Shownotes
In today's episode, you'll meet Chef Sheri, who found her true calling at 50 in the most delicious way possible. This March, I hope you'll join me at Uplifters Live, where we'll explore our own moments of reinvention together. We'll gather at Brooklyn Brewery for a day of deep connection, courage-building workshops, celebration (including my own 50th birthday!), and an amazing lunch created by Emma’s Torch. Whether you're considering your next chapter or simply craving authentic conversation with purpose-driven women, this is your invitation to be part of something special. Tickets are available now, and we never let cost stand in the way of participation – just email me about comp tickets if needed.
Today’s Featured Uplifter: Sheri Jefferson
When I think of Chef Sheri Jefferson, I picture her surrounded by simmering industrial-sized pots and joyful chaos in a West Harlem kitchen as she orchestrates another day of feeding hundreds. But what's cooking here goes far beyond mere sustenance. At 60, with unwavering energy, I suspect she moves through the kitchen with the spry determination of someone half her age, transforming simple donated provisions into dignified meals that carry the weight of her own story in every bite.
"I know what it means to suffer in silence," she shares in this episode, her voice softening as she recalls darker days of single motherhood when putting food on the table for her two daughters felt like scaling a mountain. Those struggles now infuse her work at the Food Bank for New York City, where she serves over 500 people daily. She can spot the ones having "dark days" because she's walked in their shoes – trying to keep a brave face while wondering where the next meal will come from.
What began as a culinary school externship at age 50 has blossomed into a nine-year journey of purpose that energizes her more with each passing day. After walking away from nursing school following her sister's death from lupus, Chef Sheri found her way back to service – not in hospital corridors, but in a community kitchen where healing happens over hot meals and warm smiles.
Her Courage Practice: Creating Sacred Space in Solitude
For someone who spends her days nourishing others, Chef Sheri has learned that her own sustenance comes through embracing spiritual solitude. What others might label as "being alone," she has transformed into precious moments of self-discovery and creative inspiration. By the water's edge or among blooming flowers, she sits for hours, letting her mind wander toward new possibilities for growth and service.
This practice of intentional solitude – once something she avoided – has become her wellspring of creativity and resilience. It's where she dreams up new ways to elevate simple ingredients into memorable meals, where she processes her journey from past struggles to present purpose, and where she gathers the strength to keep showing up with love for her community.
5 Ways She Shows Us How to Build Our Courage Capital
1. Transform Past Pain into Present Purpose: Let your struggles become your strength rather than your shame.
2. Embrace Late-Blooming Dreams: It's never too late to formalize our gifts.
3. Find Your Flow in Service: Purpose energizes us beyond our perceived limitations.
4. Practice Patient Trust: Rather than forcing outcomes, learn to let things unfold in their proper time.
5. Create Through Constraints: Boundaries can spark innovation rather than restrict it.
Today’s opening is by Rahti Gorfien.
Transcripts
Aransas: I've spent the last 20 years of my life working with women who want to create. change either in their own lives or in the world or often in both. And what ultimately gets in the way for us most [00:00:30] of the time is our mindsets. These beliefs that limit us and these fears that stop us so often we chalk it up to not enough, not enough money, not enough [00:00:45] support, not enough knowledge, not enough credentials.
d it's purpose. And you hear [:In today's episode, you're going to meet Chef Sherry Jefferson from the Food Bank for New York City. She's prepared [00:01:30] millions of meals for hungry New Yorkers, but it's not just food she's serving them. It's love. Check and compassion. She talks about what it's like to struggle to feed your family [00:01:45] and to somehow try to put a smile on your face, to hold your head high and keep it all together.
burst of energy that has She [:May we all choose to create the purpose and the joy in our lives that Chef Sherry has. Hi Chef Sherry, welcome. Hello, and thank you for having me. Oh my gosh. It's absolutely my [00:02:30] pleasure. So tell people about the food bank for those who aren't familiar with it.
Sherri: We have a community kitchen and pantry in West Harlem.
from the kitchen and we also [:Aransas: our pantry. We all need food and community, and I suspect you're providing both.
nity, but I've been here for [:Aransas: How incredible. How did you end up at the Food Bank for New York City?
catering business for about [:I came to Food [00:03:30] Bank for my externship and I never left. Was it about Food Bank that made you wanted to stay? We found each other. Sometimes you look for certain things in your life and you can't seem to find it. I just knew I [00:03:45] found where I was supposed to be, and the interim director that was here at the time, he helped me to see where I was supposed to be.
rateful. What was it that he [:He said, I wouldn't tell you this if it weren't so. I will be here nine years in March. And is such a blessing to come to work every day, but it's not just work. It's gratification. It's [00:04:30] satisfying. I guess it's tiresome. You get tired. I mean, I just turned 60, but when I'm here, Hey, I'm still that young spunky girl.
uch? I never stood on a line [:I understand. And if you've never had to deal with that,
and it. Mm hmm. And when you [:Sherri: To be in a dark place, not knowing how you're going to pay your rent, how you're going to make sure that your children are eating properly, but yet you're still walking [00:05:30] with that smile on your face.
show them. Um, some sort of [:Aransas: Do you consider yourself a creative person?
creative I was until coming [:It takes a creative person to be here at the community kitchen for the simple fact that we're a nonprofit. So it's not as though I'm placing orders every day as a restaurant would. But I can take whatever [00:06:45] comes into that door, whatever is donated to us, whatever we're blessed and fortunate to receive, I can take that and with some of the skill set from school, you know, being introduced to new things, different herbs and so forth, taking that [00:07:00] elevating a simple dish up two notches.
Aransas: How beautiful and doing it with that extra ingredient of love. Couldn't do it without it.
l, they're important. And we [:Aransas: What you just said about making people feel loved and special is so, so important because we believe what we're told again and again.
Yes. And if we're [:and that we all have the capability to overcome them. And so when your [00:08:00] teacher said expand upon what you're doing, when the person at the food bank said you have a gift, What was it like for you to see that in yourself and to start to believe the messages they were [00:08:15] telling you?
Sherri: I'm still struggling to believe it.
I'm in the kitchen. I'm just [:Aransas: What a [00:08:45] gift. To give. How do you show up for the hard stuff?
h me. I mean, it starts from [:That's about the only time that I know for a fact that I can say that [00:09:15] there's nothing that I can't do. When it comes to doing for others, and especially feeding, I'll find a way. Is it because it's for other people? Yeah. Would you believe I don't even cook for myself? I [00:09:30] would believe it. I really don't. I get fussed at about that a lot.
I mean, I do, but I don't get the same gratification.
Music: Mm hmm.
I'll do it at the drop of a [:on a daily basis, knowing that what you're doing is making others [00:10:00] happy. Yeah.
r bodies, their souls all at [:Sherri: All at once.
lly sandwiches. And to some, [:Aransas: Now I want a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, I'm distracted.[00:10:45]
That's my favorite for some, I don't know, oh, you can do it anytime. So my grandma always did it by mixing the peanut butter and the jelly together.
n't do jelly, it must be jam [:Aransas: simplest thing though. Yeah, the simplest thing. It gets that signature mark on it.
my grandma because my great [:And we always said about my great grandma, she could use every part of the chicken but it's squawk. And if they had had recorders back then, she would have used that too. It sounds like my
here at Food Bank, is that, [:It's whatever comes in. And My favorite show has always been Chopped, but to actually that, to become my actual life, my job, you know, to be able to just do that and be [00:12:00] creative, that's like very rare. You can find that. What were you doing before you were a chef? I had my, I cater in business for 10 years.
gh, I was in nursing school. [:I didn't want to be bothered. I was done. And when I started working here, I was engaging with the volunteer. And so she started asking me my story, pretty [00:12:45] much the same you just asked me. And I was telling her. And she's like, wow. She says, we never realized our blessings and which directions we're going.
ealize that you were blessed [:Aransas: What did you say to yourself about that decision to leave nursing?
of depression because it was [:Was I crazy? Was something wrong with me? [00:13:45] But yet I could not deal with that environment knowing and what I just saw my sister
l like, ah, I made this huge [:And yet, how often are those moments of choice that don't necessarily go the way that we expect them to, preparing us for an even greater impact? [00:14:15] There is probably no nurse who gets to feed millions of people, who gets to change millions of lives, no matter how long her career is, but you've prepared over a million meals in the course of just a few [00:14:30] years in this career.
ss. Boy, to hear you say it, [:Thank you. That's even more impact. Now, everybody who [00:15:00] hears this can say, Oh, what are the old stories I'm telling myself that are unfair and unkind and what might this be preparing me for? Because if you listen to, we have almost a hundred episodes on this podcast, if you listen to these hundred stories, [00:15:15] what you get is a huge body of evidence that through every struggle, every challenge, we are preparing for greater impact, greater purpose.
ample of that, so thank you. [:Sherri: You know, it's crazy. I'm a very simple person. I've learned to appreciate spiritual solitude. It helps me to think. [00:16:00] It helps me to grow. When you ask about creativity, I mean, some of the things that I think about sometimes just by sitting and being quiet, I've learned to cherish that. Whereas, there was a time you'd run from, some would say it's being [00:16:15] alone.
mell the roses, so to speak. [:I'm just watching. I'm thinking, what can I do next? How can I, not [00:16:45] only for myself, but how can I change some of my thought processes to help me to grow, so that I can expand, so that I can do more, so that I can take something simple and just make it [00:17:00] grow. You know, what can I do for the other person, but I have to learn to like myself and to be with myself.
And for a long time, I couldn't do that.
Aransas: How did you learn that?
o learn the hard way. I have [:Aransas: My teenage daughters just walked in from school, as you were talking just now, and they are both headstrong, and they are, they [00:17:45] are my greatest accountability.
They don't let me mess around.
Sherri: No, they won't. I don't care what it is. It could be friendships, relationships, jobs,
them to make me better. Yes. [:Yes. So what do you believe about learning now at age 60? [00:18:15]
Sherri: That there's always room for growth. You're never too old. I don't know everything. I want to learn new things. That's what keeps you young and vibrant and keeps your mind open. You have to be able to grasp new things. Because when you know everything.
That's a [:Aransas: What dreams do you still have? Chef Sherry?
have. I always wanted to be [:People and food? Straight
iness? I believe that things [:Sherri: Yeah.
Aransas: So what does the plan look like to make that a reality? We want it to happen,
gotten older that it happens [:Music: Mm hmm.
een the right time for it to [:Aransas: You certainly wouldn't have known everything you know now.
Sherri: No. And learning to be patient.
Aransas: That's a hard one to learn.
had to do for myself and the [:Aransas: a little bit. That's a hard one to rewire.
It is. When we've been in a state of urgency. For a long time.
d I'm reminded of it all the [:Aransas: Yeah. I have to tell myself all the time, there is enough time for what most needs to happen.
Sherri: Right.
Aransas: Because otherwise I get all anxious and stressed out about not getting enough done fast enough.
Sherri: Isn't that [:Aransas: Yeah. It's so hard. And it drains us of our creativity. Yes. Well, here's to letting it take the time it needs. And at 50, it was a real [00:20:45] act of courage. and trust to take on a new career, to listen to others, to be mentored. And then here you are at 60 doing the same for so many other people.
You [:Sherri: Yes. And you just defined my mother and father.
as: Well, there you have it. [:Sherri: Yes, there is.
Aransas: And there will be a lot of that in the children and people that they influence.
ric social worker, mind you. [:Aransas: Thank [00:21:45] you. I'm so glad I got to meet you.
Sherri: Thank you. I think I needed this because I feel very relaxed. I can go in there and start all over again.
you're getting a boost from [:com, head over to Spotify, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your [00:22:15] podcast and like, follow and rate our show. It'll really help us connect with more uplifters and it'll ensure you never miss one of these beautiful stories. Mmm.
Music: Big love [:Toss a star in half for be around best love for relish [00:22:45] in a new prime land. A tree in springtime dance with ale. Hindsight. Bring the sun to twilight. Lift you up, whoa, Lift [00:23:00] you up, whoa, Lift you up, whoa,
Lift you up. Lift you up, [:Aransas: do. Beautiful! I cried.
re chorus, right? I was like [: