In this empowering episode of The One Small Change Podcast, Gloria Rand joins host Yvonne McCoy to explore the journey of midlife transformation, helping women embrace change, overcome fear, and discover their unique value. The conversation dives into personal experiences, how life transitions can ignite reinvention, and practical strategies for building confidence and clarity. Gloria shares her LOVE method, practical tools for self-exploration, and the importance of community and curiosity when navigating new paths.

Guest Bio:

Gloria Rand is passionate about guiding women in midlife to design a fulfilling, authentic life after navigating her own journey of transformation and self-discovery. Drawing from her rich experience in content creation and coaching, she specializes in helping women cultivate confidence and clarity, embrace their unique strengths, and pursue meaningful change. As a mastermind leader and author, Gloria is committed to supporting others through the personal and professional transitions that midlife brings.

Chapters:

00:00 Helping women design midlife

05:19 Finding support in business

06:50 Facing personal loss and change

11:32 Women’s multitasking and leadership insights

13:59 Starting with self-reflection

16:39 Embracing your unique strengths

19:33 Discovering spirituality and presence

24:50 Discovering your personal power

28:49 Building community through small changes

30:07 Closing thoughts and weekly reminder

Quote from the Guest:

“The only thing standing in your way is you. Get out of your own way and explore your world today.”

Link:

Free Personal Power Archetype Quiz

https://tinyurl.com/TOSCPodcast

Hi, everybody. Welcome to the One Small Change. I'm thrilled to

embark on this journey with you of exploration and transformation.

And I'm your host, Yvonne McCoy. And if you don't know, I have over

30 years of entrepreneurial experience. But the big thing is I have

a passion for discovering growth through the power of

seemingly small change. And the reason I do this

podcast every week is that I want to bring people to your world

that. That are going to expand your world, give you ideas.

And this week, we are talking with Gloria Rand,

who will share some small, unexpected or

insignificant thing that happened that makes her really good at what

she does. Gloria, thank you so much for sharing your time with

us and your. Your information. So tell everybody

I didn't give you a chance to say hello, so I know that's okay. Well,

thank you very much. I was just going to say thank you for having me.

This is going to be good. It's going to be fun. So tell everybody what

it is that you do and what happened to make you

realize that this is the thing that you're really good at.

Oh, goodness. So what I love to do

and has become what I'm. I feel I'm very good

at is working with women in midlife and

helping them to design

their life to. To the fullest, to be the way that they

want to live it. And sometimes they need some

extra confidence and clarity to get there. And I

love doing that for women because it's something that I had to do for myself

because I was not in a happy place and

I needed to get my own life in order.

And I have now, and it's so much better.

And now I really love paying that forward and helping other women

to really get clear on what is it about this stage of life

that is. That's calling to them

that they want to do now. Because a lot of times, you know, we put

things on the back burner. You know, we get involved with, you know, maybe it

is our business or something else, and we have those

dreams maybe in our 20s that we've kind of forgotten

or maybe we just need something new that's. And

that's good, too. You know, just, I think.

I mean, you and I are passionate about the same thing, and I

think it's probably because we. You know, what I tell people

is you are conditioned by the educational system

and society to be a certain way, and typically,

it just makes you average. Yeah. You

know, and you're not excited about, you know, you can be

happy or think you're happy because you haven't

explored what else is out there or you haven't, you know, let loose.

You know, for men they call it a midlife crisis.

You know, I think for women it is

like, there's got to be more. Yeah. You know, I was

meant to be more. I didn't think I would be at this place, you

know, and, you know, it just came to me. It's sort of like a, it's

more of a mid, mid life awakening. And I almost

said midwife, but that's, that's kind of works too, because you're birthing a new self.

Absolutely. And I think, you know, and I think

my perspective is a little bit different than yours in the sense

that I have come to believe that we.

I call it the third half of the third half of life,

you know, because you had, you know, this whole thing where you, you know, and

at 60, you're supposed to be done. Well, now I'm, you

know, I'm like between 60 and 90.

So I'm working on my third, my third, third half. Yeah.

And, and, and so it's, you know, it's not like you sit down on a

rocking chair when you're 60 and it's over. I mean, a lot of us are

just starting to bloom in a whole different.

Yeah, absolutely. And, and, you know, you're 100%

correct. And it's, and it's weird that we, there's lots of evidence

of people who are, are just starting, who just start to get into

their prime in like their late 50s and 60s and, or

are starting new businesses. There's plenty of evidence

of that. And yet there's still this old mindset of like, oh,

well, you're over the hill. And especially for women, you know, that we become

invisible for some stupid reason. I'll

just say it plainly. And this is

the time of life when we've got even more to give because we've got all

of this experience that we've had. Life experience, business

experience, career, what have you. And this is the

time when we really need to shine. And, and

I think the thing that's so interesting is that I think.

All right, so I grew up and I did not have a group of

girlfriends. And I typically, I never have.

And I am so envious of people who have. I mean, I have a couple

friends that I've known for, you know, but I don't have a, a gaggle,

you know, and I am really jealous of people

who have this group of girlfriends and, you know, every year they go away

for a week away from their husbands, you know, because I've never had that. Me

too. And I find that so many of us, especially

people who are in business, whether it's corporate or entrepreneurial,

we're, we desire that

core group that can mentor you through things

and know that you can just talk about stuff with, you

know, without having to be like, well, I shouldn't

be this way. You know, I, I remember when I

was doing executive coaching for executive women, I, and I called

myself being all businessy. I decided to do a little survey afterwards and say,

what did you, you know, what did you get out of this that you really

liked? And inevitably it was a life experience

thing. It was not a business thing. Oh yeah, I know. I

was in, I was in a mastermind. Oh gosh,

ten years ago now. And it was a year long program and

at the end of the year long and it was supposed to be a business

mastermind. Nearly everyone in there said what

they got out of it was personal. Yeah. Yeah. It's amazing.

And that's why I love running masterminds too, because, because of that.

It's. You need camaraderie. You need to be able to have people

bounce ideas off of. Yeah. So, so tell me, what do

you see is the biggest,

the biggest issue that makes women go,

I'm, I'm searching for something else and what is their resistance

to, to making that change? Well,

I'll, I'll go with the second part first. It's, it's,

it's fear and you know, fear of making a change because

it's, it's, you know, having to step out and try something

that's always a little uncomfortable and

what triggers that. There's a lot of different things that happens.

It can be, I mean, for, for me, in my case, it was losing my

sister to cancer in the end of

2016. I can't believe it's going to be 10 years already now

because she was that last lifeline to my family growing up.

And so that really rocked my world. So it's, I think it is a

lot of, sometimes it is things like, you know, becoming an empty nester.

It's having, you know, maybe your relationship that

you're in, you know, it could have been a long term relationship and now suddenly

either you or the other person doesn't want it

anymore. And so that can really rock your world. Or, you know, maybe if

you are in the corporate scenario and you lose your job. I've talked to a

lot of different women that have had to reinvent

themselves, not necessarily because they wanted to, but because they

had to. And so. And I think in that case

especially, it can be. Be jarring, but I know.

And again, going back for me, when you've had, like, a loss, it. It took

me a long time to try to figure out

what I wanted to do next. I knew I wanted to do something. I knew.

I felt this calling to do something really significant.

I mean, I loved what I was doing at the time. It was. I was

writing content for small businesses, doing online marketing work, and it

was great. But I felt like this inside of

me. But I. It took a while. I had to get through the grieving process,

frankly, and then do some inner work on myself

to get to the point where I finally had, oh, okay, now I

have that clarity. And then I gained some confidence working with other

coaches to then be able to say, okay, yeah, this is what I want to

do now. I. I think sometimes

when you get out of your routine, whatever that

routine is, and you get with other people or

other circumstances, suddenly

you see an ability that. That maybe. Maybe

you've used, you know, but taken for granted, kind of.

And, I mean, I remember one time I was. I was

in a locker room and I was talking to somebody, and

this lady came out of the other, and she goes, you have a

great voice. Have you. You know, I run a

recording studio. Have you ever thought about recording? And, you know,

I was like, no. You know,

and it was like, you know, but then you just kind of

start to listen. Yeah. You know, and other people

would come up and say, I love your voice, or something like that. And so

just putting yourself, experimenting, being different places

sometimes can be really an eye opener. It doesn't have to be,

you know, I mean, the big things are going to happen and you have a

choice. Right. But just kind of listening to the whisper

sometimes. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Because you never know

where you might get. You know, something

just awakens in you. I mean, I went to a business conference.

Well, it's been a while ago now, but I went to a business conference just

expecting to be, you know, learn how to

build my business better. And yet I had an extraordinary encounter

listening to a presentation with a woman who channels something called

light language. And I was sitting at this table, and all of a

sudden I started crying. And I was like,

what is going on? Why is this happening to me? And

that just opened up a whole new world for me.

And so you never know. But. But you're right. You need to put

yourself in places where you can be exposed to

new possibilities that you might not have even thought of.

You know, one of the things, one of the things that I do every night

is I go, tomorrow's a new day, and I'm open

to endless possibilities. I like that. Right.

Just because, you know, I read

Shonda Rhimes had a book called the Year of Yes.

I don't know if you know about that, but it's really amazing how many things

we say no to in the course of our, you know. And, you know,

something will come up. Do you want to do this? It's like, like, oh, I

gotta do this. You know, and if you, if you, you know, make yourself

say yes or at least consider it. Right. You know, you

get to see how many things you're cutting yourself off of. And,

and so this is what I,

I think, this is what I wanna, I, I want to talk about. Because I

think that women are amazing. I mean, I, when I first

started coaching, I would say if, you know, if you can get a

hot meal on the table and all the courses are on the table at the

same time and they're hot, you can run a factory or the world.

I mean, the first time my husband cooked, you know, he

decided we were having a steak dinner and he cooked the steak and

he was like, oh, I thought I wanted to have baked potatoes.

This is like before the microwave. Right. So we ended up

having kind of a three course year. You know, we had the steak, we

had the vegetables, and then we ended with the potato. Right.

Now my husband now is a fabulous cook and he. Things get to the.

But, but, but, you know, that we can do that. Women

historically task and men cannot. Yeah.

As well. Let me not be, let me not be sexist. That's right.

But the thing is, we are taught to be, you know,

I think from the society. Yeah. We are taught

to not put ourselves first, not, you know, toot

our own horn, not do all these other things. And

I have to say that I had an awareness this last month

that just blew me away. And it was

that when I thought back on all the places where I really felt

like I was my best in a group or corporate

situation, it got me in trouble.

Not because what I was doing was wrong or wasn't

useful, but because it threatened somebody else.

You know, the, the thought process was, if she's doing all this,

it couldn't possibly be for fun. It must be because she wants a

promotion or she wants my job. And that just really blew

me away. I mean, it was like that was never my, my thought. And

there's so many things, so many things that, that tap us

down. Right.

So if, if somebody's listening to this, if I have an entrepreneur

of a woman entrepreneur and

she's thinking about designing her life,

what are some of the things that she should think about?

I would say, number one would be to

do an inventory. Start with an inventory of

what are all the different things that you like to do?

Also what are the things that come easily to you?

Because those could be possible avenues for

you to maybe do something new about it.

But I think it really starts with spending time and getting,

getting to know yourself. And if you, if you haven't

done any kind of regular practice where you're able

to do that, to get in touch with your own inner

wisdom, I would also recommend doing that, you know, whether that's meditating,

whether that's journaling, but doing something to start

really getting to, getting in touch with yourself and trying to figure out what it

is that I really want at this stage of my life.

And yeah, but I do think doing, doing

some sort of like an inventory is a really good way, way to get started

because then you're going to have something concrete on paper and if you get stuck,

then ask somebody else, say, what am I good at?

So, you know, so that one, one way to put that question is, why do

you like me? Yes, yes. You know, I mean, we,

we tend to fill certain roles. I'm, I'm the person. It's so funny because

I, I took a, an assessment. I've taken

many of them, but the latest one that I've taken was

I was the activator, I was the people that keep, keep people on track.

And I missed a meeting and I got an email that said,

that said we got nothing done because you weren't

there to reign us in. Oh,

but, but another easy is, you know, especially

if, if, you know, speaking is really important today and, you know,

building your business because it builds trust a lot faster. Make

a list of, you know, 10 things that you could talk 10 minutes on

without notes. Right. Is really easy. And you

would be surprised what you know a lot about. Do

you know? Yeah, absolutely. And that's, that's one of the things that I, I teach.

I have something that I call the love method. And, and love is an

acronym. So V is value your uniqueness. And that's really what

it is. It comes down to looking at. Yeah, what is it that's unique about

me? And, but, and I, I love that question that you were,

you were posing, you know, to ask other people yeah.

What? Now, I don't even remember what you said, but I love how you

phrased it. Why do you like working with. Oh, yeah. Why do you like working

with me? Yeah. Yeah. That is a good question. So you

say value your uniqueness. I say focus on your

uniqueness. Because that's the thing. That's the thing

that, you know, will take you from being just an expert in a

field of experts to the expert in this particular thing.

We all do. You know, the. The I. I give this example, the ice

cube, you know, because I know when I started coaching and when in

any business, you know, it was like, I teach, like

the. The. The idea of change. Right.

But so does everybody. So it's like, why would somebody come to

me to learn about change when everybody. You know, but what I realized

is change is the ice cube. It's always water

and cold, right? Yeah. I'm the

container. I'm the, you know, I'm the

ice from the refrigerator or the silicone ice cube tray or

the, you know, however the ice cube is shaped and

formed. Yeah. So that you can use that information.

And so my uniqueness is. I'm

about you getting you into imperfect action as

fast as possible. Right. And seeing why you do it,

you know, seeing how. What it is about you that's different because

people say these most. The most amazing things. And.

And I'll go, do you know how

amazing that is? And then they're like, doesn't everybody do this? Like, no,

I know. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. We always have blinders on when we

don't. We don't see our own stuff. And in fact, when I was writing that

book, I realized that when I was. I had a.

Handwritten it into a journal, and then I started typing it up. The value, your

uniqueness part was what I have the least amount of copy on

because I wasn't valuing myself enough yet. So.

Yeah, I. Absolutely. So, well, tell us the other The.

The Lord. Sure. Yes. Yeah. So. So the L

stands for let go and let God. And that's really about, you know, letting go

of limiting beliefs just. And. And putting your

faith in higher power, whatever you want to call it. I call it

God. I was raised Catholic. I'm still. Still, in a word,

I'm. I'm used to the O is open your heart to receive.

And that's really about being open to

receiving everything from money to ideas to

love, ultimately. And. And the E is embrace your

divinity. And that's really about

recognizing that you are an amazing person. And

my belief is that we are all created in, you know, God's

image and that we are all divine spiritual beings

living a human existence. But, but if nothing else,

if you're not spiritual or you could just say it's about self love,

embracing yourself and just loving yourself. Well,

I know, I know that I'm a very, you know, type

A. I can be a type A personality. And, you know, as

I looked at my own personal development, spirituality was

something that I felt like

was one of my weaker links, let's put it that way. And,

and I had a friend, a neighbor, and she was like, no, it

doesn't have to be like a religion. It doesn't know.

Spirituality is just kind of connecting and being present,

you know, having your feet in the grass. Yeah. Taking time and, you

know, petting your dog, kissing your loved ones. You know, it's

all part of. I was like, oh, I can do this. Yeah.

Yeah, I can do this. Absolutely. I was listening to some

interview yesterday or something about someone and they were saying that

because they were. Yeah. Asking them about their relationship to. And it was

like, nature is how, how they relate to,

you know, God, but it's, it's nature. That's. That's what it is for them. So.

Yeah, it sounds like you're kind of in a. In a similar, similar

vein there. And that's not. There's nothing wrong with that. Yeah. And

I think the other thing that you said that I think is

so important. So there are a couple things I'm going to

circle back a little bit. Yeah. Has to. When

we talk about openness. So

one of the things I think is staying

relevant in our own life and what that means is that

your goal when you're 20 could be very

different than your goal, you know, especially the tactics.

Yeah. You're 40 when you're 60, when you're whatever. Right.

And so, you know, when you're looking at different things and what you want,

it's not. It. It's not bad that you want something different.

Right. You know, it's your 50s, then you want it when you were 30,

you know that. So that took me a while to understand

that. That life is a moving target. Right. If you're

not. If you're not moving along and adjusting and

stuff. Yeah. You're stagnating. You're going to get left behind. Yeah. You

know, the other thing is something that

happened to me that totally changed my life

was the idea of judgment

versus curiosity. And it's funny because it came

from two. Two places at the same time. One it came from

Ted Lasso, and the other

came from positive thinking. So the idea is that we tend

to, you know, be in a rut kind of the way we think. Like, you

think this way. Yeah. If you can stop that

and go, can I be curious about this? Instead of being like, I

always do it this way and being jud. And it has changed

everything in my life. I mean, I. You know,

I go, when? Because I'm like, one of these people. I. You know, because I

want first action. I realize that sometimes that means I put blinders

on because I want to, you know. Yeah. And so being

able to say, wait, let me slow down and be a little bit

more curious. What are the other options that could be here?

What else is going on? And. And I have to tell you,

I've been married to my husband for over 50 years, and this

changed our relationship. That's awesome.

Congrats. Yeah. You know, it's like. Because he is

one of the most curious people I have ever met in the world. I mean,

he's like a Renaissance man. I mean, he's, you know, he. He's eclectic with

his music and stuff like that. And I'm like, honey, can.

And just, you know, I mean, I'll get out of the car and head for

the door, and he'll go, honey, you didn't take time to look at the plants

I put out. And I'm like, you know, come on, can we wrap? I gotta

go. So. So I

think that's part of it, is that there are so

many. So many demands on our time. And so as we get a little bit

older, I think, and as things happen, we have the

space to actually be more curious and

to explore and to look at things. If

we realize that there's a benefit to it, if we say to ourselves,

this is something that's really worth doing, it will enhance my life.

All right. Yeah. This is not about me, but I'm enjoying this, and I'm

getting a lot out of it. Sorry. What are three things

that you think entrepreneurs can do, especially women

entrepreneurs? Well, to.

To enhance their businesses, to enhance their

life, or. Well, all of the above or just what? All of the above.

Because you know what? I just was. I was just in a summit that was

called the 24 7. You. You are. If you're an

entrepreneur, you think about. I. I said the one hour. I have a Pilates a

week is the one hour I'm not thinking about business otherwise,

you know, though, because. And I think my idea is

that if you have A principle or a model that you use, you should be

able to use it in your personal and your professional life

because you get stronger at it. You don't have to have two different models, you

know, for. Yeah, absolutely. All right, well, I

already, I already, I think I said, said the one

is, is to really get to know yourself. That, that would

be. That's, that's one of them. And the way you can do

that for the second one is to follow the love method

and unpack that so, so you could get my book and learn more,

more about that. And then the third, which in

a way you might want to do first, is I actually have a

free quiz on my website that

allows you to be able to uncover your

particular personal power archetype as a midlife

entrepreneur. And, and there's, there's, there'll be four different

archetypes. And, and of course, they're based around the love method, so,

so it'll be able to tell you what some of your strengths are and, you

know, maybe some areas that you might want to improve,

we'll just say, you know, improve upon because we always, we all need to learn

and grow and, you know, we're not, we're not perfect. We're works in progress.

And that's a good thing because otherwise we'd be pretty boring if we were just

stuck. And that's it. I'm. I'm done. So I, I have to

ask the question, since I'm not a midlife person,

I'm. I'm older, would I get benefit from this as well? Oh,

yeah, absolutely. I mean, I mean, I call myself a midlife

empowerment guy, but really it's anybody over. Basically over 50,

because I'm over 60 now myself. And so, yeah,

it, it's. And we're looking good. It's good for anyone, really.

So, so, and, and so your gift is the

quiz, right? Yes, yes. So everybody should definitely check that

out, because I think

you have to give yourself space to create, whether

you're creating a different life for yourself, whether you're creating something

from your business. I would recommend that you always

have blocked out some time on your calendar

for yourself, because otherwise the demand on your

time is going to be, you know, I'm not going to be. I'm not

the person that says give yourself a full day, because that never works for me.

Yeah, partially because my, you know, I can't concentrate

that long, but I have several blocks during the week that I have on

my calendar that I know that I can

think about things, whether it's business or otherwise. Okay,

so let me ask you this. When was the last

time you did something new for the first time?

Well, I actually did something new a couple of weeks

ago. I was at a, a one day retreat.

It was called a wise women's retreat. And I actually

created a wind chime and so which was, which

was kind of fun. And. And then was able to bring it home and decorated

it. And so, yeah, that was kind of, it was, it was really

good having to, you know, we were all together with different people and just having

to make sure you get the. They have these lovely metal poles

and that they put holes in and we had to string it and it

was, it was, it was fun. So I like, I love being with other

women and doing creative things. I don't get it. I'm to do enough

creativity in my life, even though I like it. So, so that was

fun. It's nice doing things with your hands sometimes. Yeah. You know,

and with the, I used to, in the

time when you did mass, you know, you did mailings. Yeah,

I used to get together. My supervisor and I would call it a quilting be.

You know, we had to like stuff envelopes and I would get lunch and we

just talk about nonsense because it was repetitive. Sure,

it was repetitive work, but it was fun. All right, it's time for the ad

before we run out of time. And I hope that

you're enjoying this particular podcast and all the podcasts.

And so as a first step, please subscribe and share and

engage with my podcast on social media.

And the reason I do this is it's a way for me to give

back to you to help you grow your business through

connection. The idea is to build a vibrant community

and fuel your quest for growth and impact. And I hope that you

will continue joining me for all the other, you know, episodes of the One Small

Change and the Gifts that Come. And they will help you. These

small shifts, you only need a little bit of information to help you make a

monumental transformation. And if you look at

the other episodes, you're going to find really interesting things

as well. And there are a couple in there that I did solo because I

wanted to talk by myself, but they're about doing,

having your clarity check and all those other things. So

I can't believe that we, we're running out of time here. But let me,

let me ask you this. Give me your, your words of wisdom.

What's, what's a quote that we can associate with you or some word, some

gem? Well, it's it's actually a quote that I, I

came up with and is sort of a lesson for me as

well, is that the, the only thing standing in your way

is you. So get out of your own way and

explore your world today. And I didn't mean to make it rhyme,

but there we go. I love that. I love that.

So, guys, we're at the end again of another fabulous

episode. So I want you to remember that change is simple, but it's not

always easy. It requires courage, resilience, and a willingness

to step outside your comfort zone. And don't let that

butterfly feeling make you stop. That actually is a sign that you

care and you should keep going right in. So join

me for the one small change as we do this every

week. And until then, stay very curious.

Thank you, Gloria. Thank you, Yvonne. Appreciate it.

This has been great.