Reset Your Life with These 3 Proven Frameworks (No Matter Your Age)

This is Starting Over at ages 29 and 36. Part 2 of our Starting Over series, where we go over incredible tips from experts like James Clear on Atomic Habits, Brené Brown on vulnerability, and famous relationship expert Esther Perel. Today we're giving you the blueprint to totally reboot, from vulnerability to habits to game changing relationship tips. In this episode, we're going to give you the ultimate toolkit

for starting over at any age. Yeah, starting over can feel really scary, but it's not if you have the right tools and the right frameworks. And as always, we also have many exercises for us to go through live to practice these frameworks. And also for each framework, we're going to talk about kind of examples that are sort of like case studies to really learn them better, just like we do at Harvard Business School. I love this episode and this topic because starting over is so hard.

If you're stuck or scared to restart your life, stick with us for this episode. I'm Cherie. I'm Jean and. We're the Tiger sisters. We are the Internet's Wall Street and Silicon Valley Big Sisters. We're the number 8 top business podcast on Spotify where we talk about money, power and love. And all of this is to help you build a life that you love. Welcome to the Tiger Sisters podcast. We'll get started right after this break. This episode of Tiger Sisters is brought to you by Read.

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too. Welcome. Come back. So the first topic we're going to go over is James Clears Atomic Habits and why it's relevant for starting over. I'm so excited to talk about this. I read this book a few years ago and it's still something that I think about every single week. Experts say that 90% of people who start a new habit end up quitting at day 10. And we're going to show you how to be that successful 10% that sticks with it.

Yeah, because when reinventing yourself, huge goals can be kind of paralyzing. And so the good thing about Atomic Habits is that essentially it breaks things down into mini goals that you can actually achieve, so that you can be that 10% that actually keeps your goals as opposed to the 90% that fall off. In James Clears book Atomic Habits, he teaches to one, make it obvious, 2 make it attractive, three make it easy, and four, make it satisfying. It being the habit, yeah.

And I feel like a really big part of his book is the idea or the concept of being like self identifying yourself with that habit. So for example, like being like, yeah, I am a person that goes to the gym three times a week or like, yeah, I'm an active person. That's why I go to the gym three times a week. I think that's like one of his like main premises, right? That's one of the big takeaways. It's like, how do you make that your identity? Like I am a healthy person.

What would a healthy person do? They would eat healthy. They would go to the gym. And when you embrace that identity, it makes it harder to break the habit. You want to keep going? Yeah. So bringing in a personal case study or an example that I bring this into my life is that I have a habit of trying to go to the gym every single day for 30 days in a row. It's really hard to not break that chain. But something that I do is that I make it very clear and visual.

So I have a calendar that shows each day that I go to the gym. I put an X on my calendar and it creates this chain that I can see right in front of me. I don't want to break the chain. And it is very satisfying when I go to the gym, I come back and I make an X on my calendar and I'm like, huh? I feel so relieved that I'm able to keep this going. So that's one very clear example, James, clear example of

how I bring this into my life. And if you guys want to do something similar, Gene and I have a habit tracker that we created for you. It's a digital downloadable that is LinkedIn. This video description, it's free, you can download it. It's a calendar and it shows all the days of the year so that you can track your habits. Yeah, I think that concept of Don't Break the Chain is pretty like famous and well known. It's used by a lot of people.

One that I remember is apparently like Jerry Seinfeld, he sort of forced himself to continue to, like, write more jokes by doing don't break the chain For like every single day he would come up with a new joke and like, he would make the X on his calendar to be like, OK, I came up with a new joke today, XXX. So that's kind of how he like got better at his craft. Yeah, and how do you apply atomic habits to your daily life?

Yeah, For me, I think it's the example of once I became single again this past year and I started dating, I was like, OK, the first part of that is just like making myself get out there and like, interact with people in the world. So I kind of took on the identity of being like, OK, I'm a person that says yes to different invitations. So even if it's something I would normally maybe not say yes to, I'm going to say yes to it and like try to aim to go to,

you know, three things. I would normally not go to like 3 * a month or something. Like that? Like an underground Berlin rave. Like what do we? Sure. Yeah. Like just anything like I need to like kind of, you know, break up the old routine and start doing new things so that I can be, like, out there in the world to meet people. True. So that actually it worked really well because I remember this is like back in February, but one of my friends had a Super Bowl party and it was also

kind of a going away party. And I wasn't, I probably like wouldn't usually go cuz I don't really like watch football, I guess. But then I went and then I ended up like meeting this guy that was his like childhood friend that I was dating for a while. So I feel like it works. And it all stemmed from me being, like, taking on the identity of being like, yeah, I'm someone who says yes to social invitations, even if even if maybe in the past I would

have said yes to them. Yeah, and when you go out, it opens up more opportunity and serendipity to meet new people. So by having that habit and figuring out a way to implement it in your life, it also opened up many new doors. Yeah. And it's something I guess like it's something you can sort of remind yourself of and take on again and again. Because I will say, like in the last month, like we've been so busy and just like traveling so

much. Like we were like in Japan, we were in Asia, we were in Vidcon. Like we were just kind of like not really, you know, around and just like working all the time that it's almost like this is a really good reminder for me to sort of like take on that identity again and be like, oh, I'm a person that says yes to things. So that I'm going to like, go back out there and like be active and meet people in the world. So it's like a good reminder for me too, even just doing this

episode. For sure, because starting over, it has such a scary connotation to it. But I think one take away I would like everyone else to go away with is that starting over doesn't have to be such a big monumental thing. There are also little ways that

you can start over and keep your life moving. Forward. I think often times people wait until the New Year's for the giant, like New Year's resolution in January, and that's why everyone gets to the gym then and then people fall off. But like, I honestly take, you know, if you can have the beginning of every month being a starting over point or creating checkpoints, so it's not just once a year, but giving yourself many opportunities to start anew. I think that's a really beautiful thing.

Yeah. And I think like, maybe this is sort of a controversial take or like a hot take or something, but I think starting over and like, or more so the concept of reinventing yourself is really fun. And like, what a gift, what like a special, like what an opportunity we have that we can sort of continually reinvent ourselves all the time. I think that's something that I didn't really realize until I I didn't really like realize the power of until recently. Yeah, because change is scary, I

think. Yeah, most people psychologically and myself included, do not want change. Like we're very as humans very adverse to change, right? Like we don't want change averse. Did I say the right adverse averse? Averse. We're very change averse, so if it does happen and it's forced upon us, it can be very uncomfortable, but it can also lead to very beautiful things if

you take it in stride. And you also have these frameworks that we're talking about to really put in the right frame, like frameworks in place so you can be successful. Yeah, well, and you know how like people always say, oh, it's not that I feel scared, it's not that I feel nervous, it's that I actually feel excited, you know? That's just a mindset shift.

So there are a couple of these things that you can do, starting with James Clear's Atomic Habits, and we're going to get into the next topic, which is vulnerability with Brené Brown.

I've already been pretty vulnerable actually. Before we move on, let's do our mini exercise, which is pick one goal that you have for yourself and then break it down into a bunch of different tiny steps or like very small habits and then figure out a way to make it like James Clear says obvious, attractive, easy and satisfying and then write it down. Yes, and we'd love to hear from you if you can share with us in the comments what your goal is and how you're going to try and

break it down. We read every single comment and we'll try to reply as many as we can. Yeah, because we want to be on this journey together with you. And what we've seen from research from Duke University is that actually 45%, so literally almost half of all of your daily actions are habitual. And so let's build the right habits together. And up next, we're going to talk about how to harness vulnerability through Brene

Brown's research. OK, let's start off with a stat, which is that 84% of people admitted that they don't even tell their very closest friends about major life changes because as they fear judgement. But what Brené Brown has found in her research is that vulnerability between, especially between friends is what actually strengthens connections. OK, Cherie, maybe you can tell us a little bit more about this framework. So I think the first thing to note is that it takes a ton of

courage to be vulnerable. It's like a super scary thing to open up. But what people don't realize is that it can also open up a lot of opportunities as well. So the first thing is that if you share what you're going through with people, especially if you share like a new habit you want to build, it can create a lot of momentum for social accountability. So you don't have to do it alone. For example, if I want to get healthy for this year and go to the gym, I can share that goal.

They can be my social accountability buddy in that way. And another way can open up opportunities is that if you bring vulnerability into your life. This is 1 very specific example that I've seen is that with recent layoffs that have been going on, people have come on to LinkedIn to post and to share that they've lost their job, which is a really scary thing to share. And honestly, I don't know if I

would be able to do that because I feel a lot of nervousness and shame around that, which I don't think other people who are reading it feel they feel more empathy. But if you post about that and share more about your life in a vulnerable way, I've also seen people get job opportunities because they've shared about their layoff. Yeah, exactly. I love that you bring that up because shame versus empathy is one of those really main constructs in Brene Brown's book Daring Greatly.

And when you admit that you're unsure or that you need help, you're really like inviting people in to support you. I think another example that I can think of for ourselves is just starting on this new venture of Tiger Sisters. Like that's something that I, I and you have been very, very open about to everyone from the very beginning, which is that we're starting this new venture. It's based around a podcast. It's content to commerce. These are all things that we

have never done. We've never like actually worked in media before either of us. We've always worked in tech or finance. And so like I've gone into a lot of conversations being like, hey, I don't know anything really or like, I don't even know what I know. Like I would love to, to learn from you. And I think that that has been really helpful for us because we're coming at it from a position of or from a perspective of being like we're open to learning.

And the first part of that is being like, hey, we admit to not knowing things. Like we're not experts by any means. And I think people might view that as a weakness, but I also view that, like we said before, as an invitation for help and maybe sharing your weaknesses could be a strength as well in that way.

If you feel hesitant about sharing your like quote, UN quote weakness or like being vulnerable in that way, I guess one way I don't even actively think about it this way, but I think it's just like inherent to my approach to it is that I'm like, well, I am not an expert in this area, but I know I'm an expert in many other areas, right? Like I believe in my own ability and I know I'm smart and I know

I can like learn. I just have a lot of self belief, but I just have no experience in this area. So like there's nothing wrong with being unexperienced, you know? So maybe that's like a kind of mindset that you can take on if you want to kind of reveal your vulnerability to people to be like, yeah, like I am not an expert in this area. I'm an expert in other areas.

It's just it's good to it's. Like when a recruiter asks you what your greatest weakness is and you're like, my greatest weakness is that I can learn anything. My greatest weakness is I don't know everything but I can learn anything. Is that what I sound like? It's just. Funny, I mean, but it and I think it's just very naturally how you feel and a very positive outlook because you have a lot of self belief. My greatest weakness is I have too much self.

You know, it's like when you're trying to make a weakness sound like a strength in an interview. No, that's when you're always like, my greatest weakness is that I'm a perfectionist. Don't say that if you're doing an interview, do not say that because recruiters will see right through it. Yeah. And now that I'm older, I'm like, wow, that really is a weakness. Actually, it's come. It's come around full circle. Maybe you can say that again now. Maybe people should say that again now.

I mean that. Actually is my weakness. I'm not even, I'm not even bullshitting, you know, that's my weakness. I talked. About it before. It is. It takes me like 10 times longer to write an e-mail than Cherie. Cherie's like, hey, can you do this? Bye. Yeah, my emails are very short and I don't spend more than like if it's a really important one, I'll spend a lot of time, but if it's like one, I'm just like, it could be a few sentences and then you sign off and you don't

think about it again. Good morning to you today. She writes like a Shakespearean. Sonnet that she reads 15 times over and I'm like, girl, just send the e-mail out. Just send it it. It's not it's not that deep. I'm like top. Of the morn, yeah. We digress, We digress. OK, we do have a mini exercise for you for this section that we'd love to share. So if you can think of 1 vulnerable moment, we would love for you guys to share that with a trusted friend.

We have studies that show that 90% of people who opened up to others feel less lonely, but most importantly, they feel even more motivated to move forward because they've shared something with their friend and they have more social accountability in that way. After you've shared with your friend, observe how this impacts your mindset.

And tell us in the comments, Harvard Business Review actually found that leaders who practice vulnerability, such as admitting to a mistake or asking for feedback are 20% more likely to foster high performing teams. So like however that you know is defined, they did this whole study about it. So it's not just in your like personal life where it's, it's fruitful and actually effective to practice vulnerability. It's also can be applied in your career and your work life

strategically. OK, we're going to take a really quick break. And then when we return, we move on to Esther Perel's idea of rewriting your story.

Hey friends, it's Sheree and Jean from Tiger Sisters. We need your help. We just dropped our very first audience survey and it's actually really important to us. Why? Because we want to create the best content for you and learning more about you helps us to do that. It takes less than 5 minutes to fill out and as a thank you, we're giving away $100.00 gift card at the end of the season to 1 listener who fills out the survey. The link is in the video

description, please fill it out. Thank you for being a part of this with us. Tiger Sisters is just getting started. I'm really excited to talk about this because I think reinvention should be part of everyone's life. And we talked a little bit about this before, but if you think about the major celebrities out there like Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, Leonardo DiCaprio, I think all of these. Not the Leonardo DiCaprio Miley. Cyrus. Miley Cyrus. You don't like Leonardo DiCaprio?

I was. Just I don't know where you're going, Leonardo DiCaprio. I feel like he constantly reinvents himself in the roles that he takes. Oh, I thought you were like first he's someone who dated a 27 year old, then he's someone who dated A20. 4 year old, no, I mean, and Christian Bale, I don't know. I just like, feel like when you look at celebrities and the longevity of their careers, the ones that have staying power are the people who can reinvent themselves constantly.

Like Miley Cyrus. Like Miley Cyrus. Oh, I love her. Go girl, go girl. She's incredible. Yeah, I mean, if Leonardo DiCaprio were to reinvent himself and date someone a little bit older, I. Think that might also. Have some staying power too in the media, but alas. But I think this is just so fun because we can talk about reinventing ourselves at any point in our lives. And the concept from Esther Perel is not just reinventing yourself, but it's specifically the idea of rewriting your

story, right? Rewriting your narrative. In Esther Perel's book Mating in Captivity, she specifically talks about this concept in the sort of framework of romantic relationships. So basically, she says, you know, you can rewrite your story because if you're not the same person now that you were in your 20s, why do you have to be the same person romantically? Often times we forget. I forget that we outgrow different patterns from earlier

in our lives. And that could be dating, that could be friendship and outgrowing relationships and friendships. That's very much a thing that I have to keep top of mind because it can feel super painful when it happens. But that's part of growth in it of itself. And in her book, Esther Perel says that you can reframe your identity as someone who fails in relationships or friendships to someone who learns from past mistakes and actively builds healthier dynamics.

And I feel like this mindset shift is game changing because honestly, relationships fail because you're dating. But like at the end game, you're only supposed to marry one person. You know what I mean? So like, they're supposed to fail up until you find the 1. So I think that's like just a reframe of it, all right? Like they're meant to. You're supposed to date many, many people. So you're saying we should romantically fail upwards? Yes, exactly.

Take a page out of the book of every man you've ever worked. With Oh my God. And fail upwards romantically. Yeah, I mean, I I think that I realized this or maybe I like internalized this very recently. Like not, you're not supposed to keep all your relationships right? You can only keep one. At the end, they're all supposed

to fail except for one. Yeah, and this actually reminded me of the James Clear framework, because she's saying, like, reframe yourself as, you know, someone who learns from relationships and sets up new, healthier ones. That's the same idea of taking on the identity. Yeah, internalizing. I am someone who learns from past relationships and forms healthier ones. Exactly. Wow, putting together all the. Frameworks live. We're doing. It live. You're here with us.

You're doing it live. OK, I feel like one example I could sort of uniquely give is that I've mentioned before I ended an 8 year long relationship and engagement this past year when I was 35. So I guess like one way you could look at yourself is to be like, Oh my God, like I'm someone who breaks engagements and that's like a failed, like

fails and only broke. 1 So I feel like if you've broken multiple, a la Runaway Bride, you might take that identity. Don't be so hard on yourself. Or like you could be like, you know, you could think of yourself. One could think of themselves as like, oh, I'm someone who fails in relationships. Or maybe you can think of yourself. By you, I mean me.

You can think of yourself as like, wow, I'm someone who is brave enough and you know, I guess sure enough of herself to end A8 year long relationship, even when it seems like from the outside seems to be perfect on paper, seems to be so great and like you've already invested so much into it. I'm someone who's brave enough to step away from that in search of something that is actually better for me, like when this is actually something that no longer works.

It takes a lot of courage. It takes a lot of courage. You, you are someone who is courageous. That's a very courageous thing to do. Yeah, yeah. I just came up with that just now, guys. I was not. I just came up with that just now. But yeah, I feel. That do you feel that in your bones or is it hard to internalize that? I mean, it's not something honestly, like it's not something that I've ever said out loud. Like, this is the first time I've ever really said that out

loud. But it is something that other people have said to me. Like when I have told people, you know, oh, yeah, like, I broke my engagement. Like, we were together for eight years, blah, blah, blah. They're like, wow, like you are are so brave, like you're so courageous and not in a way. Where they're like you're so you're. So brave for posting. That not me. Without makeup, you're so brave. You're so brave for wearing that bathing suit, that outfit.

I could never wear that, but you're so brave. But no, I like when people say it to me. Like I can tell that they really mean it because it is something that is so scary. Like it's so it's, it's kind of incomprehensible. And even to myself itself, like even to me two years ago, three years ago, like a year and a half ago, it would have been incomprehensible. But like we said earlier, that was a different person. Like that's that was you were a different person.

I was a different person. That was like the old me. Now this is the new me. I'm reinvented, bitches. What you gonna say? About what you gonna do about it? What you gonna do? About that, yeah. This is your reinvention era in so many ways. Yeah. And it's you guys are a part of it. It's live. It's happening. I think an interesting like exercise people could do. This is not the official mini exercise. This is the side mini exercise, side quest side quest I just

came up with. If you guys are inspired. To do so, is that like maybe you can sort of go through that same exercise I just did? And if there's something that you're still, I guess, like processing or like a part of you that is starting over is to like think of what other people say to you when you tell them about your change or your like reinvention or your new narrative. And then start to, like, say, like, say that out loud about yourself for the first time. Like, I just did it.

It's kind of wild. But I've never said that about myself to be like, yeah. And I'm really courageous and brave for choosing to do what I did as opposed to, you know, staying in a relationship that seemed, that seemed perfect in so many ways. It's weird. It's weird to like, I think it's good though to like say it out loud and like take on the identity and like experience how

other people are viewing you. Yeah, because in some ways, I feel like people can see you more clearly than you can see yourself. Not the situation, but just like your perception of yourself. And people are able to, and at least the ones who are able to share that with you that you really respect or like, wait, I respect you and you respect me now. And like, wait, now I can understand what you see. It's a crazy thing. Yeah, that's the off the books mini exercises.

Bonus mini exercises. Great. We'll give that to you for free. So the official exercise, if

you'd like to try another one, is to write down the old story that no longer serves you, put it down on paper, and rewrite it in a way that reflects your growth and your future aspirations. What is your new story, your new narrative that you're going to tell yourself? Share that story with a friend or with us in the comments if you're open to getting feedback and having Jean and I read that. So yeah, we'd love to see what you guys come up with.

OK, so just to recap, in today's episode, we covered James Clear's atomic habits, Brene Brown's concepts of vulnerability, and Esther Perrell's ideas around rewriting your narrative. And I think putting the three together, this is like the perfect toolkit for starting over, whether you're 2936 or any age. Thank you guys so much for tuning in for this episode. Please remember to like, comment and subscribe.

It is super important if you follow and subscribe us because then you'll get notified when our next episode drops. Yeah, and I also really want to hear what you guys have to say in the comments, especially because I spoke so much about my own experience this time. So like, I want to hear you guys talking. About she's being vulnerable. If you like that jeans being vulnerable and opening up about her life and I'm opening up about mine, please give her some

support in the comments. We read every. Single part of our community and want to know you guys are out there. And also the conversations I think are really rich and a lot of other people are reading other comments as well and feeling very encouraged by your story. And also make sure to sign up for our newsletter, which is LinkedIn the description and also follow us on Instagram at Tiger Sisters Podcast. Thanks guys. See you next time. Bye.