In this episode I am talking with my friend and peer, Stephanie Lee. Each of us came to this time with questions for the other and neither knew the questions beforehand. We talk about where we want to be in 15 years, advice we have for younger creatives and mothers, what we are most proud of about ourselves and even the areas where we struggle.
Stephanie Lee grew up among the mountains and red rocks of Utah but now calls Southern Oregon home. She lives with her (adorably sexy) husband, Vince (who can build/fix/do anything he puts his mind to), teenage daughter Annabelle, dogs Elsie and Rumi, and three cats who really need to up their game in their mole hunting duties. Vince and Stephanie share four more grown children (one of whom she brought into the world) and she’s decided that being a grandma before the age of 40 is pretty much the best thing ever.
Her therapist is her garden and the backpacking trails where nature and Stephanie have pretty good conversations about all the things. She has pretty good homesteading skills and she admittedly fantasizes about living off the grid in a cozy cabin where there is snow in the winter and the summer finds her growing and canning her own food by the bushel (with a cute little coffee shop within walking distance, of course) and reading real paper books in the evening by firelight.
How Stephanie would describe herself:
I cry easily, even (and especially) when laughing and have amassed a plethora of other potentially useful skills that I have so far totally underutilized. These include, but are not limited to:
Playing the piano and guitar
Cooking over a fire
Canning and preserving food
Making new friends
Saving ab workouts on Pinterest
Using the very last drop of toothpaste out of the tube before throwing it away. (Waste not, want not!)
Things I would like to add to this list but have heretofore managed to under-excel in:
Running three miles without a lung collapsing
Being an overachiever (while simultaneously cultivating an Instagram feed of enviable “simple life” images, of course).
Earning “cool mom” status
Dancing in a way that does not look like a long armed troll trying to act casual when he just tripped over his shoelace.
Yodeling.
One thing is for sure: If you are excited about something, I will be SO excited with you and I will do everything I can to make sure you know how awesome you are. Because, if nothing else, I want you to feel really, really good about being all in with your unique and exquisite creative expression.
You can find Stephanie on Instagram
Episode Summary
Podcast 061 | Q+A with Stephanie Lee and Jeanne Oliver
4:32 “A lot of that has come with the experience of realizing that sometimes the way you know how something works is just like diving into it and then experiencing how it works.”
9:40 “You’re not just an artist. You’re ministering to women’s hearts and their creativity. So, these questions that I’ve come up with are coming from, like, I want to know you even more so in that capacity because I feel like that’s a role that you play in my life.”
JEANNE: 12:00 “But what I’m seeing is they’re being sold like a good of lies constantly of that it’s not enough, it’s not represented perfectly, that you’re behind, that you can do more.”
JEANNE: 16:10 “I think all this stuff coming at you, I would actually say have some really good boundaries of what you consume because so much that we are consuming is a waste of our time and it just feeds the lies too.”
JEANNE: 16:53 “I would say, make sure the things that you’re doing, the cookies or the games or the hikes, that they’re not to put it on social media. It’s because you’re connecting with the people you love the most.”
24:03 “And I guess I would just add that to the other moms. When you’re in your twenties and thirties, just take our word for it—take us old ladies’ words for it—there is so much more ahead. And it’s okay if right now you’re really struggling with presence and comparison and all that, but practice being present, just practice that as much as possible.”
35:27 “I mean, they just lit up. When myself or my grandkids or my siblings or her husband, anybody, even a neighbor, walked into the room, her eyes lit up, which I ended up I spoke at her funeral, and my talk was about 14 lessons I learned from my mom, and that was one of them. Always make sure your eyes light up in the room. And I have learned that’s a decision; that’s not just her personality.”
JEANNE: 42:00 “One of the things that definitely was a weakness…I used to say whatever I thought. And that really doesn’t really serve you well in marriage, especially. And so, I think I have learned that my emotions actually cannot always be trustworthy.”
JEANNE: 48:40 “But we use the good things in our day-to-day life because my kids are worthy of beautiful things. My husband’s worthy of beautiful things. I’m worthy of beautiful things. Not just the people that come to our home to visit.”
59:44 “But when I’m just gardening, 95% of the time it’s just me and the sounds. And it’s like I’ve gotten to the point where it’s like I can hear, oh, there’s that moth. I mean, who listens to moths, right? Like wackos. I do! But it’s like, oh, that’s that moth. I got to get rid of it because it’s going to eat my cabbage. Like I become tuned into things that I would not otherwise not hear.”
1:00:35 “Well, sometimes that’s not what happens. Sometimes you tend to it and you’re patient and then you get squash bugs. You can’t even rely on tending to something to create results. And so, you have to just be willing to surrender, like literally surrender, do your best and surrender or do your half best and surrender.”
1:05:33 “And so there’s an element of stillness that I think is so essential in knowing what our capacity is to do good and knowing how to look at ourselves and say, I’m doing enough.”
JEANNE: 1:10:48 “And I do not have a business without our email list. Yeah, our email list means that almost anything I can dream up, I can reach out to people that connect with what we’re doing and say, I’ve made something for you.”
1:20:13 “Yes, I love knowing how to can food, and yes, I love knowing how to garden, but even more than that, I couldn’t be as good at it as I am now without that internal resourcefulness. So that’s a skill that I have.”
Creatively Made Business with Jeanne Oliver
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Ten Tips To Take Back The Peace
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