How To Make Space For Your Soul In Midlife with Olivia F. Scott

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2:31M. A. A. (host): I have a special treat for you today on The Anxious Achiever, and it's a conversation with Olivia F. Scott. Olivia's work sits at the intersection of ambition, wellness, and truth-telling. She is the founder of Freedom at the Map, a women's wellness sanctuary offering yoga and mindfulness experiences designed especially for busy women. And she is a seasoned marketing executive and an educator who has spent years building big brands and telling stories. Through Freedom at the Mat and her Well Chat conversations, Olivia creates a sacred space for women, particularly Black women, to put down the strong one mask and prioritize their mental, emotional, and physical health.

3:12M. A. A. (host): So we joined forces. This episode is going to appear on Olivia's podcast, and it's on the Anxious Achiever today for you. And it is a really honest conversation. It's about what it's like to pivot in midlife, to choose newness, to change, even when it is frigging scary. and the beauty of community and knowing because you've lived a full life even when you don't know my conversation with olivia f scott

3:53Olivia F. Scott: hi everybody it's olivia scott with freedom at the mat thank you so much for joining us for another edition of well chat so instead of just being a solo episode this week as usual I am blessed to be joined by a woman whose work deeply inspires me and whose work also influences the greater mental health society. Her name is Maura Arendt-Maley. Maura is the host of the Anxious Achiever podcast and the author of the Anxious Achiever, Turn Your Biggest Fears into Your Leadership Superpower. So today we're bringing our worlds together, Freedom at the Mat and Anxious Achiever to have a real middle-aged anxious achiever conversation about authenticity, performance and what it means to be both driven and human.

4:47Olivia F. Scott: This is for all of my middle-agers like myself. I finally come into realization that I'm a middle-ager, I'm a midlifer. So Maura, welcome. Thank you, Olivia. Thank you. It's so good.

4:59M. A. A. (host): Have you embraced the fact that you're a middle-ager? Have you gotten there? Oh, my gosh, yes. I am turning 50 in just about, gosh, a little over a month. So, yeah. Here I am.

5:15Olivia F. Scott: Are you excited about it? Are you anxious? How are you feeling? Because 50 does something a little different, I think.

5:19M. A. A. (host): How old are you? 52. Okay. All right, so you're just starting. Yeah, I mean, I think that it's a big milestone. our society makes it a big milestone I don't know about you when you were turning 50 but all my friends everyone's like what are you doing like are you you know there's like this sort of um I feel this pressure to market in a really significant way that I'm not sure I actually really want to do and then I feel guilty about that so yeah it's a lot yeah it can be a lot it

5:48Olivia F. Scott: can be a lot and I realized that for other people like I wanted to do something different with my 50th, which is kind of just chill. And I think that society makes us want to turn up, get a crunk. And that's just not my energy. But anyway, welcome. And I want to do a shout out to Sounds Profitable for creating the space for us to meet at the South by Southwest Summit this year. That's right. You and I talked about spinning and midlife. So what I want to talk with you about, My first question for you is, you know, when the mic goes off and the camera is put away, I love your podcast, Anxious Achiever.

6:28Olivia F. Scott: Thank you. Because that's who I am. So I totally identify with it. But what is the truest sentence that you say to yourself about your life right now that you rarely, if ever, say publicly?

6:40M. A. A. (host): Oh, gosh. That I'm rebuilding. I think that I would love your thoughts. I mean, I think that, again, with the societal expectations that by the time you're 50, you figured it out. You're at a certain point in your career, blah, blah, blah. And for me, my 50th year is actually one of the most tumultuous years professionally that I've ever had in my life. So it's been it's been a really weird sensation of being like, you're 50. yeah you've done a lot and you're kind of in this like very uncertain tumultuous space professionally that you didn't necessarily think you'd be in I don't know if

7:27Olivia F. Scott: that resonates at all no it does it's um I'm absolutely rebuilding and I've recently of course many of my friends are middle-agers as well, midlifers. And I'm finding many of us are reaching out like, hey, if you got any projects, let me know. Hey, because I've been a freelancer for a long time, independently employed. And what I recently learned was whether you're independently employed, like I have been for 17 years, or whether you had a job, because I talked to some friends of mine in Dallas, really good friends of mine, and learned that there's like this pushing out at a certain age where like ageism is starting to creep up and you have a lot of young people who they want the reins.

8:13Olivia F. Scott: They want to be the director. They want to be vice president, right? So they're pushing us out. So no matter if it's, you know, whether you have clients and you're independently employed or you are employed, you know, within a system, we're all struggling a little bit with like job safety, I feel like, and we're trying to figure out, okay, we've got 30 years down in the workforce, 30 or 30 plus, and we've got about 15 more to go. Yep. You've got 15 more to go, 12 to 15, depending on how your retirement's set up, right? Or when you want to retire or where you want to retire, right? You could be an expat or whatever.

8:51Olivia F. Scott: So I'm finding that we're all kind of rebuilding. I'm definitely rebuilding as well. And there is joy in it. But there's also a lot of fear of the unknown. You know, I'll speak to my career starting off at Leo Burnett and Frankel and DDB and all those things in Chicago. And I was at a track, a track. And I was, you know, and after Chicago, after those first six years, then I went to New York. And it was in demand, vibe, Black Nation, right, Carol's Daughter. it was declining, right? And then I extracted myself out of that for a year and COVID hit. And I found myself in New Orleans and a whole new world.

9:40Olivia F. Scott: And so I think, you know, you're like, wait a minute. And then you have freedom at the map that gets born in Harlem, late Harlem, but really blooms in New Orleans, but isn't really revenue generating. So you're like, well, okay but then you know at our age you're like well is it time for me to do something else because I also know what I want to hear what you have to say about this um I want to just make this a soliloquy but I feel like many of us have a few career paths in us oh for sure I think what's interesting is that you know I'll just I'll just I'll just start with this since

10:21M. A. A. (host): this is a show called Freedom at the Met. I literally just did Pilates and I made my 15 year old son come with me. He and I have been doing Pilates together because he's recovering from a knee injury. And then his, his best friend, who's also a 15 year old Yahoo. And we did Pilates and they were like dying. And these are like big athletic boys who can like bench press and stuff and I watch them dying in Pilates and I'm all like you know and and the the instructor is also a woman of our age and I kind of turned to them after and I'm like huh they're like that was hella hard and I was like yeah you know right so there's this sense of like I am so strong you know I am resilient I I don't feel 50 I feel I feel 35 in my head in my body like well my body aches but you know um I mean let's be honest so there's this piece of me that I feel super youthful I feel super strong I feel fit all these great things and and sometimes I meet people and I think they don't perceive me that way.

11:43M. A. A. (host): Or I'm like, I'm very much in a learning phase in my career. I am also a career pivoter. I had a long career in political communications and marketing. I know yours was more on the brand side. We traveled similar paths, right? We were at big companies, big agencies, and then on our own working with really big brands for a long time. I've been an entrepreneur for 20 years. This year is my 20th anniversary. I owned a business, I sold it. And then I was like, I'm going to devote my life to workplace mental health and helping people who are leaders, super ambitious, like you said, but maybe they're neurodivergent.

12:17M. A. A. (host): Maybe they manage mental health challenges. They just feel different and typical work doesn't work for them. I'm going to help them figure out how to make work work. That's like always been my mission, but it wasn't always my day job. Now it's my day job. so it's been a real pivot and I'm in this learning mode but then I think sometimes I get on the phone with people about prospective work and they see me as this like you know older expensive senior

12:42Olivia F. Scott: woman like right you know does that make sense that was that was a long answer sorry well it's interesting you say that because I asked one of the ladies who used to work on my team previously and I was like I need to get some new contracts what would you recommend I mean how do I you know market myself, whatever. And she, it was, she was very cute. She said, could you look less big?

13:08M. A. A. (host): Oh, what does that mean?

13:10Olivia F. Scott: Well, what you said, what you just said around, you look like a senior expensive woman, which you are, which I am. Right. So we have to find the right rooms that can afford us, which means opening up our networks and expanding our territories. And right. I'm in the process of doing that, going into new rooms and all of that. Um, cause potentially we've outgrown our existing networks or how we proceed within our networks isn't, doesn't work for us financially anymore. But when she said that, I, I was like, Ooh, right. Um, and I'm always very humbled. You know, I just do the work. I love my work.

13:53Olivia F. Scott: I've been writing since I was nine years old. I've been creating since I was, you know, a little girl. So I've always been a creator, but we have had beautiful careers on the first round. And it wasn't until recently, I went to a concert and I documented this on my media blog about encountering Christian McBride 35 years after I met him, when he kind of opened the door, the basis for Christian McBride, who opened the door for my career, literally. And I was talking to him and a lot of, well, you know, I've had a very good career. I worked at Atlantic Records. I worked at Vibe. I worked at Live Nation.

14:31Olivia F. Scott: I went through all this in a very past tense. And he says, and you've only just started.

14:38M. A. A. (host): Tell my audience who Christian McBride is, just in case they don't know.

14:42Olivia F. Scott: He's a bassist. He's an award-winning bassist. He's won nine Grammys. He's an incredible, internationally reputed bassist, Christian McGride, just known internationally, a great bassist. And he was somebody that when I was interning at Mizzou for a jazz promoter as the intern, I had to pick him up at the airport. And so we had some quality time that night. And he said, what do you want to do with your career, kid? And I was like, I want to work in the music business. And he turned over a relationship to me that I had to follow up. He gave it to me, gave me the layup, and then I followed through.

15:18Olivia F. Scott: And that is exactly how my career kind of unfolded from him saying, call this person in New York and tell her that I said for you to, for her to give you an internship. And she did, based on the strength of this, you know, really amazing bass player. So when I ran into him recently at a concert here in New Orleans and I was like, I just had to let you know. It's been 35 years. I don't know if you remember me, but it was 1993. when you were at Mizzou, University of Missouri campus. I picked you up. And he was like, okay, not really remembering it. But when I mentioned other things, he was like, uh-huh, that definitely happened.

15:54Olivia F. Scott: That definitely happened. And I was just like, I'd like to thank you because you opened the door. But it was me talking in so much retrospect. Like I was a has-been. Like, oh, and I just want to thank you because my career was amazing. Then I worked here. Then I worked there. All because you opened the door. And he was just like, uh-huh. think you've only just begun and that statement his his confidence in me so not the first time but the second time kind of gave me this jolt I love energy that huh okay there's more to come I'm gonna have to craft it I'm gonna have to believe in myself and find new pastures to graze but you're only 52 you know you're only 52 which is a different way of looking at it for me

16:48M. A. A. (host): that's an incredible reframe I you know I'm very into mindset and I think that what he absolutely helps you with was a mindset shift yeah um which is as we know so powerful um I think I might steal that for myself because because I have been you know um I just I just had sort of like a not a job interview but it you know because I'm not really looking for like a full-time job although maybe um I mean never saying yeah never never say never um I was interviewing for a role as like a coat to be a coach on like a roster at a company and I was writing up my bio for them and it was it was very retrospective now that you put it that way it was so like you know big bold names and like president president obama and blah blah blah and and that's all true right but it until this moment sort of never occurred to me to be like what am i really into now like what am i looking forward what do i what do i want to dig my teeth into correct and i i think i don't know

18:03Olivia F. Scott: i'll just speak for myself because we're just being honest and just talking about our respective lives, I can speak for myself and say that I had a lot of, I borrowed a lot of power, position power from the adjacency to those brands. 100%. So now that those, that adjacency is no longer currently, I have to stand on my own two feet and be like, I'm Olivia Scott. That's who I am. I'm Olivia F. Scott. these are the things I've accomplished. This is my track record. These are the things I can do. And to your point, what do I want to do?

18:43M. A. A. (host): That's right.

18:45Olivia F. Scott: That's right.

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23:08Olivia F. Scott: So I want to talk to you about being average sometimes, right? I just want to shift gears just for a moment if you don't mind. May I? please okay so your podcast is about the anxious the anxious achiever the fact that so many of us are wired to be uh ambitious and anxiously wanting to achieve and the ego deck and all of those things if you maura if you could drop the brand and the maura aaron's melee brand what's associated with that for one year, where in your life would you let yourself just be average instead of a striver or exceptional? What would you do with your time and how do you imagine your nervous system would respond to that?

24:02M. A. A. (host): Oh my God, that is the best question I've ever been asked. I mean, I'm kind of doing it this year in that I am not, I had this revelation about six months ago that I was letting so much of my mood and self-worth ride on whether I got a certain kind of email every day. That if I hadn't gotten an email of someone rewarding me or offering me a gig or somehow moving my life forward, it was a lost day or wasn't a good day or I hadn't accomplished what I needed to that day.

24:46Olivia F. Scott: Like external validation. Correct. Because because

24:50M. A. A. (host): when when you do what I do.

24:53Olivia F. Scott: Yes. You're very if you don't watch yourself, you can you can really

25:02M. A. A. (host): be guided by I'm interested in booking more for the speaking engagement or, you know, whatever. Like, can I interview for this article or like a post gets a ton of likes, you know, name the bullshit. And and I was sort of like, oh, God, I don't want to be this person anymore. Like, this is insanity. This is the definition of insanity. And my email had gotten real quiet. Like I said, it's been kind of a rough year. And I stopped getting all of those. I felt like, you know, my phone stopped ringing. Don't you want me anymore? Like sitting waiting by the phone like you're a teenager waiting for some stupid boyfriend to call.

25:57M. A. A. (host): and I was like oh my god just know this is no way to live you have an incredible life you are blessed beyond you have love in your life you have richness what are you doing and that was kind of it like that was a huge moment for me now I have to tell you that many months into this it's still hard for me many days to feel like you know my phone's not ringing off the hook anymore yeah but I am so happy girl let me tell

26:39Olivia F. Scott: you something Maura I told one of my colleagues recently or friend somebody I said I've said a couple times I have never made as little money in my life and been as happy as I am right now high five i was like the checks they're not they're not coming in the way they used to right got a little dribble drabble a little drizzle right we're fine thank god there's no you know there's no bills being unpaid you know we're fine we're eating um we still travel a little bit the travel looks a little different yeah you know a little different but we still get to get around a little bit, but I've never been as happy.

27:21Olivia F. Scott: To your point, you went to Pilates this morning. I went to the gym. I've got yoga tonight. I've got yoga in the morning. I go to yoga three, four times a week. I go to the gym four or five times a week. I am probably the healthiest I've ever been. I'm able to make my meals. I get my groceries a couple times a week. I make my salads and I am healthy. I'm happy. I know. Right. So it's like, I mean, Olivia, I never had time to pee.

27:49M. A. A. (host): I, for 15 years, I lived my life with such tight margins that I would be with my kids, like at a sporting event or doing or volunteering at school. But my brain was always either in the last meeting I had or the meeting I had to rush to. I was not a present person anywhere.

28:15Olivia F. Scott: Did you know? Were you aware?

28:18M. A. A. (host): I mean, I started to become aware in the past few years, to be honest.

28:24M. A. A. (host): And I never, ever had time to do anything. It was so rigidly scheduled. the anxiety that comes from being so rigidly scheduled um you know my stepfather said to me a couple years ago he goes you always have one foot out the door yeah can we talk about that for

28:46Olivia F. Scott: a moment and and i don't want to sequinalyze you that is not my objective and we're just freestyling so if it it doesn't the shoe doesn't fit of course clearly don't put it on

28:55M. A. A. (host): And I have operated like that as well, where I was always moving.

29:03Olivia F. Scott: I was always, you know, there was this cycle to me of energy in and out, never fully grounded. Right. Now I'm fully grounded. Do you think that there was something to us around not wanting to be seen or not being vulnerable and being able to be grounded and kind of staying in this space of always moving? always on the go because you didn't have to be fully present and connected to your authentic

29:30M. A. A. (host): self for myself i'll speak i'll answer tell me you tell me tell me yeah because i can tell you

29:36Olivia F. Scott: that i've done a little bit of psychoan uh analyst on myself analysis on myself and i've been like what was all of that around what was all that achieving about right no i think i'm gonna say because I love my work. I will continue to say that I really do love everything that I've been afforded to do in this lifetime has come from me being a writer and a creator at a young age. So I've always loved my work and I've been driven since a very young girl. So I want to say that about 70 % of my achieving was definitely connected to me having a zest and a zeal, if you will, for my work and for excellence in my work.

30:18Olivia F. Scott: But I think 30 % of it was striving for self-approval, look what I can do, and to get others to believe that, to prove to others as well. In a very subconscious way. It was never like, I'm going to show them that I can do it. It was always like, I think being a Southern girl, being a woman of color, being short, like all these things I used to say to people a long time ago, I saw myself as a little brown round southern girl and all of those terms are pejorative little brown round southern all of those northern not right so if you how you identify kind of directly impacts how you move in the world and how you try to be seen so I think that because about 30 percent of it was trying to overcome whatever imposter syndrome I had about not really having the goods to be in the places, to be the vice president of sponsorship, marketing, or to be the associate publisher of Live Magazine.

31:23Olivia F. Scott: Wow. Or be a CMO, right? That was trying to prove to others and myself along the way. But the other 70%, I worked hard on weekends and nights and all that because I really loved the work and I had a pursuit of excellence that was unyielding.

31:36M. A. A. (host): Right. You know, I've interviewed hundreds and hundreds of people like us, achievers, strivers. And there's always that there's always it's interesting how you have a 70-30 calculus in your head. I think that it's different for everybody. I don't judge it. Like, I don't I don't say like, well, you have to be, you know, I'm not one of these people who says that you can only you should you should only be intrinsically motivated. I think that's bull. Michael Gervais, who's my favorite performance psychologist, I just love him. You know, I think in all of his, you know, rigorous scientific work, you know, he finds that the highest performers are intrinsically motivated.

32:21M. A. A. (host): So, yeah, I love my work. I love doing this. This is where I want to be. I love to work hard. And they don't mind the money and the accolades. Like, that's real. I think that for those of us for whom anxiety is a key piece, though, it's always worth looking at and saying, is this still serving me? Just because I got here by operating on this model, does that mean I want to keep doing it? You know, a lot of my beloved anxious achievers, unfortunately, have an arc, which will be familiar to your listeners, which is like, oh, boy, I got really far playing by this book, punishing myself, always pushing, never stopping.

33:08M. A. A. (host): Right. Just go, go, go driven by some hunger, some need. And then I just burnt out. I got depressed. I had to leave everything. I had a big fracture. And so I don't want that for people. I want people to understand themselves so they can just recalibrate. It's if you're an anxious achiever and anxiety drives you for whatever reason. For a lot of my clients, it's like I grew up really poor and it was really crappy and I don't want to be that way. or my parents, you know, really struggled or I come from a family with alcoholism or I failed out of school and I'm never going to, you know, they have a story that is a hard story.

33:58M. A. A. (host): And they attribute a lot of their striving to that story that that can become a beloved piece of yourself.

34:07Olivia F. Scott: Right.

34:08M. A. A. (host): It doesn't have to be something that you're like exercising from your life and saying, oh, glad I cured that. Like, it's not that simple, but I think understanding the drivers is so important.

34:22Olivia F. Scott: Agreed. Agreed. That way you can kind of keep them in check and they don't have control over your life. That's right.

34:30M. A. A. (host): It's a choice.

34:32Olivia F. Scott: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Really, really key. I appreciate that. I hope people are listening to that because I think about a colleague who was a boss that I had that, of course, she won't remain nameless. And he was extremely driven, extremely wealthy and all these things. And I noticed there was this fear undergoing it when I had someone on one time there. And I learned later of an impoverished background. And I was like, oh, that's right. This fear is like you're like feeding the monster. Like, but right. And so it was an imposter syndrome. There was this fear that was driving all of this. So I appreciate that.

35:14Olivia F. Scott: I appreciate the fact you brought up the personal cost, right? Because there's so many of us who were performing wellness. We're saying we're okay. We're high achievers and we look regulated. We look wise. We look successful, but we're actually anxious, pleaded. A lot of us are actually operating through grief as well. right we're not taking the time that we need to we don't even realize and I think if we think about it for a second Maura while the money isn't rolling in right now for for you and me as we are saying right now I know it will come back we're going to be okay but I also think that this is a beautiful time though for a lot of just self-reflection but also resetting what I want my life to feel like because what you said a little bit ago was your stepfather it was like you're always you got one in one out and you're always all over I was all over I wasn't present no I don't think I was even connected to how I was feeling no and that is why I left New York I was um was doing a lot and I was like I just I'm burnt out of this city 19 years I need a one-year break.

36:34Olivia F. Scott: And I chose New Orleans and COVID started six weeks after I got here. And because COVID started six weeks after I got here and New York City was a super spreader, I did not feel that it was prudent for me to go back to New York at that time. So six years later, I'm still in New Orleans and figuring out what the next step is for my career. But I should all like to say that I knew there was something off. And people kept saying, well, why did you leave? Or how did you choose New Orleans? And I was like, I really just chose it because I had some familiarity to it after working here for some years.

37:07Olivia F. Scott: But I just knew that the path that I was on there, what I'd done to get me there wasn't going to get me to where I needed to go next. I didn't know where I needed to go. I was quite lost. I didn't have a real clear picture, right? Of like where, what the next step was, but I just knew spiritually I was off.

37:29M. A. A. (host): isn't that funny but you but you obviously have done a lot of work you're mindful so you kind of i bet knew the cues to listen for you you listened you know what i guess but it wasn't as clear as

37:44Olivia F. Scott: like you know if anybody's listening i think it oh well like you know like the move to new orleans was was a little chaotic yeah it wasn't like there was a job waiting for me I saved up money to be able to take the one year break right I saved up for that but it wasn't like there was clarity around like okay Olivia I want you to rise up pack all your things up New Orleans and when you get to New Orleans there's gonna be a whole new life waiting for you it was truly like I gotta get out of here I gotta the noise is just too much that you know it's a cacophony in my head I gotta get out of here and it was like this this overwhelming And so when I got here, I got to tell you, it's like there's so much happened when I got to New Orleans spiritually.

38:35Olivia F. Scott: Like I would wake up in the morning and there will be these downloads of spirit around what to do, who to call. I connected with my mother for the first time she died when I was in my 20s. She came back to me several times in spirit and told me things to do. I was able to really, truly resettle my nervous system because I no longer lived in Harlem, where I was for a very long time, where you would hear the bus screech and all of that, the noise in the front, the concrete jungle. I woke up and there were birds. You know, I went to sleep. I won't go so far as to say they were crickets, but I definitely heard birds for the first time in life.

39:22Olivia F. Scott: I saw stars. And you're like, oh, my God, this is is this what was waiting for me? And kind of my way was made for me when I got here. And it was a whole new world of people that were like, oh, Loyola was like, will you come be an adjunct professor here? University of New Orleans, will you be an adjunct professor? All these doors began to open. that I never, none of those things were in the cards. I just was trying to get out. So I think this is a long answer to your question around, I was able to listen. It wasn't, I guess I listened with my spirit. My spirit had this urgency for rest. That's all.

40:05Olivia F. Scott: It had an urgency for rest and it would not rest any longer in New York City at that time, at the place that I was operating at.

40:15M. A. A. (host): That's right.

40:16Olivia F. Scott: Right. And I thought about a return, but that return, I'd be a different woman. I would operate my life differently and I would know how to say no to things. I think New York is one of those places. It's very high pace. Many people know. And once you kind of get in the hamster wheel, there are all these events, there's all these networking, there's all these opportunities and you feel like you have to show up here. I show up here. I got to go here. I got to here. And so you're always going, always on, trying to find what the next thing is around the corner. and your spirit never rests.

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45:00M. A. A. (host): That's$50 off your first year at monarch.com with code achiever. The incoming in New York, like you just said, the stimulation is just, I, so I, I'm from a family of New Yorkers and, um, grew up, uh, mostly in New Jersey, right outside the city. And then my dad lived in New York. Um, and so, So New York was always like where I was expected kind of to be. And I sort of, I moved there right after college, as I had always assumed I was going to do. I was there two years, and I just was like, this city is not good for you with your nerve. I knew then. I mean, I've always known I had mental illness.

45:43M. A. A. (host): I was like, you got to get out of here. I had that voice.

45:46Olivia F. Scott: I was 22.

45:49M. A. A. (host): So I, and I love New York, and I love to visit. And yet when I come into New York, I do feel like I have to put some kind of like armor on me because the sheer incoming of everything is just so intense. And if you leave it for a long time, you come back to it and you're like, oh, my God, how did you know, it's it's it's I have so much respect for New Yorkers. Yeah. And and I think that I think that it really matters. And if I may, to come back to your mother, you know, I am, I think your mother showed up to love you and protect you. And I, I had a brother. I didn't really have a brother that my mother had a baby who died about 15 months before I was born.

46:39M. A. A. (host): It was a boy and she delivered, he died almost at term. So it was an unbelievably tragic experience. and I in January sort of he came to me like a soul not a face because I he was never a living person but he came to me and he said that I wasn't alone and he was sorry that he hadn't been there for me growing up, but that he was there for me and my sister. And I don't think, I mean, I don't think it's an accident that it was also at a time when I just like kind of came to a pause. And so it was funny because it was like this spirit in my life that had always animated me was that I was the

47:35Olivia F. Scott: oldest girl in of a single mother you know a very typical story for strivers and you know i had so

47:43M. A. A. (host): much on my shoulders at a really young age that i shouldn't have had and then my brother was like i'm so sorry i wasn't there for you and it was so um completing in a way you know what first of all

47:59Olivia F. Scott: i'm grateful you have experience and i'm my condolences for the loss of your brother i want

48:04M. A. A. (host): to pause and say that for my mom really and my dad yeah right but for the whole family the loss

48:10Olivia F. Scott: but what he also reminds me of is the fact that we truly are and a friend said this years ago and we hear a lot we are all spiritual beings having a human experience so your brother is still a spiritual being he just didn't have the human experience that's right right so he's still present and can come at any moment and i think same thing to your point with my mother my mother is with me often and guides me often and my sister too she's the rabble rouser so that's always very interesting the things that she encourages me to do and say and it's always very interesting so is she alive no she's she's deceased as well oh that's her if you see the photo of me and the little girl that's hey my sister right there there's a there's like a light over it so i can't really see it yeah it's a little little if you can see oh i'd see my my big sister and um i believe that you know who we are is of course intrinsically influenced by those

49:17M. A. A. (host): who are around us living and present this the spirits that surround us so i have a couple of

49:24Olivia F. Scott: final questions and we can wrap it up if that's okay really just one or two so we've talked about being middle-agers middle lifers for the other mid-lifers that are listening right what is one truth about being a middle-aged high achieving woman that you wish younger women knew not the polished version but the truth you actually usually only share with your closest friends

49:52M. A. A. (host): I think the truth is that it gets better. And, you know, I can look at myself in my 30s and say, oh, my God, you were so beautiful. Yeah. If you only had been able to see that. Yeah. Instead of hating yourself. all those wasted years oh my you know george bernard shaw said youth is wasted on the young and i 100 believe that i i just it's i i don't have the time or the patience for all the crap anymore yeah so i appreciate that well i don't have anything to follow up with i think you're I agree with you.

50:44Olivia F. Scott: Yeah, that it gets better. And if you could move past ego death, right? We talked about this in our prep, which was a lovely conversation. And it really made me think about my own, the death to my own ego associated with all the places I've worked in all those things. But if you could move past the eco-death and just be, no expectations from anybody, family, friends, your audience, children, no algorithm, no brand. What would your most honest, middle-aged, anxious achiever self want to say right now to yourself? I'm scared. Touche.

51:27M. A. A. (host): you ask the best questions

51:33Olivia F. Scott: well thank you Maura thank you I think there's something to that though I think that's really powerful and I appreciate that because I think that I believe I don't know Maura I don't know because I tell people all the time I've never been 52 before you know I don't know I don't know And it's like, I think there's something you can become assured of. Like, I don't know. I didn't have children. But how many kids do you have? Three. Three. Okay. Tell me if I'm right or wrong here. But once you have that third one, you kind of know what's going to happen at a certain stage. I mean, they're all two different beings.

52:16Olivia F. Scott: But perhaps you know how to change a diaper, right? Oh, yeah. I know how to cook the bottle and the baby. There's certain things you just know how to do. I know how to do certain yoga poses. I can get in there, strength and agility, right? But when we're in these phases of newness, we're just like, okay, never, I'm in a foreign city. I never been here before. I've never been 52 before. I've never, you know, had this little income coming in. Okay. Right. So I got to hope, the reason why I bring all that up is I have to hope, Maura, that there's value for our own spirits in us being able to say and admit to ourselves how we feel.

53:05So when you say, I'm scared, that perhaps there's some assurance in that.

53:12Olivia F. Scott: Like, okay, I'm going to acknowledge where I am right now. I don't know what to do. I don't know what the next step is. I'm scared. I don't know. And then moving from there versus moving from a, I got this, I'm going to be okay. And like, no, I don't, I don't got this. I don't know what's next.

53:31M. A. A. (host): The ability to be able to feel a scary emotion and just feel it is a superpower. And that is another thing that hopefully comes with age. Although hopefully you can start a lot earlier.

53:43Olivia F. Scott: I mean, I teach this to people.

53:45M. A. A. (host): That is a superpower. And so, yes, to be able to say I'm scared and just be scared and not like have to deny it, fix it, turn on Netflix, have a drink, go on Instagram. Is like that is strength. Yeah.

54:02Olivia F. Scott: Yeah. Well, my sister, it's been such a joy to have you here at Freedom at the Mat and for me to join you on the Anxious Achiever. everybody listening, and I've got some parting words. If you got some too, go ahead and chime in Maura. But this episode came out of an honest conversation that Maura and I had after meeting South by Southwest in 2026. And we acknowledged we were both podcasters. We were both women podcasters. We were both finding our way. We both pivoted into this space. This is not our primary space and we're both in midlife and that there is freedom, there is joy, but there's also quite a bit of uncertainty.

54:44Olivia F. Scott: And we want to do this episode for ourselves, but also for anyone, anyone, male or female who may be in midlife and may be experiencing quite a bit of uncertainty. You are not alone, not just us. I know many of my friends and I'm sure many of more his friends are in the same phase of life. We trust that it's all going to be okay. We know that it's going to be okay. We know many of us have children to get through college. Many of us have mortgages, right? So saying it's okay, it's kind of like a little cliche, like it's going to be okay. But the depth around that is in knowing that what got you here, you're still the track record of everything you've done to get here that's right and if you really re-engage with that person and and find the courage to pivot and lean into perhaps a new area or new networks that it truly will be okay

55:41M. A. A. (host): more anything else with that i love that and i'm just going to leave with some super practical advice which is every day reach out to three people every day phone or text tell us how reach LinkedIn text, email, chat, whatever. Do something to connect with your social network every single day when you are in one of these liminal, scary, employment-seeking spaces and limit it. It's like, I've done my three. I'm not going to worry anymore.

56:18Olivia F. Scott: Okay. Okay. Stay connected.

56:21M. A. A. (host): Three a day. It's like your vitamins. Three a day.

56:24Olivia F. Scott: Thank you so much.

56:26M. A. A. (host): Thank you so much. This is wonderful. Thank you.

56:30Olivia F. Scott: To all of our listeners, I say may God continue to bless each and every one of you.

56:37M. A. A. (host): That's it for this week's show. If you like the show, follow us and tell your friends and please leave us a review. It really helps the anxious achiever get found by people just waiting for our content. I'm your host, Maura Aarons-Mele. Lots more to come in the next episode.