On this episode of the MY FOURTH ACT podcast, I have the distinct thrill of speaking with 5 extraordinary women who jointly wrote a just-released book, “Women Unbound: Navigating Transitions Gracefully,” published by Balboa Press, an imprint of Hay House.It is a tale of how five voices, strangers at first, with decidedly different life journeys and experiences, joined in courage and kindness, and over a period of two years blossomed into a chorus of truth and tenderness.The extraordinary women?

• Maria Hernandez, a technology and innovation thought leader who served as Chief Innovation Officer for IBM Latin America.
• Lama Karma Chotso, an ordained Tibetan Buddhist nun for over 35 years, and the former leader of a Dharma center in Florida.
• Jennifer DiMarco: An executive with 30 years of expertise in the pharmaceutical/biotech industry, and a special focus on quality and compliance.
• Sarah Lewis: An architect and urban planner, with 25 years of expertise in both the private sector and as a public sector planner in the Boston area.
• Catherine Seo, PH.D.: An educator, filmmaker, and passionate advocate for those living with lipedema and related chronic conditions.

It was my privilege to serve as a Mastermind host for these spectacular humans and write the Foreword for “Women Unbound.”

The book has been an anchor, if you will, because each of us have looked at, I love the subtitle of the book. It's that gracefully that there is transition. And it can be graceful, because transitions are usually like a thud. They're hard. Don't have to be and that was one of the things that the group afforded. Each one of us found a stepping stone in this collective

Welcome to the my fourth act podcast, I'm your host, Achim Nowak, and I have conversations with exceptional humans who have created bold and unexpected lives. If you like what you hear, please subscribe on any major podcast platform so you won't miss a single one of my inspiring guests, and please consider posting an appreciative review. Let's get started. I have so been looking forward to this particular podcast conversation. Hello everybody. Welcome to the my fourth act Podcast. Today I'm celebrating five women who I know well and adore, and most importantly, they have written a book together that is friggin awesome. It is called Women Unbound, navigating transitions gracefully. And there's a wonderful little blurb about it. There's a website for the book that I want to read because this verb really touches me. It says five voices, strangers at first, joined in courage and kindness, blossoming into a chorus of truth and tenderness. And these are the five women that you're all going to hear from, and you're going to hear a little more in a moment. But there is Maria Hernandez, who is a technology executive and innovation thought leader. There is Lama Carmen shotso, who is an ordained Tibetan Buddhist nun, and she was ordained in 1986 so she has been ordained for a very long time. There is Jennifer DeMarco. She's a 30 year seasoned executive and the biotech and pharma world. Sarah Lewis is an architect and urban designer who most recently also served in a public role with a bus link Boston suburb of Somerville. And there's Catherine, CEO PhD. I want to stress the PhD. She's an educator and a passionate advocate for the well being of people with lipedema. So I hope this gives you a sense of the diversity of voices that I'm going to be speaking with right now. Catherine SEO, I want to start with you. Why did you want to do this particular book with this particular group of women?

Well, let me start with this particular group of women. Achim, you said, who these people were in their jobs, but who they are in their hearts, in their creative souls, and their connectivity. Being in a mastermind was a unique opportunity. I had not been in a mastermind like this before, where each woman brought true curiosity and vulnerability and willingness and the book really emerged out of almost a year and a half, two years of connecting regularly. And it was Maria who said we need to do we need to do something. She's the innovative group, so she said, We should do something, and it was born out of that impulse.

Thank you for that introduction. I do want to just acknowledge that I was the convener of this group. I was it was a privilege to to host a mastermind with it was six women. One of the members chose to not participate because she was tending to other matters that were important in her life. But I want to press you a little more, because in the middle of the journey of this group and this book being born, I already mentioned that you have a strong association with lipedema. On, and you yourself were dealing with some really serious, I mean, serious health challenges, and you had every reason to drop out and say, I can't do this right now, but you didn't do that. So can you give us a little insight into that journey for you?

Yeah, at the time, I thought I was a bit crazy, and in retrospect, it was the smartest thing I ever did. There was this, a natural support structure. Was in this group, I had two innovative surgeries in Pennsylvania, and I'm from Boston, and there was something so compelling that on my ride home from the hospital, I stopped and met with you And Sarah and Julia, and we had an evening where there was a book reading from another book, but it was really the connection. And of course, when I think back that I did that, but it was the most natural thing to be amongst friends. Yeah, I was very sick. I'm happy to say I'm well. I thought I was in my final act. Forget the fourth act. I was like, This is it, I'm done and not it was the miracle and a pivot and one that I am extremely grateful for, and the book has been an anchor, if you will, because each of us have looked at, I love the subtitle of the book. It's that gracefully that there is transition, and it can be graceful, because transitions are usually like a thud. They're hard. Don't have to be and that was one of the things that the group afforded each one of us, I would say, not just me, but I can say from our conversations, that each one of us found a stepping stone in this collective

Thank you. Catherine Lama, I can't imagine that listeners who heard just that brief introduction gave are I'm curious about your life journey. Tell us about the story that emerged for you that you felt compelled to write for this collection. Give us a little summary and anything else you want to say about your contribution to this book.

The theme of transitions was an important one for each of us during the years that we were together, especially the first year and a half, and it was really good for me. It was very healthy and very helpful for me to sit down and write about what could be, as Catherine said, fourth act or seventh act or eighth act or last act, right? I always saw this move of retiring from running a Dharma Center and moving 3000 miles away as being one of the last major moves that I would make in this lifetime, which is fine, and I'm glad I did it. I'm really thrilled that I did it, but to be able to express how it felt to drop so much over years, 2530 years of teaching and running a center to be able to have the space and still have the enough life and enough enough energy, I guess you could say to be able to experience that drop, that letting go of all of that stuff was so good, and so to be able to share that with others, I it was really, it was wonderful to do,

what's the title of your essay? Lama,

the retiring renunciate.

The retiring renunciate. And part of what struck me and resonated with me, and I wanted to invite you to elaborate on it, is because you were a spiritual teacher to people, and that's a privilege and an honor. But anytime we are in a leadership role of that life, it can also become a confinement, and I don't want to impose that on you. And when you talk about letting go, you're talking about letting go of this formal role that you were in many ways privileged to have. So what are you discovering outside of that formal role right now?

Gardening, i. Yeah. Well, I'm discovering that I actually have time for my own practice and towards, you know, your last act, let's say that's really the most important thing teaching others is also it, you know, always helping others is always just such talk about a privilege, talk about being grateful to be able to do that. But the fact is, is that as you reach towards you know your final breath, then you have to be prepared for that. And so that's what the lovely thing now is, is that I have time, I have time to really work with that, yeah, and towards that,

yeah. Thank you. Jennifer DeMarco, you wrote a powerful essay, and it has a powerful title, triumph over trauma. Those are two big words. So can you give us a sense of the main theme or themes of your essay?

Sure, for me, the theme really is about hope and transformation. The topics are things people don't always talk about that I think are necessary, because they are all those pieces that make up the fabric of our life, and they define who I am as a person. Yeah, it's the good times, the bad times, and some of them are kind of ugly, yeah, and that's where understanding that all of those things that occur within life happen for a reason. I may not like it, I may not agree with it. I may have chosen for things to happen a bit differently, and all of those things have led me to where I am today, and I don't regret any of it.

I know that part of the journey was deciding how much to write about the difficult times. Your fellow co author said, wow, you're very courageous, but I know you are grappling with it. How did you decide what to tell, what not to tell, what was serious, but maybe what was too serious, as the writer of your own life, how did you decide that

I wanted the readers actually to have the potential to relate? You know, the topics in there are things that can happen to just about anyone. Yeah, you know, some of the topics we still have difficulties talking about today, you know, as a society, you know, as people. So for me, it was really about not being scared. Yeah, of those topics, because if we are able to talk about them, they become demystified and are not as scary

as somebody had to decide how to tell your story and what to emphasize, what to leave out, what to shape, because, as you said, you wanted to relate to the listener. What did you learn about yourself, if anything, in the act of writing about your life,

that it's a I call it a lot, and I even kind of reference that in my story, it feels like a lot, and I know it's a really nebulous kind of term, and for me, it actually made me really, as odd as it sounds, to say it this way, with a title of triumph over trauma, it actually makes me really happy, because of all the life that we all go through and all of the things that happen, whether we plan them or don't, again, it really has that the impact to make that, I like the term the quilt of our life, you know, different areas and, yeah, that's the The piece for me is it actually just really made me happy at peace.

Thank you. Jen Sarah Lewis, our architect planner, urban designer, I neglected to say, also originally born in the UK or Great Britain, and you came to this country at the age of 13. What's the title of your essay? And why was it important for you to write that essay?

The title is dance of the seven veils. In the simplest terms, it's about my divorce 10 years ago. However, the veils represent layers of deception that were not actually put upon me by anybody other than myself. So as I was healing from that experience being able to to rebuild and redefine what the real version of those veils should have been,

I obviously dance of the seven veils. What? What? Give us an example of what one of the veils is.

The veils represent what it takes to make a good relationship. Basically, my ex husband and I never really communicated very well, or occasionally even at all. So the idea of, if you don't talk about it, then it must be okay. Clearly is not true. Or I tried to make myself believe that it was true. That is not the case. I am a this group has figured out. I'm a communicator. It was exposing. It became cathartic to acknowledge and be ripped down that far, to be standing there naked, and then sort of have to, I don't want to say re cloak myself, but be honest about who I was.

I know you're in a new relationship. You're in the middle of creating a beautiful new house. You wrote about letting go the veils. What's one thing that feels different in this new relationship compared to your previous marriage?

Oh my gosh. I think I have said some of the harshest things to poor John that I've ever said to another human being. He doesn't feel it that way, but it's just part of my baggage that being open and honest was something that I always, I guess, pulled my punches or tried to soft pedal something. So when I'm blunt, it feels kind of harsh. With John, that is the best way to communicate. And so even if it's something negative, he's like, Okay, this is where I stand. Let's go forward from from this point the also, the other wonderful thing is, I'm a stepmom that I never, ever envisaged for my life at all, and those two boys, you know, sort of i i love as they were my own. And that is a wonderful enrichment piece. I didn't just marry John. I married three guys.

Thank you, Sarah and last but certainly not least, welcome, Maria Hernandez, you've had an amazing professional career. I lived myself in South Florida for 20 years, so I've met others who have a Cuban American background, and I was struck in your piece, which is about familia in many ways, and the integration of home, identity family, this is how I understood it and the celebration of it. Tell us a little bit about your essay, why you wrote it, and why it was important for you to write it.

Yeah, so my essay is a reflection on the enduring meaning of the word home, right? We always ask, you know, where is home? You know, what is home? And it's not always a physical place. More often than not, is you know about the people and the values that we carry with us. And my story starts with me and my family, and I leaving Cuba, coming to the United States, and that was the first transition of many in my life. And you know, I had to redefine home many times as these transitions happened, but I found that family, being surrounded by family, bridging the cultures, both the Cuban culture and the American culture, you know, becoming a mom and carrying those rituals forward was just something that really kept me grounded as I went through all of these transitions.

Yeah, I'm thinking to myself, because you're talking about a family beautifully, but you're you've had a at the same time, a high flying professional career. If I mentioned one title, you were the head of innovation for IBM Latin America. That's a big deal. You've done. Many other things that are very impressive. This is almost a cliche question, but how did you juggle all of that and family and children and and all the stuff you just spoke about?

It was not easy. It was definitely a juggling act. But I think it was all about priorities and about support, my priority was always my family. I happen to have worked for IBM, an amazing company that supported me and allowed me to grow professionally, grow and not have to give up my family. So support from them, support from my family, obviously to they knew it was important for me to do what I love, and technology innovation, something that I love I've always loved. So I think they understood that, Okay, mommy is doing what she loves, right? And there was a an appreciation for that. And the same for IBM. I think that, you know, as a company, they appreciate it provided programs so that women, as they rose through the ranks, they would have the ability to still keep their family and again, it's a personal choice which I made along the way.

So I want to open up the conversation, you know, because I we heard from each one of you first, but some questions that are in my mind and might be on the mind of the listeners. You have a very diverse set of backgrounds in this group. That was part of the joy for me of hanging out with you all. What are some common threads that you noticed? In spite of these on the surface, very, very different stories that you have.

Well, I think just the fact that we're all women, women communicate in a way with one another, that as we, of course, as we got to know each other better, we opened up even more and more. But just in that very basic thing, there we were, you know, six women. What do you do? You chat. What do you do? You get to know each other. What do you do? You support one another. I just absolutely enjoyed to know and getting to know everybody's background and getting to know what they were doing. It was just that was, to me, that was very exciting.

Thank you, Lama. Anybody else want to just jump in? I was

going to say that we all came into this with open minds. And I think it was Catherine that touched on that is we all came in willing to be open and more vulnerable than I think we normally would have been, and I've spent a lot of time thinking about this, and I wonder if it's because we came in as strangers and didn't have any of those preconceived notions or baggage. But I mean, it's been wonderful, yeah, you know, sort of you can say everybody goes through struggles and challenges. You know, that's easy, that's the human condition, but the commonality of being able to connect and relate to each other has been fantastic.

I just want to add, I also think Achim you curated this group so you knew at some level, not only our professional visages, but something much deeper, and you kept supporting that level of vulnerability being at the center of the purpose of this

group. Well, that's very kind of you to say, thank you. Catherine, the book you chose to call the book Women unbound. And unbound is this wonderful word that can have lots of illusions meanings. So would you just riff on that for a moment when you hear what had to be unbound? What do you like about the word Unbound, and how does unbound relate to you individually, or to what you heard in this group?

One of the things that really struck me, and kind of how I believe we landed on the unbound part is that we all talked about limitations in our lives in some way, shape or form, you know, whether they were self imposed, you know, or imposed by outside sources. And this was an opportunity to to be unbound. I hated the redundancy of that, you know, but to actually break free from those limitations and just be who we are,

yeah, I think for me, the word unbound was giving each other permission in this type of forum to to just surrender. To what is and who we are. So to me, that was extremely powerful. It is not easy to come into a group like this, even though we were women and we had such commonality. But you know, our stories are very profound. They're very personal, and I think for many of us, this is the first time that we took the time to reflect back and then to write it down. So I think we're leaving a legacy in so many ways that your five women some amazing stories that we need to share with other women.

I'm hoping that the word women unbound scares the patriarchy. Need to be scared by women unbound.

She's making it sound like a completely different book than it

actually that's that's why we had to add the word gracefully, because one would think that women unbound meant we were all going crazy.

I did a search on Amazon for the book, and I just put in women Unbound, and all these other titles came up about power and more about power and more about power. And then I had to add gracefully, in order to get our book to come up, I

want to get back to you for a second llama, because you were I heard the jokingly, the voice of the warrior in you and you know, I follow you on social media, you have a very strong identity as somebody who blissfully challenges the status quo around all the injustice in the world. So you're you're not a neutral person on social media. You're a fighter. You're a warrior. So can you reconcile that with doing transitions gracefully, which is, we just heard the word, and if I play devil's advocate, why is it possible to do transition gracefully? Why is the word graceful in here, when you you're a warrior woman,

in order to really make a difference as a warrior, you can't to make a difference in good a good difference, let's say a beneficial difference for others. You can break down boundaries and do all of that other stuff, but it's the way that you do it. You do it without cruelty. You walk through the world in a gracious manner. That means that you're not trying to knock anybody else off their balance, but you're trying to bring them into balance. And that has to, you have to have some level of, well, we call it bodhichitta in Tibetan Buddhism, and it means your main focus is not on you, but on others. And so therefore you automatically move graciously if you're more concerned about others than yourself.

I just love the phrase to bring into balance, which you just used, that is so exquisite, and if I can relate it to the book as a whole, I think the stories together are created a balance of their own, with each other, with life, with life stories, which is a beautiful thing. I know Lama is a tough act to follow, but does anybody else want to just reflect on the word graceful and gracefully, and what that means to you as you travel through

life? To me, is all about this acceptance. You know, when we go through transitions, we have the tendency to say, Oh, why me? And why is this happening now? So, so transitions for me, maybe perhaps not through the, you know, the thick of things, is really accepting what it is and what is happening in front of you. I think that's part of of the grace of any transition, and also is this quiet confidence in reflecting on my essay. I looked back and I said, Gosh, some of those moments and memories were I could look back now and and perhaps smile, but they were hard. Some of those were very hard, so there was this quiet strength that I didn't realize I had, that kind of permeated and transcended, I think, a lot of the transitions that I went through.

Thank you, Maria. I'm going to throw out a question now, Ian, I want to hear from every single one of you. Okay, you're warned. What would you like your readers to take away from reading? Women unbound? What is your hope for the reader who flips through the pages and reads these stories?

I hope that they realize that. But we all have more in common than we realize. I mean, life comes with struggles, and certainly, you know, sort of the societal norms that we try to navigate through. So I I want understand the value of your own story when it doesn't have to be the whole story. It's like fragments of your experience, but but share and you'll realize that there's support out there from unexpected places and people that you didn't even know in a sort of could add perspective from different walks of life, very different backgrounds, different ages. Having that perspective and being open, I want the readers to go out and start sharing their own stories.

Thank you, Sarah.

If I could add to Sarah, not just the share, but also for me, it's about the listening, you know, and that was something that was really important for me as we were going through and actually doing the conversations that the readers will see after each of our essays, you know, and how we can actually listen to each other and support each other without judgment, without prejudice, without comparing, competing, that type of thing. And that kind of actually leads back into the gracefully piece. For me, when I think about the graceful aspects of this, it's kind of an idea between, you know, would you rather be feared or respected, you know. And having that you know, Maria, call it that quiet strength, you know, to be able to connect with people in ways that you never would have expected. And I can only do that if I'm actually listening to what you're saying.

I want to just briefly add something. Thank you, Jennifer, if you haven't read the book, you know there are beautiful personal stories, but after each as Jen indicated, there's a transcript of a conversation amongst these ladies, just like we're talking right now, and I think it's a celebration of speaking to each other and listening to each other as you so beautifully. Said, thank you. Who's next?

I think someone talked about commonality. I think it was Sarah. I think everybody has said it in different ways, but there's something about the birthing and rebirthing of oneself again and again and again and again and again and again through our lifetimes, and It's almost you know, ancient primitive women would get together and would help in the birthing process, the actual physical birthing process. And in some ways, I believe that this kind of a coming together is that women coming together to help in a rebirthing process, because that's was the end result.

That's so beautiful, Catherine, I love that you said that. And I think one of the, the only thing that I can think of to add is that we, we all did this with no one had any fear. And right now it's important for people to I think what I would like them to come away from reading the book with is that we don't have to be afraid of one another, if we communicate honestly, if we communicate and transcend our own made up fears that look what can come out of it. You know, such beauty.

Thank you. Lama Maria. Wrap it up for us. What would you like our readers to take away from the book?

I would like them to know to just live life to its fullest. I think sometimes when we're young, we tend to want to circumvent the challenges. But as you can tell from or you will read from each of these stories, we couldn't have circumvented the challenges. We learned and we grew, and we're still here stronger than ever after each of those challenges and transitions. So that would be what I would want the readers to really take away, above and beyond all the great, wonderful comments that the other authors have made.

Thank you. Maria Catherine, you wrote the forward to the book, and you also have a little and. Words in the book. So I'm going to end this conversation with you. Where can our listeners find the book? Where is it available? Where can they get more information?

Anywhere you can find a book, especially online. It's on Amazon, it's on Barnes and Nobles. There's a good version of it and good reads. We got it out there, but you can find us and information about the book on a website. Women, hyphen, unbound.com, women, hyphen, unbound.com, dot com, I also want to say that it was a wonderful collected design effort. Sarah's designs live on the book, Jen's work on the website, llamas work on the conversations and and editing and pulling that into readable form, and, of course, Maria's incredible consistency and keeping us focused. And, yeah, we should do something here. Let's this, this that it really has been a wonderful team effort.

Catherine, thank you. I want to thank all five of you for being it's a cliche to say this but, but it's been inspiring for me to be with you in mastermind conversations and in the journey of this book. And for anybody who's listening, if you go to the website, you know, I'm not going to repeat it, Catherine mentioned it. There are wonderful reactions that people have had to these stories. The stories are compelling, but they're also beautifully written. So I'm confident that if you pick up the book and order it, you will be inspired, as I have been. So thank you, and let's continue talking to each other and listening to each other. Bye, for now.

Bye, thank you.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of The my fourth act podcast. If you like what you have heard, please like us and leave a review on your preferred podcast platform. And if you would like to engage more deeply in fourth act conversations, check out the mastermind page at Achim nowak.com it's where fourth actors like you engage in riveting conversation with other fourth actors see you there and bye for now you.