivergence,

and changing needs as we get older,

and that very midlife question,

do I want the rest of my life to look the way it looks right now?

Here's my conversation with Gretchen Wegner.

All right.

I am so excited to have Gretchen Wegner with me today.

Gretchen is someone I've known for several years

in a very specific capacity,

and it's really fun to get to talk to her outside of work.

So hello, Gretchen,

and thank you so much for jumping on here with me today.

Hi there, Office Wiz.

Yes, that is my secret identity.

I'm Office Wiz in the back end of Gretchen's

anti-boring learning lab business.

So a lot of times people don't know who I am,

and every once in a while I kind of pop out

and people can see my face.

But yeah, so I've been in the back end

of Gretchen's business for many years,

and one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you today, Gretchen,

is that as the Surfing Your Edge coach,

I have watched you surf several edges,

and you have inspired me to even take

my own edge surfing a little bit farther.

Ooh, sharper edges, huh?

Yes.

So let me just say, one of the things I love about you

is you own a small business

that you've been building basically on your own

for a couple decades.

Almost, I mean, 15 years, yeah.

Yeah.

And you have a way of really bringing,

when I was getting out of college

and looking for my first job,

I went to work for a social change organization,

and their whole thing was about bring your whole self to work,

and I was really excited about that.

And then when I got to work, I realized

they meant bring this much of yourself to work.

The whole part of this tiny little part of yourself.

Right, they really didn't mean your whole self.

They meant this part that we can use

and make you feel good about yourself,

but this other part of you that wants to advocate

for your own health and your own well-being

and your own needs, you can leave that at home.

So really, I think for me,

my journey has been about bringing more and more of myself,

my full self to my whole life, to my work, to everything.

And what I see you do on a regular basis

is really blur those edges between personal and business,

and you do it in a way that isn't embarrassing,

that really just makes the people around you feel comfortable.

Aww.

That's my hope, actually.

It's part of my activism.

I've decided.

I mean, I do go to marches and that sort of thing,

but I'm not as activist-y as a lot of my radical friends

here in Oakland, California, where I live.

But I think I've just embraced that

being my fullest, quirkiest self

in as many places as possible is my activism.

And I can tell how...

It's weird to say.

I sound full of myself when I say this,

but I am full of myself, and that's what we're talking about.

That it's good.

It changes people.

I can tell that it really helps people

for me to be my full self in their presence,

and it certainly helps me.

Yeah.

And one of the things that I've noticed about myself

is as I've gotten older...

We're going to talk about this more later.

I got a late-in-life diagnosis with ADHD,

and what I'm noticing now that I'm in menopause,

which we'll also talk about

because you're not shy about talking about that.

What I'm noticing is now that I'm in menopause,

what used to work, the workarounds I had for my ADHD

before just don't work as well anymore.

And so the time blindness,

especially the not knowing...

The time blindness in particular is really hard for me now

and thinking,

Oh, I can do these 10 things in the next 10 minutes

and realizing that I can't.

So I am showing up to meetings with my clients

frequently with wet hair.

I love it.

And that is part of my activism that I've developed.

It's like a lot of my clients who find me are neurodivergent,

and so that's part of their lives, right?

And if I can show up like,

Hey, guys, I wanted to be clean for you,

but I didn't quite get dry for you.

Yeah.

But who said that wet hair isn't professional?

Like, what does it even mean to be professional?

And let's just question all of that

because I think that the rules were made,

A, not for women,

B, not for neurodivergent folks,

and C, not for anyone to actually be themselves.

So I think it is possible to be quote unquote professional,

whatever that is,

and also live your life all at the same time.

Right.

And basically what I feel like I'm demonstrating

is that one,

my IQ does not go down because my hair is wet

and because I'm not wearing makeup, right?

And also that,

Hey, this is what my life looks like.

I'm showing up for you on time.

I'm a little late, a little wet,

but I'm here on time and I'm here for you 100%.

And it's okay if your life looks like this too, right?

It gives permission to everybody to be like,

Oh, well, my life works this way.

And I just feel like you give that permission

and you make it part of the conversation.

I've heard you have,

you work with educators basically.

Actually, I didn't let you say what it is that you do.

Do you want to say what it is that you do?

Well, I can.

Yeah, but let me say it in a very particular way

that gives an example of what we're talking about.

So I am the founder of the Anti-Boring Learning Lab,

which is a training company for academic coaches,

tutors and classroom teachers and educators of all kinds

who work specifically with students.

And I have an expertise in the science of learning.

I have an expertise in how to motivate students

to learn things that they might think

they don't want to learn.

And I bring that together

in what I call the Anti-Boring Toolkit.

And it's related to study skills

and executive function strategies.

And one of the things that educators find

when they come into the lab is, you know,

we have modules where we note taking

or learning the study cycle

or learning how to track habits with students,

et cetera, et cetera.

But one of the things you find in every module

is a video of me working with a student.

And I'm not showing the video necessarily

because I'm doing the best coaching.

I'm showing the video because it's me

teaching this one particular thing to students.

And it was a little embarrassing for me

to realize how many of my videos

have me in a coaching session laying on the couch

or like in a prone position in some way.

And I was fine when I was working directly

with students, with teenagers,

but then I got a little embarrassed

when I realized that educators

were gonna see that sort of thing.

And then I thought, you know what?

It was great for the students.

They felt so relaxed when they were with me

because I was relaxed.

And I wasn't that way all the time,

but I met myself wherever I was,

and then it allowed me to meet them

wherever they were.

And why not let the educators see that

since that's what I did.

So anyway, that's an example

of what my version of wet hair.

Exactly, exactly.

You know, or wearing a t-shirt and casual

or, you know, whatever it is

that you're the same person.

You're just living your life

and doing the best you can,

which is all we can expect of anyone.

So that's definitely crept into my regular,

it's okay if I show up with wet hair.

And I've asked that question

on public social media.

What do you think when your coach

shows up with wet hair?

And I had one person say,

oh my gosh, I had one person show up

to coach me with wet hair

and I thought she was so unprofessional

and she never talked to the woman again.

And I'm like, hmm.

Not a good fit then, probably.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And I just really think

it makes you question your stories

about, like you said, what is professional?

How do we bring our full selves to our work?

How do we show up for each other?

How do we help other people feel comfortable?

Right, like you said,

when you're relaxing on the couch

and a student is relaxing

in their environment,

you're probably getting better work done

than if you're both just sitting here

very still and straight on.

Right, not moving in the camera

and staring at each other

and whatever else.

Yeah.

So that brings me to the next thing

I wanted to talk about.

One of the other reasons

I wanted to bring you on

was because I feel like

you've always been ahead of the curve.

Always.

When we went into lockdown in 2020

and everybody was suddenly,

oh my gosh, I've got to get on Zoom.

You had a good deal of experience

already on Zoom

and led

the biggest webinar

you've I think probably ever had

where people just couldn't even get in.

There were so many people

wanting into the Zoom room

and they couldn't get in.

But it was about how to be

comfortable

and interactive

across on Zoom.

And again,

you were giving people

permission

to recognize that they had bodies

even though they were on camera.

Like you regularly

will notice in a meeting

that you're leading

that oh, I'm feeling a little bit

tense in my shoulders

or my back is feeling tight

and so I need a little wiggle.

Why don't we all have a little wiggle?

People didn't used to wiggle alongside me

but now they're wiggling with me

a little bit more.

At least half the room wiggles with me.

Yeah.

And so you were teaching people

how to be dynamic with their voices,

how to be dynamic with their bodies

and now everybody's on Zoom

and the things that you were demonstrating then

are still things that you just do.

It's not like you have to think about it.

Other people could think about it

a whole lot more than they do.

But it's just,

so I've seen you just always

be ahead of the curve

and always be bringing

your full self forward

no matter what.

You and I,

people I should say this too,

for as long as I've been OfficeWiz,

which I think is seven or eight years.

It's so long.

We live on opposite coasts

and have never met in person.

One day we're going to hug

and electricity is going to go like kapow.

But I just feel like I know you

because you're so open

about who you are.

Before I lose this thread

of you being ahead of the curve,

I want to say that part of the reason

I'm holding this podcast

is because I want to talk about

surfing your edge in your personal life,

surfing your edge in your business,

but also about what edge

we might be surfing as a society

and what needs to happen

in order for us to become healthier

and happier and survive.

I think that you being so willing

to be fully yourself,

to talk about your personal life

in your business life,

and to really let your clients

know who you are,

to be completely real,

whether you're leading a free workshop

with people who've never met you

or with people who've been with you

for seven years and know you well,

you're always the same person

and you're always open

and always willing to share.

I think that's what, as AI grows

and as we do more and more online,

I think that, again,

you're ahead of the curve here

and are really pointing the way

to what we're all craving

and what we all could aspire,

how we could all aspire

to show up in our businesses

and our professional lives.

Well, I feel very seen

and very celebrated by that.

I love your point about AI

because I do think AI tries

to show you that it's seeing you,

but it doesn't have a self to be,

and I think we feel most seen

by others when they're in their full

sense of their own selves,

and then that enables them to see us.

It doesn't sound so wise

when I just said it,

but it feels like it's a wise point.

It is a wise point.

And the other thing is too

that with everything being written by AI now

and even videos,

you can do a whole video of you

with an AI avatar,

that it's not you on camera.

It's your voice being generated by AI.

It's your words being generated by AI.

So I think the more we can show up

as humans, obviously humans,

I think that's going to continue

to benefit us

because we want to be able

to trust each other.

We want to be able to know that,

yes, that's really Gretchen.

She's really saying these things.

And I've built my whole business

around surfing your edge

and really being vulnerable

and on my own edge

in front of my clients.

I think you do exactly the same thing,

and I had a point.

On the edge together in our different ways.

Yes.

There was something I was going to say,

and again, it was going to be wise.

Well, this is the beauty of paramenopause

is we have so much wisdom in us

at this stage in our lives,

and we forget half of it moment by moment,

but it doesn't mean it's not there.

Yes.

Shoot.

Well, here, let me tell a little story

and see if it comes to you in other ways,

if it doesn't.

Just yesterday, after you and I had a meeting,

I went into a meeting with our third team member

who is a young woman who lives in the Philippines,

and she was extra buoyant somehow in this meeting,

and at some point, she was talking about something,

and then she apologized.

She said, I'm so sorry.

I'm so talkative today.

And I just looked at her,

and I was like, I love you when you're talkative.

I love getting to know you.

And she's like, yes, but we have work to do.

And I just looked at her, and I said, this is work.

And I told her, when Kristine and I meet,

sometimes I'll chitty chat with her for 15 minutes

about what's going on in her life and my life,

and to me, that's important.

And I think I even had to say to you,

or chose to say to you, several years ago,

I suspected you weren't billing me

for that chitty chat time.

I suspected, and so I was like,

Kristine, I hope you're billing for that time.

This is our team, our team connection time.

Anyway, it was just really sweet to share it

with somebody else who was so much younger,

from a different culture,

and probably had all kinds of authority stories about me,

and to just let her know, you're important,

and I care about you,

and I'm gonna bring my full self here to the table,

and please bring your own.

Right.

Yes, and I think that was an excellent point,

that we're exporting our culture

and our expectations of what is professional

and what business looks like to other countries,

and people like you, who are able to say,

hey, this is a place where we can be fully human,

is really powerful,

and I hope more people follow that model.

There is one other thing that just occurred to me

when you said that, though,

which is, also, we need to respect consent.

And not everybody is comfortable

receiving that much humanity in front of them,

and that's okay, too.

So it's important to me to show up as me,

but I notice that sometimes, when I do that,

I ask questions that are too intimate of other people,

because I'm like, well, I wouldn't mind talking about it,

why not?

And so I do have to modulate a little bit,

which, when is it masking,

when is it just intentionally modulating?

Like, how do I be myself

in a way that is respectful of other people's boundaries,

but also acknowledging

that even our boundaries come up for reasons

that could sometimes be questioned.

So it's a dance.

Yeah.

It's a dance.

It is a dance.

And that's the other thing about you that I love,

which is you who are willing to learn in public.

And as an educator,

working with other educators,

I think that's really valuable,

and you're willing to try things and realize,

oh, maybe I went a little too far,

or maybe that didn't work, but let's do this.

And then you are more than happy

to talk about the experiment, right?

Even if it wasn't a planned experiment.

I mean, I might have feelings of shame

and whatever else inside me, too.

Like, those things are also there.

It's not like I'm this uber-confident person.

But I do, it does,

my desire to be fully myself

and fully my embodied self

does usually override all of that gobbledygook inside me.

That's a good word, huh?

So at the beginning of this,

we teased a little bit about the ADHD thing,

and this is brand new for you.

So do you want to tell a little story

about you and your journey with ADHD?

Yeah.

I mean, I've been working with students

who have ADHD for a very long time

and never identified as somebody with ADHD

and was learning about it through both my clients

as well as various friends,

yourself included,

who realized they have a late-in-life diagnosis

and then my best friend

watched then a bunch of Instagrams and such about ADHD

and then would come to me with things that I,

like, she was the first one to teach me

about rejection sensitivity,

which I didn't know anything about

as a common symptom of ADHD.

So, you know, pandemic happens, as we know,

and aging happens.

So I'm 52 now, paramenopausal still.

I'm so ready to enter the grand world of the menopause.

Please may it come sooner rather than later.

And I mean, I even remember maybe early on in your tenure

supporting my business when there was somebody else

who you worked for who you were hired by,

and I remember breaking down and crying

in a team meeting together.

I don't know if you remember that.

And if I look back, it's like,

oh, that was probably beginnings of paramenopause

and it was also some executive function pressure

related to what I do think I have ADHD.

I think it's one reason.

Here we are admiring my ability to show up fully as myself.

It's like maybe it's just the ADHD

and lack of impulse control, Kristine.

But also I could mask that and I don't choose to mask that.

So, yeah, just it's been really, it's hard.

It's hard.

The bigger my business has gotten,

it's been hard for me and you and I.

And gosh, if I do have ADHD

and it's the two of us trying to lead my business,

oh dear, we'll do another podcast

about what it's like to have two ADHD-ers.

Anyway, it's just I am so clear right now

that there are ways that I am keeping my business held back

because of my executive function challenges.

And either I need to figure out how to hire more people

to be on our team and figure out how to lead them

in a way that that can happen

or really take responsibility

for getting coaching for myself or something.

And I don't know what the answer is.

But anyway, I'll have to say that just this morning,

just literally an hour and a half ago,

I had a therapy session.

And I'm newly back to therapy.

I had a couple, as you know,

a couple of deaths happen in my life recently.

I just thought, oh, I need some support.

So I went back to my former therapist

who knows me quite well.

And today, after we checked in

about how I'm feeling with the grief,

she said, what do you want to talk about?

And out of my mouth,

which is kind of an ADHD symptom, right?

I didn't even know I was going to say this.

Out of my mouth, I said I want to talk about diagnoses

and whether I have ADHD.

There's also a question somewhere in my mind around,

is there a touch of autism in me?

Like, I don't think so.

And I feel super triggered even by the thought,

but could there be?

And of course, she wanted to talk about,

oh, that's interesting.

Why are you triggered?

So we explored that.

And then she just asked me a bunch of questions.

And by the end of the conversation,

first of all, I found out that she had ADHD

and is on medication.

She was diagnosed when she was 41,

so 10 years ago.

I guess she's my age now.

And it was so fast.

She was like, yeah, that sounds pretty consistent

with ADHD in women, what you're describing.

And I mean, she even made a connection.

I had shared with her for some reason last week around TV

that there are certain moments in television

that I cannot watch.

I get up and I'm suddenly in the kitchen.

And it's often when people are either making

what I call bad decisions or they're embarrassing

themselves in some way.

And it's just like, it's one thing to be trying

to be good, trying to do the right thing

and somehow miss.

But it's another thing to not even be trying

and you just know how it's going to happen.

And she said, I think that could be an example

of rejection sensitivity.

Like you are feeling how this is going to play out.

And you're already so, like you cannot tolerate

the rejection that you know is likely going

to happen to them as a result of this choice

they're making right now and you leave the room.

And I was like, oh my goodness.

There are shows I've had to stop watching

because of that.

It just makes me feel so uncomfortable.

It's just like, yeah, I can't be in that person's head.

No, I can't.

Sometimes I'll yell.

I won't yell right now to show you how I yell.

But my neighbors might be wondering,

what's happening in there?

And it's like, I just can't bear it.

All of that to say I left the therapy session thinking,

oh, I'm going to book a session with a psychiatrist.

And I may consider going on medication

if the psychiatrist thinks it's appropriate.

And I don't know why I had never thought

about meds before either.

Anyway, so you're just catching me in this new world of,

I mean, who knows what I'm going to do about it.

Tomorrow's a new day, but we'll see.

Well, I wish you well on the journey

and that I hope if you do try some meds that they work

for you.

Did you try some?

I did.

My first experiment with Ritalin.

With Ritalin?

Oh my gosh.

She said that they always send people to Ritalin first.

And especially for women, it's not great.

But that's always what they do first.

For me?

It was a complete life changer.

Oh, it was.

I loved it.

I took it.

I was running the back end of someone else's business

full time when I was diagnosed.

And I had a list, always had a to-do list

that was longer than my arm.

And a lot of times I just wanted to get in my car

and drive away.

I just wanted to go, let's go to the post office.

Now is a good time to go do the post office duties.

Now is a good time to go do the banking.

And I just always wanted to be driving away or going.

Now is a good time to go get lunch.

And I took Ritalin and I sat down to work the first day.

And it was like, this is what a regular brain feels like.

It was calm.

It was like, here's this list of things to do.

Let me just work my way through them without the need

to like, oh, I've got to get away.

I've got to get away.

It was astounding.

I loved it.

And my husband started noticing when I was not on it,

like when I had missed a dose.

And he'd be like, oh, you could really, you know,

you should take that.

But then he watched a video, a documentary about pharmaceuticals.

And he's like, you really got to get off that stuff.

And so I went off of it.

My life went back to being what my life is.

And I'm like, you know what?

I don't care what you say.

I'm going to try it again.

And I went back on and it didn't work the second time.

It didn't work the second time.

But you didn't try others?

I tried another one.

I took another position working for a company that's 100% remote.

And I loved this job.

And as much as they tried to say, you know, it's a 40-hour-a-week job.

And you set your hours.

It was like an 80-hour-a-week job.

And we had people around the world.

So somebody was always working.

And so you'd get up at 5 a.m.

And you'd just start working.

And you'd work until 8 or 9 because somebody was always – anyway.

So I started taking a different medication.

And we ramped that all the way up to the very top.

And I got to the point where I couldn't unclench my jaw.

But I was like, I need this to stay on top of all of this stuff.

And I still wasn't doing the job that I wanted to do.

So I had to get off of that medicine, too, and leave the job.

Yeah.

That sounds like that was the right choice.

So now it's just a matter of, like me, learning, just being –

trying to be aware of how things work.

But, yes, I'm looking forward to hearing how your journey goes

and maybe learning from you as well.

Well, given I'm the type of person I am, tune in to my podcast,

the Academic Coaching Podcast.

And I'll probably be updating everybody over there about how my visit

with my psychiatrist is going and how the meds are treating me.

Right.

And, again, I just think it gives permission to women to talk about these things

and to think about these things.

And I think our generation – you're a little bit younger than I am,

but I think our generation is the first one to really say,

hey, my – what's happening in my body matters.

And you can't just tell me, oh, that's natural or that's normal

and just pat me on the head and shut me out the door.

And I just feel like more and more women are having these conversations

and we need to have them.

And we need to have them not only in personal spaces but in professional spaces.

I mean, I love it these days.

I mean, truthfully, many of the people in the anti-boring learning lab

are middle-aged women who are in career changes from education or other careers

and are layering on some kind of academic or executive function coaching.

And so there are definitely times in the calls I'm just like, okay,

paramenopause brain.

And it's lovely.

And I used to be a little shy about the non-uterus havers in the room.

And now I'm just like, we all have bodies,

so we're just going to talk about them.

Right.

And I think it benefits both genders to know what's going on.

All genders.

All genders.

Thank you.

All genders.

All genders.

All right.

So there is one more experiment on your horizon that I'm aware of

that I'm really, really excited about.

That is.

First of all, why don't you just tell me a little bit about where you live,

your choices in why you chose to live there, and what might be changing?

Well.

Can I set that up right?

Work?

I'll roll with it.

So I live in Oakland, California, as I mentioned.

I've lived here for 20 years, exactly 20 years.

And, you know, that means that I came out here when I was 32.

And now I'm 52.

What a phase of life.

And I came out as a single woman here.

That's so funny.

I came out here as a single woman.

Yes.

And I am still single.

And I've done a lot of dating and really thought I wanted a family and kids.

And that just didn't happen for me, though.

Again, I'm showing my body.

My body still technically could have a child, and I wanted to quit.

But, yeah, so I've had various journeys with dating,

but always looking for people local here in the Bay Area,

because that's where I lived.

And I wanted, you know, sweetie to be right here with me.

And I've kind of at the end of a period of maybe a year or two,

where I had kind of given up trying to date.

And I've been feeling inspired lately to try again.

And this time to try in a very specific way that I know you'll want me to

share more information about in just a moment.

But I'm open.

Part of that is I'm open to living elsewhere if I need to,

or perhaps being bi-coastal.

I'm open to being creative about my living situation so I can expand the pool

of men who I'm attracted to who might be available for a relationship.

I love that.

And I know every year you kind of give yourself a little theme.

And I think you've discovered that your themes, each year has its own theme,

but it basically is a three-year cycle that it kind of all works together

in three years.

And I'm just wondering if you have a specific, I think,

it's been a while since we've talked about this,

but I think you have kind of a specific experiment that you want to run

around this?

Around the dating, I do.

Although maybe it's related to my yearly theme.

My yearly theme is this is the year of the goddess.

It was really juicy for me the first few months of the year,

and I haven't stuck with it as well as I do with most of my themes.

Three years ago was the year of the erotic.

So maybe this isn't coming to fruition.

Who knows?

But I've tried so many different ways to date to find, you know,

I'm a quirky gal and also I'm looking for emotionally self-responsible men.

And anyway, it's, I've tried so many different ways.

So there's a new way I've not tried that I think I'm going to try.

And shoot, now I'm saying it out loud to the world,

so I better try it, right?

This is like accountability.

I want to create a dating doc, they're called.

Mine will be on Google Doc, where I basically write my profile,

but even a more in-depth dating profile on a Google Doc.

And then turn that Google Doc to a QR code that lives on my phone

or that can live on my friend's phones.

And also just send it out to the world.

Like here's me and here's what I'm looking for.

And seeing, you know, there will be instructions.

If you're curious about dating me, let's schedule a call.

And that'll all be in the dating doc.

So I was thinking about my upcoming birthday,

where I turn 53 as the launch date for this dating doc.

And it feels certainly very vulnerable,

partially because I'm thinking I'll probably send it out

to my whole business newsletter list.

Wow.

Why not?

I mean, you're going to be the one sending it out.

I mean, maybe it'll feel too vulnerable to do,

and in which case, you know, I won't.

But the thought is, how committed am I to surfing the edge

enough to finding a partner?

And yeah, it will feel like the most vulnerable thing

I've ever done to do that.

But it's a great way to do it.

Like, hey, it's my birthday, and here's the special thing

I'm doing on my birthday.

And please hold this gently and with care

and with some creativity too.

But yeah, I'm thinking that's what's going to happen.

Wow.

I'm so excited.

I'd completely forgotten.

I knew there was a plan.

I couldn't remember what the plan was.

So that's exciting.

I love that.

I love that.

And I love that it's going to go out to 5,000-plus people

on your professional list.

And that is, again, a really, in my mind,

a really beautiful example of how you show up

as a whole person.

It's like, here I am.

Here's my business blog today.

And by the way, and check out my podcast.

And by the way, I'm turning 53.

And here's my dating doc.

I really want to date anybody who fits these criteria

or that I'm open to dating.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And there'll be another tricky thing.

There's so much of me online.

Somebody who doesn't know me can get a sense of me.

And that will be really interesting to be,

how do I even find men who are mindful enough

to recognize that they'll know me better than I'll know them

because they've got it in the Google Doc.

They've got videos.

They've got podcasts.

Who knows?

Maybe we'll link to this episode as, like,

this is who you get with Gretchen.

And so I'll need somebody, people who are also mindful

and willing to share of themselves to the same degree

that I'm sharing of myself.

But I mean, with me, one of my biggest values

is mutuality and awareness of mutuality.

I don't want to have to be the one to force mutuality.

Then it's not mutual.

And I don't know how it would all work, but it's worth a try.

Wow.

I would just like to say you set a very high bar

when it comes to running personal experiments

and really surfing your edge.

And I have loved this conversation.

I think my listeners are going to love this conversation.

And I just want to ask you, we've kind of meandered

a little bit here, but I ask this of, let me ask, okay,

I'm sorry, I have two questions.

One question is, if you were going to define the edge

that you're currently surfing, what do you think the biggest,

I know you're surfing multiples, but what do you think

the biggest edge you're surfing right now might be?

I think the biggest edge I'm surfing right now

is being middle-aged and looking ahead and thinking,

is the rest of my life going to look the way my life looks right now?

And granted, my life is better than it's ever looked.

But do I want it this way?

Like in this apartment that you all got to see

because I forgot to put my blur on.

If you're watching this on YouTube and not the audio version.

Is this the life that I want in this busy sensory overload

Bay Area, single?

I mean, I do really love myself and I would be so happy.

I mean, I'm stuck with myself for the rest of my life,

but it's like, if there's a possibility to have companionship.

Anyway, so that's the edge.

It's like, how do I deal with this feeling that I don't really

want my life in this format for the rest of my life,

but I also don't really know what to do about it,

especially because I love my friends and my apartment is rent controlled.

So cheap for the Bay Area.

And so I can't move unless I leave town.

But where would I go anyway?

So did I answer the question?

Absolutely.

That was an excellent question.

Answer.

And I just, as you were talking,

I have several clients and friends who I think are really going to

resonate with what you just said, right?

Like they love themselves.

They've got beautiful lives.

They know how unique and gorgeous and really rich.

They are as people,

but that doesn't mean that they aren't wishing that there was someone out

there who recognized that and wanted to be part partnered with that.

So I think women and men,

there might be some men who are in the same situation.

And I know there are men in the same situation and I want,

that's who I'm looking for.

So I just think that what you said is really going to resonate with people.

And I appreciate you saying that.

So thank you.

The next question I ask is,

is there something that you wished I'd asked in this conversation that I

didn't or anything you want to say to make it feel more complete for you?

I don't think there's anything I wish you'd asked,

but I do want to say that, you know, through our time together,

obviously I pay you to be on my team.

And there've been several things when I do share something of myself with you

and you're like, Oh, Gretchen, we would so be friends.

If we could, if we lived in the same place, if we had the time.

And I think this, this like on podcast,

on recording was like our first real like friend connection,

which is one reason why we went all over the place.

And I just really love you and appreciate you.

And I'm so happy that you're in my world.

And I also just feel like I need to say that I'm also happy for you to leave

my world in that official capacity whenever you're ready.

I mean, I personally don't want it anytime soon,

but I also know that you have your own edges, you're surfing.

And I'm so excited to see you surf and fly with them as you're ready.

And I'm just excited to continue deepening and getting to know each other.

Yes. And regardless, there will be a friendship that continues.

Exactly. Exactly.

Well, thank you for being amazing and wonderful and open and jumping in on

really short notice to talk to me today.

I so appreciate you and I love you too.

And I think we're just going to say, Oh,

to be continued is what we're going to say.

That's what we're going to say.

We'll check in on the experiment in a few months.

Right.

So thank you everybody for sticking around today and look for Gretchen to

come back sometime, maybe October, November ish.

Thanks everyone. See you then.