Reinvent Yourself

“Depression is the number one reason in the world for disability,” says Audrey Gruss, Founder of Hopefragrances.com and Hopefordepression.org. “Thirty-five percent of people don’t respond to the meds out there.” Gruss, who began her career as the assistant to the Medical Director at the Revlon Research Center, says that since 1985, every medication has been a spinoff of Prozac, which doesn’t work for everyone. One of those who Prozac failed was her mother, Hope, who had struggled with depression since her thirties.  “It was called a nervous breakdown,” Gruss says. “It had stigma.” When visiting her mother at the hospital Gruss would ask why there was no cure and why the top companies in the brain science business were not doing research. The answer she got: research “was too expensive and it was too lucrative to simply repurpose drugs.”  After her mother passed away in 2005, Gruss, who had spent the majority of her career in the beauty sector working for name brands like Elizabeth Arden and creating the Doral Saturnia Spa in Miami, launched Hope Fragrances to fund her research foundation, Hope For Depression.  “We put together a group of leaders in each discipline of neuroscience and cellular biology,” she says.  “They are collaborating and sharing research. We are in clinical trials at Columbia University Medical Center and Mount Sinai with a brand new category of medications for people who don’t respond to Prozac.”  

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“[I was at] my gynecologist’s office,” says  Kristin van Ogtrop, author (“Did I say that out loud? Midlife Indignities and How to Survive Them”   (https://amzn.to/3effm1a), literary agent, and former Editor-in-Chief of Real Simple magazine.  “My enthusiasm for daily life had diminished. I was having an annual exam and I said,’ I’m depressed or going through perimenopause or need a new job’. She said, ‘Maybe all three.’” Up until that point, van Ogtrop had been a high-flying editor in the magazine publishing world who had worked her way through some of the toniest jobs in the industry--beginning at Premiere, then to Vogue, Travel & Leisure, and then to running Real Simple for 13 years.  “The reason I loved [Real Simple] was because it was the first time I’d worked for a magazine where I was the reader,” she says. “The demos were basically me: busy working mother[s]...who had great full lives and needed ways to run [them] smoother.” Since Van Ogtrop grew up with a mother who was a home economics major, she knew how to make a casserole and hem a skirt--valuable skills she imparted to her harried readers. What was not so fun: when Real Simple got caught up in corporate spin-offs and industry-driven down-sizings. “Time Inc. was a public company [and there] was great pressure,” Van Ogtrop says.  “[‘For] creative people [like me] in the company…[it]  felt like every day you died a little inside.” After she left, Van Ogtrop became a business Goldilocks, trying on various new careers, but struggling to find her path.  “One benefit of reinventing in middle age,” she says, “is not to be embarrassed to be the dumbest person in the room. I know I’ve accomplished something...in my last life and in my mid-fifties I don’t care if I look like an idiot.” Tune in to see where she ended up and how she did it.

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“I was working in interior design, I had this new language, and I started seeing things in my clients homes or in their life that was reflected one with the other,” says Carrie Leskowitz, founder of Carrie Leskowitz Interiors. “So if there was something going on in their life, often I found it reflected in their home. And if there was something going on in their home, I had often found it reflected in their life. To some degree, one mirrored the other. So I started coaching design clients, and it was just so fascinating to me the things that I saw and learned.” It became a “cool niche” and she says she was “able to give my design clients not only a transformative solution to their home, but ... a transformation of their heart or their mind.”  When Leskowitz was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease that left her bed-ridden, she pivoted to placing all of her interior/exterior wisdom into a book, “Om for the Home”. “That [is] really the message that I wanted to send out in my book,” she says. “That home--our home, our soul, our body...it's all one. It's all connected.” 

“I had a wonderful childhood,” says Sarah Nannery (sarahnannery.com).  “But I could never figure out why I didn’t fit in. I played differently and didn’t pick up social cues. I didn’t get the point of jokes. All through college, I studied different things.” She also struggled with prioritization and sudden changes in the workplace.  Two years ago, Nannery was diagnosed with autism which she says, ”is quite a journey as an adult.” For Nannery, who decided to share her story in the new book, What to Say Next: Successful Communication in Work, Life, and Love--with Autism Spectrum Disorder, the diagnosis of her son with autism was the turning point.  “I started to notice his heavy dependence on routine...Going to school he would ring the doorbell to get in, wait for the teacher to open the door. [Once] another family rang the doorbell and he had the biggest meltdown.” Knowing how she also gravitated towards quiet and order and shied away from peers who were messy or not following the rules, Nannery decided to check herself out. “Diagnostic tools have evolved a lot,” she says. “They’re still missing women and girls and women of color. It’s still based on white boys as is all of the medical system.”  What Nannery hopes her book will accomplish? “We have to let go of preconceptions. We’re not all ‘Rain Man’. We’re very diverse. I’m still me before and after the diagnosis. I know who I am. Now.”

What does a girl from Queens with a degree in PR do when she and her friends can’t find a date? She writes a dating guide: “How to Marry a Mensch”.  What about when she becomes a mom at age 35? “I felt there was judgement about being a later-in-life mom,” says author, Tony-nominated producer, and love coach, Robin Gorman. “There was no sense of community.” To increase connections she created the site, motherhoodlater.com. “It’s not like I launched it and thought it would be a thing. It was very personal at the time.”  In fact Gorman uses her personal pain points to invent solutions for others.  “I connect people for the greater common good,” Gorman says. “I’m a little type A. Definitely a do-er...I’m not afraid to put things out there.”  Gorman says she also tends to think big. “I think, ok, if I tried. I’m not afraid to fail if I really believe in what I’m doing. I go for it. It’s a personality thing.” To wit, her motherhood work led her to think there was a trend for mom shows. A highschool theater buff, she picked up the phone and called a theater in California that was producing a mom show. “I left a cryptic message introducing myself to the producers of the show. Weeks later they called me back.” When the show came east to New York, the producers invited Gorman onto the project:  “I had a background in PR and a life-long love of theater and an understanding of the parenting space. It was a perfect fit.” 

“I was playing a lawyer. Fake blood was coming out of my mouth. Fifteen hours into the shoot lying on a filthy floor waiting for the director and sound, [I said to myself]: ‘What am I doing here? Is this what success looks like? I need to do something different...I have to do more.” So begins Lesley Jane Seymour’s discussion with Alexa Fischer, an actress (NCIS, CSI, Numb3ers, Bones), coach, and motivational speaker who is on a quest to “give wishes the power they need to become a reality.” Fischer said  “a prayer to the universe” and a friend called looking for a media trainer. 126k students from around the world took Fischer’s courses on confidence and communication. Then one day in the shower she “heard and saw” the name Wishbeads.  “I knew it was intention-setting jewelry,” she says. Dripping wet, she ran to the computer and grabbed the trademark and dot com and tried to figure out how to pull it off. Today Wishbeads (wishbeads.com) allows customers to visualize their wishes, write them down, and roll them up and place them in a bracelet.  “You wear the wish every day,” Fischer says. “When you see the wish you can focus on it.” 

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At 53, Tammi Leader Fuller left her big-time producer’s job in television news to go back to her “childhood happy place”--camp! Well, back to a grown-up version called Campowerment, a place for “women to learn, connect, and grow.” Says Fuller, who was in the news business for 34 years: “I was Tammi from Miami. I covered riots, the boat lift, drug dealing...I’m a storyteller at heart.” Ten years ago, Fuller moved to Los Angeles and while continuing in the entertainment field, wrote a book “about how having it all is not having it all.” In 2013, she decided it was time to produce something else: “I wanted to bring women back to the time of their life when they were carefree.” Fuller says her summers loving camp in the Poconos and invented Campowerment to bring back that sense of joy.  “We take over empty shells of camps...go in 24 hours with a team and jeuge it up and make it suitable for women to live in cabins,” she says. “ [We like to] let them be a bit uncomfortable to grow.” And yes, there are color wars and campfire songs, even a snoring cabin! “It’s heavily programmed. But in the off time people connect.”  Fuller sold her home to finance her business. “I sacrificed my life to make it happen… Now it’s eight years later.” 

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“We launched Franklyn West in the middle of the pandemic,” says Ashley Miles of her Business Growth Collective which is committed to transformation and sustainable growth for businesses and leaders. “We have an incredible portfolio of companies. Simultaneously, I’m also president of New York Women in Communications (NYWICI), the 91-year-old organization that hosted it’s 51st --but the first digital only--Matrix Awards”.  Miles, who grew up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana as a serious equestrian, discovered her passion for journalism and advertising early on and decided she “needed to get to New York.”  “I sent hundreds of resumes to people on the mastheads of magazines to get an internship,” she says, “and only one person called me back. It was Teen People.” From there Miles went off to In Style, then helped to scale Refinery 29 into a “nine-figure business”, eventually landing as Global Chief Business Officer at Thrive Global.  What makes her business approach different? Using optimism as leverage.  “We have to shut down the inner critic,” she says. “We all have that inner voice saying, ‘I’m not worthy of making positive change in my life’  Shut it down! Ask: What is the bold picture? What do I want to be? How do I want to evolve? What is my action plan to make it happen? Get out there and network. Seeing things through an optimistic lens means anything is possible.”

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“When you figure out your ‘why’ everything else is smooth around you.” That’s what Azra Khalfan-Kermali says is the secret to success when taking over a family business.  Her father, a commercial artist in Tanzania, was a successful sign maker. When he and his wife moved to Queens, NY, he opened a sign and plaque-making family business, naming it after his daughter, Plaques by Azra (https://www.azra.com/).  “I grew up watching [my father and mother] balancing company, community, and business.” she says. “They were passionate...They socialized a lot...They were part of the community. It was nice having that childhood.”  The business targets the muslim community. “This is one of the only Islamic award compan[ies] in the world,” Khalfan-Kermali says. Though she didn’t grow up expecting to take over the family business, after a divorce from her first husband,  she decided to get her college degree, apply for the Goldman Sachs 10000 Small Business program and the Tori Burch foundation. She negotiated a price for the business from her parents (“so it was fair to my siblings”) and they accepted.  As a woman who observes the Islamic veil Khalfan-Kermali says her biggest challenge was deciding to show herself outside the home because it might lose clients. “I didn’t want my parents to suffer a loss because I was going out to meetings,” she says. “Before Google, you can’t find a picture of me. I would talk to clients and no one knew who you were or what you looked like. It was like that for a long time.” 

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“I didn’t go into [animal rights],” says Tharaka Sriram, founder of Ocean Education. “The topic found me and was a stage five clinger!...a little flame spark that got into me and created this whole different path.” In fact, Sriram, whose parents emigrated from Sri Lanka to Germany, grew up wanting to be an interpreter. “I speak six languages fluently. But when I had an internship as an interpreter in the office, I found it so boring. All you do is translate what other people do or say. There’s no place for your own thoughts...and I wanted to have my own opinion out there.” After Sriram escaped from her strict, conservative Tamil family, she went on to work for NGOs focused on women’s rights around the world. She worked on bringing micro credit to women in India and domestic violence Peru. In the small town of Tortugas, she discovered the connection between overfishing and domestic violence and her interest in marine ecology was born. “The home of marine animals is being polluted and overfished,” she says. “There’s not enough space to be free and procreate. I want to give them a voice and make them important.” 

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