Welcome to the Brave Woman at Work podcast. This is your host, Jen Pestikas. I’m so glad you’re here. Hey everyone, how are you doing out there? So can you believe that we’re almost at the end of the year? I just, I don’t know, every year it just feels like it gets faster and faster and faster and it, I’m also getting older and older and older. No, I’m not. No, I’m not. No, I’m not. But no, it just feels like time is speeding right along. This one has moved really, really fast. Feels like we were just starting at the beginning of the year and now as I’m recording this we’re in November and I am starting to get into the holiday mode over here at the Pestikas household.

I was telling my husband, John, that we need to start holiday shopping. I’m kind of like getting antsy because I used to start my holiday shopping in August. I was a little crazy, and he would say, you don’t need to do that. You don’t need to do that. And even this weekend as I’ve been kind of like, getting into that spirit, he’s it’s too early.

Hello everyone. It’s almost mid-November, and so I’m kind of freaking out inside. Maybe not so inside, but he would wait probably a few days before Christmas or, whatever your tradition. If he could in our house, it’s Christmas, he would wait probably like one or two days before and I would be having a heart attack.

Can’t live like this. So I am dragging him around with me this weekend to get started and doing all of the online browsing. And I’m just saying to myself, he, he has to survive. He absolutely has to survive so that I can not be panicking when we get through December and right before the holiday. On another note today, I have a great guest Arivee Vargas and Arivee and I had a fun and flowing conversation about rising up and getting unstuck from situations and, places and spaces that no longer serve you. And if you’ve listened to this show a little bit, this is a common story. It’s a common refrain. I, and I don’t know why women are having this. I do feel like we’re all many women, we’re all kind of uprising.

And Arivee is no exception. I absolutely love this conversation, and I’m sure you will too. So here is a little bit more about Arivee.
Arivee Vargas is an award-winning executive and high performance coach to lawyers and corporate leaders. Author of the bestselling book, your Time To Rise, unlearn Limiting Beliefs, unlock Your Power and Unleash your Truest Self.

She’s a leadership development strategist, keynote speaker, and host of the Humble Rising Podcast. With nearly 20 years of experience from big law attorney to corporate executive leading global litigation and corporate compliance initiatives to leading global employee relationship relations rather, and leadership development at a fast paced biotech, Arivee knows firsthand what it takes to excel and lead in high pressure environments trusted by top companies and 100 am law firms.

Arivee delivers coaching keynotes and workshops to help organizations develop and lawyers and leaders to become bold, grounded, value driven leaders who lead with clarity, purpose, and seek to drive meaningful. Lasting impact. Arivee’s work has been featured in Oprah Daily Forbes Success Magazine, among many others.

She graduated magnum cum laude from Boston College cum laude from Boston College Law School, and received an honoree doctorate of laws from Boston College in 2022. In addition to her career at two LA large law firms and as a corporate executive, I taught business law at Boston College, Carroll School of Management, and served as judicial law clerk at the Federal District Court in Massachusetts and on its first circuit. She is the recipient of numerous awards and recognition, including most recently being honored with a Latina Trailblazer Award from the National Hispanic Bar Association Region two in 2025. She is most proud to be a Latina daughter of Dominican immigrant parents and the mother of three children.

If the Brave Woman at Work Podcast has helped you personally or professionally, please share it with a friend, family member, or colleague. I say that every week, and of course, your ratings and reviews help the show. Just get in the hands of more people that need it, women, men, all of the listeners alike. And of course, if you can leave a, a rating and review, I would so appreciate it. Also, I know, like we said, we’re talking about the holidays.

If you didn’t hear the Brave Woman at Work, affirmation Deck is available in time just for the gifting season. It is a 54 card deck. Yes, I know that the standard deck is 52, but I’an overachiever. It is a beautiful compilation of advice and hard won wisdom from none other than Brave Woman at Work, podcast guests authors in our anthology series, which I have to tell you, I’m so excited about this.

We’re almost at 50 authors, 50 female authors across the the Globe and our community members. So you can grab a copy of the deck at bravewomenatwork.com . And so you, when you do that, you click on the website, click on resources, and then you’ll see the affirmation cards page. I hope that you enjoy them if you pick them up.

All right. Let’s welcome Arivee to the show.

Hello Arivee. It is so wonderful to have you on Brave Women at Work. How are you today?

I am great, so happy to be here with you, Jen.

Oh, yes. I’ really glad we can make this happen. Everybody knows I love a good woman’s story, that’s why I do this podcast. I love, people that share their stories. So tell us a little bit about you and how you’ve gotten to where you are today.

I always start my story Jen, with my family of origin. So I am first generation here in the States. My parents came from the Dominican Republic, so I am a proud first gener daughter of immigrants and I mention that first always because my upbringing really formed the roots of who I am and really taught me work ethic and resilience and sacrifice. And also taught me when that can go too far and when our survival mindsets can go too far. So I’m grateful, so grateful for all the lessons that I learned in that unique kind of family upbringing that I had as a, as a child, and eventually went to law school.

So I’m fast forwarding all the way to to my lawyer days. Went to law school practice as a litigator for a number of years. Clerked for a few federal judges, taught business school, taught at Boston Colleges. School taught business law. Had a blast teaching, love teaching, and, so worked at a few firms litigated and then went in-house to a very fast paced biotech here in Boston and was there for about eight years.

And I did different things there. That is where I pivoted completely into leadership development and coaching. So I, oh, okay. I went there as in-house counsel and in the compliance group. So straddling legal and compliance, doing a whole swath of things, creating programs, enhancing programs, traveling globally to support the work that we were doing, learning so much, growing so much.

A lot of work, a lot of around the clockwork especially. -You have a small team and you are all very high achieving, high performing folks from law firms. You’re gonna apply that same energy into -A new environment and you feed off each other. So everyone’s going really fast and doing really, really good work, but really work.

That was, that, tiring and loved my time there, but then decided, hey, I’ve been coaching on the side. I had gotten my certification maybe four years before that ’cause I had been coached and experienced the transformation -For me, for coaching. And so I got certified and had been coaching a few women lawyers on the side.

Like really from my full-time job. I had my podcast by that time, the Humble Rising Podcast. Oh, cool. Really similar, really similar stories. Okay. Like doing something that I was really passionate about. And the podcast still is a, a passion project for me. But, but wanted to merge my, I always say like my outside of work passions and interests with what I was doing at work.

I felt like I could, we didn’t have a real robust coaching program at the time. We didn’t have a global leadership development program at the time. I didn’t see much programmatic investment in professionals of color who were high performing, or even professionals that were high performing and really want to, to develop them as leaders.

I didn’t see that we were doing a lot of that programmatically and consistently. So I said, Hey, I would love to merge my interests and my passions by doing that kind of work in HR at that company. So I didn’t wanna leave yet. I was like, I really wanna see what we can do here in this company. And eventually had the conversation with the chief legal officer at the time, who also happened to be someone who was a mentor for me.

And I said to him, Hey, so I’m thinking of, I’m thinking of, leaving legal and compliance and I, I really want to do more coaching, leadership development work. I really wanna focus on our high performing talent and definitely our professionals of color. And he’s wait, so hold on. So you don’t. Wanna be a lawyer anymore. Are you okay with that? You’re like that, I thought that was clear. Okay.

He’s are you sure? Are he literally, I think his, his last exact sentence was, are you sure you don’t wanna be a lawyer anymore? And I said yes. And he is are you, are you sure? And I said, I’m fine with that. I’m okay with that. And then he literally looked at me and he said, okay, let’s get you into hr.

And so it Wow. Wow. Yes, it was because he had always been someone who said, whatever you wanna do, you, you are gonna be able to do it as long as you have people that are there to support you. And he became my, one of my biggest supporters and even a, a, my, a long time mentor of mine who was also working at the same company who I had known years before I joined the company.

He said, if, if this is what you wanna do, let’s try to make this happen. Now. It didn’t happen until maybe eight months later because headcount and, you gotta deal with the reality business. But, and the job I got was not leadership development. It was employee relations, which is not the same thing.

It’s not, no, it’s not. But because I had a skillset of investigations and litigation and the skillset I had, it’s, it seamlessly did match with, with that role. And it was leading employee relations globally. So I was a team of one. That role gave me the opportunity to understand issues from all perspectives.

Employee director, ports manager, senior leadership, C-Suite. I got the full 360 picture on every issue and I understood way more what the employee experience was at all different levels in all different parts of the the company. And also got to know most of my HR colleagues very, very well, which then served me immensely two years later when I finally got to lead leadership development at that company.

So then I would leverage as relationships. I had built relationships. I knew what the pain points were because I saw them. I was in the trenches with them for a while, and so I knew. Kind of where, in terms of my own qualitative research from the job. -What really needed to focus on. And so was able to direct and guide that program.

And they still to this day, are doing the same programs that we created together. So I love that they’re continuing the work and doing the import work. And but Jen, then people ask me, wait, so if this was the job you really wanted over, and it’s years of an evolution of wanting that job, of course, right?

Yeah. I didn’t, I didn’t become a lawyer law firm being like, and eventually I’ gonna do leadership development and then going off on my own as an entrepreneur. I never would’ve thought that. It’s just what happens as you go along in your career and you’re seeking more challenge or growth, or you’re, you’re evolving as a person.

So I have this job and I am, I feel like we’re making an impact. I adore the people I work with. I would not have stayed at that company that long if I didn’t love the team. And I found myself, I found myself in meetings. There’s came a certain where I found myself in meetings, leadership team meetings where I would look around and say, I feel like my work here is done.

I feel like I’ve learned, but also that, yeah. Was that hard? Was that hard though? Like for your family I mean, your family of origin, was everybody because I mean, think about it. You’re first gen, you go get a law degree, your family is, your parents are so proud. You’re teaching at Boston College and you’re like, Hey, wait a minute, everybody, I’m taking a huge detour and now I’m bored in meetings like where I feel my work has done.

So I just had to like kind of stop there and ask. So I love that you asked that question because Yes, but Jen, it was every pivot I made, they, they, they would tell me, wait, are you sure you wanna do that? Wait, why would you do that? Why would you go there? Hold on. Don’t. Because, because a lot of. Immigrants when they come here and they have children that, they’re able to help them get access to a great education, help to support them, and they become something that is the American dream to them.

Of course it is about security and stability. So anything that you do to mess that up or loosen that up, they don’t, it’s, it’s almost like it is, it’s not offensive, it’s just jarring for them. Of course. They’re like, no. The whole point was so that you would have financial economic stability. You’ll lose your job.

You have health, all the things that they think of when they think of stability and security. And if it’s not, like for my parents, they’re used to. You work a nine to five or whatever the hours are. -And you get a paycheck every two weeks, and you have health insurance and you have benefits, and why can’t that be good enough for you?

-Why isn’t that enough for you? -They always were baffled by, I was like, okay, I’ gonna switch, do something different. They’re just like, why are you always trying to do something else? I’m like, because I’ve maxed out what I wanna do here, and I wanna do something different, and by the way, I can, so why wouldn’t I do that?

-But the co the conversation of being a lawyer to a non-practicing lawyer was a big one. -And the conversation of leaving that company, leaving my leadership development work at that company to then do it on my own as an entrepreneur, was a massive. Conversation. It was so big for me personally, Jen, like I delayed that conversation.

Jen, I’m a grown person. I have three children and I still was like, I’m scared of talking to my parents. Oh yeah. I would’ve been scared to talk to your parents too. Not that like that, like first gen guilt or that whatever that, whatever we wanna call that. Totally. Yes. I haven’t, I don’t have the precise language for that, but I know how it felt.

It felt like I don’t want them to be scared for me. I don’t want them to worry about me. I don’t want them to be anxious. I want them to know that I can do this. And I remember it was the last conversation I had that I only had to have Jen because I had to announce it that I had left my job I had to announce it and other than that, I wouldn’t have been pushed to have it that soon.

Finally got my ducks in a row, meaning I got my head on straight. I had my, like the two or three things I wanted to share. And the first thing my parents did, and this is what they always do when I share news with them like this, is that they just, they kind of put their hands over their mouth and they’re like, oh, oh, they have a moment of shock and they’re like, oh, everybody, you gotta watch the YouTube for this one. You gotta watch. Just don’t do the audio. You gotta see the whole effect here. Okay. My father says, I mean, and his eyes get big and he is uh uh, are you sure you wanna do that? I mean, I don’t know about this Arviee, I, I mean, I know you like to do this I get it, but how are you gonna manage this? And what about the house?

And what about literally thinking about economic, financial stability, security? And again, again, a lot of people think of income as a paycheck. It not in terms of equity, not in terms of investments you make. They don’t, my parents did not grow up like that, nor did they come to this country and do any of that, because their attitude, when I was younger, what I heard was people invest money when they have extra money.

We don’t have extra money. There’s nothing to invest. We literally have a paycheck and we spend the money on food. Your education closed. There is no extra to invest. So I didn’t have any of that kind of information. As a child, I learned that you work. To pay your bills and you work to put food on the table and you work to take care of your family.

Yep. And so you do. And so for my parents, when I’m leaving these very stable and frankly prestigious jobs, right? And saying, you know what, I’ gonna be an entrepreneur. They’re like, what is that? Like, why would you do that? Why would you sacrifice everything that you’ve built? And I had to remind them, no, every single experience I’ve had, especially as a litigator, especially as a litigator, every experience I’ve had has literally allowed me to be qualified and be an expert to do this thing.

And this is what I meant to do. And I remember. We are, we’re all crying. I’m crying. Yeah. I think my mom is crying. Like I’m getting emotional. And I said, you know what? ‘Cause we were going back and forth on this and they, and I said, what? Do you believe in me? Do you believe I can be successful in doing this?

And they’re like yeah, of, of course we do. And I said, okay. And I’m like crying. I’m like, that’s all I need to know that you believe in me and that’s enough for me. So let me do what I do. And they’re like, okay, okay. So what were they gonna say after that? I guess the other question I have for you is because of where you came from, talking about being brave.

We’re gonna talk in a minute about being stuck, right? I don’t think you were stuck. I think you just realized you had, you were, I call it like overtime. Like you were in overtime in the game, right? Like you were no longer serving yourself, you were just serving the company by being in those meetings. But it was cushy and it was like a good deal and stuff like that. And now you’ve given us full color on like how you grew up with who you grew up, like the context of what you grew up that had to be really scary. Or maybe you’re just like, meant to make leaps. I don’t know. You tell us.

So I always say, and this was true for me because I felt, Jen, I literally felt I had to quit my job to do this full time.

I felt like I was being called to do it because I do, my coaching is very much leadership development, executive coaching, but it’s holistic. Like I started as a life coach, right? It’s holistic and my greater purpose to my work is to help people transform their lives and live a life that’s true for them.

That is my purpose on this earth. And I couldn’t do that. You can’t do that at one company. That is the impact you wanna have is just bigger. And I Jen, like I am a woman of faith and I literally felt like every time I’d walk into the office, like God was being like, yo, this is not it. I know that you, you’ve been here for eight years.

I get it. You love it. It’s not, and I go, really? It’s not it. I mean, I’ve worked so hard to be here. And then he’s just no, it’s not it. You are meant to do something bigger and you’re playing small. Stop that. Stop that. And it became a physical response. When I walk into the office, I’d be like, oh, hi everybody.

And inside I’m like, I’m not supposed to be here. And I really felt that so strongly, which is why Jen. I originally had planned to stay in my job a year longer because I was gonna get another equity distribution. I was going, let me wait nine months, so I get the distribution. Then I’ll go, yeah, handcuff another little golden handcuff.

Yeah. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Absolutely. I couldn’t do it. I was like, I have to go now. And so I gave like a month or so. Notice I gave a lot of notice because I’ve been there for so long. That was the right thing to do to get someone to backfill me so I could overlap with that person. Yeah. And so it’s not that I wasn’t scared, everyone’s scared of like uncertainty and not knowing if things are gonna work out for you.

I was scared, but the pull towards doing this was so strong that it just overpowered being scared about it. Yeah. And to be honest with you, I still get scared, right? Like I’ll have six speaking engagements signed up, looks good. But I’m like, okay, what about Q1 2026? It’s uncertain. Like you, you need to be actively doing things all the time.

Pipelining, you’re pipelining as an entrepreneur. Yes. Yeah, constantly. And that’s very different from when you are an employee at a company because as an entrepreneur in the beginning you are everything. You’re finance, your marketing, you, content creating, you are everything. And that is very overwhelming.

And but the biggest shift that I will say I experienced from corporate to entrepreneurship was the, the mindset shift. It’s a massive mindset shift of, and I’ll be really specific, a mindset shift of what does it mean to do work? What does this mean? Because when you’re an employee at a company or you’re employed by anybody, you do get paid to answer your email.

You get paid every two weeks or every week to do whatever it is you have to do to accomplish the tasks that are on your plate. -You don’t get paid based on a deliverable. You get paid doing the work every single day. If I have a meeting with so and if I have a lunch with someone, I’m getting paid as I’m having lunch.

That is a different way of thinking about work, and so for me, I had to learn, it’s not about sitting at my desk at 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM It’s about what am I delivering? How efficient can I be at that thing to deliver that thing? How good can I be at delivering that thing? Can I repeat it? How do I create like repeatable revenue? Just thinking about work in a very different way. And what it means also to not have, and I call them dopamine. Its the constant dopamine hits you get from sending an email receiving an email, getting pinged on teams. People don’t realize that we, when we get used to that, always being needed all the time, we want your view on this at we want you get used to being needed constantly, that when you become an entrepreneur and you leave that environment, that, that, that those amount of people become very, very small and you no longer get this like feeling of being valued and recognized and validated.

So like an internal value and like valuing different as I, I can only imagine, but I’m a side hustler right now, but as, on that side, I’m like, okay, what is the least amount of time I can spend on this for the highest quality output? And who can I delegate to? But I do that at work too ’cause I’m in the C-suite, so I’m always like, oh my God, who can I move this to? Who can I move this to right now? That’s good, right? I’m always thinking, but it is different ’cause I do get paid for email versus my side hustles. They don’t care about the email, they care about the pull through or what’s the result for them or what have you.

It’s the result. And that, and that is, I think, the result and then also what it takes for you to get there. It’s just a different, and I struggled the first, I would say the first six months into entrepreneurship, what I really struggled with is the need to be busy all the time ’cause I was busy all, I was literally busy all the time when I was working, like busy meeting with people. I mean, heavy meeting culture, you’re meeting all day all the time. Same. Yep. And you get, by the way, you get used to that because you’re also, that is validation. That’s being needed. That’s also contributing. And you derive value from that. You derive value from contributing to someone else’s project. You collaborating, everyone derives value from that. And the pace was so fast that when I went into entrepreneurship and it slowed down for me, especially in the beginning when it slowed down for me.

In terms of my own pace, my body was like, what are you doing? You’re so lazy. You, you need to be doing something. What? Do figure out something ’cause your brain and your body wanna keep going at that pace. ’cause that’s what it’s used to. And when you slow it down, that’s why people have a hard time meditating too.

’cause when you start to slow it down, you’re brain’s, I’m sorry, we’re in danger. We’re in danger. Like your brain is, is confused ’cause that’s not normal for you. It’s not familiar to you. So I had to get used to a different flow of work. And, and manage my energy a little bit differently. And that came from, Jen, I’ll be honest, experimenting with my day and my week.

Okay. Mondays are like my CEO days. All right? I’ gonna take that where it’s like I have these three things I must get done for the week. They get done on a Monday. I take my coaching and client calls Tuesday to Thursday, and then Friday is a half day. I don’t have to be working six hours a week if I don’t need to be.

If I have a few big talks a week, I’m gonna be working a lot, but on other weeks, I’m gonna take advantage of the, of the ebb and flows of the work, and I’m gonna go with that. So learning a new way of working and being was the one of the biggest transitions and in my brain, accepting, there’s nothing wrong with this.

There’s nothing wrong with not always being tethered to your phone. There’s nothing wrong with that because when you spend like almost 20 years in like really fast place environments you’re expected to be on with your phone and your laptop. You’re, you get used to that and then when that’s gone you’re like, something is wrong.

Some even I can see you like kind of grabbing your chest, like grabbing your neck. Like you’re just like, oh, oh my God. I’m like frenetic. Yes. I definitely, what’s meant for me to hear this, like just everybody else, I’m being selfish. It’s definitely meant for me to hear because I just put on as a side hustler, me and an amazing group of women put on a women’s conference this year and it was so much, it was so much. And then right on the other side of it, I was like, had this like depression, like where I was like, what do I do? What do I fill? What do I fill this I mean, and I’m also in the C-suite in my day job, right?

So I’m not lacking stuff to do in any way, shape or form. And all the listeners know I have two girls that are not like out of the house. They’re very, I’m very much in it with my husband and our awesome girls. And here I was, I was like looking for Brene Brown, sold off her dare to lead certification to another coach. And like she was running her first like certification program. So here I am, like on the internet going, oh, I can go get certified and da da. And then I was like, Nope, slow down. Don’t fill in the hole again. But it is something that is learned and it doesn’t have to, you don’t have to be a side hustler. You could be just full-time in corporate. Like I think the big lesson in this point is you don’t have to fill every gap to be worthy.

That's right because what happens is that we derive meaning from the doing, and we make it mean something about us. And also we are uncomfortable when we're not busy. Share on X

That’s right because what happens is that we derive meaning from the doing, and we make it mean something about us. And also we are uncomfortable when we’re not busy.

Although we don’t want to be busy. We say we don’t wanna be busy. We say we don’t wanna be overstretched and we don’t wanna be exhausted. But then the moment there’s an opportunity, there’s an opening where it’s a little lull, we wanna fill it with something. Because again, we’re just not used to that. We say we want the lull, but when we get the lull, we try to fill it with something to make us busy.

Exactly. So it’s being uncomfortable, it’s being comfortable with that. That uncomfortable feeling of, it’s not that I have nothing to do, I’ve worked my behind off for all of this. Yes, I’m taking a little bit of a break because I know it’s gonna pick up soon and I’m gonna have to answer that call and I’m gonna do my very best and that’s gonna take a lot of my energy. So can I just relish a little bit in not having so much right now?

It’s so you have no idea how valuable. So thank you for sharing like, all of that. And so wanting to make sure we get your book in here, so like your book, which is behind you for our YouTube folks, and you have this beautiful background, so Your Time to Rise, Unlearn Limiting Beliefs, Unlock Your Power and Unleash Your Truest Self, which will put in the links in the show notes. I encourage everyone to pick up a copy. So is that part of the framework that you share in your book? Is that, that whole understanding your value and understanding like what you fill and what you don’t fill? Tell us a little bit more about the genesis of the book.

Yes. Oh, the genesis of the book, Jen. I haven’t been asked this too much, so I actually started wanted to, I’ve always wanted to write a book. I knew that. I’ve always wanted to be an author and write multiple books. I started, I had a little bit of a start in 2019, but throughout those pages, ’cause I thought they were not great. Started again a little bit a few years later didn’t think it was good.

So through that out now I wish I could go back to those pages because I bet they weren’t that bad, but I was such a probably stick of myself. Yeah. That I threw them away and really, I was, I was, had been coaching now for five years, six years, and I’ve been seeing like themes and patterns and that happens, you know that you start seeing themes and patterns and things, and you’re like, okay, hey, there’s something here that really should be shared because I can’t touch everybody individually, but I can write a book and people can take a coaching framework that I use all the time apply to their lives and in a way that’s helpful for them so that they can redirect themselves and rein themselves and proceed along a path that is truly theirs.

I mentioned that my purpose is people, for people to live in alignment with what’s true for them, and the book provides that, but at the entry point of the book, so people always ask what’s the entry point? And I always say, you’ll get the most out of the book if you’re entering the book from a place of curiosity of Hey, something is shifting within me and I can’t pinpoint what it is. I’m not sure what it is, but something has changed where the way I used to work, the way I used to do stuff, do my life worked for me. But it’s like no longer working for me. Something feels off, or I really need like a new direction.

I’m feeling like I’m feeling stuck. I’m feeling bored. I’m feeling like something is off. I feel like I’m changing, but my environment is the same. That’s the entry point for this book because it’s where people are at some kind of crossroads or some kind of inflection point and they need to know, wait, where do I begin?

This is the book that gives you a path forward. Now the path is gonna be unique to everybody, but it gives you a framework to how to start thinking about that and how to reflect on certain parts of your life and who you are. That will inform what you’re doing because when we talk about stuckness.

It’s that something has shifted in you and you don’t know what to do with it. It’s sometimes you can’t actually name it, and that’s, I think, what makes it hard for people. Or they can name it, but they’re just like, I just can’t get into action mode. I can’t move. And so how do I do that? And the book really answers a lot of that in a very, I will say, digestible, accessible way.

I did not want this book to be books that I’ve read in the personal development space, where they’re great, but they’re heavy. Like dense. Yeah. It’s too dense and too, like the research goes on and on and then I lose the point of what we were talking about in the book. I didn’t want that. I wanted this to be a book especially for a high achiever, like this is that book, especially for women. And I really wanted to hold space for women of color who are mothers ’cause a lot of the book really does illuminate those struggles, especially with motherhood and what it means for your identity and how we evolve our identities in the different seasons of our lives.

So that’s really where the book came from, was this need to give space and to share. A really helpful framework that has helped people individually. How do I share that with others? Because I want people to live richer lives that are true to them, not just kind of the life that the older version of you was fine with.

It was great and may not be what you want anymore. So how do we shift from living just kind of what you had al you’ve always done, and what momentum takes you? How do we shift that from being a little bit more intentional because now you’re ready for that.

Totally, I had a podcast interview earlier and we talked about if you think your life or your career is like a river and you just have no rudder, you have no oars and you’re just kind of like hanging out and it just kind of, and you know what? People can live their life that way, they can live, they can excel, they can do all the things and then pass. And that’s totally fine for a lot of people. And then there’s subsets of us where, I have to tell you, I have been here and I’ gonna tell you, this is gonna sound so terrible. I was kind of annoyed by being stuck, like it was so uncomfortable and so frustrating. And like you talk about in your body. And I, it’s so annoying ’cause I’m like, what is wrong with me? I was fine like a few years ago and now it’s doesn’t fit anymore.

No, that’s what it’s Jen. I mean, that’s what I’ve gone through many times, right? It’s the misalignment and what I always describe it as, it’s like this tug of war. It’s no, but I’m fine, no, but I’m not fine. No, but something has changed. No, but why can’t it be good enough? It’s not good enough. And then it’s this constant tug of war. Yes. And until you address it, you’re still, you’re just gonna keep moving back and forth.

And it’s super, so I guess there is like a whole like tell sign there, everybody. So if you’re feeling like really uncomfortable, like you’re in that meeting or you’re in that job, or you’re in that role, or, anything, it could be a relationship. Hey, like it could be anything where you just feel super uncomfortable. Like I always say it’s like a cat’s fur in the opposite direction. That’s you, and you’re like, the fur was fine like a couple years ago and now it’s not fine. And here’s something I’ve tried and I’m not encouraging this. I’ve tried to ignore it. I’ve tried. Oh, absolute. Wait, what do you mean, Jen? All of us. Hello. Yeah. I’m like, oh, okay. That’ll go away. That’s just like a slow, like a slight illness. It’ll pass like a virus. I have tried to talk it away, like I’ve ignored it. I’ve said, oh, I’ll wait until I’m retired. I’ve done that. I’m in my late forties everyone. I’ve tried that. It doesn’t work. It doesn’t work.

It’s just like this little napt that just keeps, it’s like a napt. I know. It’s so annoying. And then, or like the, the little child that keeps tapping you. Yes. You’re like, oh, stop it. I’m trying to suppress you.

I know. I’m trying to suppress you. I’m so busy. So not think about it. Yes. Okay, so let’s talk about, ’cause I mean, people know my story. We can go into it if it makes sense, but what are some of the ramifications of, we talk it away, we ignore it, we say we’re gonna do it in retirement. Whatever, your justification of pushing it off of that stuckness. What’s the ramifications of doing that?

I’m just gonna be blunt. It’s the regret that you didn’t do the things or fully experience your own life, that you didn’t, you allowed yourself to not explore something. And that means you’re less alive. I a hundred percent believe that you can live a life, but are you truly living and feeling alive in your life? And I think that’s why a lot of people feel like there are different levels of stuckness, but I think the deepest one, is a lack of meaning and fulfillment where you can do all the things, get all the accolades, be in the C-suite and be like, this is not enough, but it’s not enough because it’s really not truly fulfilling to you.

And so I think there are different levels to that. And I always say that there is this, there’s a deep regret that we will feel when we’re on our deathbed. I know we’re getting it, this gets really serious and maybe a little bit scary for people. No, I thought, let’s go there.

I mean, oh, we, but we have to be, we have to, and it’s in the book too, by the way. It’s, we have to be honest that the one guarantee, my father would always say this to me and I would roll my eyes, but it’s true. The one guarantee in life is that we’re all going to die. Everyone’s gonna die at some point. And you don’t get to decide when. I mean, most of us don’t get to decide when. And so when you are in your final moments, how do you wanna say that you lived? And what regrets might you have? And if you have not fully lived your life and said, I lived, like I tried the things, I went for it, I failed, but at least I tried, then you are going to feel an immense amount of regret because you didn’t go for it. And in the book, I give a massive shout out to Brony Ware who took care of the dying and she, this, this piece called The Top Regrets of the Dying. And the number one regret of the dying was, I wish I lived a life true to me, not the one expected of me. And expected is also your own expectations from a previous version of who you were, that also applies. And just understanding that you are meant to evolve and change over time. You live more life. You are meant to evolve. There’s something wrong with you. It’s that Oh paying attention to it is what’s important and getting curious about it. You do not have to burn the whole house down. You don’t have to append your life. You don’t have to do drastic changes ’cause that would actually be that you don’t have to do that. Some people do, but you don’t have to. But little steps at a time to start getting a little bit more curious about what’s really changing for me? what do I really wanna do? That’s terrifying to me. Okay, how could I try that just a little bit to see how that feels and to see if that make, if that gives me, makes me feel a little bit more meaning in my life or, or makes me more excited about something. Because Jen, a lot of us live the same day every day and it’s boring. Boring. Like even if you’re so busy at work, it’s the same kind of thing. And that’s why I always, when we talk to leaders. I know a lot of leaders who feel very connected to the purpose or the mission of the organization. They’re like I’m down with that. But when you talk to ’em about their personal purpose and their personal connection, they’re like, what do you mean? Okay, so why do you do what you do? Apart from the what do you do, what you do, like what, what gets you, what gets you excited about this work? What makes you feel like it’s fulfilling to you? And you ask it in different ways. But, and a lot of times they can’t answer that because they’re focused on, no, no, I believe in the mission and I’m here for, I’m here for that purpose and for my team. But what about you personally? What does it give to you? What does it feed you? But they circle back to the company like water cool mission. That’s what they do. Yeah. Because they can’t answer the question. Correct. Yes. Yeah, that’s why I love to get people to focus more on, okay, what about who you are?

And then I, in the book, I also talk about this because when I became a mother, I had an identity crisis. Just so my identity was so much anchored in my work as a lawyer and just the source of self-worth I derived from doing and from producing and producing great work. Like really focus really, I was really proud of that part of my identity. But it became my whole identity and the identity piece that we all go through when we have these changes and how it can impact how we see things. And one of the most important and I think powerful questions I asked myself that I force, I ask people this when I coach them. This is part of coaching with me, is always, who are you without your title and the prestige of your job and the things that you do? Who are you outside of that? Because what happens is we can over identify with one piece of our identity and that becomes everything and that becomes the way we derive meaning. And that’s not always the healthiest thing to do. Instead of recognizing that, yes, you’re a C-suite executive, yes, you’re a mother, yes, you’re all these roles, I get that’s part of your identity, but who are you underneath that? Who is Jen? Who is Arivee? And those questions are really tough, but they’re so illuminating ’cause you start thinking of what do I enjoy? Like when I’ve asked someone, I said, what do you do outside of work? Like for fun? They’re like, oh, I play with my kids. And I’m like, nope can’t be kid related. Cannot be. Because that’s so related to a caregiving rule.

Yeah you don’t have an answer. And I had that asked someone, a coach asked me when I first started going in, like getting coached and stuff like that I had someone ask me like, what do you do for fun or for joy? And I didn’t have an answer. Yeah. I had no answer. And now I do. But it took me like a decade to get there. And I guess I’ll say, and I don’t know if this resonates with you, is people ask me like, why do you do all this? Like people will look at me and be like, you’re insane ’cause I’m a side hustler right now. I’m a straddle right now. But I’m like, I can’t not do this work because it is the call of my life. So I get you. And I have two daughters and my focus is women, women leaders. So I’m just like, what am I gonna do if I just push this call away? What am I teaching my kids, right? It is interesting you go back to, like your dad’s reaction, big eyes and covering his mouth and all this kind of stuff. So you’re catching, like his expectation and maybe, ancestral trauma or whatever, but you are also responsible for healing it. So now on the other side of it, like I’m sure your family is like. Yeah, that’s our daughter, yeah, that she’s doing the thing. Like she wrote a book, like all this stuff. But our family sometimes are really scared for us. And I had to learn through this process that sometimes your family is not the first person you go to with the big dream or the big life. I mean, I didn’t know I was like always Hey family and they’re like, oh no, like you’re changing the game. Oh no, and then I’m stuck again. And I had to learn, like I had to go find like me some new people I had to go and get me some new resources but no one teaches us this at all. So I’ really glad for your book.

the breaking of the generational cycle. The cycle of survival mindset, the cycle of it has to be this way and what success means, especially in an immigrant family or being the daughter of immigrant parents. Share on X

Yeah. And I wanna highlight two things you said, Jen, ’cause they’re so important. And as a parent, I understand this, you wanna protect your child and I will forever be my parent’s child, like forever. And that’s okay. It’s my job to make the choices that are right for me and that are true for me. And if I can help them understand them a little bit better, that’s fine. I will never, they will never fully understand. And that’s okay because like you said, generational trauma and how they, just, their mindset, I can’t expect them to change. And I, just can’t, that’s not gonna be in the cards.

But the other thing you said is so important of the breaking of the generational cycle. The cycle of survival mindset, the cycle of it has to be this way and what success means, especially in an immigrant family or being the daughter of immigrant parents. What does it mean to fulfill the America? What does this mean? Because although you’re provided for food, clothing, shelter, my parents are very, very focused on education and giving us every educational opportunity, which they did to the best of their ability. There wasn’t much emphasis on the social emotional part of parenting because they didn’t have those tools.

Thank God I am learning those tools. And imparting those and using them and implementing them as best as I can. I’m not gonna be perfect. I lose my patience like anyone else. Yeah, of course. But at least I can be intentional because we have more information and I also know how I was raised and a lot of how you’re raised is. You sit there and you be quiet and you listen and you be compliant, and you just be grateful for what you have. And you have to respect authority, and you don’t talk back because if you’re talking back, that’s disrespectful. And all of that is fine. Meaning when you’re a child and you have to do that to keep the peace and to not be a bother, you’re gonna do what you have to do because you’re very aware of your surroundings. Quite unhelpful in a corporate environment, quite unhelpful. It doesn’t get you promoted. That is for certain. You don’t even know, I speak to they don’t even know you’re there. No. Because you have never been trained to use your voice. Yes, that’s right. So you have to learn it in an environment that feels a bit foreign to you.

And that’s, Jen, I will say I feel like. When I was a lawyer, I was forced to find my voice when I wasn’t feel feeling like I was ready because I had never been trained to do that college where I to understand, wait, who am I without the influence of my parents and like my familial structure and the programming and the conditioning, right?

I started to question things. But then you get into like the professional world and it’s like you’re an adult now. Like you need to speak up, you have something to say. You have a perspective. We pay you to share that. It took me a long time to fully come into myself because I felt like I was always gonna be judged.

I felt wait, what if I say the wrong thing? If someone’s senior, especially a man was very senior, like in their fifties and sixties, I would defer all the time ’cause I was scared because that, to me, they represented authority and you respect authority and you don’t challenge it. And Jen, I wasn’t sitting there in the meeting being like, you have to respect authority. It’s subconscious of

No, but you would be quiet or different to that male authority. And then, and this is what I actually, one of my specialty areas is like teaching women to own their voice. I’sure you do the same because what happens is your idea that you have not let escape your lips becomes their idea. And then like they, and then it’s so frustrating, but you don’t say anything. You’re just dying on the inside. Yeah. And you’re not getting promoted because of it. And this is a huge mistake women specifically make it men to, but like definitely women are taught to be, that whole scene and not heard kind of thing.

And so I’ really glad that you brought that up because I’ll just say this quickly. So my daughter got a cup of it was a strawberry smoothie. Who cares? It was at like a local coffee house. This just happened and she comes back and she’s seven and she’s takes a sip. And I’m like, it’s an overpriced smoothie, right? So she’s I don’t like it. And I go, and part of me is suck that smoothie down. So that was the first thing. We bought it, you’re gonna eat it. Yeah, no so that was the first suck it down. And then the next thing I said to her, I’m like, no, don’t suck it down. So she’s looking at me quizzically and I go, we’re gonna go up to the barista and we’re gonna tell her that you don’t particularly care for it. I’m gonna be right there with you. I’m gonna give you a script to say and you are gonna ask for hot chocolate with rainbow sprinkles on top and we’re gonna see what happens. And so I go to the barista and I go, my daughter has something to say. And she goes, in her little voice I really don’t like it. I’m so sorry, I don’t like it, but can I have a hot chocolate with strawberry sprinkle or rainbow sprinkles on top. They gave it to her for free. Yeah, because, and then I went after she walked away smiling and I said, I’m trying to teach my daughter to have a voice. And it’s like those little moments that I’m really working on with my daughters, because we don’t get, as women that kind of education or boys, we don’t get that education period.

And it’s these little, these seemingly little things that are not little Jen? Telling my daughter you can order for yourself. You don’t like that. You go tell them Yes. You don’t like what that little boy said to you. You go tell him that. You don’t like that. Exactly. You have to like, they have to learn how to, how to exercise the muscle so that when they get into these environments where they’re gonna be challenged in that way, they know how to exercise that muscle because they’ve strengthened it over time.

And you also, Jen, are highly likely, I’m gonna guarantee it, role modeling what it looks like in a very respectful way. Of course. They’re seeing like, oh, so we just do this, people just do this. This is how it’s done. And then being around that as well is helpful. So it’s teaching them, but also like you role modeling and you explaining to her why and she was like, yeah and she gets a little bit more like her chest comes out a little bit more.

Yeah. She’s okay, confident I’m do this. I could go talk to someone about a smoothie or a hot chocolate or my nails or what, whatever it is. The one last thing and you and I couldn’t hang out for a while, couldn’t we? Is I will say this, I do have a voice. I do have a voice in corporate. I’ve had to train myself and I’ve, I said this on stage recently at a our conference. I was the shyest kid in the room. And the only reason that I say that is because I started as the shyest kid in the room. And you can do this, it’s a muscle that you can gain. So I don’t want people to think like you or I were like just born with this. Like that old adage, like we had to work at it. And so I want you to know that you can too.

Yes, yes, I agree. Jen, people who knew me in college or even in law school some of them will say, oh no, we knew that you would do something. We knew like you were different. But I didn’t have the voice I have today. And I wasn’t as confident I just wasn’t. And I always say confidence is built and it’s built from within though, over time, I really think the most confident people are the people that know themselves the best. Yes. And that have had some practice in life. They’ve had some practice in life to be that.

I like that practice in life. I’ll be using that and I’ll give you all the credit, but practice in life. Yeah. Okay. So the book, again, Your Time to Rise, Unlearn limiting Beliefs, Unlock Your Power and Unleash Your Truest Self. Let’s not forget to talk about your podcast. So it’s called The Humble Rising Podcast, which makes total sense to me now. So why don’t you give kind of a, a quick snippet overview of your podcast.

The podcast very simple I like to share inspiring stories or just actionable strategies of how we do this thing called career and life. How do we feel more fulfilled? How do we pursue the things that we really want, despite fear, despite expectations. How do we live a life that’s true to us? And so the podcast either has a guest or it’s me doing a solo about something like burnout or maybe it’s about what does it mean to be stuck and how can you get unstuck? And so you’ll get a mix of those two kind of modalities and those two mediums in the podcast.

Okay, great. So we’ll put that in the show notes. And we’ve talked a lot about this and every week, I ask every one of my guests this. So to you, what are one to two ways like kind of capping our conversation that you believe women can be braver at work today?

So my number one is owning and using your voice like we’ve already talked about. Yeah, makes sense. It’s really about how do I continue to strengthen that muscle and when do I exercise my judgment? When do I stand up for myself? When do I ask for more? And it doesn’t mean you’re ungrateful. It means that you’ve earned your position and you deserve to expand your role or whatever it is. And that means that if it’s a no or there’s a non-response, which is essentially a no, then you can use your voice to then move on and believe that you can do, you can quote unquote start over anywhere because you have the ability to have the skills, you have the experience. That’s like a number one thing is owning who you are, your voice and using it.

And then the second I would say, because it just comes up for so many people, I wanted to share it, is one of the bravest things we can do is to stop overcommitting and saying yes to everybody. Stop overcommitting. And what I mean by that is really you have to enforce some boundaries using your judgment. ‘Cause boundaries to me, I have a whole different view of boundaries than a lot of people boundaries. Or maybe it’s similar to some that, but boundaries to me is I have to set limits around the things that really, really matter to me that are like top priorities for me. Everything is not a priority, but like picking things like, okay, manageable what’s manageable? Having dinner with my family twice a week is probably manageable. How do I protect time? It’s not if you’re, and it depends on your job and your role. It’s so dependent, but it’s picking those things and then protecting it because you care about it, including yourself. Taking care of yourself.

What does that mean to you during the week? How are you practicing taking care of yourself? Is it getting, making sure you get seven to eight hours of sleep? I could cite 5,000 sleep studies that say sleep is like one of the most important things for your health, right? So what is most important to me? How do I protect that? And how do I do that so that I can be the person I wanna be? Because you can’t, and Jen, you know this, right? Like you can’t lead your team. You can’t be the mom, you can’t be the person you really would like to show up as if you are not taking care of yourself and you’re too busy trying to prevent people from being disappointed in you. Like you we have to stop this need to please all the time because everybody is not doing that. You think people are doing, but there a lot of people are not. They’ve learned not to do that. And we need to have a little bit more clarity on what’s actually important to us and what we’re willing to do to protect those things.

It doesn’t mean it always happens, but if you can do that like 75% of the time, that’s pretty good because you’re gonna flex or you need to flex. But once you have those like anchors in place, it’s like a decision making filter and it makes things a lot easier. So stop over committing and that’s a brave thing ’cause a lot of people are terrified to say no to people. They’re terrified to say not right now. They’re terrified to say, come back later. They’re scared of what they will look like to others. I’ll seem like I’not reliable, I’not committed that I’not a team player. But the reality is that you just something more important and that’s okay because if you are an a team player, it’s not one no is not gonna impact that.

And one last kind of end cap on that whole comment, which is awesome advice is awesome, is when I was not as healthy or as self-aware as I am now. So I had a family member not gonna name them because they’re, I wanna protect the innocent, but when this person would respond to me, it sometimes would be a no and it would irritate me because I didn’t have any boundaries or I expected them to jump at my beck and call as soon as I started to understand that when someone is really good about being like, I can’t do this right now, but you know what I really appreciate you asking, why don’t you come back to me in six months? Or I just can’t do this is not the most important thing. Let’s re revisit it or it’s just not important to me right now. I have a whole new level of respect because every time that happens I’m like, you go, alright, I got it. You know what I mean? Because it’s teaching me, it’s reinforcing to someone like me who has struggles with this, but it’s getting much better that I’m like, oh, you know what? I don’t have to please, I don’t have to have the disease to please every person. Because like you said, not every person is doing that. We have this perception that they are, but they’re not. And just so we’re all aware the people that you have been pleasing have gotten used to you being a version or, like the whole like tap, tap, tap it’s a whole new life that’s not at your door. You are gonna irritate people, you are gonna disappoint people. You are gonna frustrate people. And here is the last permission and that’s okay. That’s okay. It’s actually really awesome because your whole new self and your whole new way of being is emerging. And the people that really love, respect, and care for you, they’re hanging out for the after party. They’re hanging. They will support you through it all. Yes. Yes. Okay. How awesome is this? This conversation was so awesome. This is, I know we could talk for a very long time. I know. So hey, get another book. Get a whole other thing. Come back, come back. I have a lot of repeat guests. So how can women find you and connect with your work online?

The best way is just to go to Arivee vargas.com, so A-R-I-V-E-E-V-A-R-G-A s.com. There you can link to my podcast, coaching, free resources you get, you can get connected to me on LinkedIn, Instagram among those platforms as well.

Okay. Awesome. It was such a pleasure to talk with you. I’ll link all this stuff up. Definitely. I meant what I said. If you’ve got anything new, you just let me know and we’ll have you right on back.

Amazing. Jen, thank you so much. I’ve loved this conversation. I feel like we’re kindred spirits, Jen.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We’re just in different parts of the country, but let’s hang out. Okay. So thank you so much.

That does it for my discussion today with Arivee. I hope you found our conversation valuable and inspiring.

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