[0.1] Are you a woman over 40 who's thinking about making a radical life decision?
[5.6] A radical change in your personal life, your professional life, or maybe both.
[11.1] The today's interview could be really interesting for you because Christine was a very high
[16.2] ranking executive at both Amazon and Walmart.
[19.8] And she really had the life that looked like she had it all.
[22.7] She had a fiance, she lived in San Francisco, she had a $1.1 million condo, and she was
[29.4] traveling between New York City and San Francisco as a high-ranking executive. And deep
[36.1] down, she was dissatisfied. And so right before she turned 40, she decided to make a radical
[42.3] change, both in her career life and in her personal life. And she chose to leave her fiance,
[49.5] leave her condo, leave both of her jobs, and completely start over. As a YouTuber, a content
[57.4] creator and a drone specialist. Talk about out of left fields. Hi, my name is Hannah and after
[64.9] learning out over the age of 40, I decided to take some time to rediscover what I really wanted
[73.3] and reinvent myself to be who I really wanted to be. Along the way, I'm talking to other women
[79.8] in their late 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and beyond who have remitted themselves in a wide variety of ways
[87.9] to show me and you that no matter where we are in life, we can start living the life that we want to live
[96.8] starting as soon as today and that no matter where you are, no matter what it seems like,
[103.4] you always have more options than you think. So welcome to she reinvented.
[108.9] So stay tuned to discover how Christine finally came for that decision, what the turning point was in her life that made her realize she wasn't even living the life that she wanted to be living.
[119.9] And then how she got up the courage to say something to her then fiancee.
[124.7] How she approached that and also how she put a plan into place.
[128.2] Now, on the flip side, how she discovered this other side of herself that was the content
[133.6] creator side.
[134.9] So she's not only making radical change in her romantic life, she's making radical change
[139.0] in her professional life.
[140.7] She's discovering that she loves traveling, especially traveling with cruises.
[145.4] And so this is kind of the beginning of our expiration stage of the content creator side
[151.4] of her.
[152.4] Again, at age 39 right before her 40th birthday, then you want to want to stick to the
[157.2] And because surprise element happens kind of right at the beginning of this new phase of her story that adds just one more thing that she has to think about and really switches her life into a completely new direction.
[173.2] So this is a corporate runaway story. This is a follow who you really want to be story. It's not everything is perfect and it all worked out easily every step along the way story.
[184.2] But hopefully it can give you some insights and inspiration into your own life, your own journey just to hear how somebody else dealt with some of these things.
[193.2] Another woman close to the age of 40 who then turns 40.
[197.2] So without further ado, let's get into Christine's story.
[201.2] At the age of 34, Christine Mosara gave up the corporate life of Walmart and Amazon.
[206.2] she left her husband and her million 1.1 million dollar condo in San Francisco and gave two middle fingers to all the things everyone told her she should be doing.
[215.2] Instead, she decided to go travel the world and become a YouTuber and beach travel focused content creator.
[221.2] And now the age of four days she flies drones, scuba dives with manta rays,
[225.2] and teaches millions of people how to travel smarter and how to fly in their own drones like a boss.
[232.2] So welcome, Kristine.
[233.2] Thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here.
[237.1] Be too. I'm so excited to have you.
[238.7] You have such a so many different reinvention stories as often as the case,
[242.2] but I would call you.
[243.5] I would put you in the category of corporate runaway.
[246.2] I'm sure some people at least might be living in the corporate world now,
[250.7] and maybe they're dreaming of running away themselves.
[253.4] But before we get started,
[255.5] where are you located right now and what's the view outside your window?
[258.9] Oh, I like to tell people that I keep a boyfriend in South Florida.
[263.6] And between my trips, I spend time here editing, catching up in my office and obviously trying to
[270.3] maintain my relationship with him. So on average, six days a month, I'm in South Florida.
[275.2] So right now I'm looking outside on kind of a rainy day in South Florida, but I just got back
[281.2] from Bonnier Island from the diving and flying drones. But that's what I'm looking outside.
[286.4] Okay, I'm nice. So South Florida is your home base.
[290.6] I would call it my home base. I split my time between here and San Diego,
[294.3] but it all just depends on like where I'm traveling to next and where I'm coming from.
[298.9] Okay, so I did kind of give you an introduction at your reinvention story,
[302.2] but in your own words, it's some more to ask you. Hey, I heard you run a podcast about a
[306.7] reinvention event in yourselves. What would you say? I always tell people that I left the corporate
[311.7] world to live a life of adventure, help people to travel smarter and to fly drones and to step
[318.2] out of their comfort zones because one thing that I didn't believe in, which will unpack this story,
[324.0] is that anyone can reinvent themselves in anyone who redesigned their lives.
[329.2] I love that. I love that. So take me back to the, in the throes of corporate world, you're
[335.4] working for Amazon or Walmart. I'm not sure which one. Take me back to right before something shifts
[341.0] that you've just started to go a different path.
[344.4] Where were you right before something started to shift?
[347.4] Yeah, I was, I was, I worked for both of those companies
[351.4] and split my time working for Walmart.com
[354.2] when I was living in San Francisco
[356.0] and then Amazon when I was living in New York City.
[358.9] And during that time I had my life,
[361.4] everyday life looked like that commute to work
[364.2] in San Francisco.
[365.1] It was a long drive and in New York City.
[367.8] It was taking three subways to get to work
[371.2] so that you could go into your four walls
[373.3] of your cubicle and type away for 12 to 14 hours a day,
[377.7] feeling like you were with a ball and chain
[380.7] slaving away at your desk.
[382.8] But it also at the same time felt so comfortable.
[386.8] It was so right.
[388.4] It was everything everyone taught me to do
[391.8] and told me I should be doing.
[393.4] Plus I was moving up in these companies.
[395.7] And so my life back then just felt like, yeah, like, this is the right thing I should be doing.
[401.4] And it was confirmed every day because I was getting feedback from friends, from family, letting
[407.9] me know, like, wow, you're doing so well.
[409.7] Like, saw you got that promotion, like saw you're working on that project or saw that fill in the
[414.9] blank. And it just felt like I was doing the right thing. And I felt blind to what else their
[420.4] potentially was in life. But that's what my life used to look like.
[423.8] And you also had, did you have a husband at that point? Were you in a relationship with the
[428.6] child? When I was in San Francisco, I met my now ex-husband and we had moved together to New
[437.1] York City and he and I were perfect on paper together. He went to business school at NYU. He
[445.0] the corporate strategy for AMEX and then later for Wells Fargo.
[450.0] We were the power couple that everyone looked up to.
[453.5] And to be honest, we were very happy with each other
[457.2] by the standards that I understood relationships to be happy
[462.8] in that kind of a lifestyle living in the cities
[465.3] and working your corporate jobs.
[467.3] And we were together for nine years.
[471.8] So you're happy, you have a great job.
[475.9] Friends look up to you.
[477.4] Something must have shifted at some point,
[479.5] maybe internally or externally.
[481.4] What happened to kind of start a different thought
[485.0] on your mind that maybe this isn't the life that you want?
[487.9] Yeah, and I think a lot of that comes from starting to listen.
[492.4] Because for me, it wasn't that big shift.
[495.9] I felt like I was the frog in the cold water,
[499.1] not realizing that it was on a heat surface and this water has become boiling.
[504.4] And now I'm a cooked frog.
[506.1] It was these small signals over time as the water was starting to heat up
[510.6] and boil where I would, you know, I'd worked these long days in the office
[515.6] and I would come home solely like sometimes 10, 11 p.m. at night and be like,
[520.8] well, now I need to like run my errands and live my personal life.
[524.7] And like there's not enough time.
[525.9] And when I say I lived in San Francisco, New York City, I didn't live on the outskirts.
[530.2] I lived in the heart of the city in these beautiful neighborhoods, but I never had time
[535.8] to enjoy that except on the weekends after I was done trying to catch up on all the emails
[541.3] and that didn't feel right.
[542.8] It's like, why am I not enjoying the city?
[544.8] Why on the weekends am I not being able to enjoy my free time?
[548.7] And then it was like more things, right?
[550.3] Like, hey, you're getting another promotion.
[552.6] Hey, here's another bonus.
[554.2] doing good work, here's more work, which became now I had more time. I needed to spend
[560.6] it working. That was another small thing where I was like, it doesn't feel right. And even
[565.2] though I was making more money, I always felt broke. I always felt like when we would go out
[570.2] to dinner, like, wow, you know, dining in New York City in San Francisco is not cheap.
[575.1] But like, you know, you're spending all this money. And it's like, why do I feel so poor
[580.4] yet my paychecks are so large.
[582.5] And all of these small things were starting to really pile up
[587.5] to a point where I started questioning more things.
[590.1] And one of the things I questioned the most was,
[593.0] hey, I don't really even get that much vacation time
[595.8] per year, the 14 days.
[597.6] But why do I feel so guilty every single time
[600.9] I take all 14 days?
[602.7] Why do I feel like the corporate world's telling me,
[605.8] no, you should only take a couple of those days
[608.0] if you really need them.
[609.6] and then save them all up for when you leave the job
[613.5] and get paid out on your vacation days
[615.3] or roll them over so you can get paid out.
[617.5] And it's like, why I'm never enjoying myself,
[620.3] the way I wanna enjoy myself.
[622.2] And that was when I really, the travel one,
[624.8] really started to make me feel like
[627.3] something about this picture's not right
[629.3] because I can't even use the benefits that I have,
[632.6] whether the city, whether my money,
[634.1] whether my vacation time,
[635.8] I feel like I could truly enjoy any of them.
[639.6] So was travel something that you had always enjoyed?
[642.1] Was that a part of yours that a new thing
[644.3] that you found later in life?
[646.3] Oh, that's a good one because it's part in part one
[649.3] that I truly discovered later in life.
[651.8] But was one that I always felt like,
[654.7] like you know when you're dogs,
[657.1] when you get home and your dogs really excited,
[659.0] you're gonna take your dog for a walk
[660.4] and it's like freaking out and it's on the leash
[662.1] and they're like, once you get out,
[663.3] that's how I felt growing up traveling with my family
[667.1] Because my parents loves very strict itinerary.
[671.0] Everyone stays together.
[672.2] You have like every single hour of your vacation,
[674.9] like planned out and growing up.
[676.6] All I wanted to do was go explore.
[678.3] I just wanted to go wander somewhere or go check something out or go look
[681.6] at what's on the other side of the fill in the blank.
[684.2] And it wasn't until I became an adult that I started
[687.3] traveling more on my own.
[689.0] But because of the lifestyle I had,
[692.1] I'm so exhausted from this corporate job.
[694.7] I'm so exhausted by my everyday life.
[696.9] that travel wasn't travel. Travel for me was vacation. It was lounging at the resort. It was just veggie
[703.9] now, like relaxing from your life. So I wasn't truly able to travel until much later in which I,
[712.0] this was before my husband. I took a trip with someone I was dating who truly knew how to travel.
[718.2] And I dropped into this tiny part of Guatemala in which there was a one-room airport. And as soon as
[725.0] you landed. Like I was like, wow, they just throw your bags off the plane and you are in the middle
[731.2] of it all. And that was a really big eye opening experience for me, which I was like, ooh, this is
[736.8] the type of travel that I want to play with. And I started just dabbling in more types of trips
[744.5] like that mixed in with the normal travel that I was doing. So that awoken something within you
[751.7] a room, maybe realize there's something else that it doesn't have to be.
[757.4] The four star five star luxury resort, it could be the adventure.
[763.0] And that is really what fills you.
[766.1] What year was that?
[767.1] That Guatemalan trip?
[768.6] Oh, this is an eye level these years.
[770.8] This is a good question.
[772.2] This was right before my boyfriend.
[774.4] Oh, right.
[775.4] I wasn't going to maul in 2013.
[777.2] So I was just, oh yeah.
[779.0] No, this was like circa 20, 2007 maybe.
[783.6] Oh, okay.
[784.4] This was really early.
[785.4] It's like I had been taste,
[787.5] but it felt like I kept having to vacation
[790.2] but wanted more trips and stuff like that.
[792.5] But Guadamal is an amazing place for a bench.
[794.5] Oh, so beautiful.
[795.5] It is so beautiful.
[797.0] One of the most, I tell people
[798.1] it's one of the most physically beautiful countries
[800.1] I've ever been to.
[801.0] So are you actually flying between San Francisco, New York?
[804.4] Or is it first one, then the other?
[806.4] One, then the other, then back.
[808.9] So, yeah, so Francisco with Walmart left to go to New York for Amazon and then went back
[815.1] to San Francisco.
[816.1] Okay.
[817.1] And that was when I made the jump to become a remote employee.
[819.5] But they're both kind of cubicle world.
[822.2] Oh, they are both definitely cubicle life.
[824.9] Uh huh.
[825.9] Okay.
[826.9] And with the same boyfriend slash husband, same partner.
[830.5] Exactly.
[831.5] Yeah.
[832.5] Okay.
[833.5] So you had a chance to go remote.
[835.0] Mm-hmm.
[836.0] Is that kind of the next maybe turning point that led you down the path to where you are now?
[842.5] So I was starting to have that almost like the guilty feeling of using all my vacation time
[849.8] combined with that feeling of my gut that was growing, that this isn't right, that I wanted
[855.2] more travel, more time to explore the rest of the world.
[860.2] And I had a turning point during that time in which my partner, Sash X has been now.
[866.3] He had just finished, he had just finished his business degree at NYU.
[872.9] And he had a summer before he went to go start work.
[875.2] And I was like, do something amazing.
[877.8] I was like, go ride your bike from here to an like named somewhere super far.
[883.3] I think I named somewhere like eventually one of his friends was going to be like Boston
[887.1] or something like that.
[888.7] So he was set out on this totally self supported like 10 day bike ride and during that time
[895.0] he got t-boned by a car.
[898.5] And he was, I don't want to say he was perfectly fine.
[901.2] He, you know, emergency services went to the hospital, had this whole thing where he was
[905.4] laid out for luckily only a few weeks but spent time in the hospital.
[911.5] Everything was able to be fixed.
[913.7] I had this moment in which I took time off a work to care of him.
[918.1] And it was one of those moments where you're like, what is really important to you in life?
[923.2] What is it that you want to be spending your time doing?
[927.0] And it was at that time that I was like, I don't feel like I have my priorities right.
[933.6] And it inspired me to leave my current job at that time at Amazon.
[940.5] And I started to look for a remote job that allowed me to just to be anywhere.
[946.2] And then this was in 2013.
[947.7] I mean, in 2020, lots of people were remote.
[951.0] But like I was using Zoom way back when lots of video conferencing calls back then.
[955.4] And I found a company in Michigan that allowed me to do the same work I was doing already.
[960.0] But all I had to do was be in Michigan one week a month to be able to be with my project
[964.5] team.
[965.5] And I was like, I want to try this and took this different path that for seven years, I
[971.8] was remote employee traveling anywhere I wanted to, but with just spend one week in Michigan
[977.9] a month.
[978.9] And where did you, where was the first place you traveled as as this remote worker?
[984.0] Where did you first go?
[985.3] No, we're sexy.
[986.3] Like, no, we're sexy at all.
[987.9] But it was just like that taste of freedom.
[990.3] Like even if you asked me, like where was it?
[991.9] I'd be like, I don't actually even know.
[993.6] Because for that rule, I also would travel a lot
[997.6] to meet with clients or customers or travel to do market
[1001.9] research or travel to go to conferences.
[1004.5] And what I started doing was I would just extend every trip.
[1008.8] So instead of, for example, going to Nashville, Tennessee,
[1012.8] and I would just be there for the two-day meetings,
[1016.2] I would say for a week and a half and just hang out and explore.
[1020.7] And then go back to go back home after that.
[1025.1] And so I started extending the trips.
[1027.9] So you're starting to get a taste for life outside
[1030.8] the office, life outside of work.
[1033.5] It sounds a whole way that tasted so good.
[1035.9] It was a moment during this time in your life
[1041.4] when something awoke in you and you thought, oh, OK,
[1045.4] there's something going on here.
[1047.0] some sort of hits as to what might be coming.
[1051.0] Yeah.
[1051.9] So during this time, I started traveling places.
[1055.4] And I'd post a little bit, not too much, on social media.
[1059.8] And what was the social media background that you were using?
[1062.8] Because we're talking, 2013, Instagram existed.
[1066.1] But I don't know if...
[1067.0] Not really, right?
[1068.0] I think I'm doing a little bit.
[1069.4] And then Facebook, yeah, definitely Facebook.
[1073.7] So I kind of like posted about where I was.
[1075.5] And also, friends would just talk to me about where I was,
[1078.4] and I'd be showing the pictures off my phone
[1080.2] when we're hanging out together.
[1082.0] And people started asking the same questions over and over again.
[1085.4] Oh, I saw you were in Nashville yet.
[1087.0] Again, like, who was that place that you ate at?
[1089.8] Like, what else did you do on your trip?
[1091.4] Or like, where did you say?
[1092.7] And like, people just started asking the same questions
[1095.4] over and over and over.
[1096.5] And I was like, I need a systematic way
[1099.4] to just send them something
[1101.6] where it's everyone asks the same questions.
[1103.8] And so I started traveling in making videos of the places I was traveling to.
[1108.8] And I realized like, oh my gosh, what a fun creative outlet.
[1112.2] Like I love capturing these trips,
[1114.1] both for myself and to be able to help my friends and family travel.
[1118.8] And so I started playing just a little bit with that and would like, you know,
[1123.0] capture more things or when I would go on trips with friends,
[1126.6] I would capture like a fun little video of recapping the whole thing.
[1130.8] and then had the recap of where I went and things like that.
[1134.2] And that's what kind of started this idea of,
[1137.5] and I didn't do it, I didn't do it immediately.
[1140.0] But that's what started this idea of,
[1141.4] like maybe I should be on YouTube with this content.
[1144.9] Now at this point, is this the point
[1146.7] when you had left your husband
[1147.8] or you still with your husband at this point?
[1149.5] Well, I'm still with him.
[1150.7] Okay.
[1151.5] And how is this working where you're traveling
[1153.5] and that's a new element to the relationship?
[1156.7] Oh, he hates it.
[1157.7] Oh yeah.
[1158.6] He's not about it.
[1159.8] And what was interesting was kind of like the frog and boiling water.
[1164.8] It was a change over time where he and I were two very individual people who would like
[1170.0] love spending time together.
[1172.4] But over time, he wanted me home more and more.
[1176.0] And before you were gone, you probably wanted to home because you were probably already
[1179.3] before you were home now that you're not home.
[1182.3] Exactly.
[1184.0] And so he was asking me to travel less and less.
[1188.1] I had this freedom that I had worked so hard to create.
[1192.8] It wasn't luck that I fell into this job.
[1195.6] I sought it out and I shared the story of how, oh, I found another job that was similar
[1200.7] to what I was doing in this remote.
[1202.4] That was not an easy process.
[1204.1] That was a year-long grind of over 63 interviews with cousins of companies trying to find
[1212.5] exactly the right thing and holding off every time I would get a good offer, holding off
[1217.5] to make sure like, is this truly going to give me what I want? Because what I want is not necessarily
[1223.0] more money that will just put me in the same situation as before. Was slightly more income,
[1228.3] but I'm still in the same position as before. And so now that I have what I want and he's asking
[1235.2] me to stay home more, it's becoming this, and I don't want to call it an argument because it was
[1241.2] so slow over time. It was just this push and pull of like feeling guilt while away,
[1248.7] feeling guilt that I should be using my freedom when we're together. Yet he's at the office all day
[1253.9] anyway. So it's not like we're truly together. And so I just tried to be home on the weekends more
[1258.5] often. And it was it was definitely a challenging time. I'll say that. Okay. What were you doing?
[1264.3] What was your job title that you were doing? In case somebody's listening in the curious.
[1268.7] Yes.
[1269.7] Yeah.
[1270.7] At this time, I was, I was product marketing.
[1273.7] Okay.
[1274.7] So I went from doing like marketing and business strategy and merchandising from Walmart
[1278.8] and Amazon to doing product marketing and e-commerce for a furniture company.
[1285.5] And so the role that I had was mainly listening to the customer needs and observing the customer
[1293.3] needs translating that over to our design team to create a product. And my other portion
[1301.0] of my role was how can we get that product as well as all of our current products available
[1306.5] for sale through e-commerce versus just or brick and mortar stores. That was my job at
[1311.8] time.
[1312.8] It wasn't easy. It sounds like a lot of work. It sounds like a lot of work.
[1318.1] as lower. Yeah. I'm not going to lie. But you were not saying you two is easy, but yeah, that
[1325.1] was not easy. But you were getting something that you wanted out of it, which was to be
[1330.3] remote. You wanted more freedom from the office. It sounds like yeah, but your husband
[1336.2] is at that time, you're then husband says, um, not maybe loving this. Was this kind of
[1343.3] a slow process of what or a fast process? Is this the beginning of how this relationship ended?
[1350.4] Oh, it's definitely the beginning of the end. This amongst other things, but it was not a fast
[1356.6] one. It was a slow one over time where this just was in addition to the other things that we're
[1363.6] starting to not really work out because he and I both had very different views of what we wanted
[1370.1] from our lives overall. He really wanted to settle down. He really wanted to, for example,
[1376.5] you mentioned our $1.1 million condo. I was like, these are the three things I want. Out of that,
[1383.4] go find it, like, all signed the papers on the day, but I don't want to be involved with it at all.
[1389.5] These are things that he wanted where I was compromising with him. But I was not ready to settle down.
[1396.4] I was ready for a life of adventure and that turned into a lot of different things in terms of what we wanted.
[1403.6] Sometimes we subconsciously know this, but we don't consciously know it. It kind of sounds like
[1409.3] that's what was happening with you. Subconsciously you didn't really want this life. When did it become
[1414.4] conscious to you that you consciously decided, okay, I know for sure I don't want this
[1420.9] corporate life with the 1.1 million dollar condo and I'm now actively deciding against it.
[1427.1] Yeah, it was after dodgeball. That's going to be a weird lead in.
[1432.3] I was a team captain of our dodgeball team for many, many years, like over seven years.
[1440.0] And I love playing dodgeball. We played on a team together.
[1442.7] Was this a moment for an extracurricular thing?
[1445.3] It was extracurricular. Yeah, so much fun. It looks exactly like dodgeball the movie, by the way.
[1450.9] We are very serious and we're very undefeated.
[1453.8] And I remember coming home, or no, not even coming home yet.
[1459.0] I went to the team would always go to the bar afterwards.
[1462.1] We were at the bar after dodge ball.
[1464.2] And I just had this feeling where I was like,
[1467.3] I don't want to go home.
[1468.8] And I want to go home.
[1470.2] I'm like, I don't want to go home.
[1474.0] And in this moment, I normally will try to work it through my head
[1480.3] and be like, okay, this is why and this is why logically, this is how I'm feeling. But it was just in
[1485.7] my gut. I was like, I don't want to go home. And in that moment, I was like, I think it's time to leave.
[1492.9] I'm like, I'm too happy. And actually, this is dodgeball game had happened right after he and I
[1498.7] recently after he and I had taken our honeymoon. Three things had happened. We had gotten married.
[1503.9] That wedding was by far the best party I've ever been to in my life.
[1510.5] It was very fun.
[1511.9] We created an amazing event.
[1514.8] We went on this amazing honeymoon in Japan and Hawaii.
[1518.4] It was phenomenal.
[1520.0] And we had recently closed on the house.
[1522.2] And we were now moved into our condo.
[1526.9] We had everything.
[1528.2] He had just gotten promoted at AMEX.
[1531.4] And, or no, at Wells Fargo.
[1532.4] he's just got promoted at Wells Fargo.
[1533.9] We had all the things that everyone was so proud of,
[1537.5] and yet I didn't feel happy.
[1539.3] And we had just played this amazing game of dodgeball,
[1542.6] like yet we won yet again.
[1544.3] Like I had all my friends around me,
[1546.9] we had just had everything that you should want
[1550.7] in that lifestyle.
[1553.0] And I'm like, if I can't be happy right now,
[1556.0] then what?
[1557.3] Like Christine, what are you getting yourself into?
[1559.0] Because just now, you have opened
[1561.5] a lot of new doors with this marriage,
[1564.2] with this house, with this fill in the blank.
[1567.1] And if you do not close that door right now,
[1570.7] you are going to start digging yourself into this,
[1574.2] in a way that will make it very complicated
[1576.6] to climb your way out.
[1578.7] And that was when I called for a break.
[1581.7] And I was like, I need a break anytime.
[1584.8] With me, that's fine.
[1585.7] With him, that has been.
[1586.7] Yeah, okay.
[1587.7] He was not happy about that.
[1589.6] But I was like, this is what I need.
[1591.5] I was like, give me a month.
[1593.5] Give me a month.
[1594.5] I just want to live my own life and not think about anything
[1599.2] else except what I want, like what I truly want
[1602.5] because I felt so far from that.
[1605.2] Because again, I'm still living under this idea of,
[1608.6] I know all the things that I should want.
[1612.3] I know all the things that my society that I live in right now
[1615.4] is telling me I should be working toward.
[1618.3] But is that truly what I want?
[1620.1] Is that truly what's making me happy?
[1622.2] And I knew it wasn't.
[1623.5] And I took that month to give myself time to think about it.
[1627.4] And I never went back.
[1629.6] And what did you do during that month?
[1631.3] Because that's when you had already bought your $1.1 million
[1634.3] condo.
[1634.8] I mean, someone you did that there.
[1636.4] What did you do?
[1637.8] I, during that time, I lived with different friends.
[1641.5] I spent a week living with different friends
[1643.3] around San Francisco.
[1645.3] And it was, it was, oh, during that time was when I went,
[1650.7] I went on a cruise with my family.
[1653.8] I went on a cruise with my family
[1655.3] and it was my parent, my dad's milestone,
[1658.9] 60th birthday.
[1660.7] It was my dad's birthday.
[1662.7] And in general, like family trips, it's like,
[1665.8] oh, you know, my nephew wants something
[1667.4] and my sister wants to do something else.
[1668.7] My parents have their own itinerary.
[1670.5] Like, I wanna go adventure and like everyone's kind
[1673.3] of doing different things.
[1674.7] But this was the first time my family came together
[1677.5] and just had an epic time together
[1680.6] and I've never seen everybody so happy before.
[1684.1] And I was genuinely just enjoying being on this cruise,
[1687.4] seeing my family so happy together.
[1690.3] And we would spend every waking moment together
[1692.7] from 8 a.m. breakfast until they went to bed at 9 p.m.
[1696.9] and when they would go to bed at 9 p.m.,
[1699.0] I was going out, like I was gonna go out.
[1702.2] And I was not looking
[1704.6] but that was when going out on that cruise,
[1707.7] which was during that month that I split up from my husband.
[1710.9] I'm not proud to talk about this,
[1712.6] but I'm happy to talk about it
[1713.9] because I listened to my gut and I met somebody.
[1717.9] That was when I met Lou, who I call meeple, my boyfriend.
[1722.1] My now boyfriend, who's house I'm in right now
[1725.1] recording this podcast episode six years later.
[1728.1] Wow, that was in 2018.
[1731.4] That was in 2018.
[1732.7] 18, age of 34.
[1734.7] Yeah.
[1735.5] And I know now and people who go to your Instagram will see you love cruises.
[1739.7] You're really in decreases.
[1741.0] And so was this the time that your love of cruises was sparked or had you always lumped
[1746.9] cruises?
[1747.9] That's a good question.
[1749.1] I actually, so this is contrary to what a lot of people think is that I actually don't
[1753.5] like cruising.
[1754.5] Oh, okay.
[1755.5] What's interesting about cruising is it goes back to what I talked about before, which
[1759.5] There's a difference between traveling and vacationing.
[1763.5] I think cruising is fantastic vacation time.
[1766.6] Like, it's everything's done for you.
[1768.3] You just go and relax.
[1770.1] And there's a place, there's a place in your line up of travel
[1774.3] and vacationing where cruises should absolutely live.
[1777.2] I recommend everyone take a cruise.
[1779.7] And it was great for my family because no one was dressed
[1782.2] because it was a cruise.
[1784.2] But cruising doesn't really allow you to explore the world because, well, it's great transportation
[1792.1] from here to there.
[1793.6] You only get half a day at the port and you're at the port, which is the most touristy
[1798.5] place and traveling out of the port is usually a pain in the butt.
[1802.1] And so it was an until fast forward later in life becoming a YouTuber that I am opportunity
[1808.0] to go on Virgin Voyages, which is for those who are listening, who aren't aware of this,
[1813.6] version voyages is reimagining the way cruising looks.
[1817.5] And so cruising on their cruise line looks totally different than other cruise ships.
[1823.8] And kind of to tie a lot of the things you're hearing in this story together, this whole
[1828.7] idea of like feeling really alive, being connected with other people, just having a ton
[1835.4] of fun, like a lot of fun and having your priorities, disconnecting, connecting with people,
[1843.6] having fun, IRL, like being in a very welcoming environment,
[1848.6] that is what Virgin Voyage has created.
[1850.9] You are now on vacation in a way that you are on vacation
[1854.6] with lots of other people who really want to connect with you.
[1857.5] And it's an environment that's been created
[1860.1] to make all of that come together in a really beautiful way.
[1863.1] And so that's why I'm a really big fan of Virgin Voyage is
[1865.9] because it allows that kind of other aspect of vacationing
[1869.6] that most people don't get.
[1871.5] But cruising.
[1873.5] Oh, it's a good vacation.
[1874.9] That, I mean, it sounds like that was an amazing
[1876.9] cruise view.
[1877.7] That was a life changing cruise for you.
[1879.1] Oh, absolutely.
[1880.0] Life changing.
[1880.8] So you kind of took a break from life.
[1882.8] You went for a month to just think on your own,
[1886.8] what you wanted.
[1888.3] Then all of a sudden you meet somebody.
[1890.7] It sounds like you have a great connection with.
[1892.5] Obviously you're still with this person.
[1895.2] Back then you didn't know you were going to be with him.
[1896.7] I would assume what did you do next?
[1899.7] Exactly that. I was having one hell of an OSHA moment where I was like now it's time to make some changes and make some decisions, big decisions, scary decisions.
[1910.7] And I would say two things, two things happens. I made a wildly crazy decision, but I did it with a safety net. And what I mean by that is a month after I continued living with friends in San Francisco.
[1928.7] after the cruise, I had reached out to Lou
[1932.2] and just told him like, wow, what an amazing time.
[1934.7] And he asked me to come to Florida.
[1937.0] He asked me to come to Florida to spend a weekend with him.
[1939.7] And I was like, you know what, why not?
[1941.9] Like, let's just try it out and see what happens.
[1945.1] And so I have a question here.
[1947.4] Yeah.
[1948.4] Some people might say, oh, well, she was just trying to escape.
[1952.1] This was just an easy escape route.
[1954.0] What made you feel that there was some sort of serious
[1956.9] connection there?
[1958.2] It's not just a fleeing, not just a romance,
[1960.6] just to kind of forget to your real world, your real life.
[1963.9] That's a good question.
[1965.4] I would say it's a combination of two things.
[1968.1] One, when I became a remote employee,
[1970.3] I started traveling alone a lot.
[1972.7] And when you travel alone a lot,
[1974.2] you really tune in to you.
[1976.7] You tune in to your needs,
[1978.6] you turn it, you tune in to what you really want in life.
[1982.7] You become very clear about what you do and do not like.
[1986.7] And you just get to know yourself in a way that during that time,
[1990.8] I became my own best friend,
[1993.0] which therefore turned into my ability to make the right decisions for me.
[1999.9] The old me would be like, oh my gosh, Hannah, hey, can I give you a call?
[2002.9] I need some advice on blah, blah, blah.
[2004.9] Like that was very rare that I ever do that anymore because it's like,
[2009.2] I know it's so well, so well.
[2011.7] And I tune in beyond what's happening in your brain,
[2015.0] but you really tune in to what's in your heart and what's in your gut.
[2018.2] Because the other thing about traveling alone is you're oftentimes as a solo-female traveler
[2022.5] in some crazy part of the world where it's like you need to turn on your spidey senses
[2027.7] and what you see and what you hear is not necessarily the only information you need,
[2032.5] but it's what you feel in that scenario to know if you should get out or whoa,
[2037.3] like something really cool is going to happen. You're say here where you're talking to a stranger
[2041.1] and you pick up very quickly on your senses of whether this is a, oh, this person's my person,
[2047.5] or this is not my person, or this person is unsafe. So I was very tuned into myself. And when
[2053.3] I met Lou on the cruise, I knew right away when I looked into his eyes that he was my people.
[2062.3] He was my person. I saw myself in him in a totally different way because he's, I mean, I'm a San Diego
[2068.9] girl who went to Berkeley and grew up straight edge and like Lou grew up in the hardest part
[2075.1] of the Bronx. He sounds like he's from the Bronx. He's a straight up New Yorker. He's big,
[2080.8] I mean, Meatball is not a endearing term. Meatball is what you call an Italian from the Bronx.
[2087.8] He's a meatball. Like we turned it into a endearing term. But when I connected with him, I felt
[2095.8] truly connected with him and I just knew.
[2099.4] I knew that he was amazing.
[2103.2] Like I just knew it.
[2104.8] And there wasn't a single doubt in my mind.
[2108.1] And so that's how I got to the decision point
[2111.1] when he was like, come out here.
[2113.6] And I know that for a lot of people,
[2115.4] that's gonna sound really crazy.
[2116.7] But that's why I gave the story of like,
[2119.5] I really tuned in after just spending,
[2121.9] when I say I traveled alone,
[2123.3] like think about years of traveling alone.
[2125.7] Like I really got to know myself
[2127.8] and how I connect with the world
[2131.0] and the types of people I connect with.
[2132.9] And so I said yes to that trip to Florida.
[2135.0] We spent a weekend together.
[2136.3] And if I died today or I died when I'm 99,
[2140.7] that weekend goes down as the best weekend
[2142.8] of my entire life.
[2144.6] It was epic.
[2146.1] What did you do?
[2148.9] What did you do?
[2149.8] It was so great about it.
[2150.9] Was it just being with him or?
[2152.7] that we just hung out. Like there was, we hung out in West Palm Beach, which is in South Florida.
[2159.9] And we, we went out, we went dancing, we ate all the cot of toast for brunch. We had a casual
[2167.2] picnic on the beach. Like we just connected and spent time with each other. And I mentioned something
[2172.6] else that I know just from listening to other interviews. Yeah. Actually, I think it was a solo podcast
[2178.3] that you did. He also had a girlfriend at that time. Is that right? Did oh, it's so wrong on paper.
[2184.1] Everything is so wrong. I'm not yet divorced. He had a girlfriend at that time. That is
[2188.9] his child life works. I mean, I'm, yeah, I'm not condoning it, but it's sometimes you just have to
[2193.3] make choices in your life too. If the right path comes along, you have to take it. So what did he
[2201.1] have the same feeling right from the get go about you? Was it kind of mutual that you guys
[2206.1] realized you're going to start something together?
[2208.7] Exactly. Both of us, when we got off of that cruise, he had already decided that was his
[2217.0] turning point broke up with his girlfriend. For me, that was my turning point of knowing
[2222.0] I'm never going back to my husband. I started kicking off that process.
[2226.5] Wow. Finding the divorce lawyer for him, it was moving out of his girlfriend's house and into
[2232.7] to his house.
[2235.8] At that point, how long had it been since you had purchased?
[2239.2] Actually since you had gotten married
[2240.6] and then purchased your condo.
[2243.6] A year and a half since I had been married.
[2247.2] And probably like three months since we had that condo.
[2252.9] Wow.
[2253.9] Wow.
[2254.8] Which actually kind of means me
[2256.2] because that condo was beautiful
[2258.3] and it was in the marina,
[2260.5] which is in a very nice part of San Francisco.
[2262.9] And it overlooked the entire bay,
[2265.2] San Francisco Bay and Alcatraz.
[2267.5] Like it was gorgeous.
[2268.8] You could see the golden gate bridge from the rooftop
[2271.9] and it had a parking spot,
[2273.6] which parking spot in itself is the cost of rent
[2276.3] in lots of places in the United States.
[2278.4] Like it was-
[2279.2] Especially in San Francisco.
[2280.1] Yeah.
[2280.9] Yeah.
[2283.5] Yeah.
[2284.3] Wow.
[2285.4] So I am a little bit nosey curious.
[2289.0] What was it like when you came back had to face reality and give the news to your husband?
[2294.6] Your then husband who was waiting for you to come back and he's probably thinking return
[2300.0] to her census.
[2301.0] Yeah.
[2302.0] Oh, it's so.
[2303.0] It absolutely sucked.
[2304.0] I'm not going to hide that.
[2305.0] But when you come back with the mentality of this is the moment to rip off the band aid
[2312.7] and just put on that fresh thing, like smear of news for him so that they can heal.
[2318.7] Like I went back knowing that the hardest part is over.
[2323.8] The hardest part is not the divorce.
[2325.7] It's not the moving out.
[2326.9] It's not the figuring out how to divide things.
[2329.6] It's not, I see that all as logistics,
[2332.9] annoying logistics to get to what was the hardest part?
[2337.7] Finding someone that you might feel is it.
[2342.2] The realization, the hardest part is having the realization
[2345.3] that life is something else.
[2347.8] The hard part is realizing what you truly want in life.
[2352.3] The hardest part is getting to that and being like, yes, I'm going to say yes to these things
[2356.3] that I know over time, over the long haul, like my gut has been telling me, I haven't been
[2361.8] doing what I truly want.
[2364.7] That hardest part is over.
[2366.6] Now I just need to close up shop.
[2369.6] And when I took it from that standpoint, I had a very different demeanor about how I did
[2376.5] things.
[2377.5] I was very kind about the way I went through the divorce.
[2382.1] I was very kind with myself.
[2384.1] And I'm not saying like, oh, I didn't shed a tear.
[2386.1] I was tough.
[2387.4] No, I would get a bottle of nice wine and a box of tissues
[2391.9] and just be like, all right, tonight I'm probably not
[2394.8] going to sleep.
[2395.3] I'm going to drink some wine and cry.
[2397.7] And like, that was just it.
[2399.1] But I saw that as this is part of it because of faster.
[2403.3] The faster I can get over this hard part,
[2406.2] The faster I will be at the life that I truly wanted,
[2409.3] which is why we've been talking about dates a lot,
[2412.4] things accelerated really quickly,
[2414.5] getting into YouTube, getting into the life I have now,
[2416.9] because I made sure to shut down that old life
[2421.0] as quickly and as efficiently as possible
[2424.2] so that I could get to the good life now.
[2426.4] Wow, wow, I love that.
[2428.3] These are gonna be some great excerpts from here.
[2431.6] You're just gonna jump in that cold water.
[2433.3] don't get your tongue in, like just jump in.
[2436.3] Yeah.
[2437.3] Well, you got to a point and you said the hardest point
[2440.3] in the way I interpreted it is the hardest point
[2442.3] is getting to that point of decision.
[2443.8] Once you feel decided, then it is actually easier to act.
[2447.6] Do you feel like were there any tools or resources
[2451.9] there being meditation, anything like that
[2455.4] that got you to that point of being decided
[2457.8] or was it just these little tiny incremental realizations
[2461.9] along the way?
[2462.8] you doing any sort of spiritual practice, mental practice, anything like that that helps you
[2466.8] get to this point of decision?
[2468.5] Well, that's the end of part one of this interview and make sure you're subscribed so that
[2473.4] you can catch part two to hear how this reinvention story ends, which will be coming up very
[2478.5] soon.
[2480.0] If you like this podcast and you'd like to share your thanks, the number one thing you
[2483.6] can do is to subscribe.
[2485.5] Subscribe on YouTube, subscribe on the podcast app that you're listening to, or if you
[2490.5] use iTunes, subscribe on iTunes. And if you want to connect online and get more updates about
[2495.4] my own reinvention story or share your reinvention plans with me then come find me across all the
[2501.1] social platforms at Shie reinvented. Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and YouTube. And remember you're
[2507.8] never too old, it's never too late and you always have more options than you think.