Summary:

In this episode of The Random and Wonderful, Grace Simmons chats with Heike Yates, a wellness coach and passionate traveler. Heike shares insights from her journey to "Pursue Your Spark," a movement dedicated to helping women rediscover themselves at every stage of midlife. From managing work-life balance to integrating wellness into everyday life, Heike dives into the importance of self-discovery and staying active. She also shares memorable travel stories, like her “6 for 60” adventure in Hawaii, and offers advice for cultivating a joyful, balanced life.

Guest Bio:

Heike Yates is a Midlife Health and Fitness Expert with over 35 years of experience. She empowers midlife women to break free from limiting beliefs and outdated habits, turning challenges into simple, actionable steps that help them truly thrive. Heike’s approach goes beyond fitness and nutrition; she focuses on helping women get unstuck, build strength, develop a resilient mindset, and boost their energy. As the founder of Pursue Your Spark, Heike also hosts a popular podcast that reflects her mission to inspire real transformation. Outside of coaching, she’s an avid triathlete and adventurer, always embracing new challenges in the great outdoors.

Key Topics Discussed:

• Pursuing Your Spark: How Heike’s journey led her to create a movement focused on igniting and sustaining passion in midlife.
• Defining Midlife and Rediscovering Purpose: Heike’s insights into the changes women experience between 40 and 80, and the importance of self-care and honest reflection.
• Work-Life Boundaries and Self-Care: Heike’s transition from constant work to finding balance, prompted by her husband’s gentle “wake-up call.”
• Incorporating Wellness into Travel: Heike’s approach to active vacations, including hiking, biking, and embracing local culture to stay physically and mentally fit.
• Adventure and Growth Through Travel: Heike’s “6 for 60” Hawaii trip, where she and her husband worked for a week and then took a week of vacation, fully embracing both adventure and relaxation.

Key Quotes:

• "I realized that many women dim their light as they get older. Pursuing your spark is about reigniting that light and finding what truly makes you feel alive."
• "It’s not just about the vacation—it’s about immersing yourself in local culture, discovering the hidden gems, and truly experiencing a place."
• "After three miles of running, all the world’s problems are solved."

Takeaways:

• Find and Pursue Your Spark: Rediscovering purpose in midlife involves honest reflection, whether through journaling, physical activity, or deep conversations.
• Create a Balance Between Work and Life: Setting boundaries is crucial for health and relationships. Heike’s story of balancing work and vacation in Hawaii shows how mindfulness can enhance productivity and personal joy.
• Integrate Wellness Into Everyday Adventures: Whether at home or traveling, wellness can be a natural part of life. Heike encourages staying active by exploring your surroundings and engaging with local communities.

Resources Mentioned:

• Pursue Your Spark (Heike Yates' website)
• REI Trail App (for finding hiking trails across Maryland and beyond)

Hello, travelers. My name is Grace

Simmons, and this is the Random and

Wonderful Podcast. Settle in and listen

to stories of wanderlust and

transformation as you gain tips to

inspire your next travel experience. The

Random and Wonderful is brought to you by

the Amethyst Palaba Hut, LLC.

Hi, everyone from Podcast Movement in

DC. I'm your host, Grace Simmons, and

welcome to the Random and Wonderful.

My guest today is going to be Heike

Yates, and we're going to talk about

travel, pursuing your spark. It's going

to be amazing. So let's get into it.

Yeah, let's go. This is awesome. So thank

you, first off, so much for joining me

today. I'm excited because this is like

our first live,

like official chat, actually. We've been

kind of talking that he's doing the other

we met last year. Yes. And so I'm excited

to get this started. So please tell me

and everyone, how exactly did Pursue

Your Spark start?You know,

Pursue Your Spark started as a

long history of it, going

through iterations and how do I

want to talk to women?And it's like in

my podcast. It's like or trying to figure

out the right angle of do I want to talk

about menopause?Do I want to talk about

other things that are interesting to

women in midlife?And what I come across

is a lot. Women dim their

light when they get older. Yeah. YeahAnd

so when you think about dimming your

light, what's will be the opposite is

igniting your spark. But then you have to

also pursue the spark. In

order to ignite it, if you're not sure

what the spark is for you

specifically, you don't know what you're

going to ignite. So it's like,

OK, let's figure out what it is

that we want from midlife.

Wherever we are in midlife, and I think

we talked about that, it's between 40 and

80. So midlife is not just being 50

and it's somewhere in the transition

from. Perimenopause through menopause and

postmenopausal just to give it a more

confined idea. And

I think that's a really a time every, at

least in my opinion, every 10 years I

feel, and I'm 63, women

go through something else has to

change. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's

unfortunate. I do like that there's a

breakdown, though, in the difference

between igniting and pursuing, 'cause

like you said, you maybe. understand what

that spark is, but it's so important to

be able to like continue those steps of

pursuing, right?Because if you just see

you have that great moment and you don't

do anything to follow up, it fizzles and

it goes away. Yeah. And then you feel

potentially left behind, sad. Yes.

And you're unhappy. And a lot of times

when we look at these patterns too,

divorce happens because somebody in the

relationship is not happy. Yeah.

And so I I feel it's a good way to really

look at yourself and

see, what do I need?Where am I in this

phase of life?Okay, as someone who then

is coaching people on this path,

how do you navigate self-doubt

or hesitations when it comes to maybe

business or personal?How do you lead?

I would first say it's to be honest with

what you really want. Okay.

And that's the biggest hurdle, 'cause a

lot of women don't want to really look at

what the problem is. And self-doubt

creeps in and we just keep thinking about

it. It's three o'clock in the morning,

yeah and we're not quite sure if we

can do things, if we should take action,

if what happens, what is the consequence

of if I do the things that I want to

do. Yeah. And soThe first thing is really

be honest with you, and that can go

different ways. It can come through a

conversation with a friend. It can come

through journaling. It can come

maybe on a big bike ride where you're

riding through the woods and you call.

Clarity. Yeah. Clarity. Yes. Yeah.

Getting clear on what it is that you

want. And instead of focusing on the

negative, which is our self-doubt. So

quick. Yeah. So quickly to focus on.

The things that you maybe need to fix

versus how can I use my strengths to

better who I am, where I'm trying to go.

And it's so beneficial to get that

initial understanding. That's wonderful.

Yeah. So besides

being coaches and podcasters, you and I

both share a love of travel. So

I am curious, do you have a

story or maybe a trip that left like a

really heavy impact on you?Oh, I got a

whole bunch of stories. My

thing is, or has been for many years now,

that whenever I have a round birthday,

umm I don't remember my 30th birthday

because I was in a different relationship

about my 40th, my 50th, my 60th birthday.

I always did something that was

super memorable. So instead of getting

gifts or going out to an expensive

restaurant, it's about taking a trip.

So which one would like to hear about the

story about dancing Argentine tango?

In Buenos Aires. Or would you like to

hear about my 6 for 60 in

Hawaii?Oh, 6 for 60. Six for six.

Yeah. Excellent. All right, here you go.

So my 60th birthday is starting to roll

around and my husband and

we're talking about maybe going to

Hawaii, you know, for a week of

vacation. And then we're talking and he

says, you know, I found this really cute

two-bedroom apartment. It's right on the

water. It's right outside of, what's

the town of the big island, the big land

of Hawaii. And he said,

Devil, here's what we're going to do. My

gift to you are six for 60. And I

was like, What's that supposed to mean?

And he says, Six weeks of

vacation in Hawaii. Oh

my gosh. But the caveat is,

we didn't take the whole six weeks as a

vacation, so what we did is,We had one

week where we worked and then one

week where we took vacation. OK, OK, it

was fantastic. So we got

there. We had this really cute

two-bedroom apartment. And

one room was set up as his office because

my husband had to work too. So he got up

00 in the morning, the one week we

worked till noon. I put all my clients on

Zoom. So I would sit on the floor in the

living room with my laptop on a chair

and we would do Pilates or whatever this

person wanted to do. And the people are

like, where are you?And I took my laptop

and I was like, oh, look at the lights.

There's the beach and like, Oh my

God. And so it was great

because we both continued to earn money.

So it was not no income for either of

us. Yeah. And six weeks, it's a long

time. Then we took the second week where

we, well, let me finish the first story.

So it's when we got up at 4:00, we both

worked till noon. And then at noon we're

like, what do you want to do?Do you want

to go for a run on?The highway, you know,

the street right in front of us where

they do the Ironman or do we want to go

swim or do we want to go for a bike

ride?Because we brought our bikes. We're

triathletes, so we brought our bikes. My

goodness. And so we biked the

highway, you know, we're like, OK, So

what we're going to do?And then we we did

whatever the work I was, came home, had

lunch or did the other way around. Then

it was nap time and then we did whatever

we wanted to do. Go hiking. We learned

about the local fish market. We knew

where the bread place in the hills was,

that they came a couple times a week

and brought their fresh baked goods.

So you always became a local. So the fish

guy, the fish guy said, here, give

me your number. I'll text you when we're

at the shopping center so you know when

the first fish is here. I'm like, yes,

that's amazing. And then the

second week. When we were off, we would

take our bikes and we go, we sleep in,

have breakfast, even though I

intermittent fast, but that was like, I

don't care about that. We need some

energy next time, because intermittent

fasting is not restrictive. So we would

drive to the other side of the island or

explore other parts of Hawaii.

It was the best. And on my actual

birthday, we had bao bao, two balloons,

one six, one oh, and we walked down

with the balloons in hand. Down the

street to a little beach where we, my

husband and I did a little photo shoot,

you know, like, ohh yeah, cute. You

wouldn't believe the people. They're

yelling out of their car, happy birthday,

yay, go party girl. This is

great. And then we got to the beach and

we're starting to do our thing. And this

woman comes up to me and she says, 60.

Your life is just starting. You're gonna

have work on after 60. Yeah. So

that's my 6 for 60 story. I

that's amazing. Six weeks, first

off. But I like that there's an

alternative. Like you have that nice

stagger, even though it sounds like when

you were working, that was still super

fun. Like you weren't ignoring the fact

that you had, you were in this paradise,

of course. You got up in the morning and

then my husband would always say. Oh, I'm

going to have breakfast on the lanai,

which is the balcony. But the

peacefulness and the ocean and

the environment is so tropical and people

are super duper friendly and

you know, and we did the things that we

physically loved doing and

we had such a good diversity on it as

well. So it was not just hanging out in

the beach. I mean, we went snorkeling

with the dolphins. It was just

fantastic. Yeah. I highly recommend it.

6 for 60. I love it. 3 for

30. I don't care. Yeah. No, whatever

it is, it should be multiple weeks of the

I I think would be ideal. I know. Wow.

I was going to ask actually, since you

guys are triathletes, how are you

incorporating?Like, are you purposeful

about incorporating Wellness into your

vacations or is it just a habit?Like

this is just what you're doing?We are

trying to incorporate. We are

not going to the gyms. So we

are like, no, we're on vacation. We want

to be outside because oftentimes we're

either, well, oftentimes we're either on

the beach or we are in the mountains

somewhere. So if there's some like

physical activity included, there's

always hiking involved. There's

it's built in. To what the vacation is.

Does it look different than when normally?

Yeah. I usually don't plop down and do

Pilates math work. I'm like, uh, I'm just

on vacation now. And that's what I

recommend to everybody. It's like, don't

worry about it. Just do something. You

know, if you're in a in a city and you're

visiting on a city trip, right. You'll

walk a lot. Yeah. That's exercise too.

Yeah. And so it's built

into what we do. And that's when we went

to Hawaii, we're like, this is.

The island where they had the Ironman.

OK. And we just and he my husband took

the bikes apart, put them in a container,

put it back together. OK. Because I was

going to ask you. I was going to ask you

about those bikes later. Oh wow. So well,

you can transport them. You just need

like a big suit. Yes. Where it fits in

and you take it apart and then you put it

back together. And he knows, thank God he

knows how to do that. I couldn't do that,

but. So yeah, we're we're trying

out different things when we're on

vacation. And so the biking was great

because we could say we biked for all the

Ironman people were biking. Yeah. I mean,

we didn't do the whole route, but it was

just fun to be out there amongst the lava

fields and biking up the road and

and just enjoying the life with the

locals too. So you become less of a

tourist. Yes. YesAnd like I said, you

know, the guy texts about the fish. We

knew on Wednesdays the fresh bread was up

in the in the hills or up in the hills.

That's cool. You've gone from a tourist

to an actual traveler, which is really

neat. When you are.

Well, now I've forgotten my question.

Actually, there's something you just

said. I forgot. All right.

What do you hope to get out of

your trips?I love

adventures. OK. That's was also

initially. What brought me to the States?

I'm originally from Germany. And

what?I got bored living in Europe. Yeah,

I know people. You can laugh all you

want. What?But I was always saying,

oh, I want to do Europe when I'm old,

assuming that I would live in Germany,

but I don't. So I still have a lot to see

in Europe, but that's fine. But I wanted

adventure. I wanted something different.

OK. You know, when you think of Europe.

For an European, OK, you speak different

languages in in within 8 hours

and you eat different foods within a in

the same 8 hours of traveling by car.

Here in 8 hours, you're in Virginia from

DC. Still in the same place.

Yeah, you know, nothing ever changes as

far as it's the same. But travel, I

find it, I find it interesting to learn

about other people, how they do things.

What they eat, what they drink,

how they do life. That's really

why I love traveling so much is

and just experiencing. And even if you

say I go maybe up to Maine, my husband

hasn't been up in Maine. OK. And I said,

you will feel it's a little different.

They eat different foods. They speak a

little bit different English. Yeah. And

it's it's a little, it's the ruggedy

water hills and all that. And so

that's new and it's different. OK, OK

I do remember that question, though. I

was going to ask, when did you notice

that you were able to find a balance

between actually fully immersing

yourself into a vacation and then

separating the work?Has that always

been?OK, like a switch. It's like, OK,

you do this,

compartmentalize it, right?

You do this. OK, we're done with this.

Now we're going to do that. It's no

turning on a computer. Not looking at

emails. And you know, I have my out of

the office on my phone, on my e-mail

thing. I was like, I'm not looking at

this. And I told my husband too, no

Slack. OK. You are not available. This is

vacation. Yeah. You're not available.

Unless it's an emergency. But other than

that, they have to wait. Is this like a

process that you had to

enforce or was it something like you've

always had those good boundaries?Oh, God,

no. All right.

Oh my God, no. I love, love, love my

work as a health fitness coach and my

podcast and all this. I can work

all week long. I love what I

do. And I had to really,

my husband actually pointed that out. He

says, you know, it's 7:00 in the evening,

you're still working. We started at 7,

you're still at it. Like, oh, let me just

finish this canva. Let me just get this

done. And he says. Well, it's 7 o'clock.

We want to eat. We didn't prepare

anything. The same with the weekends. And

I would say Sunday, I was like, oh, I

just quickly, three hours later. Right.

Three hours later, I'm still at it. But

he pointed out and he said, you know,

your work's taken over our lives.

I know you love what you do. And so that

was a wake-up call for me to say, hey, I

can't neglect my relationship. I can't

neglect my off time. So

the dealio is now that we stop

the latest at six and work on

the weekends only if it's something that

has to be done on Monday. OK. I mean,

other than that, we're not working.

Wow. I'm glad he called me out on it.

Yeah. YeahI would have not. I didn't

think of it as work. Right. Because

you're enjoying what you do. You're in

it. I need to end this podcast episode

really quickly. 4 hours later. Oh,

OK, cool. OK. Because I'm always, I know

sometimes, like you're as a coach, right?

You're able to give some people advice,

but you yourself can kind of be stuck

into the process of it. And so I'm always

curious, like, at what point do you

realize?I should take my own advice

and sort of like you said,

compartmentalize or set those boundaries.

So, OK, that's really key, definitely.

And I'm glad that he pointed it out

because I'm sure I would have burned

out big time at some point

and our relationship would have suffered,

my health would have suffered, but I

didn't see it. So I'm glad somebody said,

hey, did you notice?

And I'm like. No, I'm I'm not doing

this. But then I had to be honest with

myself, and I did it. Yeah. So

it's like, we call out our clients, you

know?It's It's not calling out, it's sort

of lovely saying, hey, did you

notice?It's accountability.

Yeah. YeahYeah, are you loving yourself?

Are you doing, you know, paying attention

to your health?Yeah, exactly.

How, like what is one of your favorite

wellness practices?So if you were

to, yeah, a good way

for you to like decompress. Okay. What's

your go-to?It used to be running. Okay.

So about three years ago, I

started having severe knee pain. I mean,

I've been a runner for since, I'd say

2008, so for a while. And

I got into running and every now and then

my knee would hurt and I'm thinking, oh,

you know, I just ran too much and I did a

lot of running. You know, I did

marathons, I did ultra marathons and

things like that. But my knee is kind of

getting cranky. But at some point my knee

was really, really bad. OK,

so I went to the doctor after all my own,

like trying to fix my knee things.

I said, OK, let's see what it's at. And

so I have severe arthritis in one of my

knees. OK. And at the point the doctor

said, oh, you should make an appointment

now because we have a three month wait

for a knee replacement. I was in so

much pain. I was like, Please sign

me off. My oh my gosh is 30 months.

And I said, I have three months. I was

like, No, it's weight. So I went to a

friend of mine who is chiropractor, but

he does other techniques too. And so he

looked at my gait. He looked at what

exercises we can do. I stopped

running and he says, Just eliminate

impacts. Right. Right And

it's now over two years. over two

years, that I have not

gotten a knee replacement. I have managed

my knee pain with biking and swimming and

strength training and Pilates and

stretching. And so far, knock on wood,

I am not getting a knee replacement,

but I had to replace my running,

which was my go-to for de-stressing.

I missed it so much.

I said, what am I going to do?I

identify being a runner. I know people

identify with something you're part of.

Like I was part of the Montgomery County

Roadrunner crew and I was one of their

coaches. They were, they were my gang,

they were my people. And suddenly I had

nobody. It's just me and my lousy knee.

No, no, like me, you let me down.

And so, but I know I've heard other

people feel that way too. You get let

down by your body. And you don't know

what to do. Umm So I said, all right, I

love biking, so I bike more. And I

started embracing swimming, although I'm

a really not good strong swimmer. I

mean, it takes me forever to get from one

side to the other, but it doesn't matter.

It helped offset the stress on the knee.

And so it didn't become my go-to to

de-stress. My go-to is now hiking.

And I'm hiking. Really fast. My

husband's like, you could almost run

this. But it's it's like, OK, let's go. I

want to work out. Yeah, I really need

this. And then has helped me

transition from

missing my running and helping me

decompress. Because as a runner, I always

say, you put your shoes on, you go out

the door. After three miles, all the

world's problems are solved.

Yeah. For the non-runners,

I get it, but wow. So whatever it is you

do, I mean, biking, I always feel, is is

a little more dangerous when you're right

on the roads. You have to really pay

attention. Yeah, and you can't-- And you

can sometimes space out and go, yeah, I'm

just going to whatever I'm thinking

about. But yeah, so that's--

Wow. When you're hiking, are you, is it

just local?So in Maryland, or are you

like going to different locations?Well,

we have two of our favorite locations.

One is the Rock Creek Park. I love

it. We're literally 10 minutes drive

from there. The park is beautiful. It has

all kinds of different trails. And

sometimes we go out to Gaithersburg, who

also has, it's a hidden

agenda with that one. It's part of the

extension of the, I can't think of the

system, but it's part of the Appalachian

Trail. Partially, but it's it's

near Gaithersburg where the Quince

Orchard High School is for all the people

that are local. And there's a trail

that goes in either direction, like all

over the place. And I can't think of the

name, right?Muddy Branch Trail.

And there's a whole trail system out

there for anybody. Wow, okay. But

we're combining this and I don't get paid

for that. There is an Italian

deli. Near Quince Orchard High School on

in Dart on Dartstown Rd. Gemelli,

they have the best Italian

Subs. The best. I love that

thing in a Nagento. That's a wonderful

recommendation for food. Yes. So

Google Gemelli's and the trail is not far

from there. You can work off the pasta.

I like that. And they have really good

Italian Subs and real Italian food

and wine and what pizza. They have really

good pizza. But I was like, my husband

was just mentioning it the other day and

he said he didn't say we haven't been to

the trail in a while. He just said we

haven't been to Jigmel this in a while

and we can go to the trail at some point.

Sure, there are so many unique places. I

think I've always gotten excited about

traveling outside of Maryland and just

checking all these other places. But

there's so many little hidden spaces in

Maryland and. I am enjoying

discovering them. Like, hey, we don't

necessarily have to leave, right?I can

spend a weekend and just check out these

little locations. Even if I'm not hiking,

they have wonderful trails that you can

just walk along and just spend some quiet

time in nature, which is so healing for

the soul. And we have so many around we

just don't know about. Yeah. And there's

on the, I think it's called the REI app.

Oh, OK. It's a free app where you can

download it and you can get all the trail

systems in Maryland. I think even other

places, but I'm not quite sure where you

can just say, you know, this is a

beginner trail, this is a more advanced

trail or this. I just want to do 3 miles

walking. I like that. And so it's

difficulties, which is what I like

because not everybody wants to go hardcore

And I was like, yeah, but you want to do

something good for your art. Do you want

to?You know, I always say, you know, when

you walk, you get a little bit of a butt

lift because you're using your your butt

ski a little bit more and your legs are

stronger. Get those calves looking right.

Heck yeah. That'll look good. Exactly.

So as we wrap up, we are here at the

Podcast Movement. Have you heard anything

that has maybe helped or that you're

going to take away with you for your

business?Or maybe something that you

heard and you've decided to not do

anymore?That's a good one. Oh,

there's there's some good Nuggets.

I think what I

learned more than anything is that

there's a big industry that supports us

podcasters. We don't have to grab

them all. We don't have to buy all of

them, but they're there for us at our

disposal. So we're not alone when it

comes to difficult technologies. and

programs or even time constraints. You

know, it's like you have an a podcast

episode and you don't have time to

transcribe things. Right. You know,

there's help for us there and you just

have to find connect with the right

people that generate

for you what you want the way you want

it. And the other thing that just came

out of the keynote speech where

the speakers were talking about, Is

podcasting dead?And they said,

Look at all these news. All these

executives are saying, yeah, podcasting

is dead. But they're like, podcasting is

alive and well. Stay

consistent with your

episodes and your production, just like

you are with your health and wellness.

You don't get any reward or any

more people or get healthier if you're

not consistent with your episode.

Let your audience know. When you're

publishing. So if you're publishing

episodic or you do every week or I do

every other week on my podcast, they need

to know so they can wrap their head

around it and want to have the right

explicit essence. But stick with it

and don't give up because somebody said

podcasting is dead. Yeah, I like that.

That's pretty good advice. We got went to

this last year and I think the lesson

that I learned was having conversations.

I think I've gotten a little bit more out

of it. Like you said there, you don't

know what other people are interested in

or like what skills they have or maybe

the tools that they know that you maybe

never heard of. And so I've been getting

a lot out of like, OK, what are you doing

with your podcast and how is that

contributing to your business?And it's

been, well, this is only like our second

day. And I'm like, OK, I'm feeling pretty

full. I'm loving this. I'm like looking

at my schedule today. I'm oh, I'm going

to have this league and talk to someone

later. I'm going to attend this session.

Oh, let's see what they're doing. And

it's it's really fun. It's also,

I think for us, being

solopreneurs, it is

a feeling that we're not allowed. Oh my

gosh, right. That there are others that

suffer the same as we. Yesterday I

went to a roundtable or brain date

discussion with the leader of them was

somebody from NPR. And I'm talking about,

you know, the challenges that I have

growing my podcast. And then he talks

about his NPR situation. And I looked

at him and I said, you're so big, you

have the same problems we have. And he

said, just on a larger scale.

So I was like, I'm not alone. Even the

big guys have trouble.

We're all learning. We're all growing.

That, I think that's absolutely

incredible. Well, thank you so much for

waiting here. Before we finalize, do you

have any questions for me?What made you

want to start a podcast?I like

storytelling. And so I

wanted to make sure that I have a place

to, like, keep a collection of stories

and podcasting kind of became that. So

instead of me just recording little voice

notes and telling my friends, I was like,

well, let's just see if somebody else

wants to hear. And it started with the

friends that I have and of course, and

then randomly someone would be like, if I

was not consistent, Grace, where's your

next episode?And I was like, oh, oh, OK,

sorry. I mean, thank you, but sorry, you

know?And so I think I kind of got into

that, but it was just that storytelling.

I've always loved to tell stories. And

now when I get to do interviews, I get to

hear other people's stories. And just

like one of the speakers yesterday was

talking about how talking to someone and

like you are learning their story,

getting to know them, and you kind of

fall in love with people, like the person

or the people that they are, the history

that they bring. I enjoy all of that. So

podcasting has been like. I don't know,

it's been a really fun gift. Do you have

a favorite story that we have time to

tell?I can tell you about my skydiving

story. That's it. That

was actually, so my skydiving, my cousin

was graduating from law school and

her gift to herself was she wanted to go

skydiving. And I was like, sure,

why not, you know?And we get on this

plane and I'm just trying to like keep my

wits together. You know, you're like too

nervous to realize that you're nervous,

didn't click. until we got up into the

sky and we're leaning out and you're like

tandem, so you're strapped with someone

else. And they open the door and like you

know the first people hop off. And I was

like, oh, sign me up for this. Why am I

up here?You know But of course, you're

way too late to back up. So we get on the

edge and you just fall out of the

plane. Forward to backwards. And you're

falling backwards, 'cause you have to do,

there's like a little banana thing. Yeah,

I don't. I don't know. I may have blacked

out. You just just fall forward, right?

And then I remember just screaming

for like what felt like 5 minutes

and I had to take a really deep breath

and then continue screaming. I was like,

I think I'm good. I'm why am I still

screaming?I think we're fine. And I was

able to like, you know, get the tears out

of my eyes and just look around at

everything. And it's just gorgeous

green, that beautiful blue lakes. You can

see some farm like we're in Florida. So

it's just a beautiful blend of like color

and water and the sky was blue

and they open up the parachute and now

we're just gliding. And I remember just

being like, God, this is so

nice. I am

so grateful to be here. I am

enjoying like it was a wonderful

conversation, a moment of just being

like, I'm so happy to be alive and I

appreciate the life that I have, so.

Yeah, that's that's like one of my

favorite stories. I love it. Thank you so

much. Not that I would jump out of that.

I'm like, I'm a phobia with height, but.

Okay. But I admire the the

bravery of you to to be willing to do

that. It was incredible. It was

incredible. Yeah. That's like the

only word that she and I could come up

with. Like, we just, it was

life-changing. See?Absolutely. That's

what adventures are all about. Yes. Yes

And travel, right?And travel. Yeah. And

traveled from high up to down. I

sure did. Look, kicking and screaming.

Literally. OK. Well, thank

you so much, Iggy, for joining me today.

I am so glad that we're able to have this

live session and get this chat. like

finally make our official interview.

That's exactly right. I mean, we've had

like our personal interview at bar and at

whatever else, at the golf course. So I'm

glad. Super. My pleasure. Thank you so

much. Thank you.

Hey there, Grace here. I hope you enjoyed

today's episode and gained some useful

takeaways. Thank you so much for

listening and staying until the end.

Don't forget to rate the show or share it

with some friends. Have a wonderful week,

take care, and remember, be bold, be

curious, be ready to tell your story. You

never know who needs it. Bye-bye.