#87 – Daring to be You: How to Find the Courage to Live Authentically and Follow Your Most Purposeful Path | Empowerment & Career Advice

[00:00:00] Loree Philip: Hi, and welcome to Daring to Leap. I'm your host, Loree Philip. Have you ever dreamt of following your most authentic and purposeful path, but felt held back by fear and societal norms? Or maybe you're not sure what that path could look like. Listen in as Shereen Thor shares her powerful story and provides practical advice on finding the courage to be unapologetically you.

[00:00:28] Loree Philip: Let's dive in.

[00:00:29] Loree Philip: Shereen Thor is a comedian turned executive coach and keynote speaker who slays with hope and humor.

[00:00:35] Loree Philip: Sharing stages with icons like Serena Williams and Prince Harry. She empowers women and people of color through her bestselling book, Revolutionary woman featured in Forbes, TEDx, Spike TV, and more. Shireen's impact resonates far beyond the stage as she champions equity, purpose, and happiness for all.

[00:00:57] Loree Philip: Welcome Shireen.

[00:00:59] Shereen Thor: Thank [00:01:00] you, Laurie. Oh my goodness. I'm so excited to talk to you. I feel like our purposes.

[00:01:06] Loree Philip: I agree. I agree. It's like, it's so great. And I know we're going to talk about purpose, but I just really love this vision you set out in your bio around just purpose, happiness for all, like, Basically, all the things that our traditional society and culture tell us are, that are nice to have, like, oh yeah, that would be great.

[00:01:32] Loree Philip: Those are dreams, right? Those are not like status quo type of things, although some of that is shifting, right? Yeah. And so, I'm really looking forward to diving into this idea of purpose. Like, how can we, Shift into our purpose and really go for it. Yeah.

[00:01:51] Shereen Thor: Oh, such a good question. How can we shift into our purpose and really go for it?

[00:01:57] Shereen Thor: That is the biggest question of this life. And [00:02:00] I can honestly say I don't. Think it's easy because I think a lot of times when we are attempting to do it. I mean, I think that's why it's beautiful that you're doing this Right. Is like, you're essentially going against the grain. Like you said, against the status quo, maybe against your parents expectations for you.

[00:02:17] Shereen Thor: Maybe against what your family and friends are used to you being like when you're answering your higher calling and finding like, who am I in this world? When I was. I was much younger when I was sort of in my 20s, I was beginning to answer that question. And the big reason I was even beginning to ask it or try to answer it at all was because I was really super unhappy.

[00:02:40] Shereen Thor: I had my first job out of college and I followed all the supposed to's, right? Like I went to college because my mom wanted me to. I majored in something more normal, like I would've loved to do philosophy or art, but my parents I'm a daughter of immigrants, they wanted me to be a doctor or a lawyer or an engineer, I didn't really want to do any of those [00:03:00] very left brained, structured bureaucratic type of things.

[00:03:03] Shereen Thor: I was a wild creative type, so I was like, well, I don't want to freak them out by being a starving artist, I will. I'll do communications it's like kind of more normal. They won't be worried about me, but I at least won't be bored all day. So we did this like C minus choice, like, I'll fly under the radar, but I won't be super happy.

[00:03:19] Shereen Thor: And then 3 months into my first job, right? So I graduate, I get a job 3 months in. I get sexually harassed. This guy walks into my office, closes the door behind him, hovers over me. I'm sitting at my desk. He hovers over my desk and says, if you don't lose your attitude, I'm going to bend you over this desk in space.

[00:03:39] Shereen Thor: Exactly. Gasp. Right. I was, I was such a child. I mean, I literally had just graduated college. I'm in my early twenties. Like I don't know anything about the patriarchy. Like I don't even know what's going on. Like I just got out of school. I go to lunch with my girlfriends, they're like, Shireen, this is sexual harassment.

[00:03:54] Shereen Thor: I'm like, is that what it was? I guess that's what it was. I mean, I even was like, I think he was joking. I was even [00:04:00] trying to talk myself out of really acknowledging what it was. I came back, I told my boss, like, here's what happened. He was super mad, right? So he goes and tells his boss. And then he's super mad.

[00:04:09] Shereen Thor: It was the president was my boss. And then he told the CFO, they were both really mad and they went to both tell the CEO. And then they asked me to come into a meeting with the three of them. And the CEO in no uncertain terms, just looked me in the face and said, But he was just joking, right? Like you can still work with him, right?

[00:04:26] Shereen Thor: And I just like held back my tears and uttered the word yes and walked out of his office feeling like my dignity was less when I came out than it was when I walked in and in a weird way, it's like I was, Doing the status quo, right? I didn't want to be the whistleblower. I didn't want to cause a fuss.

[00:04:46] Shereen Thor: I was all that immigrant programming of like, just put your head down and just survive and just get a good job and don't do anything out of the box. I kicked in. And so I proceeded to become very depressed, right? I like continued to get up and suit up and fight traffic [00:05:00] and go to this job. Where I had clearly been disrespected and they were fine with it.

[00:05:04] Shereen Thor: And I didn't know it at the time. After like almost 18 years of coaching, I now know that I was co signing my own oppression, right? That I was lowering my self esteem by not being willing to like rebel and revolt. I didn't know that at the time. At the time, I was just acting out of unconscious paradigms that I had learned as a kid.

[00:05:21] Shereen Thor: I was just doing it. So anyway, luckily there was like this intervention moment where a friend of mine is like nagging me to go to this seminar that I think I'm too cool for and that I don't need, but I go anyway. Cause like, I literally couldn't deal with her nagging any longer. I show up, my arms are crossed.

[00:05:36] Shereen Thor: I'm asking for my money back. I'm like, don't even really want to be there. And they're like, well, if you go through the whole seminar and you get nothing out of it, then we can give you your money back. But you just, you have to go through the whole thing. I'm like, fine. I'm super grateful for that return policy.

[00:05:50] Shereen Thor: Thank God every day for that return policy because it kept my butt. In that seat and at this seminar was where all of the ways that I was operating inside [00:06:00] of those limiting beliefs are operating inside of that survival paradigm. The paradigm that told me you don't get to be unique. You don't get to use your voice.

[00:06:08] Shereen Thor: You have to put your head down and just survive. It just got blown up. And I started to really come to terms with, like, how much I had abandoned myself to survive in that toxic work environment. Right? How much. Who I inherently was as this like bubbly creative out of the box, kind of like has a voice and has maybe wants to advocate for her ambition.

[00:06:32] Shereen Thor: Right? I didn't fit there. They didn't like that kind of a woman in that environment. And so. It was great. I ended up walking out of that seminar kind of realizing, okay, I get to lead my life with intention. I get to answer the question of what is my actual purpose instead of just putting my head down and being a clog in a wheel or cashing in for a paycheck.

[00:06:51] Shereen Thor: And so I quit a master's degree and started to do stand up comedy.

[00:06:55] Loree Philip: Okay. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. That is such a big, big [00:07:00] shift and I love it. And the whole story, we all need to hear this because for you, it was the sexual harassment and putting up with it and Stuff, but for everybody else, it could be any number of things.

[00:07:17] Loree Philip: And so what I really love about some of the work that you're doing is I think where we need to start when thinking about our purpose is what you talk about is breaking the rules. We need to find the courage to break those initial rules that got us there to begin with all of your parents saying you need to do this.

[00:07:39] Loree Philip: This societal conditioning, the just, just nod your head and keep going, don't make any fuss. And that takes a bit of courage and vulnerability. How do you support, or how do you advise people to be willing to kind of take that courage [00:08:00] to break the rules?

[00:08:01] Shereen Thor: Well, I love to scare them with disturbing statistics.

[00:08:04] Shereen Thor: Are you ready? I'm ready. Yeah, let's do it. Okay. Well, there is 120, 000 preventable deaths a year in America due to stress. So people are literally dying. Harvard Public Health did a study about people who suppress their emotions are 30 percent more likely to die of premature death and 70 percent more likely to be diagnosed with cancer.

[00:08:25] Shereen Thor: And so the thing I did where I held my tears back, And said, yes, was actually killing me. Right? So like when I walked out of there and I lost a little dignity and I became depressed at that job, I didn't have the stats or the language at the time to identify what was happening, but I was slowly dying.

[00:08:42] Shereen Thor: And so I guess what I would say to someone who isn't sure they have the courage is, that you make a choice every day to do something that either dims your light or shines. And if you make a choice every day that dims your light one day, one week, one month, one [00:09:00] quarter, one year, one decade at a time, eventually that light will go out.

[00:09:05] Loree Philip: Just call me a drama queen. It's not, it sounds dramatic, but it's true. It's so true, Shireen. And like, we, we want to look the other way and say, no, that won't happen to me. And, and we're not saying that the people are going to, Die tomorrow or anything, but there is there's also this idea of this like slow kind of death of your spark and are you living a life that is Meaningful enough or exciting enough or joyous enough or happy enough you like are you really living a life that you want to be in?

[00:09:43] Loree Philip: So it's like okay in When you're 80 degrees, 80 years old, and maybe you get cancer or something, that's one thing, but there's this whole time period in between that we could really have this big, beautiful life, or we can be slowly dimming our [00:10:00] light. A hundred percent. And so my question is around this idea of purpose.

[00:10:07] Loree Philip: I do know when I was in corporate for 16 years, there was a moment that I was like, if I knew what my purpose was, I would go do it, but I don't know. There's like this, I think a lot of people are just like, I have no idea what it is. How do we start to position ourselves to unpack what that is?

[00:10:28] Loree Philip: Cause I know it's not an overnight thing. Like it took me a year to figure it out for myself. Oh my gosh, a year? Look at you! Boom! You're quick! Yeah, well, and I don't even know about my whole purpose, but a shift in a year was, was, it was quick. I

[00:10:42] Shereen Thor: mean, I have so many thoughts on this, but I think like the first thing that I'll say about your purpose and how you find it is that it's not like, out there.

[00:10:50] Shereen Thor: It's actually inside of you. So to me, when someone is finding a purpose, the idea that it's outside and they need to chase it or find it like it's like [00:11:00] an ego, it's like an ego. And I just think it's actually like a fallacy. So I would first say your purpose is expressing who you are in its truest form.

[00:11:09] Shereen Thor: That's your purpose, right? So the beginning of that for me was comedy. It was like, Oh, I'm going to be out of the box. I'm going to be creative. I'm going to be someone who has something to say. I didn't know what I was doing or why I was doing at the time, but that was the first time I ever said, well, I know my mom wants me to be this thing over here, but I'm going to break all those rules and just be like my actual self.

[00:11:32] Shereen Thor: It's not going to make sense. It's not going to make money. It might make me look like a huge idiot to be honest. Like I legitimately was facing public humiliation when you get up on a stand up comedy stage, but it was like the first time that I was just unapologetically myself. And so I feel like if someone's curious, like, trying to figure it out and not knowing what to do, I would say, like, let's not overthink it, okay, put your mind to rest, because you ain't gonna find your purpose in your head, you're gonna find it in your [00:12:00] heart, you know what I mean, like, that's how it lives, so, like, what do you want, right, what are you, what are you just, like, naturally desiring, That maybe doesn't make any sense.

[00:12:08] Shereen Thor: Like, do you want to play the cello? Do you want to travel? Do you just want to like, who knows, right? There's been so many things that people have said when I asked them these questions. I'm like, what's a naughty, irrational impulse that you've just been talking yourself out of? Cause that's what comedy was for me.

[00:12:22] Shereen Thor: Like I've thought about it for a long time. But I kept telling myself it didn't make sense, and why would I do that? And that's so stupid, right? So, like, I ask people, like, what's that thing you've been talking yourself out of? And they'll bust out with all this stuff, like, I've been thinking about quitting my job and moving to Bali, and I've been thinking about writing a book.

[00:12:38] Shereen Thor: And I'm like, so what's in there? You know what I mean? It's really less about, like, finding something that you don't know about, and more like quieting the chatter of your mind so that what's true in your heart and soul can actually be heard. Maybe it's like

[00:12:52] Loree Philip: Yeah. A lot of the times for the first time, to be honest, like if it isn't something you've been thinking about, it's because [00:13:00] you haven't been really thinking about what you want deep down inside in your heart.

[00:13:05] Shereen Thor: Yeah.

[00:13:06] Loree Philip: And, and being in that space to, uncover it, unpack it, maybe it's this one thing. And if you spend more time exploring that one thing, you start to see the bigger picture over time and you're just shifting yourself. in a more in that direction of authenticity and being your true self.

[00:13:28] Loree Philip: And if you've been over here, not being yourself at all, it's going to take a while.

[00:13:34] Shereen Thor: Yeah, that is so true. That is so true. And I feel like that definitely is what happened for me. It's like comedy was the catalyst. It was the rule breaking. It was the, Brave courage move. It was just the breaking out of the old paradigms, but it wasn't it.

[00:13:52] Shereen Thor: I only did comedy for two years and while I was doing the comedy, it was really exciting adventure. I was also getting coached and kind of continuing to [00:14:00] transform and like working with a coach and volunteering as a coach and having this safe space to like, take off that mask of people pleasing and who I'm supposed to be for others versus like who I actually am.

[00:14:10] Shereen Thor: And at the end of two years, I started getting sick of it. I was like, so excited. My ego was excited. Right. My mind was excited because that sounds cool and would make me look cool to others, right? So that people, but my heart was like, so transformed from having The safe space of working with a coach to take off that mask and be my actual self, that I sort of eventually just said, well, comedy looks really cool and it looks like it's going places.

[00:14:43] Shereen Thor: I am obsessed with this transformation I just had. I'm obsessed with wanting to just pay it forward and give that transformation to other people. So I shifted into coaching. And this just speaks to your point of like, it's, it gets uncovered slowly, right? Like you break the rules one day, you be yourself a little more one day, [00:15:00] it'll shift you over here.

[00:15:01] Shereen Thor: And then you do it again. So I coached for 17 years, got married, became a mom, lived my life. And then finally wrote a book. And I feel like that was the first time, like the artist and the philosopher, the comedian and the coach came together was my book. It was like, I'm going to cuss. I'm going to talk about serious science and data.

[00:15:19] Shereen Thor: I'm going to talk about history. I'm going to tell all my dirty personal stories in service of empowering women. Right. I was like, so it was like art and it was coaching and it was everything. And after that things really started to take off because I was like, Oh, okay. The book. Right. That was exciting.

[00:15:35] Shereen Thor: That was a piece of art and I haven't done art since comedy. I've been coaching for so long. And then it was like, Oh, maybe I'll do a TEDx talk. And so I did that TEDx talk, the intelligence of being irrational about this comedy story and how it really led me to my purpose. And then keynote speaking was like, ding, ding, ding.

[00:15:55] Shereen Thor: This makes. so much sense, right? It's that same energy of I'm on a microphone [00:16:00] just like I was in comedy, but it's really more with a purpose. I'm really here to motivate you first, to help you have a transformation first, and I might make you laugh secondarily, and that's a bonus. Whereas comedy was like laughing first, purpose on the back burner, right?

[00:16:13] Shereen Thor: So it's like, it's just taken me so long to continue to peel back the layers and figure it out. Like It's almost like being in the art of your life,

[00:16:22] Loree Philip: yeah, yeah. And I think the reason why I thought of this, Shireen, is I want people to hear that you don't have to get your purpose quote right.

[00:16:34] Loree Philip: And sometimes we wait and wait and wait because it doesn't seem quite right. And there's, there's an evolution. Just like. Everything else in life and that 1st step, you'll never know where that 1st step will you end up at the end of the journey, but you're just shifting towards a direction that feels more aligned to [00:17:00] you and it is a beautiful, like, artistic work of trying to, to pull it together.

[00:17:07] Loree Philip: But. I know a lot of, especially in the professional career space, we're afraid of failure. We're afraid of not, not being perfect. And we can put that energy on this idea of purpose and end up not getting anywhere.

[00:17:27] Shereen Thor: I love that you bring this up. Just that, just the, just that mindset shift of, Don't wait until you are sure what your purpose is to take a step, that one step in the direction of being more honestly and unapologetically yourself is a step in the direction of your purpose.

[00:17:47] Shereen Thor: And it will evolve, and it will change, and you will grow, and it will look different along the way. But I do think you're right, there's just something about, like, if you don't just say an imperfect yes. Then you will [00:18:00] consistently just feel stuck and uncertain and never make a move. You almost have to be willing to mess up a little bit and let it be messy to begin to answer that question of like, what is my purpose or who am I or what am I meant for?

[00:18:17] Loree Philip: Yeah. And I, and I come from a place of that was me. Like, I definitely wanted to, I have perfectionist tendencies. I, I like felt like I needed to know the thing. And so it's a slow evolving process, but talk to me, Shireen, about why it's so important. It's so worth it. I mean, you, you've seen people evolve and transform and you work with them as clients or you speak to them from the stage.

[00:18:47] Loree Philip: Yep. Tell me why it's so worth it for people to take this step towards their authentic, unapologetic self. I heard someone say it

[00:18:58] Shereen Thor: brilliantly once. And [00:19:00] she said, it's There's just something different about life when you're operating in your identity. And I was like, Oh, that's right. Right? Like I was actually trying to be what my mom wanted me to be right in that work environment.

[00:19:15] Shereen Thor: I was making a joke in my keynote speeches that they celebrated big racks and small voices, neither of which I had. And I didn't like I wasn't that girl. I've always been someone who's a little more intellectual, someone who really wanted to like, basically walk to the beat of my own drum. I am not a rule follower.

[00:19:30] Shereen Thor: I'm not like everybody else. And I think in a lot of ways I was trying to operate outside of my identity. I was trying to fit in. And I think that light dimming thing we talked about, right? Where you are 30 percent more likely to experience premature death if you're suppressing your emotions. 120, 000 preventable deaths a year due to work related stress.

[00:19:51] Shereen Thor: There's also another one that I didn't mention, which is the number one regret of the dying is I wish I would have had the courage to live a [00:20:00] life true to myself, not the one others expected of me. So when we talk about like, what's the, what's, what's the benefit, right? To like being an honest version of yourself is like, well, you get to die without regrets.

[00:20:12] Shereen Thor: Like I will go to my deathbed and know that I operated in my identity as a mother. As a sister, as a wife in my vocation, right. In my career, I was doing what I was meant to do. And I felt it when I was in that job, I felt inherently like I'm meant for more than this, but I don't know what that is. And I don't know how to get there.

[00:20:37] Shereen Thor: And I also have a bit of imposter syndrome. Like who the heck do you think you are? Kind of in my mind, right? So it's like weird soup of confusion of like wanting more and knowing there could be more, but not knowing how to get it. Not really knowing if I even deserved it. Like what makes me think I'm special.

[00:20:52] Shereen Thor: Right now I realize it's not about being special. It's just about being yourself. Like I don't get on a keynote. [00:21:00] speaking stage and think I'm special. I think I'm grateful for the opportunity to speak the language of the soul to all these beautiful souls. That are in the audience. You know what I mean?

[00:21:10] Shereen Thor: Like, I don't think I'm amazing. Put me on the podium. Like, I like, it's, because I know I am channeling, like, purpose driven energy. I'm like, channeling divine energy from source. I'm like, I'm so grateful to be able to, like, give this gift and that's my purpose. And that's, and I'm just grateful.

[00:21:32] Shereen Thor: There's no, like, Ego in it so anyway, lots of words, but I hope that was a confusing, it was a non confusing way of saying, it's worth it because you get to avoid regrets on your deathbed and you get to like, enjoy your life, right? Like there's no, I'm not like sad about, How I'm wasting my time or feeling underappreciated at a job.

[00:21:53] Shereen Thor: None of that's happening right now. I'm just in the flow. Like I'm in the flow and I'm grateful and it's happening and we're firing [00:22:00] on all cylinders and I still have problems and I still have stress. But it's a stress I'm grateful to deal with. I'm not like unhappy with my life and stressed.

[00:22:09] Loree Philip: You know what I mean?

[00:22:10] Loree Philip: Yeah, yeah. I know. I know, right? It's like, well, it's not that. And so one of the, one of the pillars beyond purpose is ease and there is this ease in life when you show up as yourself and you lean into your gifts and strengths and talents and you work from that place because those are your natural things that you're good at.

[00:22:36] Loree Philip: And if you love to do them, work, doesn't feel like work. Yes. And you're right. There are stressful days. There are things that, that pop up, but you feel, you feel driven to push through it because you're working on something bigger than yourself. That is your purpose and your heart is in it. And so that's, I think that the, [00:23:00] for me, the resiliency comes in is like, I'm actually doing something that I really want to do.

[00:23:05] Loree Philip: And so if I trip and fall. I can get up and keep going because I'm still excited to keep doing what I want to be doing instead of in like a a normal kind of societal job where it's like, I wasn't raising my hand to go the extra mile because I didn't really care about it that much, so it's just Completely different approach to not only how you show up, how you feel while you're there, and the impact you can create is so much bigger than the other way around.

[00:23:40] Shereen Thor: Yes. And I know you have not asked me about my freebie yet. Oh, sorry. Forgive me for that noise. I know you haven't asked me about my freebie yet. But it actually is A happiness cheat sheet. And the reason I'm mentioning it is because of what you just said. Apparently, One of the [00:24:00] aspects of well being.

[00:24:01] Shereen Thor: So I took a course at Yale all about the science of well being and my happiness cheat sheet kind of outlines what I learned in that course. And the final thing, the last essential happiness technique actually has to do with using your gifts in your work, in your life. Because. And if, and if you do end up getting the freebie, there's a link to a sort of an assessment that helps you realize what your top seven strengths are.

[00:24:26] Shereen Thor: So the data is if you're using four of your top seven strengths, Then you are much more likely to view your job as a calling rather than just a job. And that does add to your well being, your happiness. And so they are not unrelated, right? Like it's, it was interesting to me in that course realizing like, Oh, they're talking about like gratitude and savoring and acts of kindness and meditation and sleep and exercise, things that we know, right?

[00:24:54] Shereen Thor: But then they talked about the gifts and I was like, Oh yeah, it matters. It matters [00:25:00] that you're using your actual top four out of seven strengths in your unique makeup to do your thing so that you feel alive and aligned and like you're enjoying yourself and like you're good at it and all the things that make you feel happy.

[00:25:17] Loree Philip: Yeah. I'm glad you brought that up here because it is. And people, I mean, there's like, just like that course that you took, there were so many things, but everybody watching this, there's something a little different that's going to click for them depending on where they're at, what the conversation is is it happiness that's going to make a difference for you?

[00:25:41] Loree Philip: Is it feeling successful because you're doing, using your talents and you're good at it. And so success just comes when you're in that space. Is it, there's so many reasons. And so he's almost like, why not? And I think the why not is holding people back is really [00:26:00] the status quo, the concern of not fitting in the pressure from family, the pressure from wherever you might see it is really one of the biggest blocks for people.

[00:26:14] Loree Philip: And so, working through that because it is worth it on the other side. And sometimes we might have to be extreme, like. You're dying if you don't, you know what I mean? It's just like, wake up and that's why life hits us the way it does, right? When people go into health issues, burnout, getting laid off, like all of these things, like, if you're not listening.

[00:26:37] Loree Philip: Yeah, it will hit you. It will hit you. And then you have to listen. And it would be great if we could all shift before we get to that desperation.

[00:26:48] Shereen Thor: I do think that is why coaching is an industry. I do think had I not gone to that seminar and had these like cheesy close eyed exercise moments where [00:27:00] I basically was like learning what was under the surface for me, like, I don't think I would have made this change.

[00:27:06] Shereen Thor: I really don't. I don't think so. I think like in a lot of ways, the things that made a difference for me to navigate the bravery and courage required to make a massive transformation really was like a coach in the community. Like, I needed a coach who, like, saw me bigger than I saw myself. held me accountable, held a safe space, right?

[00:27:26] Shereen Thor: Someone to like think through it with and just feel supported by. And that community who supports change. I think we, a lot of us know what it's like to have friends, family, friends we've had for a long time who get really weirded out when you start changing things. Like, they're like, why are you being something different than I'm used to?

[00:27:43] Shereen Thor: Why are you doing something I would never do? Right? And then they give us a lot of criticism and a lot of judgment. And it's very uncomfortable to feel Like, the people who love you the most don't support you when you're trying to be the truth of yourself, right? Like, they supported you when you were what they wanted you to [00:28:00] be, but once you start being the truth, they're like, I'm comfortable.

[00:28:02] Shereen Thor: It feels very, Like a more vulnerable form of rejection because you're like, here I am being myself and you aren't really accepting me. So I feel like a coach is pivotal and a community is pivotal. A community that says, I remember like when I was at that seminar, I was going to the back of the room to like, see if I could sign up for their next seminar and keep it going.

[00:28:23] Shereen Thor: And I said to them, like, Oh, seven days, your retreat is seven days long. Like, I could never get that time off from my work. And they just looked at me and said, well, it looks like you're in the wrong job then, huh? And I was like, what an interesting response. Like, right. Like, if I was talking to a friend or a family member, they'd be like, yeah, you shouldn't go.

[00:28:39] Shereen Thor: It would have just been that simple. But I was in a community of people who do not accept the status quo. I was in a community of people who think you should advocate. For what's better, right? And that is the difference is like being, so like to your point of like, it's really hard, like, yes, it is really hard.

[00:28:57] Shereen Thor: And I think because of that, you need [00:29:00] environments that support change yes, yes,

[00:29:03] Loree Philip: yes, all of it, Shereen. And I think the only thing I would add to that is the first step is to want to do it and to make that decision for yourself. That I'm going to set foot on this path of being my authentic self being on purpose, maybe we'll need to change some things, but then you can go and get the support you need to go make it happen because you got pulled into that seminar.

[00:29:31] Shereen Thor: But up until that point, you probably wouldn't have had the conviction to make a change. No. And that conviction is so important. We're so powerful when we decide, really deep down decide that we're going to do something. Well, I feel like I could talk to you all day. But we're going to have to start to wrap things up a bit here, Shireen, and I'd love to hear any last pieces of advice for our [00:30:00] audienceI would just say, get really super honest with yourself. I would say, like, one of the reasons I wrote my book is because I find that women don't more than others, talk themselves out of what they want first, right? That like, they might not even take it to a friend before they're telling themselves, This doesn't make sense.

[00:30:22] Shereen Thor: This is too much. You really shouldn't, right? We have a lot of good girl programming of don't make a fuss, sit pretty, smile nice. Who do you think you are? Right? All that has like ingrained for centuries. It was etched into the law. It's just all the things. And so honestly, if I was to give some really practical advice, I would say maybe start doing morning pages.

[00:30:42] Shereen Thor: This is something from a book called The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. And she just talks about like fill up three pages every morning, zero agenda, just whatever's on your mind. In my most honest moments at certain points in my life, when I would do morning pages, Morning pages, I [00:31:00] would actually reflect on how much I really hated this version of my life and I didn't know it before I wrote it so sometimes it's like, I actually just think like.

[00:31:08] Shereen Thor: The honesty with yourself is required in order to like land on that conviction you're talking about like just getting really really honest So that you know what you want. So that's like one really simple way to listen to your soul speak So that's my little

[00:31:24] Loree Philip: last tidbit for the day Thank you for that.

[00:31:27] Loree Philip: And I do want to talk about your free gift So if you could let Everybody know what it's about and where they can get it.

[00:31:35] Shereen Thor: Awesome. Yeah. So I did create the happiness cheat sheet based on everything I learned through that course, the science of wellbeing through Yale. It links, it explains the eight essential happiness techniques.

[00:31:47] Shereen Thor: It explains. It explains how gratitude improves your ability to recover from a surgery more quickly. All these kinds of crazy, wild, amazing, powerful things about these happiness techniques. They're all free. And then it, it links to [00:32:00] meditations. It links to that assessment that helps you figure out what your top seven strengths are.

[00:32:04] Shereen Thor: So it's just like a really nifty practical tool to bring some powerful habits into your life on the daily so that you can increase your happiness. Well being which to me is like the easiest way to start to listen to yourself better is like self care, right? Like tuning in to what you need. What do you want?

[00:32:22] Shereen Thor: How do you feel? So yeah.

[00:32:25] Loree Philip: Yes. Yes. Yes all of that Thank you so much Shereen. I really appreciate the this interview and your fun energy And I I just I can really sense your purpose here. Oh, thank you so much for having me. It was a pleasure. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you've enjoyed it, I would love for you to subscribe. If you're already a subscriber, don't forget to share the podcast with a friend. I hope you have an amazing week.

[00:32:54] Loree Philip: It's your time to shine. Bye.