Ep 40. A Woman of Grit

I am Kym Showers, and this is Reinvented After 40, episode number 40: A Woman of Grit.

Hey, friends. Welcome to Reinvented After 40, a podcast for all you women in the second half of life who are ready to take responsibility for your own wellbeing and create a life you love living.

I’m your host, Kym Showers, and after spending the first 40 years of my life people-pleasing and following all the rules, I was exhausted and ready for a change. I reinvented myself. I stopped outsourcing my happiness. And I’ve been brave enough to live a different kind of life.

I’ll be here each week to help you do the same thing. It’s gonna be fun. Let’s go.

Hey friends, welcome back to the show. And welcome to my 40th episode, my 40th podcast episode. I thought it would be very appropriate to talk about grit today. It has been one of my goals I think for many, many, many years to become a woman of grit, to become a woman of stamina, of passion, persistence, and perseverance. I don’t like the thought of being wimpy. Grit is the opposite of being wimpy, the opposite of being a quitter. And totally opposite of giving your power away to your circumstances.

So, grit is being passionate, and being persistent, and then being a woman of perseverance. Just setting your goal and reaching it no matter what. So today I want to give you some examples from my own life and from a couple of my clients lives, and from my family. So, I have been surrounded by gritty people since the day I was born, truly I have. My dad I would say one of the grittiest men I’ve ever known, very passionate about life, very persistent, and just never stopped until he reached his goals, whatever they were.

Every single day he got up with a gritty attitude and a very positive attitude, might I add, and just made his life one that mattered. He had great influence on the people that worked for him. He had great influence on his own family and his friends. He had great influence on me. And I’ve always wanted to be like my dad. I wanted to create grit for myself, be someone who I could trust to show up and be the woman I want to be. And do the things that I said I would do, instead of quitting, instead of giving up when things got tough.

My dad never gave up when things got tough. And that has inspired me my entire life. And I was a witness to that my entire life. So, I always have known it was possible. And I was encouraged because I have his DNA, so I think that maybe it comes a little bit easier to me. And just that thought alone helps me to be a woman of grit.

Also, I am married to a man who is extremely gritty. He was hired at Merrill Lynch the day we got back from our honeymoon. He was 21 years old. He built a business out of thin air when he was 21 years old. He was the youngest broker that I don’t know if Merrill Lynch had ever hired but I know in the region that he was hired, and he was the youngest broker that was ever hired. And he has been one of the most successful brokers after what has it been now, 38 years of being a financial advisor at Merrill Lynch.

I watch and witness this gritty man every single day get up at 5:55 and go and work, keep the same schedule whether the market is high, whether the market has crashed, it doesn’t matter. He is someone who has been passionate. He is someone who has persevered, and he has been extremely successful and persistent. Not because he has a high IQ, though I’m sure he does. Not because he’s super talented, though of course he is. But 100% because of this grit that he is made of, that he has been so focused and persistent day, after day, after day. He just sticks with it for the long haul no matter what.

Someone else who had great grit influence on me has been my older brother. Oh my gosh, I could tell you a million stories about him. He has been everything gritty in his life, everything he has overcome, everything he has built out of thin air to create this amazing life for himself. He is one of the highest clearance of the government, I don’t even know how to explain. First of all, he has a very high IQ let me tell you that. I don’t even know how I am only 11 months younger than him and I’m his sister because I definitely am not even in the same range of IQ that he has.

He is extremely intelligent. And he really kind of followed his passion, he’s a CPA. He’s a CPA but he works for the American Consulate in Germany. He learned how to speak fluent German. He flies all over the world teaching classes to the governments of the world on how to find hidden money. This is how I’m explaining it, I don’t really even know the details of it. He could tell you a lot better and I might even not even be telling you the truth, the full truth.

But I know he does something extremely impressive. And that very, very, very few people in the entire world know how to do. My brother does that. So, he has been a great influence on me as far as grit goes. I am just trying to keep up with him.

And last but not least my sister. So, my sister is nine years younger than me. She moved over to the coast from Bakersfield when she was just 18 years old. And she’s had to overcome a lot. And she has built the most successful life over here. She’s kind of the queen of where we live. Everyone knows my sister. She runs two very successful Airbnbs, Airbnbs and Vrbos, they belong to her and her husband. She has built out of thin air. She has also built out of thin air a very successful hair salon. And she has a full book of clients of her own which I am one, thank goodness.

She’s a genius in her field and she’s a genius at running Airbnbs, and she works super hard. And she is a woman of grit. She has a lot of stamina. She is very persistent. She perseveres no matter what. This woman does not quit, and she has been a huge and continues every day to be a huge influence on my life and I love being related to all four of these people. I have been gifted with people in my life who are gritty and who have been a great example for me. And so that has been a goal of mine is to become a woman of grit and I have become her.

I do what I say I’m going to do. I started this podcast 40 weeks ago. So, what is that? How many months ago is that? Is that 10 months ago? I had to overcome a ton of self-doubt because I was such a podcast listener. I listened to a lot of really successful podcasts and my brain just always wants to compare me and wants to compare me on the downside. You’ll never be as good as she is at this. You’re not going to have very many people that listen. My brain offers me very un-useful thoughts like this.

So, I just know the difference between me and my brain. And I know the difference between what I want and what my brain wants. My brain doesn’t want me to take chances. My brain doesn’t want me to be passionate. My brain doesn’t want me to be persistent. My brain doesn’t want me to persevere. My brain wants me to be safe, and comfortable, and not grow, and not take chances. So, I know the difference between me and my brain. So, I have learned how to overcome my brain and that requires grit. That requires passion, persistence, and perseverance.

So, the whole key is having stamina. The whole key is when things get hard we don’t quit, we keep going. The whole key is being a woman of grit is being future focused, not past focused. If you think about your past I want your story to be of all your gains in the past, all the things you’ve overcome in the past to become the woman of grit you are today. And then we set our goal for what we want to create, who we want to become in the creation of the goal. And this is why I tell you all the time, it’s never the goal because we know it’s not how we’re going to feel at the end when we reach that goal.

It’s who we have to become to reach the goal. We have to become a woman of grit to reach our big dreams, the things that are our wantings, the reason that we’re here. What is your passion, what is it? If you don’t have one, create one. Give yourself a good reason to be excited about your day. Give yourself something to be passionate about. It can be anything. So, for my own life, first of all my passion is people. I love people. I’ve always loved people. I love all kinds of people.

And I can just see the light, and the value, and the goodness in people. I think I was just born this way. And I love that about myself. And most of my adult life I spent teaching bible study to women and loving these women, and organizing bible studies, and being leaders of little bible study groups. And I was just super good at it because it was a passion of mine. I loved passing on important truths about why we’re here, and important truths about how we are all valued and all loved. That is what I’m passionate about.

So, I was very successful my entire adult life teaching bible study and I loved it. And then I left church and decided I didn’t want to do that anymore. And by the way I didn’t leave God, I left church. But I knew there was something else that I was supposed to be doing. I just didn’t know what it was. So, I let myself sit in that for even a few years and just decided and discovered, and kind of created a new passion for myself that aligned with my values. And you know what I found? I found life coaching. I didn’t even know about life coaching.

But I found life coaching and then I created a way to help women through becoming a certified life coach. I started a business out of thin air that I’m so passionate about and that I love so much. And it’s one of the reasons I adore getting up every single morning. I have been very persistent in it. It has not been easy. It has been very difficult at times. And you know what I haven’t done? I haven’t quit. And I have persevered. And I have created an extremely successful life coaching business that helps a lot of women.

And when I help a lot of women you know what those women do? They go and they help a lot of women. And you know what those women do? They go and they help a lot of women. It’s so how the universe works. It’s so how the world works. It’s so how humanity works. It’s so how gritty women work. We just make each other gritty. We become who we want to be and then we pass it on. We inspire. We encourage. We love each other all the way home. That’s what I’m doing. I’m so proud of myself and I’m so proud of my clients.

When clients pay me money, they invest in themselves, they commit to their self-growth. They commit to a goal, and then they commit to working with me every single week, they become a woman of grit. They find, they discover what they’re passionate about, they decide what they’re passionate about and then they persist at it. And then they’re in it for the long haul and that’s what we call perseverance. They become exactly who they know they can become.

I have clients who are just working on their relationships, working on the relationships with their in-laws, working on the relationships with their grown kids. I mean week after week they make so much progress. Their relationships feel so much better to them, so much easier. And it opens up space for them to spend all the energy that they gave resisting and worrying about those relationships that are no longer a problem for them. They can turn all of that energy into creating something amazing in their life. They become women of grit.

Then I have two clients actually who just certified through The Life Coach School, the same school that I certified through and are creating businesses out of thin air. I have been working with them for a long time. They did not come with the idea that they wanted to become life coaches. But after working with me, their lives have changed so dramatically that now they are certified life coaches and they’re going to help the women in their professions. They’re coaching women in their professions.

They have become women of grit. They are passionate about what they do. They are creating a business out of thin air, and they are so future focused. They’re on the road to creating a life that they absolutely can’t wait to get up every morning to live. I’m so proud of them.

I have clients who are in the midst of raising their babies right now and want to be moms who love what they’re doing. Want to be good moms. Want to be more patient and want to stop yelling at their kids. And want to not numb out and show up fully every single day no matter what. They are becoming women of grit, women that they can trust, women who do what they say they’re going to do every single day, examples for their kids, examples of love, and of consistency, and of trust. I see their growth week, after week, after week.

We’re all doing this work, and it is so important, and it is so fun, and it is so magical. I read this quote this week from James Clear. He said, “It only feels like work if you’d rather be doing something else. It only feels like work if you’d rather be doing something else.” And that sentence has been on my mind all week because I love working and it does feel like work, but work doesn’t feel bad to me. Work feels really good to me, and I think it’s because work feels gritty to me. This is what I’m supposed to be doing and I love doing it and I can’t wait to get to it.

And I know it has a lot to do with the schedule that I have, that I really do only work two days a week and the rest of the week is play. So, I have lots of space for work. I have lots of space for rest. And I have lots of space for play. So, I set myself up for success by having a schedule that is sustainable. I never burn myself out. So, it’s not something I’m trying to escape from. My life isn’t something I’m trying to escape from. It’s something that I can’t wait to get up in the morning to live because I’m in charge of it. No one else is in charge of it.

No one’s telling me what to do. I’m holding myself to the standard I want to hold myself to. It’s because I am a woman of grit and I just want to keep getting grittier. I want to be talking to you in a few months and telling you this is my 100th episode of my podcast, of reinventing yourself after 40. I want to be an example for you of what’s possible. I want to be an example for me of what’s possible, to keep growing, keep being persistent, keep being passionate, keep persevering. And discovering all the possibilities for my life.

I know I’m only still scratching the surface and I’m going to keep at it. I like the idea of just 1% better every day. There’s no pressure with that. It’s just like I’m going to keep practicing, I’m going to keep trying, I’m going to keep getting up in the morning and doing the next right thing. That’s what it is, I promise you. And it’s a very good life, it’s a very exciting life. I’m 61 and I intend to live to be at least 101. That means I have 40 years of practicing, of discovering, of getting grittier and what the results of that will be for me and for my life.

And I will keep living it out loud. I promise you that. So, on my 40th episode this episode, becoming a woman of grit, being a woman of grit, being an example of a woman of grit and what that looks like. Just keep practicing, no matter what. We never give up. We’re always practicing. We’re always having fun. And when things get hard we take a break. We just don’t quit. It’s always good to take a break, just take a break when you’re tired. Get some rest. Take a vacation and then get right back up and start again. That’s where the excitement is. That’s where the passion is.

That’s where the persistence is. That’s where the perseverance is. We just keep going and we’re in it together. We’re walking each other home. We’re running each other home. We’re hiking each other home. We’re swimming each other home. We just keep going, alright. Okay, I hope this was helpful, and inspiring, and encouraging for you today no matter what you’re going through, be future focused, be a woman of grit. It will be a life that you love living, I promise.

Share this episode with anyone that you know might need this encouragement. And also, if you haven’t listened to all my episodes, go back, and start at number one. I encourage all my clients right off the bat to go back and listen to all of my podcast episodes, to read all of my blog posts, and just consume all my content so that your mind can just start shifting because you know that’s where it all starts in our mind. It is our mindset.

And becoming a woman of grit requires a growth mindset, requires you knowing that no matter what, you can grow, you can change your mind any time you want to. It just takes a little shift in our perspective about the same circumstance. We don’t have to change our circumstance every time, we can change our thought and that changes everything, which is so fun.

Alright, I love you, thanks for showing up today. If you need some help I still have spots in my group that is starting at the end of this month. So, if you go on my website you can purchase a spot in my group. It will be at noon on Tuesdays for one hour starting at the end of June. Alright, that’s what I have for you today. Have an awesome week and I will see you next Thursday.

Thanks for listening to Reinvented After 40. If you want more information or resources from the podcast, please visit KymShowersLifeCoach.com.