Arivee: There is not going to be a societal measure for you to own your self worth. There is no societal reward for taking care of yourself. There’s no societal reward for going on a personal journey and being at peace with oneself like there is. No. Nobody’s going to tell you, great job, Stacy. You did that right. They’ll tell you, great job. Here’s a promotion, great job. Here’s a house, Great job. All these external things that actually are not the source of our happiness, truly, and our fulfillment, they. I’m not saying it doesn’t matter. Those things can matter. But when they are the sole source of what fulfills you or makes you happy, that’s where we have to kind of untangle that and say, okay, but when those things are gone, who am I and what matters to me?  

Arivee: What’s going to matter to me in the end?  

Stacy: Welcome. Welcome. This week I am really excited to get to welcome our guest, who I’ll tell you about in a moment. But the topic that we’re going to talk about is something that so many people struggle with and that’s this achieving of a certain status or certain level of success, reaching this place that you’ve been working toward your whole life or getting close to it and then kind of looking around and going, oh, okay, I’m here. But I don’t feel all the joy and fulfillment and all the things that I thought I would feel. And then you kind of realize you reached that place and now what’s next? So we’re going to be diving into that.  

Stacy: If you’re somebody who’s facing that or it’s on the horizon for you’re definitely going to want to tune into this week’s episode and we’re going to get to talk about the author journey. So our guest recently published a book. We’ll dig into her experience, the highs, the lows, what she learned and she’ll share about her book. So let me introduce you to this week’s guest. Aruvi Vargas is an award winning executive coach, former lawyer, host of the Humble Rising podcast, and the best selling author of youf Time to unlearn Limiting Beliefs, unlock your power and unleash your truest self. Influence Digest has named Arivee a top Coach in Boston for the past three years. With nearly 20 years of legal and corporate executive experience as a coach and sought after speaker on burnout, work, life, harmony and personal and leadership development.  

Stacy: Arivee guides high achieving lawyers and leaders through personal and professional inflection points to move forward with more clarity, conviction, fulfillment and higher life satisfaction. Welcome Adobe I’m so happy to be with you.  

Arivee: Thank you so much for having me, Stacy. It’s so good to be here.  

Stacy: I’d love to start with your backstory. I’d love to hear a little bit about your personal journey and what led you into the work that you do today.  

Arivee: Well Stacy, that’s a big question because I have had plenty of life and career pivots and transitions. But I started my career, I will say, as a litigator at a law firm and I practiced law for a number of years, always in very fast paced environments, either at a law firm or in corporate. And I transitioned into an in house role in the corporate space right after I had my first son, which is when I had a bit of an identity crisis of who am I without my job, who am I? Am I just a mother? And I say just a mother. I fully understand and appreciate how awful that can sound. But that is exactly how I felt is I’m just a mother. Who am I without my work? Not like clients were emailing me because they weren’t.  

Arivee: I was on maternity leave but this feeling of where am I? Deriving my sense of satisfaction and self worth was completely tied up in being a lawyer and the prestige and the title that had and so what I ended up doing was foregoing the opportunity to pursue partnership at my firm and I went in house. So I went to practice law and do a little some other things in the corporate space. I had two more children there and during that time left the law completely and went into human resources, specifically employee relationship and then leadership development, which is where I thought the story would kind of coast for a while. When I say coast, I Mean, okay, this is it. Like, this is the thing I’ve been working towards, right? And no, it actually was not.  

Arivee: Because in between that time or during that time, what was happening was I had been coaching high achieving women like myself. I had been coaching women. I had my podcast, I had been doing that for about five years. Coaching women, having the podcast, doing speaking. I was, I started to write a book, right, Stacy, you know, I was, I started writing in 2022. Ish. Right. And I had been doing those things. So I’d been transitioning my career, having kids while holding on to these things that I was doing, which was a true reflection of me and the work that I really wanted to do in the world. Like, that’s really why I was holding on to those things and trying to pursue them on the side when I was still very tired and exhausted.  

Arivee: But they gave me such a sense of purpose that I enjoyed them and wanted to do them. So I finally, in About December of 2023, I know my book is gonna come out in about a year, in some change, right? In January 2025. I know that. And the whisper, that had been just a little whisper over time, over the years of, like, this is not it, Eddie V. Like, you need to really go out on your own and do this thing full time. You really need to be out there in a different way, making a. Making a bigger impact than you can ever make. If you are an employee at a corporation or a law firm like you are not going to be able to make the impact that you were born because you’re playing small and you know it.  

Arivee: And that was a whisper for a long time. Actually, even when I transitioned into hr, the whisper was there. It was like, I’m not sure about this, but let’s try it. Because to me, every step in the journey is experimentation, right? You’re just trying to get closer to something to see how it feels, to see how it works for you. And it served a purpose. And I think all of it, the purpose of all of it was to show me who I really was and what I needed to do.  

Arivee: And so In December of 2023, I had taken vacation time and I had enough space from work, like the hustle and bustle of work, and enough space that as soon as I started thinking about going back to work, which was coming in January, at that time, I literally said to myself, I, I don’t know how I’m going to do this for another year. Because I was giving myself a year or two. More at work, at that job. And so I got back in January in the office. And my body, when I walked into the office, this is a place I worked at for about eight years. When I walked in, when I came back from vacation, my body had a very tense reaction and I could feel it. And that voice was not a whisper anymore. It was a scream.  

Arivee: It was like, this is not for you. Why are you here? What are you doing? It was almost like yelling at me. And every single day I was at my desk, either at home or when I went into work, that voice was literally on my shoulder being like, so we’re still here, right? Why are we still here? I told you that we needed to move on, but you still aren’t getting it. And then knocked me. So I mean, knocked, knock, kept knocking, knocking. And finally I gave my notice at the end of January to leave my job in March of 2024 to do what I’m doing now full time. And the book came out, just came out in January 2025.  

Arivee: So I had a, almost like a full year of finishing the book, finishing editing, making sure we’re, we’re going through the process properly and making sure, you know, to market the book and launching the book. And so that’s been such a joy. And I’ve been able to coach more women, speak to more women, do more of what I really love to do. So it’s been so inherently rewarding and it’s also been really challenging because when you’re an entrepreneur, it is, they don’t, we don’t talk about this enough, but it can be very challenging, especially when you’re leaving the comfort of a corporate job that you, and you’ve self identified and over identified even me with being a, an executive or a lawyer. And then you are now entering an entrepreneurship journey that is foreign to you.  

Arivee: You know, because having a side hustle is not the same as. No, no, your entire, your, all of your work is going to be up to you. It is, it is now on you. You’re not being told what to do. You’re not being told to execute a strategy. You are the strategy. You are the person making the decisions. That’s what you wanted. Here you have it. So what are you going to focus on? What is most important? How are you going to serve people in the way that you can best and uniquely serve? And so I will say it’s been so eye opening, it’s been like earth shattering. Like it’s been so many different Things, I can’t even put them into words. And it’s been really challenging.  

Stacy: Yes. And I think that the thing about entrepreneurship is it will continue to bring new challenges. It’s like when your kids are little, you have one set of challenges and then they get bigger. You have different challenges, but there is so much richness to the freedom to live fully into your mission and your purpose in the world. I think there’s nothing like it. And I love your so much about your story. I know there’s one piece of it that I want to go a little back and dig into in a moment, but your willingness to take that risk and to go for it, to write your book, to really step into your business, is so courageous. There’s so many people listening right now that dream of making that change and it feels really scary.  

Stacy: I want to go back a little bit into your story to much earlier in your career, because I know you had a moment that you write about in your book that was a real. I was raised in a Christian school, so it’s like a come to Jesus moment is what comes to mind for me. But it really called a lot of things into question and caused you to look inward and look at your life in a new way. Can you share a bit about that moment that you write about in your book?  

Arivee: Are you referring to when I had my son?  

Stacy: Yeah, the moment where you kind of broke down. You had like a. Oh, the highway.  

Arivee: Open the book.  

Stacy: Yes. Yes.  

Arivee: Okay. So I, the. I open the book with the story of when I broke down from right after I had my son. I had this moment where I say moment, but it was a, it was like the culmination of so many different things that were happening at that time. But I had a moment where I just basically lost it. I literally fell on the ground and said, I, I can’t do this anymore. Like, this is not okay. You know, my son hadn’t been sleeping. And so for anyone who’s listening, if you’ve ever had a non sleeping infant and then you don’t sleep, you literally, your brain doesn’t work the same.  

Stacy: You start to go into like almost a psychosis after a period of time. Like clinically, yes, you need sleep.  

Arivee: And if you don’t have sleep, you feel like you’re going mad. Yeah, you feel like you crazy. And that I hadn’t slept in very long time because he hadn’t been sleeping. But there was this culmination of all the things it was lack of sleep. It was, oh, my gosh, am I just a mother? It was, wait, what am I doing with myself? What am I doing with my life? Why am I saying, am I just a mother? Like, I started questioning all of the things. And part of it was that I had relied so heavily on my work and my job for. I don’t want to say happiness, but to feel like I was someone, to feel like I mattered. And we call that, you know, self worth. But I didn’t have language. Like, I didn’t have the language at that time.  

Arivee: All I knew is that I felt really bad. I felt lost, and I didn’t know what to do. And I was like, how can I be amother to this child when I don’t even know what’s happening to me? And something is happening, and it’s massive. And my husband, who. He was very kind, he didn’t know what to do, but he came in and he. He, like, literally picked me off the floor, and he said, okay, I can tell this is really hard for you. Like, what do you need? And I was just like, I don’t know what I need. Because you don’t. You just are trying to make sense of things that don’t make sense to you anymore. And that’s what I was trying to do was that moment where I said, this.  

Arivee: This is like a crossroads moment for me, and I need to figure this out. I need to dig inward. It’s is not about asking other people. It’s is about, why am I feeling this way. This is the time to get really curious. And so I started doing, you know, I started thinking about, okay, where could I find information about, you know, self worth? Like, literally, I was just thinking about, where could I find information or, you know, reading or podcasting? And I. I don’t know how I came to these two books, but I did. And one was Return to Love by Marianne Williamson, and the other was the Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown. And the gifts are in Perfection by Brene Brown. It is a very short book, but it packs a punch.  

Arivee: And if you ever have ever felt like I’m not good enough, I feel like I don’t do enough. I feel like this. This will never be enough for me. That book is where I started because of that. And it, again, gave me a way to frame what I was experiencing. And I had so many ahas in that book where I said, that’s me. Oh, that’s what I’ve been doing, huh? And just thinking through my own process and how I came to believe certain things that I believed about myself that were not true. And then A Return to Love by Marianne Williamson brought me back to center of like, no, you’re worthy not because of what you do, not because of what you provide other people, not because of your job, how much money you make, what school you went to.  

Arivee: She’s like, then none of that. She’s like, no, because you know why? You have worth. You have inherent worth because God created you and he doesn’t create anything that’s unworthy. Everything is inherently worthy that he creates. And you’re his creation. You’re a miracle. And now you have to do is fully express who you actually are. And her. There’s a line in there which I’m sure people are very familiar with. It’s that your greatest fear is that you’re actually is. Isn’t that you’re inadequate, but that you’re powerful beyond measure. And you’re scared to really exercise that and explore that. Because what happens then? What happens then is that you are. You’re almost scared of what you could be, that you can’t even imagine it because it’s so amazing. And I and her.  

Arivee: That book really shifted my sense of where the love and worthiness really comes from in that it is not external, it is all internal. And what you do has to be inherently rewarding, meaning there is not going to be a societal measure for you to own your self worth. There is no societal reward for taking care of yourself. There’s no societal reward for going on a personal journey and being at peace with oneself. Like there is no. Nobody’s going to tell you, great job, Stacy. You did that right. They’ll tell you, great job, Here’s a promotion, great job, here’s a house, great job. All these external things that actually are not the source of our. Of our happiness, truly, and our fulfillment, they. I’m not saying it doesn’t matter. Those things can matter.  

Arivee: But when they are the sole source of what fulfills you or makes you happy, that’s where we have to kind of untangle that and say, okay, but when those things are gone, who am I and what matters to me? What’s going to matter to me in the end? And so I went through all of that process and realized, okay, I am a mother, but that’s one part of who I am. I am a lawyer, but that’s one part of who I am. And I care about doing a good job, but I’m no longer going to allow myself to feel bad and make judgments about My character and who I am based on a mistake I may make. Like I’m no longer going to over identify with my output. And so that was the. That was such a pivotal moment in my life.  

Arivee: And that’s why I start the book with that story, because I think it also will resonate with women who have had that experience where when you become a mother, your identity does shift and you’re caught off guard because the world tells you’re a mother. This is beautiful. Aren’t you so grateful and thankful and oh, aren’t you so lucky? And you are thinking yourself, is something wrong with me? Because I’m not experiencing this blissful period as people thought I would experience. So is there something wrong with me? And my answer is no. But at the time, you do feel like something is wrong with you.  

Stacy: It’s so relatable, I think, to many women when they go through that transition. And I love that you brought up Marianne Williamson. My favorite part of that quote is a little bit later when I’m. I can’t remember the exact phrasing, but it’s something like, who are you to be brilliant, talented, fabulous? Or what is it? Brilliant, talented, gorgeous and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? I love that so much. And for me that really resonates because I think there’s. With that self doubt, self questioning, all these things that we go through, especially as women, but certainly as humans, sense of worth and all of this. There’s also this other side of it that when you have ambition, you start to attach shame to this desire to be great, to achieve great things and to live into that ambition.  

Stacy: And then if you layer in being a mom and wanting to be great in that area now suddenly we have these. We’re piling on all of these various emotions that can lead to a moment like that where you fall on the floor and collapse from the weight of it all. It’s a great transition for us that you started your whole book with that story because now we get to talk about your book. I’d love to hear a little bit about the book. First of all, congratulations on the huge success upon the release of the book. Last time I checked, I think you hit six bestseller categories and it was a top new release in 11 categories. So huge success on the release and I know that it was such a big effort to get that out to market. You poured your heart into it.  

Stacy: Beautiful writing, beautiful editing, beautiful cover. Tell us about the book and who it’s for and how your Readers are meant to use this book to support their journeys.  

Arivee: Thank you. So first of all, thank you so much, Stacey, for, well, one, your support in the book because you are my book coach. And even way after the book was done, you really have helped me, even with mindset, even since then. So I just want to also thank you for helping me bring this book to life. I could not have done it without you. So I want you to know that and I want to thank you for that and have everyone know how amazing you are. And it’s not just about the writing to me. It’s about the mindset and like your heart set and your spirit set, like that’s really what it’s about and making sure those are all aligned and that you have someone who can support the spiritual journey as well as the writing journey. And you did that.  

Arivee: And so, and you still do that to this day. So I want to thank you.  

Stacy: Thanks, Aderbi. That means a lot.  

Arivee: So this book I wrote with women of color, first generation women who are also mothers, who are typically in corporate or fast paced, high pressure environments. And part of that is because I wish I had a book like this when I was looking for books when I had my tiny crisis. I wish there was a book that spoke to my upbringing and my experience and why I attached so much worth to my work and vice versa. Why did I derive so much self worth from what I did and not who I was? Like, why did I define success so narrowly based on societal rewards and objective measures of success versus how things feel to me? Why, why did I, why was I doing that?  

Arivee: And like I said, I still think A Return to Love and Give Some Perfection are still fantastic books and I still recommend them. And I wish there was a lens of someone of color who grew up with similar, a similar belief system that to me was conditioning. Right? This is societal and cultural programming. It’s all conditioning. You’re. You’re taught certain things and then as you get older, it’s almost like your job isn’t to learn new things, it’s to unlearn the things that aren’t true and don’t, aren’t helpful to you. Right? So this book really is a starting point for women of color who are also mothers, who are professionals. And it does apply to all women. And I’ll share, I’ll share why it also.  

Arivee: Also, older men are into the book and I’ll share that in a minute, which is great, but it really is about, hey, I’ve hit this Crossroads, inflection point, mom, where I feel like, what am I doing with myself? Who am I without this job? Like, what is happening? Why does success now feel hollow and feel empty? And why do I feel like it’s not enough anymore? What is happening to me? Like, I, you know, people always come to me, they’ll say, like, what in the world is happening to me? And I say, nothing’s wrong with you. Like, this is part of the evolution of who you are as a person is that certain things have made you, quote, unquote, successful to this point. They have. Your hunger and ambition and overworking has to some extent served you.  

Arivee: So let’s say thank you for that person. And now things have shifted. What used to work for you isn’t working for you anymore. And now is the moment to dive in there and figure out, okay, how do I look forward and make my life work for me? And how do I redefine success? And what is living truthfully even mean to me? Like, what do I actually want my life to look like? And how do I align who I am now? Not who I was 10 years ago, when I started my career, 15 years ago, but who am I now? What’s true for me now? And how do I align my life with that new realization of who I am? And that is not an easy process. Like, I’m not talking about a linear process, Stacy.  

Arivee: Like, this is the messy middle that we don’t like talking about because you can’t put it in a real or a meme. It’s not sexy to talk about. This is like the real life stuff that people don’t. You can’t get a cool viral post about because it’s all in the gray. It’s in the ambiguity, it’s in the messy middle that we really figure, try to figure stuff out. And frankly, that’s where a lot of people are, Stacy. Like a lot of people are in different transition moments. Or it’s like you’re in the in between seasons. You’re like in an in between stage. I was talking to a mom who has a three year old and she’s still figuring out, like, how do I, I’m in between this pre mom professional and mom professional.  

Arivee: I’m like, yeah, you’re like in this in between and you still feel push and pull between those two. And so how do we like, own where we actually are? And then how do we move from there from a place of more awareness and clarity and an anchoring. You need to have like a strong Anchoring. And oftentimes when you have an identity crisis like I had, and so many do, the floor, everything is, you know, the rug is swept from under you and you feel like, wait, I don’t have a center. I don’t have grounding. I don’t have anchor anymore. I have nothing to stand on. So it’s almost a book is about, like, rebuilding that foundation for yourself. And then where do I go from here?  

Arivee: Which is why I really wanted the book to be a book that people read, but people were able to do meaning, okay, what do I do with this? And the book gives you that roadmap because there’s a four part framework in the book about how to go through this process. And it is a. It is also a book that acknowledges all the challenges you’re going to face as you go through this work. Like unlearning really unhelpful, limiting beliefs, right? Really unhelpful beliefs that you’ve believed not because it’s your fault, but because it’s what you’ve been taught and what you internalized. So rest is unproductive, right? That’s a belief that I internalize as a child, right? Because I didn’t see anybody rest. Everybody was always doing something.  

Arivee: And it makes sense why then I internalize that as like, okay, I guess we don’t rest and that’s a waste of time and that’s lazy. It makes sense that I started believing that and now having unlearned that even sometimes, I’ll be honest, Tracy, my mother will be like, you’re not doing anything. Get up and do something. You’re being lazy.  

Arivee: I mean, this is what happens when you kind of unpack something and you work on unlearning it. You start seeing it from a distance and you’re like, oh, that’s what that is. And you’re able to move out of it more quickly. And so part of the book really does talk about the experience of being a woman of color in the workplace and the experience of, for me, as a Latina first generation here in this country, unpacking the beliefs that we learned as children, cultural beliefs and societal beliefs that we learned as children, which again, serves us in terms of being successful to a certain point. And then it’s such a disservice to us in some ways as we figure out, wait, what do I want? And what success? What does success and fulfillment really mean to me?  

Stacy: Now, I love the way that you speak specifically to this audience who has unique. A unique lens that they bring, you know, to this journey. I also really appreciate that there’s this acknowledgment of the. That maybe this did serve you in the past, but it’s not serving you anymore. I remember when I was really early in my career, I would go to like women’s conferences or a talk or something, and I often would listen to the speakers and, and struggle to really kind of take their advice or their wisdom in because they would often say things like, well, if I had it to do all over again, I would have had better boundaries. I would have, you know, all these things that they would have done.  

Stacy: And I would sit there and go, but would you be on that stage right now if you hadn’t had been so driven and so like, all in and put those long hours in? I don’t think so. There are stages of life where you kind of have to. In a way, in certain careers you have to put that in. But then you move into these phases where, okay, there’s this reevaluation. When you were talking about your own journey in early motherhood and you brought up the woman with the three year old. I was remembering when my kids were really little. I remember when I was still nursing and I was in that weird phase of clothes where I couldn’t wear my old clothes, which I had gotten, like professional clothes to be able to wear and look good. And my maternity clothes didn’t look nice.  

Stacy: Right. So I would often try to like, put them together in a way that was like, functional. But I just felt awful. Like everywhere I went, I just felt like a blob going everywhere. And it took me a long time to rebuild. And then I took an interest in fashion and like, kind of like rebuilt this whole new side of myself that I never had. But it was really a journey. I would be curious to hear from you. You shared two pivotal stories. One was this breakdown early when you had young kids. The other was this calling that you answered in starting your business, which could have been very different if you had ignored that calling. Like, it could have led to another crisis. What are some signals our listeners might be receiving now that can clue them into something needs to change?  

Stacy: Or maybe you need to listen to this inner voice or maybe symptoms, quote unquote, that they’re experiencing in their life that are early warning signs that kind of a crisis could be on the horizon for them.  

Arivee: So one of the. There are, there are two that I find are most prevalent. There are many. But there are two that I find the most prevalent, which is also ones that I thought about a symptom is when you start saying to yourself, this doesn’t matter, like, why am I doing this? You start questioning what you’re doing and why. Because before five years ago, you were just going, you were going onto the next thing, onto the next thing. Looks good, let’s go. Looks good, let’s go. And all of a sudden things almost slow down for you in your brain. Not when I say slow down, I mean you’re thinking about something a little bit more objectively and you’re like, why? What am I doing this for? What is all of this for now?  

Arivee: And things you thought mattered and things that matter to you, like praise from a senior leader, someone saying, great job, someone telling you, hey, can you take on that extra project? We could really use your leadership when those things stop mattering as much. Meaning someone says that to you and you don’t feel the way you used to feel about it. I had a client where that happened to her, where she had worked so hard for so long without a thank you, without much praise at all. But she’s constantly achieving at a very fast paced environment. And all of a sudden a senior person was like, you know, hey, I want you to know that this work is really good that you’ve been doing and I want to thank you for it.  

Arivee: And when she’s telling me the story, she gets emotional because she’s like, and you know what, Eddie V. It didn’t even matter anymore. It didn’t matter. Like his words, his affirmation, his confirmation meant nothing to me anymore. And that’s where you can tell there’s a shift that you’ve stopped attaching so much. And so, well, what is that about? And I always call it like this emptiness or hollowness or so what? Feeling like so what? And then the other one I will say is when you start asking other people, how did you manage getting free of the golden handcuffs? If you’re thinking like that, what you’re thinking, that’s a straight up symptom of deeper seated. I would say things you have to think about, like, have I attached my worth to my achievements?  

Arivee: Why do I feel like I have to stay in a place where I feel like I’m staying only because of the money? Which I will tell you, if you’re at a place where you feel like you’re in golden handcuffs, you’re already in a very privileged place because there are golden handcuffs. And it’s probably because you don’t want to stay there. But. But you feel like you have to for money. But there’s some. There are other reasons why you feel like you have to stay. But the fact that you’re talking like that tells me that you’re starting to. There’s something coming loose. Like something is coming loose. And you have to explore that. And because what most clients come to me with is two things. These are the sentences.  

Arivee: I literally, it’s verbatim, the same thing, which tells me that this experience is so universal is one, I can’t live like this anymore. I can’t sacrifice myself for my work anymore. That’s number one. Knowing that there has to be a drastic change over time. And the second is, I don’t know why I’m doing this. This feels so empty. I feel like I’m never doing enough, which tells me that this isn’t going to be the thing that’s going to make me feel fulfilled in my life in the long term.  

Stacy: Those are such practical things that people can look inward or start observing that hopefully will avoid a catastrophic experience like what you went through. I’d love to talk a little bit about your book journey, writing your time to rise. You’ve mentioned that you spent a little over two years on this entire journey, from the writing process, through editing, through publishing. And I would love to hear a little bit from you about that process. And especially I’d love to hear about any challenges that came up along the way and how you overcame them and what you learned from them. Just, it’s. There are always challenges right along this author journey.  

Arivee: Yes. Well, yes. You know them. Yes, you know them well from some people that you work with, too. The first thing I will say is I’ve always had a book on my heart. I’ve always had writing in my blood, like, in my veins and my soul. Like, I’ve always believed I was a writer, even when I got to high school. And she was like, you can’t write, you know, And I talk about that in the book. What that, what that was like for me. But I always knew I had something to share and I had something to offer the world. Like, I always knew that in my heart. I didn’t know when, but I knew that was in my heart and in my spirit. I also know myself, and I know that I needed.  

Arivee: I knew at that time when I started really thinking about writing the book, like, okay, I’m going to. I started thinking about the book in 2019. I wrote some pages, threw them away. I also wrote, I think in 2020, threw them away because I thought they weren’t good. And then, you know, two years later, I was like, you know what? If I’m going to do this, I need someone to help me. I need someone to help shepherd me through this process. Because a lot of what’s blocking me right now is overwhelm, meaning I don’t know where to start. I don’t know how to do this, how am I going to keep up the pace, how am I going to finish? How am I going to get to the middle? Like, I just.  

Arivee: I just felt like I needed someone to help guide me and also to keep me honest and keep me on it. Because everything else in my life, you have accountability, right? You have a boss, and you know, they keep you accountable, and you have colleague keep you accountable. Your children, they’ll keep you accountable. Too many ways, but I wanted to have that. And so then I got connected with you, Stacy, and having you help me clarify. Because so much of it is clarity and knowing where to begin and knowing what to do next. Clarify. No, this book is for women of color. It is for first generation women and women who are mothers. Like, that is the truest. That is the truest audience for me, right? And. And this book is about that.  

Arivee: And this is what the book is about, and this is what it is not going to be about. I know you want to write about five gajillion things at Evie, but this is going to be what the book is about. And it was the exact right approach for me because I needed someone to help me get clarity around the purpose of the book and the core message of the book. And then we. We worked on that, the core message of the book, the audience, what the real promise of the book was going to be, that we could always go back to, which I always went back to in writing, and then building the outline, which takes a long time, right? Building the outline. So when you’re writing, you know where you’re going, you know why you’re going there.  

Arivee: Always going back to the promise of the book, right? Always asking yourself those questions. And you taught me that. You taught me, like, does this serve a reader? Is this filling the promise of the book? And so again, you have anchor when you’re writing. And that was so helpful to me because it would have been so easy for me to get off track without an outline and without a clear purpose and core message of the book. And then the writing process, after you have the Outline, Stacy, you know, I would come to our meetings, I would be like, stacy, I just have this voice that’s like, this sucks. This writing sucks. And, and I say that like.  

Arivee: And Stacy, I still talk about this, like, even now because I think it’s important people to understand that it doesn’t matter how much experience you may have writing, and even when your writing is really, really good, you can still think it’s really bad. Like my negative self talk, which to me, I, I knew that it’s. It’s this inner child that’s trying to protect me from potential disappointment of people actually thinking it’s not good writing, Right? Like, let me protect you for a sec. I’m going to tell you it sucks. I’m going to tell you no one’s going to read this book. I’m going to tell you that this isn’t going to matter so that you don’t write it, so that you don’t potentially get disappointed when all those things come true in the end. So I’m going to protect you. Arivee:  
So this is, you know, and I, and you know, what helped me was recognizing that’s what it was and that it was actually me as a kid. Right? But what also helped was when you said to me, and I tell this to everybody, Stacy, like, people that are like, I procrastinate. I’m like, just start. Just get to the keyboard. Because you told me, how about no matter what you’re thinking, no matter what chatter is happening in your brain, how about, you’ve already worked, you’ve already scheduled time to write, because there’s no such thing as going to a log cabin or the beach in Bali to write, which, God, I wish. But it is not like that. How about you just show up to your laptop and you just start moving your fingers on the keys. That’s all I’m asking you to do.  

Arivee: And every single time, it worked. Because once you start typing, it’s like journaling. People are like, I can’t journal. And I always tell them, just write something. And I’m telling your brain is going to take over and you’re going to just keep writing. And it happens every time. So that was very helpful to me is showing up for myself and having you to tell me, just show up and it will be fine. And it was fine. Every single time. That’s. That’s something else I want to mention, though, is the scheduling of the writing. Because we’ve talked about this too, where. I don’t know why, but in the Movies. The movies make it seem like being a writer just, like, glamorous. Like, I. I go off to a.  

Arivee: A beach or I go off to the woods or the beautiful mountains, and I rent a cabin for a month, and then I meet an amazing person, and I love.  

Stacy: Actually, he goes to Portugal. Oh, wait, no, he’s not. Wait, where is he? In there. He was. Yeah. Okay. Okay, like, wait a second. Yes.  

Arivee: Or like. And. Right.  

Arivee: And then you go to this cute cafe and then.  

Arivee: But for so many of us. And. And authors that I know now I know more authors than I did before. Writing was like, on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday. I write for two hours or one hour. And it’s built into a schedule that fits their lives, because we’re not going off into a writing process separate from our lives. It’s going to be embedded in our lives, and it’s going to be scheduled like, everything else in our lives. And yes, there were times, Stacy, where I would get super inspired, like, on a weekend and be like, oh, I have to write. And I would do that. But I didn’t rely on motivation, inspiration to write. I relied on a system, which is what everyone needs. Like, you need a system. And so I was able to show up because you had.  

Arivee: You helped me so much with that and complete the writing process in terms of that first draft, which you helped me with. And then I worked with an editor, Brooke White, to. Who’s fantastic. To get to the. To the next level, to get to that final draft. And that was also an interesting process because she’s looking at this book that was a lot more pages than the book is now. And there are tough conversations there of, like, Arivee, this is beautifully written, but we don’t need 30 pages of the story. We just need 15. Or we just need 10. And I’m like, but, Brooke, there’s like, 20. I mean, I worked so hard to write those 20 pages.  

Arivee: And she’s like, look, I know this is difficult, but you have to think about the reader. I’m thinking about the reader and what they need to know about you and what they need to feel. And when you add these extra pages, you actually don’t need that. Or when you add these elements of the story, it actually doesn’t move the story forward. It’s like a distraction, even though you become attached to your writing. Like, I became very much attached to my writing once I finished it. I was like, oh, Brooke, here you go. And she’s like, in there. Just moving things around, making sure the structure is easy to follow for a reader, and then within that structure, making sure everything is serving a purpose. Everything is moving the reader forward at the pace that is appropriate for the reader. Like in that.  

Arivee: That’s something I couldn’t see because sometimes you’re so in your. You have your head so far into it, and you’re in the weeds where you can’t see the forest from the trees. And so I feel like a book coach, like you and an editor. They really do help let you see the forest from the trees, and they help you with that. And then, you know, I reached out to some hybrid publishers because I decided I didn’t want to do traditional publishing and was able to work with Greenleaf. And then they took me all the way through the publishing process. I know there’s more there, Stacey, but.  

Stacy: A couple things I wanted to. To pull out of what you just shared that I think are such useful tips for anybody that’s listening. One thing that you did well is lowering the bar of success. Sometimes we set the bar so high that it’s like, well, I can’t write for an hour today. Some might as well just not even write. But if you say, I’m going to show up to the keyboard and move my fingers, that’s a pretty low bar. And you’ve succeeded just by doing that. And to your point, almost all of the time you’re going to click it and continue forward, but we often just set it so high up. The other thing that you said without saying is that you were in the stage that you were in, and you really let yourself be in each of those stages. I.  

Stacy: I probably said this to you at some point, but I know I say it all the time. Nothing else can happen without the first draft. And so your number one goal is to get that first draft done. And that first draft, of course it’s going to have extra words, and of course it’s going to be need polished, but it has to be completed so you can move into those next stages. And then when you’re in the next stage, trusting that expert that guides you through that. And I thought of the Stephen King quote that I love. Kill your darlings Kill your darlings Even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart Kill your darlings. But it is so hard when you get into that stage. You’re like, but it’s. But I love it. Oh, there’s so much to dig into.  

Stacy: I feel like we could talk through so much on the Publishing and the marketing front, maybe we’ll have you back, you know, and it. Well, for sure we’ll have you back in like at the year mark to talk through what it’s like when you’re out. That’d be so fun to do like a retrospective on your journey. But what I would love to hear from you is in your world of coaching and speaking and this high impact that you’re making, what are you most excited about right now and where can our listeners learn more about you? Get a copy of your time to rise and follow your journey.  

Arivee: I am most excited for the impact the book I know will make on people’s lives. I’ve already received so many messages about. And here’s why I say impact that it helps people in totally different stages of life. Like a woman who said she was going through a grieving process and the book really helped her like through her grief. And I know it was not the promise of the book, but because again, you’re talking about the messy middle and trying to figure stuff out and who am I and what’s going on, that it served her in that way which wasn’t the int. The intent. Right. Of the impact. But then that’s the impact it has because the words are true and it comes from a genuine place.  

Arivee: And so I’m most excited for the impact the book is having and how it is connecting people with each other. So I’ve had that too, where someone will read the book and then someone else will read the book and one of them will know me personally, the other one doesn’t and they connect and it’s creating this community around the book which I did not anticipate or expect. But again, that impact of the book and how it’s creating connection across experience has been really cool to see and to see how the book, even my sound engineer for the audiobook, cci, I just finished the pickups for the audiobook, which is where you have to fix them. I just finished that was it last week. And so the audiobook comes out in about six to eight weeks, how long it takes to load onto Audible.  

Arivee: So I’m excited for that. But in that process I had a sounds engineer and a director helping me. And the sounds engineer, he’s a full time. He’s really a full time musician. That’s what he does. And he does sound engineering. And he was with me the entire time I’m recording the book. Like he’s my guy. And at the end of the book, like when we finished the last day of recording before the. Before I went in to fix the little mistakes I had made. He said to me, you know, I know, like, I’m a. I’m an old white guy. He said, but I really took a lot away from the book, too. There are some things that I have to think about. There are some things I need to maybe do a little differently. And I’m like, really?  

Arivee: I literally looked at him and I said, really? And he said, yeah. He’s like, so much of your book is. Is relatable to a lot of people, not just women of color and women. He’s like, I know that’s who it’s for, and I think that’s fantastic. He’s like, I’m sure it’s great. He’s like, but it also really resonated with me too. And I was like, oh, like. Like that. I love that. I love that. I don’t want the book to. I don’t want people to pick up the book and be like, oh, it’s a woman of color. I won’t relate to it. You are gonna relate to it.  
Stacy: So I’m.  

Arivee: I’m excited for that. I’m excited for the audiobook to come out in. In a few months so people can hear the way that I. How I interpret this book, like, my intention behind my words. Because there’s parts where I give you a kick in the pants, and there are parts where it’s very soft. And that’s intentional. Right? So I’m excited for that, the impact of the book and. And learning more about the impact I didn’t expect. And then I’m also excited to work with more women to really help them through this time and to help them live more in alignment with what’s true for them today and what the version of them today calls them to be, who it calls them to be. And so I’m really excited about my. My private clients.  

Arivee: And then I’m launching a group coaching program in April, and so really excited about that. To get women together in community to share with each other and move forward together.  

Stacy: So many exciting things happening. And we’ll be sure, of course, to link to your website, your social profiles and your book. Your time to rise. Arivee, thank you so much for your time and energy today. I loved getting to hear more of your story. Of course, I. I know so much of it so well. But there’s also. I always learn new things. And for sharing your wisdom, I hope that there is a listener or many listeners today that are inspired to go pick up your book, maybe reach out to you for coaching. So thank you for joining me.  

Arivee: Thank you so much, Stacy. Always a pleasure.  

Stacy: And thank you to you, our listener, for hanging out with us today in this conversation. Like I just said, if this resonates with you, I highly encourage you to go check out your Time to Rise. Follow Arivee on social media, especially LinkedIn. She’s very active on those profiles and always putting just great content out into the world. And thank you as always to Rita Dominguez for her amazing production of this podcast. This, you would not be listening to this without her. And I am grateful if you have a couple minutes, actually like 30 seconds to go and rate and review this podcast on whatever app you’re listening to it in right now. It makes such a big difference for me in reaching more listeners with the message of living a life that is not just better, but beyond better.  

Stacy: And I will be back with you before you know it.