How to Be Yourself with Regina Lawless

george grombacher 0:02
Regina Lawless is author she is a leadership coach. She’s the former head of dei at Instagram. And she is the founder and CEO of bossy and blissful her newest book is Do you journey of success loss and learning to live a more meaningful life? Welcome to the show, Regina,

Regina Lawless 0:19
thank you so much for having me. excited to have you

george grombacher 0:22
on. Tell us a little about your personal lives more about your work? And what motivated you to put pen to paper for the book?

Regina Lawless 0:30
Absolutely, wow. So personal life, I am in a new phase of life right now I’ve left my corporate job. So I’m, I’m in this phase of kind of figuring out a new routine for myself. Having gone from having all of the structure of kind of a nine to five, or even though it was it was much more than that. So I’ve been learning over the last seven, eight months, how to readjust my routine. I’m in a new phase of parenting, I have a 18 year old, he just started his first semester in college. So that has been different for me personally. And I moved into a new house too, and a new neighborhood. So a lot has happened for me. In the last I would say, seven, eight months that I’ve been adjusting to. And then professionally, I’ve been building a business. So I launched bossy and blissful July of last year. So I’ve been doing a couple of events to get that community started and really build something restorative for high achieving women of color. And then my biggest focus right now professionally is the launch of my book, do you I feel like this is a book that I always knew I would write, I’ve always been an avid reader. I’ve always wanted to write a book. I just never knew what that book was was going to be about. And then unfortunately, through the tragic loss of my husband, that really became the catalyst for rediscovering myself. And you know, to answer your question, George, that that really helped me put pen to paper on expressing all of the lessons that I learned over, you know, roughly 18 months to two years of trial and error and healing from that loss.

george grombacher 2:31
seismic shifts in your life,

Regina Lawless 2:33
a lot going on George.

Unknown Speaker 2:37
Very seismic.

george grombacher 2:38
My goodness. Well, it’s certainly not a the bossy and blissful I’m such an advocate and believer in the power of community. Was that also something that you’d always want to put together that you wanted to put together?

Unknown Speaker 2:54
Yeah,

Regina Lawless 2:56
I have always been a, I think community builder, I’ve always been the type of person who brings other people together, I’ve always had a pretty wide, diverse circle of friends. And oftentimes, I’m the linchpin that brings very different people very different perspectives together. And so as I was thinking about what I wanted to build, I remember being oftentimes in my career, I was the only whether it was the only woman on a leadership team, the only black woman or the only black person. And that climb of the corporate ladder leaders will tell you if they have this thing for a reason. It’s lonely on top. It’s especially lonely when you’re underrepresented. And so that’s why it was is really important for me to build a community of high achieving black women because we are so few and far between, in in leadership positions. And so it shouldn’t have to be lonely. So I wanted to build this community so that we would have a safe space to talk about certain issues and, and let her hair down and just have fun.

george grombacher 4:04
You know what, amen to all of that. So rediscovering yourself, I imagine. I think for me, and for a lot of people that that I’ve spoken to a process like that leads to certainly reminding myself of things that I knew, but then also learning for the first time stuff about myself that maybe I just was unaware of.

Regina Lawless 4:31
Yeah. i It was both for me, actually. So one of the things that I reminded myself of, is how much I liked to do creative things that I had gotten away from so in the book I write about rediscovering dance, so I used to dance all the time. I was on a dance team in high school, and I had just gotten away from that and during This discovery, it was around my birthday party, I decided to throw this lavish birthday party for myself, just

Unknown Speaker 5:06
to just a treat myself.

Regina Lawless 5:10
And I had come through some, you know, kind of the, the kind of some of the hardest parts of the grief. And so I threw myself this birthday party, and I hired backup dancers to

Unknown Speaker 5:23
me, it’s amazing. It was awesome.

Regina Lawless 5:27
It was amazing. So things like that, I rediscovered that I’m actually a good dancer, and I loved dance. And then I discovered things about myself that I didn’t know just how resilient that had never really occurred to me, I’ve been through a lot of things in my life. But going through something like this, I was 40, when my husband passed away, our son was 15, I had just started my job at Instagram kind of his head of di about six months prior to my husband passing. And so I didn’t realize how resilient I really was. So I got to learn that about myself. And just how much I value, freedom and adventure. I didn’t know that about myself, I knew that I liked to travel. But I got to I got a chance to do a lot of travel a lot of you know, both solo, some with friends, some with family. And I discovered that about myself that I really value that freedom and adventure. So that was that was new. Yeah,

george grombacher 6:40
that’s certainly it’s different stages or seasons of life, certainly when you have kids and a big job. And just, it’s easy to not focus on doing fun things and think about my inner creative, which I rediscovered mine a couple of years ago also and to travel to travel on your own oh my goodness, what a weird phenomenon that would have you would have thought that was crazy five years ago. Yes.

Regina Lawless 7:11
Yeah. And that was that was really strange for me, because I had not that, you know, I had not traveled by myself. I was always with a family. Or it was a business trip. And so I guess technically, you could say I’ve traveled by myself for work. But this was different to travel for myself, traveled by myself or myself for leisure. And it gave me the space that I needed. That was actually one of the first things I did within that first three months of my husband passing. I took a solo trip up to Mendocino County, which is up in Northern California, amongst the redwoods and just watched the ocean, and it was just it really opened me up and started to allow me to process the grief. So it was it was a beautiful experience.

george grombacher 8:04
I appreciate that. So the subtitle of the book is loss and learning to live a more meaningful life. What is what is meaningful name?

Regina Lawless 8:17
I love that question. meaningful for me, means doing what lights me up, doing what I feel like I’m called to do or purposed to do. And I think you only arrive at that, from tapping into your inner wisdom. I discovered that I was on autopilot for so many years, I was striving to climb the corporate ladder. I have always been a very ambitious person. And once I set my sights on corporate leadership, there was no looking back. But in that I had to do so much to to get there so much personal sacrifice so much conforming, so much stress and overwhelm that I had gotten away from me at my essence. And I’d gotten away from that creativity, that lightness that fun, that joy. And so through this, you know, it really took stripping such a major part of my life, my loot the loss of my husband, to really strip me back down and, and come back to my true self. And that’s where I discovered that at my core, I’m a person who loves people. And I love to share I love to acquire knowledge and share that knowledge with other people. And meaningful to me is when I’m able to do that when I get to do speaking events when I get to coach people, when I get to create community and be amongst people and share and break bread. So I think whatever that is for you as an individual I always As I say, think back to what you enjoy doing as a child, all the things that are meaningful to me now showed up in my childhood, the dancing, the music, the talking of people, the friendships. So oftentimes our childhood gives us cues and clues of what we what we find meaningful.

george grombacher 10:23
Isn’t that truth? We’re just so busy living as as as kids. And then we make that shift into, for lack of a better term survival as we’re climbing the corporate ladder and wearing the clothes we’re supposed to and doing the things we’re supposed to and talking the way there was, whatever, whatever that is. And certainly, people who are listening could identify with that phenomenon. Do you think without the experiences that you had, would, would you have arrived at that place, or would have just been, I’m just inside the belly of the beast, I’m working inside this fortune 500 company, I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing.

Regina Lawless 11:04
I would have absolutely kept doing what I was doing. I needed that disruption. It’s it’s like, the matrix like I was needed to be taken outside of the matrix, to really see it for what it was. So I’m thankful I actually don’t regret any part of my experience, because I do believe everything happened the way it was supposed to happen. And had it not been for the loss of my husband, I wouldn’t be able to see it to kind of step back and see things more clearly and have the perspective that I now have. But yeah, without that, I would have continued the status quo.

george grombacher 11:50
Think in in a lot of ways you getting older, is this, it sounds so dumb. I think about people like Charles Barkley, he is an absolute national treasure, because he says what’s on his mind, and we universally love Charles Barkley. He’s like, this guy’s amazing. And he’s sort of always been that way. But I think to myself, Well, why don’t I just be myself and say, what’s on my mind? Regardless of what I think that the impact is going to have on other people, you know, what I’m talking about? Is that sort of what we’re talking about here.

Speaker 2 12:27
Yeah, I do think you come to you come more fuller,

Regina Lawless 12:34
into yourself with age. And I think that is also part of my journey. I think now that I’m in this next phase of my life, I’m in my 40s. Now, the things that used to be so important to me are the things I used to, I think worry about, just, I realized now, after you’ve gone through cycles of things, you realize, like, okay, that these are just the ebbs and flows of life, you know, so. So that’s one thing, I think you have enough, like you have a bigger data set, right to pull from and you know, that you’ve been through some things before, you know, if you’ve gotten through it before you can get through it again. But also, yeah, I think something starts to happen, where you just don’t I don’t know if it’s, I just don’t even have the energy to care anymore.

Speaker 2 13:26
Button older. Like,

Regina Lawless 13:31
I it’s that it’s just be more comfortable in my skin. That I am more comfortable saying and being and not conforming as much because like, This is who I am, and this is what you get, take it or leave it, but that you don’t have that perspective or that confidence in your 20s I know I didn’t I was immensely concerned with what everybody thought about me in my 20s and I’m not as concerned now.

george grombacher 14:00
Yeah, certainly the same for me. And yeah, getting older you have less F’s to give get a little bit of money and not that I had that I have Charles Barkley fu money necessarily. But is that is that one of the for lack of a better term again an unlock that you’re interested in helping people to get to quicker you don’t need to be 50 years old or whatever, to be yourself. You don’t need to be the CFO, whatever and it doesn’t being you is not necessarily dependent on your position or your bank account. Your age.

Regina Lawless 14:39
Yeah, it that is something that I absolutely hope that this book will give people not only permission to be themselves but a guide to do that. And I in the book, I lay out this framework of reconnecting with your emotions, restoring your body, reframing your beliefs were renewing your spirit. And once you’ve done those things, reinventing your routines to make them stick. But I do firmly believe that I could have been a truer version of myself earlier, if I wasn’t so concerned about it acquiring status and playing the rules of the corporate arena. Now, don’t get me wrong, like playing those rules had some benefits, you know, it certainly it certainly I certainly acquired some things and that allows me to live a comfortable life now. However, I sacrifice so much. And when I, when I wrote about this in the in the book, suppressing so much of yourself shows up in your body, it shows up in your spirit, or it dampens who you are. And so I do want people to know that, you know, anytime you’re being yourself, that is it’s not necessarily easy depending on the circumstance. But it’s worthwhile, if you can get more comfortable with following your natural instincts, following your values. And sometimes that may mean you need to move into a different environment. Because there certainly are places that are toxic, that don’t allow you to be who you are, that’s a signal that you may need to pick up your things and, and move to another environment where you can be the fullest version of yourself that that makes you happy and more fulfilled in life.

george grombacher 16:44
Really well said, and I love we may I have a tendency to try and separate all these things into my neat little buckets. And this is where that goes, this is where this goes. And this is data. And that’s fine. Well, but it’s also flawed, because all these things are interacting. So my spirit, my body, my mind, my career, all these things are touching one another, and to try to segment them off. And it’s it’s do that at your own peril.

Regina Lawless 17:17
Yeah, I was the queen of compartmentalizing, like I would just, I, you could have a disaster happening, I’d be like in crisis at home, but would go to work. And no one would know, anything was happening. No one would be, you know, the wiser. And I would suffer in silence so much because I wanted to appear that I had it all together and had the answers. And I didn’t want anyone to perceive me as being too emotional or not as competent or whatever the thing. But I did suffer at my own peril. To your point, I developed a lot of stress related illnesses, because I was suppressing so much. And so now this book is actually the culmination of me learning to put it out there and and I struggled it was it was a decision point for me, right, I went through a lot, I could have not put it out to the world. But I found that it could be much more powerful to strip back the layers to show other people and again, give people permission to be a more fuller, real human whole version of themselves.

george grombacher 18:33
Love it. Regina, thank you so much for coming out. And thank you for, for sharing your story and what you’ve learned, which will help so many other people to get closer to lead leading whatever their version of meaningful life is. So where can people learn more? Where can they get their copy of? Do you a journey of success loss and learning to live a more meaningful life? Yes,

Regina Lawless 18:59
well, people can grab their copy on Amazon, also Barnes and Noble’s dot com and hopefully in a book retailer near you. We’re trying to push the book out to as many local retailers as possible. But also check me out on my website, Regina lawless.com. You can also find me on LinkedIn at Regina lawless or on Instagram at Regina dot lawless.

george grombacher 19:25
I was gonna ask if you’re on Instagram after having worked at Instagram.

Speaker 2 19:31
Yes, yes. Now I have no secrets to the algorithm. I’m struggling here like the rest of y’all. But I am there.

george grombacher 19:41
That’s awesome. If you enjoyed as much as I did show Virginia your appreciation and share today show the friend who also appreciates good ideas pick up your copy of Do you journey of success, loss and learning to live a more meaningful life at Amazon Barnes and Noble, hopefully your local bookstore and then go to read Jeanna lawless.com by drawn LinkedIn as well as Instagram and certainly like all those the notes of the show thanks again Regina Thanks George till next time remember do your part by doing your best

george grombacher 16:00
So if I want my iPhone, and my Tesla and my Bitcoin to work, we need to get the metal out of the ground.

Pierre Leveille 16:07
Absolutely. Without it, we cannot do it.

george grombacher 16:13
Why? Why is there a Why has production been going down.

Pierre Leveille 16:21
Because the large mines that are producing most of the copper in the world, the grades are going down slowly they’re going there, they’re arriving near the end of life. So and of life of mines in general means less production. And in the past, at least 15 years, the exploration expenditure for copper were pretty low, because the price of copper was low. And when the price is low, companies are tending to not invest more so much in exploration, which is what we see today. It’s it’s, it’s not the way to look at it. Because nobody 15 years ago was able to predict that there would be a so massive shortage, or it’s so massive demand coming. But in the past five years, or let’s say since the since 10 years, we have seen that more and more coming. And then the by the time you react start exploring and there’s more money than then ever that is putting in put it in expression at the moment for copper at least. And what we see is that the it takes time, it could take up to 2025 years between the time you find a deposit that it gets in production. So but but the year the time is counted. So it’s it’s very important to so you will see company reopening old mines, what it will push also, which is not bad, it will force to two, it will force to find a it will force to find ways of recalibrating customer, you know the metals, that will be more and more important.

george grombacher 18:07
So finding, okay, so for lack of a better term recycling metals that are just sitting around somewhere extremely important. Yeah. And then going and going back to historic minds that maybe for lack of technology, or just lack of will or reasons, but maybe now because there’s such a demand, there’s an appetite to go back to those.

Pierre Leveille 18:33
Yes, but there will be a lot of failures into that for many reasons. But the ones that will be in that will resume mining it’s just going to be a short term temporary solution. No it’s it’s not going to be you need to find deposit that will that will operate 50 years you know at least it’s 25 to 50 years at least and an old mind that you do in production in general it’s less than 10 years.

george grombacher 19:03
Got it. Oh there we go. Up here. People are ready for your difference making tip What do you have for them

Pierre Leveille 19:14
You mean an investment or

george grombacher 19:17
whatever you’re into, you’ve got so much life experience with raising a family and doing business all over the world and having your kids go to school in Africa so a tip on copper or whatever you’re into.

Pierre Leveille 19:34
But there’s two things I like to see and I was telling my children many times and I always said you know don’t focus on what will bring you specifically money don’t think of Getting Rich. Think of doing what you what you like, what you feel your your your your your, you know you have been born to do so use your most you skills, do what you like, do what you wet well, and good things will happen to you. And I can see them grow in their life. And I can tell you that this is what happens. And sometimes you have setback like I had recently. But if we do things properly, if we do things that we like, and we liked that project, we were very passionate about that project, not only me, all my team, and if we do things properly, if we do things correctly, good things will happen. And we will probably get the project back had to go forward or we will find another big project that will be the launch of a new era. So that’s my most important tip in life. Do what you like, do it with your best scale and do it well and good things will happen.

george grombacher 20:49
Pierre Leveille 21:03
Thank you. I was happy to be with you to today.

george grombacher 21:06
Damn, tell us the websites and where where people can connect and find you.

Pierre Leveille 21:13
The it’s Deep South resources.com. So pretty simple.

george grombacher 21:18
Perfect. Well, if you enjoyed this as much as I did show up here your appreciation and share today’s show with a friend who also appreciate good ideas, go to deep south resources, calm and learn all about what they’re working on and track their progress.

Pierre Leveille 21:32
Thanks. Thanks, have a nice day.

george grombacher 21:36
And until next time, keep fighting the good fight. We’re all in this together.