Emily Merrell  00:00

Hey, my name is Emily Merrell. I’m a taco loving people connector, and I’m obsessed with playing the name game and all things networking. I’m the founder of second degree society, a female focused networking community, as well as a business coach for female business owners, passionate about bringing their business to the next level with the help of events, community and connections. I crave deep conversations and am continuously curious to see what makes people tick, and I’m invested in uncovering their stories with some life lessons along the way. This podcast is aimed to inspire and educate as you tackle your busy day. So join the conversation and tune in for the second degree podcast. I’m your host, Emily, and today I’m really excited about this conversation I have. Jenny mainpa, she is your go to burnout coach, helping high achieving millennial women navigate life transitions. She’s a licensed psychotherapist, so we’re going to do some therapy on here today, guys, she is LCSW, she’s an anxiety expert, she’s an author, and she is a mouthy feminist, and I think that’s my favorite part of who you are. So Jenny, welcome to the show.

 

Jenny Maenpaa  01:12

Thank you so much for having me. I’m psyched to have this conversation.

 

Emily Merrell  01:16

I love that you’re a mouthy feminist, and I’m curious. She’s also wearing this like, beautiful Bo red lipstick right now. So it really like fits the vibe of a mouthy feminist with a beautiful smile. Why? Why do you say that, that you’re a mouthy feminist,

 

Jenny Maenpaa  01:33

primarily to, like, prep people that, like, I’m gonna say some, some wild hot takes. I always joke with my dad. I’m like, you know that I’m the reason, or you’re the reason that I’m a feminist, right? And he, like, gets all twitchy, and he’s like, What do you mean? And I said to him, you know, you didn’t know how to raise a daughter like there were no books. You just knew what you had wanted as a kid. So you raised me like a son. You coached my baseball team, you took me fishing, and you raised me with the confidence of a mediocre white man, and now I am who I am. And he’s like,

 

Emily Merrell  02:04

Stop, that’s amazing. And he’s like, I I’m sorry. Yeah.

 

Jenny Maenpaa  02:09

He’s like, I’ve created a monster.

 

Emily Merrell  02:13

Do you Do you feel like it’s hard for you to, like, shut your mouth in certain situations where you’re like, I need, okay, yeah, same. I’m, I’m the go to friend where they’re like, Emily, we need to take back this meal. And I’m like, No. They’re like, No, you have to do it. And I was like, Why me? Come on, there’s so many other people at this table, and they’re like, you’re the one who has to do it. So I have to, like, yeah. So yeah, I am

 

Jenny Maenpaa  02:41

happy to be that person. I am like, I will call up your health insurance company and yell at them about a claim they should have paid. I will absolutely be the person at the restaurant. And the thing is, like, I’m nice about it start until it gets to a point where it’s like, okay, what are we doing here? Yeah, but no, absolutely I am. I am that advocate for all of my friends. I’m like, No, this is not

 

Emily Merrell  03:02

okay. Yeah, my husband’s Canadian, and he literally won’t even ask for salt if, like, something’s under salted. I’m like, can I have salt please? Like, I’m like, asking for him. He’s like, why’d you do that? Now you hurt the chef’s feelings? No, I didn’t hurt the chef’s feelings. This is your meal. You paid whatever for your steak, like it could be seasons the way that you want it to be. So,

 

Jenny Maenpaa  03:25

yeah, he’s friggin too. But the chef isn’t really thinking about you that

 

Emily Merrell  03:29

much. He’s not thinking about like his next beautiful creation, or, I don’t know, I don’t know what chefs think about. Actually, I don’t know if I want to know what chefs think about.

 

Jenny Maenpaa  03:38

Yeah, I haven’t watched it there, but it seems like I don’t want to be inside the

 

Emily Merrell  03:43

head dude, you should watch the bear. It’s good. It’s stressful. It’s stressful watching.

 

Jenny Maenpaa  03:49

I can’t watch stressful. I didn’t watch I started succession, and I was like, nope, these are bad people doing bad things, and I’m stressed out watching them. Yeah.

 

Emily Merrell  03:56

And you just, I mean succession like. You definitely dislike every character, the bear you like the characters. You’re just like, what’s gonna when’s the other shoe going to drop? Kind of,

 

Jenny Maenpaa  04:05

I don’t like that. It was enough stress in my daily life.

 

Emily Merrell  04:08

So much stress. Speaking of stress, you live in New York City, and you are a therapist for people, for millennial women in New York City. So tell me. Tell me first and foremost, like, what are millennial women stressed about? I

 

Jenny Maenpaa  04:23

mean, literally everything. So I just as a point of clarification, I am trained as a therapist. I work as a coach now, and the reason for that is because I found that the medical model of mental health, which only knows how to work with you when you are sick and diagnosable to get you to a point of functioning doesn’t really have space to get you from functioning to like flourishing. So that’s why I took my mental health education and, like all the evidence based practices that I studied in grad school, and I created a program. But because I feel very ethically about my license, I always have to clarify that I am not operating as a therapist when I tell you all of the things. I’m about to say my mouthy feminism is very specific to my coaching practice. Don’t come for me legally. Asterix,

 

Emily Merrell  05:06

caveat. Asterix, I love it, yeah.

 

Jenny Maenpaa  05:11

But you know, I the the millennial women that I’m working with, it’s, it’s the stuff that existed before the pandemic, and then it’s the pandemic stuff. So the stuff that existed before the pandemic is perfectionism, imposter syndrome, chasing these these brass rings, never being satisfied once you get there, because there’s always something else to achieve, looking around for gold stars externally that we don’t really get in the modern workplace. And then the pandemic, so many women feel like years were stolen from them, dating, having babies, they’re like in the blink of an eye, I went from 34 to 38 I feel like I missed dating and getting married and having babies, and now I feel too old. I feel like I’ve missed my window. What am I doing? I’m coming up on 40 and I’m not where I wanted to be in my career or my personal life, and it doesn’t feel like it was their choice or their shortcoming or their their failure, it was taken from them. So there’s this added element of, for the first time in my life, I don’t have control. Before it was like, if I if something’s not going well, I can turn inward and say, Oh, I didn’t do this, or I should have done this, or I can do this better. I had absolutely no control over the last four years. And like, now I’m seeing the consequences, and I don’t like that. And so our anxiety has spiked. We’ve been inside, you know, listen, I love remote work, but there is a real consequence to our social interactions that has come from people never meeting in person, particularly like Gen Z, not ever working in a workplace, in person, going straight from graduating college into a pandemic, into a workplace, never figuring out how to like, read, body language or interact with someone two decades older than they are. So millennials are in this sandwich between the Gen Z, where they’re like, Well, I’m not bad, but between the boomers, where they’re like, I’m also not that they’re

 

Emily Merrell  06:56

like, I can hold eye contact and I can be polite to people, and I still crave a work life balance, but

 

Jenny Maenpaa  07:05

yeah, and I understand the structural things that exist, yeah, that the boomers created, that we are now experiencing the consequences of. So I understand why Gen Z is, like, angry or rejecting these things or whatever they are. But I also have some of the boomer perspective of like, we built this by scratching and clawing for it, for women. So like you, there is an element of entitlement looking sort of at the next generation, where it’s like, you don’t understand that I had to fight for maternity leave, like you’re mad that it’s 12 weeks, not 30 weeks. And I agree with you, but we had zero weeks, and like you’re not celebrating where we came from.

 

Emily Merrell  07:42

You, you summed up so many of my feelings so eloquently, and I think that’s such a great point. Like I feel some of the resentments I have to Gen Z are, like, you didn’t have a boss asking for the dumbest request, and then if you asked a question about it, like, have your whole entire identity questioned for asking a question that would streamline a process. And you know, like, or I’ve experienced this with a nanny before, where she had period cramps and she’s like, I’m sorry I can’t come in, I have cramps, and I’m like, your whole job is to take care of our child, and now no one’s that means I’m taking care of the kids, you know, and, like, I so in this I’m not saying this is healthier. This is really messed up, that this is the way that we come from. But, like, suck it up buttercup kind of thing. Like, you think of how many tests I went to in college, and I’m literally, like, 104 time fever. And you just, like, you push through, which is not healthy. And I’m not saying that that’s how we should be, but there is that, like, grit and hustle, that there that we had and have, but had that I sometimes I feel like there’s a lot of this is hard. I’m giving up, and I don’t like that personally, absolutely,

 

Jenny Maenpaa  08:59

no, I agree with you completely. Like, one thing that I thought was a gift from covid Was that we can now have conversations about being like, you’re sick. Please don’t come in. It doesn’t mean just work from home, because if you’re sick, you’re sick. But I also sometimes see some of my younger staff put on their calendars, like yoga in the middle of the day, and I’m like, love that for you don’t love that for the nine to five that I pay you for,

 

Emily Merrell  09:24

totally, totally, and, yeah, yeah, there’s a lot of it. I go back to my college a lot, and I’ve met a bunch of a bunch of the students, and I feel like this wave of students was, like, the most equal, or like, kind of this sounds so bad, but like, back to normal, like they had eye contact and like their handshake didn’t feel like a wet, wet limp, I don’t know, Turkey or whatever. It’s just like they felt the awkwardness was kind of like shooken out of them a bit more and but it is been fascinating also, just and this, this could go down a whole. Different trajectory and squirrel completely. But I’ve heard that Gen Z, like is not having sex, and that they’re what was the other thing, like, they don’t drink, they don’t go out. Like they just, they don’t give themselves fun and or maybe that is not fun for them either. So like, their anxiety is so high. So I think of millennials with high anxiety, and then I think of Gen Z and, like, make that even a double shot,

 

Jenny Maenpaa  10:26

yeah, listen for all the the specific things that millennials have to deal with, being in, like, our 47th financial crisis since we’ve come of working age. And, you know, being in a sandwich generation, where we’re taking care of older parents and our own children. The one thing I am so grateful for is that I did not get social media until I was in college. It just didn’t exist. And when I think about there now, the studies are coming out about particularly adolescents, starting from about 2011 to 14, when like Instagram was showing likes, and just the idea that my middle school and high school experience would have been on the internet for other people to judge. Like, I will remain immensely grateful for that. And what we’re seeing is like, I guess Gen alpha is the one after Gen Z. They’re like, they want dumb phones, they want flip phones, they don’t want social media. And I’m like, God bless I’m so glad you quickly learned the lesson of how we accidentally harmed an entire generation

 

Emily Merrell  11:21

seriously. We broke them. I know, I know my kid. A lot of people ask me. They’re like, Is your child an iPad kid? And I’m like, No, should he be? And they’re like, no. But I just so quickly see people handing an iPad, and we do let him watch shows like two, two minute episodes of coca melon, you know, a day like that’s a hit of dopamine, and then we do books afterwards. But it is fascinating, like the handing over of a device to a child, where you can see their brain, just like shutting down and being absorbed into something. So, yeah, yeah, I’m with you on the millennial so grateful you’re not social media, even when you just said that, I just felt anxiety in my belly of, like, this idea of me posting what would be a cute, sexy photo of a 13 year old Emily and, like, the cringe, so I had a, like, a full on unibrow. And Kids these days are cute, like they’re, yeah, like they they look like Kylie Jenner at like, 13, which is not cute, but they don’t look like a wooly mammoth.

 

Jenny Maenpaa  12:26

There’s a reason that there’s like, a three to four year span where you just can’t find any photos of me, not in my own, not on the internet. It’s just like, Oh, she didn’t exist. I destroyed them.

 

Emily Merrell  12:40

It’s terrible. I totally understand you’re like, yeah, there was a freak accident. All of my this acid just oddly fell into this box of photos, just from like, 12 to 15. I

 

Jenny Maenpaa  12:51

don’t know it just happened. Yeah,

 

Emily Merrell  12:53

so weird. The photos weren’t developed. It was lots of cameras. I do miss the thrill of like, bringing your photos to CVS to get them developed, though, yeah, like, what gold mines would they be versus, like, the instant gratification we get now, just are my 83,000 photos living on my phone? Yeah, absolutely. And like, candids just looked different. You know, they

 

Jenny Maenpaa  13:18

just like, you pull out these photos and people are are I’m even myself. I am hyper aware of a camera at this point. I know every time someone has a phone out that, like, I might be in the background and like, Don’t be weird, and don’t make your resting bitch faith and like, I just the photos of me from like, high school and college are hilarious now, because I’m like, what an awkward Gremlin. But they’re funny.

 

Emily Merrell  13:39

They’re so good. I love it. Awkward Gremlins bring back the awkward gremlins. So everything you said about the millennial woman, I so feel and because I am a millennial woman, and that aging, like I just turned 37 and I was like, No, I was just 32 like, I just turned 30 What the hell like this is over. And that resentment and that feeling, and while I have like positive things to say that happened during the pandemic, I do feel like, like my memory was clipped in an aspect in a certain way, and time was just edited and then quickened. And so what do you how do you treat that like, how do you treat these very real things that people are struggling with, or, how do you what advice do you have for people that are struggling with like, I’m almost 40, and I thought I was gonna have three kids by now. Yeah, yeah.

 

Jenny Maenpaa  14:32

So the very first thing is that I’m someone who sort of ascribe to the idea of in therapy, we call it like rolling with resistance or sublimation. And what I mean by that is like, if I’m super anxious and amped, the conventional wisdom is like, go deep, breathe and do some yoga and meditate and listen, I love all those things. They’re super beneficial for, like, re regulating your nervous system. But first I want to lean into it. I want to scream into a pillow and put on, you know, Jagged Little Pill and, like, sing at the top of my lungs. Like, run as fast as I can for as long as I can. Like, I think we’re too quick to shut down negativity. Lean into it, like, feel it. Like, roll around in it, and then you can do something with it. And so when you’re sitting there thinking, you know my life is is going on fast forward, like I’m not choosing this, like I thought I’d be at this place. I want you to actually sit with that, sit with that discomfort, and say I am not where I thought I was going to be. And you’re allowed to mourn that. You are allowed to mourn the potential life you were going to live, even though you’re still here and there’s too much of this, like suffering Olympics, where it’s like, well, you get a gold medal and your life is harder, so I can’t compete, and it’s like, unfortunately, there’s infinite suffering available to all of us. And so what I saw so many people do during the pandemic was like, well, at least I still have my job, at least I don’t have to go outside, at least I didn’t lose a family member. You can be grateful, but don’t use that to shut down your own experience. You are also allowed to be really, really sad that the job in China you were going to do in Hong Kong or whatever, like disappeared the you know, trip you were going to take the honeymoon, you were going to have the person you were going to start dating, but then you both went into lockdown, and it never went anywhere like you are allowed to mourn all of those things and then say, Okay, now what? And you don’t have to know the next 40 steps. You don’t have to design some perfect life. All you really have to do is say, what next? Okay, I’m not where I thought I was going to be. So do I want to think about freezing my eggs. Do I want to hire a dating coach, because I’m just too busy? Do I want to outsource it? Do I want to hire a matchmaker? Do I want to do speed dating? Do I want to join a pickleball league like do I want to do something that’s within my control, to extend my timeline or to meet my person? It’s when you do the I’m not where I thought I was going to be the end everything’s terrible. Like, when you sit in that, then you just continue to, like, capitalize and exponentially increase your misery. So it’s about saying yes and like, Yes, this is happening. And while I can’t rewrite the past, those things have happened, I do still have agency over what happens from literally this second forward.

 

Emily Merrell  17:24

I think that’s so powerful and so important for people to hear because of rumination and the spiraling of, oh, I’m Woe to me. Woe to me. Woda me. I love the practicality of the yes and and the now what? Because then you can actually move forward versus ruminating in what could have or what should have been in the past. And I like that differentiation. Also with therapy, I feel like therapy versus coaching. Coaching, there is a lot of drawing from the past where coaching is very actionable, like, all right, we had your pity party. Now, let’s make a plan forward. Yeah,

 

Jenny Maenpaa  18:00

yeah, exactly. And that’s, you know, what I really love, that I get to bring from both my modalities to my work, is that I have that clinical therapy background where I can be like, I can hear where you’ve come from. I can reflect back to you like, Oh, it sounds like growing up, you had a swim coach who made you feel like, you know, only first place was good enough, and breaking records was the only acceptable outcome. And so you internalized this idea that perfection was the only answer, and you know, second place was not good enough. Fast forward, I see you as a 36 year old saying the exact same things to yourself, but I am not going to spend time on that swim coach. I am going to spend time on the 36 year old now that we know that, what do we do from here forward,

 

Emily Merrell  18:40

we push every swim coach into the water.

 

Jenny Maenpaa  18:46

Go back and find them. Yeah,

 

Emily Merrell  18:47

we find them and we hunt them and we take a V for Vendetta. No, I Yeah, no, violence is not the answer, guys. That was a joke. That was a joke, but I do think so. You know, you both said something earlier, where you said about the gold stars, how, like, we also are a generation of getting gold stars, getting trophies. I actually have a trophy that was sent to me after I gave birth, which was the best gift I ever got. Fun Facts. Send that to your friends with babies, because, like, you don’t get a trophy for having a baby. And she’s like, I think you should get a trophy for

 

Jenny Maenpaa  19:20

real. It is physical trauma. It is, yes, yeah, I

 

Emily Merrell  19:24

was like genius, thoughtful gift, but thinking about, like, the Gold Star generation, and we are the Gold Star generation, and now, now we’re entering into, like, a world of gentle parenting. What are your thoughts and ways that we can strip away that perfectionism, or that need for recognition, or that need for my my star chart, to be complete, to live like a complete life.

 

Jenny Maenpaa  19:48

Yeah, yeah. So it’s interesting gentle parenting. I just need to get on a soapbox for a second. A lot of people are misunderstanding it, and what they’re practicing is permissive parenting. Yeah. They’ve misunderstood the word gentle to mean you never discipline, you never set a consequence, you never say anything negative. That’s not gentle parenting. Gentle parenting is positive consequences. Is actions tied to consequences. So for example, if the flip between saying, you know, stop running, the flip becomes, can you run up to that awning and then stop like it becomes a positive achievement? It’s not, oh my god, I can’t yell at my kid. They’re going to run into traffic. You should definitely set boundaries. So I worry that our generation is going too far in the other direction of misunderstanding what the gentle part of it is. But that said, the way that I work with my clients on reducing that perfectionism is, again, first of all, just naming that like you are always going to pull in that direction. It is in you. It is innate, and it has been reinforced for 3040, years. So letting go of the idea that you can stop doing that instead. Okay, so at the end of the night, I am I’m lying in bed and I’m ruminating on every time that I yelled at my kid, every moment where I swore I was going to show up as a gentle parent, and instead, I became my own mother, and I yelled, and I said, I’m going to take your dessert away, or whatever thing I know is, quote, unquote wrong. What I asked my clients to do is say, pause, where, when are all the times that I showed up for my kid today, as much as you can quickly, in an instant, name all the things you did wrong. Spend that amount of time naming the things you did right. That could be as simple as I made them breakfast. It wasn’t, you know, the perfect five star gourmet chef, like, you know, Instagram worthy. I fed them. They are, you know, healthy, and I gave them nutrients, and I sent them to school on time, and they have vitamins in their bellies. You know what I mean? Like, sometimes it has to be, because all the stuff that we forget to celebrate because we do it every day is worth celebrating. Like, no, I don’t think every day you should be like, patting yourself on the back because you brushed your teeth. Like, please just brush your teeth every day. But like, we we set this expectation that it’s like the norm is confidence, and then the only things that are worth celebrating are, like, perfection, amazing, like, all these things, no like celebrate that your kid had three nutritious meals today, and you did that, and your kid went to bed with like a full belly and like a happy life. And I promise you, I promise you again, I am an expert. I have two master’s degrees, one in social work and one in education. I promise you, your kid is not going to remember every single time you snapped at them, your kid is going to remember when you weren’t present because you were sitting there berating yourself and they were trying to spend time with you. Life is really, really long, actually, and moments will stick out. And the other thing I tell my clients is you will fuck your kids up period the end, and once you accept that, but there’s no version of this where you do it perfectly. It’s liberating. You’re gonna fuck your kids up. My parents fucked me up in a different way that their parents fucked them up. It’s fine. I’m still a functioning human with self awareness and the skills and tools to like, recognize the things and try to do differently in the future. So once you recognize there’s no version of perfect that you can achieve or that anybody else can, you can let go of even having that as a standard,

 

Emily Merrell  23:33

and the mic is dropped. That was amazing, and it’s so true. I think about that all the time. I’m like, What is my son going to bring into therapy? Like, what is he? What’s the thing? He’s only two and a half, but I think we’ve put him in a lot of closets. And yes, he may, he might come out of the closet in multiple different ways, but, like, I have this and showers. He slept in the shower downstairs, and we accidentally turned on. Well, I won’t, I won’t put this publicly. Never mind. Um, anyways, he slept in showers downstairs. And I’m just worried that one day he’s gonna be like, I have this like, weird, deathly fear of, like, walking into showers or into closets, because we’ve, we’ve, he slept there. He slept in dark, random, like, Airbnb closets before. Okay, but here’s

 

Jenny Maenpaa  24:20

what I will tell you, he is going to go to therapy, and he is going to bring these things there. So all you can control is normalizing the going to therapy, the processing, the open conversation you cannot control. Like I I hate when I hear parents say, like creating a core memory. I’m like, you actually have no idea which memory is going to become a core because I guarantee that every one of us has a core memory that our parents don’t remember, our siblings don’t remember, right? So, like, Stop putting pressure on yourself to create something like that, and just live and know that they’re going to bring something to therapy.

 

Emily Merrell  24:57

Amen. Well, it is funny the core memory. Thing, I feel like that gets said a lot, and I feel like I’ve been saying it a lot more because I heard someone else say it, and so it becomes like an ongoing joke. But I do think there’s an aspect of this generation, generation alpha, will have more core memories than our generation, because they have access to replaying the memory that much more. So like, for example, we went to, where did we go? We went to Mexico in March with my my in laws, and we were on a boat in Mexico. And he, he will, if I, like, say the word boat. He was like, Mexico with Uncle Tyler, Auntie shell, you know, we were on a boat, like, he’ll say it over and over and over again. I was like, Oh, I think he’s, like, made that into a core memory, but also my son’s core memories are very fleeting. He’ll be like, Layla scooter playground, and then, like, the next week, it’s something else, but that one, he keeps playing again, and I think it’s because he’s seen the picture in the video and over and over again. Yeah, totally. How I feel about our core memories, like I’m like, oh, in the Minnie Mouse at my second birthday party, like I remember it, do I or I’ve read the story and seen the pictures so many times? Yeah, exactly that. I feel like I have, oh, yeah. I think that’s that. That’s an amazing Yeah. Those are just amazing thoughts. And also, hopefully our kids are less fucked up than we are, but that’s hoping everyone will have their own version of messed up, messed up, fucked up, whatever it is, absolutely the other thing I want to ask you about is anxiety, and I feel like maybe it was around and I was just again, like naive to it, and I wasn’t as aware. But I feel like everyone that I’ve talked to has told me how anxious they are, and also their ADHD, they’re like, Oh, I’m so ADHD and I’m so anxious. Have you noticed that it has changed since the pandemic, or people are just getting seeking out more resources? What do you what have you been seeing? Yes,

 

Jenny Maenpaa  26:58

absolutely, actually, so particularly with women and adult diagnoses of ADHD, it was so fascinating, because for girls and women, the way ADHD presents is more internal. It’s that self flagellation of, okay, this isn’t working for me. This doesn’t make sense, so I’m going to spend six hours studying this when it takes somebody else 45 minutes to, like, memorize or internalize this information. We see in boys, there’s a lot more externalizing. And so that’s like most things in medicine, that’s what we’ve made the standard is, oh, ADHD, is boys hyperactivity? Well, for girls, the hyperactivity often, often happens inside their brain. So it’s just like, constantly going so I saw so many people during the pandemic, both my own clients and like friends, who, before the pandemic, they would be the person who would be like, 6am spin class. I’m at work by 730 I’m doing the meetings, I’m doing the lunch I have happy hour after work. I’m going to a Broadway show like and they never stopped moving. And the pandemic put a brick wall in front of them, and what they discovered was that all of that hyperactivity was a counterbalance to the ADHD. And I saw a lot of other people who were on anti anxiety medications and antidepressants, and it turned out that actually they had ADHD. And the reason their anti anxiety or anti depressives weren’t working as well is because what they actually needed was, like, Ritalin or Adderall or the focusing, and then it felt like the noise quieted and they could address more of the thing, but all of it was masking as anxious behaviors or depressive behaviors. And that’s not to say that none of those people had anxiety or depression, but I saw so many people where they were like, oh, once I started taking, like, my Adderall. I actually my other meds worked better. I was able to, like, focus. And is this how other people’s brains sound? They’re just, like, able to focus on one thing at a time. So it was really interesting that I heard that story enough times from women, but I was like, what’s happening? And it’s that, again, you know, like a lot of things, we’ve historically oriented what we know about diagnoses to men, and it’s not how it shows up in women. And the pandemic gave us an opportunity to really, like, have nowhere else to go but inside, and for a lot of us, that was a scary place. I also think that in the world we live in between like constant news cycle and the like constant flashes of tiktoks and Instagram reels and just like passively getting into our brains if you’re not anxious, I think that’s actually more concerning than if you are like now you’re just reacting to the world around you and the stimuli, like, if you’re feeling fine, I have more questions you’re

 

Emily Merrell  29:40

like, And that’s what I found out. We have more psychopaths in the world who are doing that. What if you just edit it out of your life and choose to ignore it? No,

 

Jenny Maenpaa  29:52

yeah. So, so I was listening to pod save America, and one of the guy, you know, they’re, they’re Paul. Political news junkies, they have shows multiple times a week, and one of the guys went on survivor, and he came back and he had absolutely no access to any information. And it was really interesting listening to him, him learn a bunch of ridiculous news headlines all at once, instead of in real time. And he and so they played a game with him that were like, which of these didn’t happen? And like, when you hear them all together, you’re like, This is insane. And he guessed mostly wrong, because he was like, wait, what? Like, none of these things happened, and it’s like three out of four of them did. And he was like, Wow, I did not recognize. Like, what a nice break it was gonna be. Do not know the most ridiculous things that have happened in our country in real time. Oh

 

Emily Merrell  30:44

my god, I have to listen to that episode. That sounds like a really interesting one to think about. I feel like I’ve always wanted to go to Burning Man only for that reason of just like you are so disconnected from the world, and I think at one point you just, you have to give over to that disconnection. And have you actually watched the TV show upload? If not, it’s quite good, but it if you you have the choice. When you die, you can either be uploaded kind of into like a giant Sims game. You like your consciousness. You can redesign your body, and you have an avatar. You can feel things, you can eat things, but you have to have someone also paying for all the different things that you consume. And they have this, why am I telling you this? They have this, this, like, culture that’s happening where it’s the phone is in your hand. So like, when you when someone calls, like, you open, you open your hand, and that’s how the phone is there. And so it’s just so accustomed to be opened. And there’s a culture that lives off the grid and they don’t have their phone. And like, during the show, you see this girl just keep trying to open her hand. She’s like, This is so weird. Like, I’m so used to doing this, and I think that’s similar to how we are with our phones, too. It’s just like, hitting refresh to get that dopamine hit of that terrible headline that’s happening. The

 

Jenny Maenpaa  31:58

worst is when I open my phone with an intention, and then the notifications distract me, and I’m like, No, I came here for a reason,

 

Emily Merrell  32:06

damn it. Yeah? Like, oh, I’m checking into my flight now. I’m C 27 on South. Yeah, exactly. Thanks, Tiktok, you got me again. Oh, gosh, well, anxiety, yeah, anxiety could be a whole other conversation, because I do find that it is interesting that person that you described that like, 6am wake up, the Go, go, go, go, go. That’s who I was in New York, and that’s who I strive to be. And I felt nothing like I just I moved so fast to avoid the feels, and then, like learning how to feel was its own learning journey, but I wouldn’t consider myself ADHD and or anxious, but maybe I haven’t a component of both, and I’ve like cocktailed it perfectly in my brain somehow to not need either medication.

 

Jenny Maenpaa  32:53

Well, here’s the thing, there’s also a subset of anxiety that’s non clinical, and it’s called high functioning anxiety, and it probably most women, you and I know. So it’s the the go getter, the, you know, yes, perfectionist, but like, she’s successful at it, so her overthinking makes her better at what she does. She’s the person everybody goes to because she can handle it all. She’s the ball juggler. She’s the person who makes the itinerary books. Everybody’s like, make sure everybody has their passports. But it it’s second nature to her, so it doesn’t feel like an issue to her and that. But other people look at her and go like, Oh my god. How does she do it? There’s a whole group of people like you and like me who are like, I actually thrive with 47 things to do. Like, I’m not trying to avoid my life. I am, like, living it fully. I’m just really good at managing all those things.

 

Emily Merrell  33:44

That is true. I talk about that. We talk about this a lot on the Ready Set coach podcast, Lexi and I were like, when people complain that they don’t have enough time in their day, I’m like, go to bed earlier and wake up earlier. That’s or get off of Tiktok. Or, like, multitask, or not multitask, but like a habit stack a little bit, you know, absolutely no, but then do your emails at the same time. Like it doesn’t have to be an either or situation, absolutely, yeah,

 

Jenny Maenpaa  34:10

oh my God, so many, like random keep going conversations I could have with you, but I’m going to encourage people to go and have a one on one conversation with you, Jenny, because that is even more fun. So how can people find out more about Miss Jenny? Miss Jenny? Yes, so my company is called forward in heels, and it comes from the old cartoon about Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. And these people are standing outside the movie marquee, and this woman turns to these guys behind her, and she says, Well, yeah, he was great, but she did everything he did backwards and in high heels. And when I started coaching 10 years ago, I was like, why are we still trying to mimic men? This was like, right after lean in, and while I think lean in had, like, a ton of really good, you know, conversation starters, it still asked us to mimic men to be successful. And if you think all the way back to, like, the 80s, when. Women had, like, power suits and stuff. They were literally just men suits made into a skirt suit, which have shoulder pads to make us look like a linebacker. Like, I don’t necessarily need to power pose and, like, take up space and puff up like a puffer fish just to mimic a man to be successful at work. And so I really wanted to say, like, why are we trying to mimic men and being like, backwards from like, let’s step into our own power. So everywhere you want to find me is forward and heels, Instagram, LinkedIn, my website is forward and heels. Also, if you can figure out how to spell my last name, I’m the only one.

 

Emily Merrell  35:33

I am the only one. I love it, and it’s manpa,

 

Jenny Maenpaa  35:38

yep, back when I did teach for america early in my career, and I taught middle school English as a second language, and my kids called me mean, pause, oh.

 

Emily Merrell  35:49

I’ve just been seeing the memes where it’s like an English teacher when they do the tight sweater and they’re like, I’ll wait. You know, oh,

 

Jenny Maenpaa  35:56

that was my favorite phrase. Yep,

 

Emily Merrell  35:58

I’ll wait. Probably, oh, oh, you just, I just remember, like, that squirmy niche where you’re like, oh my god, guys, we gotta be quiet. She’s gonna be so mad at me to do what? What is? She’s gonna hit me, and then she’s like,

 

Jenny Maenpaa  36:08

Oh yeah, no, truly. And like, as an aside, I was my personality as a teacher was exactly the one that’s shown up on this podcast today, with less swearing. So my kids were not afraid of me. They were like, Okay.

 

Emily Merrell  36:21

Like, okay, well, I’m glad I tried everything in my power to continue. I value teachers so much. Like, that is a thankless, thankless job, and I don’t know I even even at daycare. Like, we’ll send videos of the kids just in circle time. And I’m like, how do you get 1212, two year olds to sit down and to like pay attention to you when they all have so much energy and they’re just little jumping beans and want to do crazy things so well, Jenny, I love that everyone you have to connect with Jenny. If you’re in New York City, you need to meet Jenny. She’s amazing. And before I let you leave, I’ve got some six fast questions for you today. I love it. Okay, all right. My first one is, tell us an unknown fun fact about Jenny, I have my motorcycle license shut the friend, that’s so cool. Yep,

 

Jenny Maenpaa  37:14

I got it when I was a teenager. My dad’s a Harley guy. And, yeah,

 

Emily Merrell  37:17

do you have a motorcycle in New York, I

 

Jenny Maenpaa  37:21

do not, I am a terrible driver.

 

Emily Merrell  37:24

Oh my gosh, so hot. Like, again, I’d like to not inflict that on people. That’s fair, okay, yeah, don’t, don’t, like, run over a pedestrian with a motorcycle, but it would be a, definitely, like, a good dating profile picture, or something like you and leather with like, holding the helmet against the mother. We’ll share some pictures of a friend who does that, and she’s so cool. Who would be a dream person to be connected with?

 

Jenny Maenpaa  37:52

That’s Brene Brown, okay, yeah. She is just, I love her approach, the way that she uses research to talk about vulnerability. She isn’t just like, Oh, everybody, hold hands. She’s like, this is why it matters. This is what the, you know, peer reviewed evidence says about shame and vulnerability. This is how it can show up in all the different parts of your life. Like, it’s it’s insightful and it’s actionable. Love it, yeah,

 

Emily Merrell  38:16

she’s amazing. What show are you currently watching?

 

Jenny Maenpaa  38:19

I am a devotee at the altar of Andy Cohen and all things on Bravo. I have met multiple New York City housewives just out and about in life. I’m obsessed anything Andy Cohen puts on television. Housewives of Miami is gold. People need to be watching it.

 

Emily Merrell  38:36

Do you know what I’ve never seen? I’ve only seen New York and New Jersey, and that was years ago. I think those were the OGS, but I just remember an SNL where it was like the Real Housewives of Disney. And do you remember this episode like that needs to be a real show, because that that cracked me up. Obviously it can’t be real. But that’s where I’m at with that level I just, I can’t get into like, friends flipping tables on other friends. I don’t understand that,

 

Jenny Maenpaa  39:04

I know, but it’s so good to watch. Yeah,

 

Emily Merrell  39:07

it’s a good mind relaxant,

 

Jenny Maenpaa  39:10

I think. And also, not for nothing, I’m like, Okay, I’m still doing better than these people emotionally. So I’m good, true.

 

Emily Merrell  39:16

I also think about the husbands a lot, like the ones that are like, Yeah, let’s do this show. Nothing bad’s gonna happen to our marriage by being on this show. And I think 85% of them get

 

Jenny Maenpaa  39:26

divorced. So it’s wild. The number of people who are committing crimes, cheating on their spouses and just decide to go on television,

 

Emily Merrell  39:34

yeah, like, you know what, I wanted to air my dirty laundry, but, like, let me really air it. And, yeah,

 

Jenny Maenpaa  39:39

that’ll be a side conversation about narcissism, but we don’t

 

Emily Merrell  39:42

tend Yeah, 1,000% I think yeah, a lot of it. Okay. What book are you reading? Um,

 

Jenny Maenpaa  39:47

so I mostly read books like Gone Girl about like women exacting revenge on cheating spouses, whatever. But I just read Thursday by Madeline Miller. Um. I could not put it down. It’s so different from the type of book. It is a reimagining of the Odyssey story from Cersei perspective. It is feminist. It is gorgeous. It it had me riveted. I woke up early one day, and instead of going back to bed, I just finished the book, which, like, I don’t think I’ve done since I was in middle school and reading like baby sitter’s club.

 

Emily Merrell  40:19

I’ve had that on my list for so long, so that’s such a good reminder. Like I need to I need to read that. I need to redownload that. So thank you. And then what is your favorite emoji?

 

Jenny Maenpaa  40:29

The one I use most is the spinny eyes one when I’m just like,

 

Emily Merrell  40:35

I love that. And then my final question for you today is, what permission Do you want to give our listeners today.

 

Jenny Maenpaa  40:42

I want everyone to take imperfect action. Forgive yourself for not being perfect. Do something rather than nothing because you’re waiting to be perfect.

 

Emily Merrell  40:53

Hey, men again, if I had a mic to drop, I would drop it twice. Jenny, thank you so much for being on today’s show, for sharing all of your insights and your learnings and your multiple degrees with us and your and our listeners, and I can’t wait to meet you in person. Yay. Thanks so much for having me. Yay. Unless there’s if you like today’s show, make sure to share it with your friends like us. Subscribe to us and we’ll see you the next time on the second degree. Have a great day, everyone. You.