Jade Chang Sheppard, Los Angeles, Oahu and Popoyo, Nicaragua

“If I didn’t have this fear, what could be better?” Jade Chang Sheppard has made it her mission to inspire women to ask and answer that question. On the surface, she seems to have fear *licked*. She built her own fortune in her 20s, birthed 3 gorgeous kids, had a successful marriage *and* divorce. She redesigned her life during a “mid-life awakening,” to include traveling the world to learn to surf. But it took an ayahuasca journey and surf epiphany to bring Jade to a new threshold, and you will want to follow her off that cliff. Jade’s epiphanies turn into living workshops that she shares with the world! She bought a boutique hotel in Nicaragua (www.malibupopoyo.com) and turned it into an all-inclusive surfing heaven. She launched Scarletsociety.com, a multi-media miracle of phenomenal women speaking truth about sex, health and money for women over 40 (check out their peri-menopause guide). Jade also muses on non-monogamy (we take a pause in the early part of the podcast, but don’t worry, we come back to it!) sexual experimentation, power, and freedom. For a surfalogue, she coversthe Maldives, Chicama, Kelly’s Wave Pool, Bali, Nicaragua, CostaRica—girlfriend gets things done. One of the best things we get to hear from this accomplished, striving, powerful, self-realized woman, especially for those bad days: surfing is the hardest thing in the world to do. Get it, Jade!

Checkout the articles, podcasts and more at www.scarletsociety.com

Promise, you will want to stay at: www.malibupopoyo.com

This is the article Jade mentions by Dr. Stephanie Han (surfer and future pod guest): https://scarletsociety.com/why-do-so-many-women-in-this-country-fear-divorce/ BTW, I recommend reading everything you can find by the brilliant Dr. Han, especially her book of short stories https://drstephaniehan.com/swimming-in-hong-kong/

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Transcript

[00:07] Speaker A: Welcome to the Dropping Into Power podcast, where we'll be hearing stories about the transformational power of surfing from women surfers of all ages, all levels and all over. We'll hear about courage, commitment, struggles, frustration, epiphany, and, of course, life transformations, large and small. I'm your host, Sheila Gallian, and I am stoked to share these conversations with these amazing women full of so much passion with all of you. Hi, everyone. Just a few quick housekeeping updates. First of all, if you like the podcast, please don't be shy to give it a five star rating and to share with your friends. And if you want to keep in touch, there's a few ways. One is to follow the podcast on Instagram Dropping Into Power. Also on Facebook Dropping Into Power podcast And I have a new newsletter that I'm going to be starting through substac, and I will put that in the notes. You can simply just click on the button and subscribe. And I'm going to be letting people know when the episodes are coming, who's going to be on them, and then some bonus material from the amazing women that are part of the podcast. Thanks so much, Aloha. And welcome to the Dropping in Power podcast. I'm excited to be talking today with Jade Chang Shepherd. I don't always just read a bio, but I've got to read Jade's bio because it's fun and she's just a powerhouse of a woman. I found a lot of really interesting stuff online before we even spoke, and she was actually referred to me by Stephanie Hahn, who interviewed me, and Elizabeth Sneed. Kirby, surfer girl on Hawaii Public Radio is the conversation about empowering women through surfing? And she said, you have to talk to my friend Jade because she is a woman empowerer and has also just fueled her own life with so much passion. So Jade is a serial entrepreneur, a mom of three incredible kids, and an adrenaline junkie. She emigrated to the US. With her parents when she was very young, and her parents worked very hard to bring them into the middle class. Jade went to the University of Texas at Austin, where she played sports and also fell in love with business after doing summer internships. Upon graduation, Jade worked the corporate world for a few years before realizing she didn't want to have to ask for permission to take time off, which, of course, would later mean surfing. So her goal was to be self employed. At the age of 26, she started Gideon USA construction Company. I really have to ask you how you ended up in a construction company. And after many different iterations and many struggles and lessons learned, gideon is now a contractor for the US. Military and one of the best at what they do. I just have to say I kind of know a little bit about what it takes to get involved with the government. So this is really an astounding accomplishment gideon does logistically complicated projects for the military, including repairing fuel tanks on the Turkey Syria border. I mean, okay. In addition to Gideon USA, jade also owns a luxury boutique surf resort in Nicaragua. This is the part everyone's going to really want to look at. Malibu, Papoio www dot malibu, Papoyo.com and we'll definitely put that in the notes. And is in permit to build a second resort in Nosara. Oh, I didn't know that. Finally, Jade started a new business in 2021, scarlet Society, which is Scarlett Society that's comprised of editorial content and products focused on sexual health and wellness for women over 40, which is I've listened to a number of those podcasts. They're really amazing. Your guests are incredible. Jade has three beautiful children, 710 and 14, with her ex husband, who she's still very good friends with, and they live in Denver. When she isn't dreaming up new ideas or spending time with her children, jade's life revolves around surfing and being at the beach. Jade travels the world to surf and also loves to dirt bike in addition to Los Angeles, Denver, Oahu, and Nicaragua. All of those places she calls home. Does anybody doing any of this with three kids? It's just kind of like oh my God. So we're going to definitely focus on surf stuff because there's about 8 million questions I could ask you, but we'll sort of get to everything. First of all, welcome Jay.

[04:33] Speaker B: Thank you. Thank you so much, Aloha.

[04:36] Speaker A: So you've had a lot of success in drive leading up to just sort of fueling your whole life. So I was really curious because a lot of times people find this transformation in surfing and that fuels a whole new part of their life. So you had a lot of success leading business wise, and it sounds like personal wise and life wise before surfing and a lot of success after. So I'm wondering, and now you have a business involving surfing. Did you feel a change in yourself as you started surfing? Did you feel any shifts or transformations from your madness?

[05:14] Speaker B: Well, surfing was kind of just a symptom of what was happening in my life at the time. It wasn't the catalyst in my journey. I didn't start surfing until later in life. And it wasn't until my youngest child was one that I finally picked up a surfboard in earnest and dedicated myself for summer to taking one lesson every.

[05:38] Speaker A: Week for six weeks.

[05:39] Speaker B: But that journey had kind of started earlier. Right. I was done having my third kid, my final kid, and my company was at a place where I just didn't have to white knuckle it anymore. It was really running on its own. So I had that space in my life to kind of think through. Okay, I'm like in my mid, I guess, at that time, almost getting into my late thirty s. And what do I want the rest of my life to look at to look like. And we spent that summer in Los Angeles, and I looked at the ocean and I said, you know what? This is one thing I want to try. Now, I had always played a lot of adventure sports, action sports, board sports, and surfing was just not one that I had the opportunity to take on before. But I was like, no time like the present. So I signed up for six private lessons in Porto, and I took them all. And it is not a really friendly place to learn, but I did. And by the end of those six lessons, I had signed up for a trip down to Tacoma, Peru. And I didn't even know what a left hander was at the time that I signed up for that trip. It was a trip where Sophia Milanovich was personally coaching.

[06:59] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh.

[07:00] Speaker B: And I even emailed her, and I said, Sophia, I have no idea. And she's like, no, you're going to be fine. Chicago? That's great. So I did that trip, and that kind of was the start of because I was living in Austin, Texas, at the time, which is landlock. And that was the start of a series of trips that ended up taking my husband at the time. Now, my ex next bought me a trip to Bali to surf for my birthday. And that trip came two months after Chikama, and then came another summer in La. And then decided to move to no Sarah for a little time and just on and on with the travel. I have been now many different places. But that was really the start of, I guess, the continuation of travel that I had done in my 20s, which I used to travel a lot when I was single, and I went to business school abroad. And when I worked at Dell Computers, I traveled to Ireland and Brazil and Malaysia every month. I was working on worldwide ops It. And so I used to travel a lot, and I just hadn't by the time that I started my business and then had three kids, I had really not traveled that much anymore. So that was the beginning again of traveling. And surfing gave me an excuse to travel. It gave me a reason to see all these places that I would not never have seen before. And it was like the purpose for traveling, which was just so fun. And that also really was the start of my separation from my ex husband, my husband at the time. And it kind of like, gave me a new identity. So I went back what people would call a midlife crisis, except I didn't see it as a crisis. I saw it as this incredible opportunity for me to design the second half of my life, what I wanted it to look like. And so I still refer to it as a midlife awakening. And you'll see articles about that in Scarlet. How? I personally feel like everyone should have the opportunity and it's like a blessing to be able to take the time after all this stuff that you've spent your entire life going to college and getting a job and having kids and getting married and buying a house. And finally you take a breath and you're like, now what? And that's what that midlife awakening was for me, was like the now what? Surfing was a really big part of that narrative and part of that journey, and it still definitely is.

[09:37] Speaker A: That's really interesting. Yeah. I like how it fell that you said it was a catalyst, but also literally like an integral part. It just sort of unwound as part of yourself and interesting that it led to, in some ways, the end of your marriage, but which clearly ended in many ways. Amicably, I love this idea that you created this whole new space of who you are and not to dwell on this, but was part of that new identity, part of what separated from you and your husband? Did he develop a different identity or was it you growing into a bigger space or did it just sort of organically shift away?

[10:16] Speaker B: I think it was organic and now looking back, it gave us the space to grow into what is our own journeys. And I feel like it's like a tree. You start in one way, but then you branch off, and then you branch off and you branch off, and it should be okay. I don't really believe until death do us apart anymore. And unfortunately, marriage is such a legal binding contract till death do us apart. And I just came to this conclusion that it should be okay for us to branch off. And so that created the space for me to grow into what my life is today, which he's still a big part of it, of course, because we have our three amazing children and we still do things together as a family. It's just a redefined family.

[11:07] Speaker A: Yeah, I love that. I love the idea of the tree and the branch and it is just even in your businesses. I personally have had serial monogamy myself, and it is a whole new reframing for people do grow and change and there are the couples that grow and change together, but it doesn't make any sense. Yeah, the really big part of it.

[11:30] Speaker B: For me was I am not a serial monogamist. I don't believe for myself. Monogamy is just not in the traditional definition. That was a really big part of my awakening, actually, was actually sexual exploration.

[11:45] Speaker A: So are you dan, that's such a whole other topic. Okay, we're going to verify that and I'll send people to your podcast to talk about all of that expression. We may touch back on it, but we'll focus back here in a minute. So we really kind of touched on what drew you to the water. One thing I'm curious about is, do you think all that surf travel, did that really help you progress in surfing by going to world class waves? Was it just an adventure?

[12:21] Speaker B: What was it like getting to new brakes all the time? Yes, of course I had no choice when I was living in Texas, but to travel and of course it's horrible, like going to a new break every single time. You don't know anyone, you don't know the lineup, you don't know and at that time I didn't know what it was doing anyway, so of course it was really difficult. But they say it's good to learn different breaks and to what's that saying? Smooth seas never made good sailors or something like that? Yeah, that's how I tried to think of it. Surfing has been a really interesting journey for me. The first few years I was so hard on myself and I thought it was such a kook and I was so desperate to get better and I thought it was so terrible. My goal was always just to be respectable in the lineup. But honestly, as things have progressed, I am just so much more chill about surfing now. I don't get hard on myself if I don't make it out multiple times a week or if I feel like not really that stoked because the water in La is really cold in the winter. I still travel, I just don't travel as much as I used to, partly because I have homes now in Oahu and Nicaragua, and to me those are two of the very best places in the world to surf. So I basically just gravitate back to those places because not only is the surf incredible, but I'm a real community oriented person and once I get into community, I just want to go back because they're my friends and so it's a little bit of a creature of habit type thing. But yes, now I really am getting to know the local spots better, getting to know the waves, and it is really fun to know a wave. So it's now the opposite of what it used to be, which was traveling all the time. Now I really get to know a wave and know where to sit in and out, and I don't need a guide and they're my home.

[14:28] Speaker A: Well, I have more questions to ask you about that, but I want to go back to the travel for a little bit and just you listed a few places, give us your whole surf travel log and a couple of best and worst.

[14:43] Speaker B: I know people ask me all the time, what's my favorite place, but that's a really difficult question to answer because every place is different.

[14:51] Speaker A: Yeah, they don't have to be favorites, just a few things that stand out.

[14:55] Speaker B: I mean, Chakama Peru is incredible. It's the world's longest last, and it's incredible wave. It's friendly for both beginners in advance alike, and it's the oddest geographical landscape you'll ever see. It looks like mars.

[15:12] Speaker A: Are you go see or regular?

[15:14] Speaker B: I am regular.

[15:15] Speaker A: Okay.

[15:17] Speaker B: I am regular. However, when I longboard. So I both shortboard and longboard. And when I longboard, I am ambient extra. So I can go both ways. But shortboard, I'm pretty bad at going left.

[15:27] Speaker A: Okay.

[15:28] Speaker B: But chukama is so friendly, and it's a great place to practice. And that's all of my favorite waves are left. My second favorite wave is lance's left in Nicaragua. So I'm just always going left. But I just last year did Maldives for the second time, and I had done first the north of tolls, and this time I did the central. And that was an incredible experience. Of course, Costa Rica and Europe. And, of course, Hawaii. There's so many different breaks in Hawaii. As much as people bash waikikiki, I have not found a more heavenly longboard wave than waikikiki. There's a reason why the queens of Hawaii surfed at queens, because they could pick anywhere on the island to surf, and they pick there, and it's dreamy and it's beautiful, and you're surrounded by honu, and it's just incredible. So I feel so lucky that waikiki feels like home to me. But I still have a lot of places on my bucket list. I have never been to the south of France. I have never been to Morocco.

[16:55] Speaker A: I was going to ask about that. Yeah.

[16:57] Speaker B: Yes. And I have not tried surfing Hannah in Hawaii, which I have heard are some really friendly barrels. So those are all on my list.

[17:11] Speaker A: And so where have you gone that was the most challenging? Was there anywhere that you went that.

[17:15] Speaker B: You thought, well, so that changes depending on your ability to there was a time when I thought nosara, Costa Rica was incredibly challenging and I thought I might die. But that was like when I was in my second year of surfing. I've had some hair raising experiences in Nicaragua, in bali. Oh, Maldives. So I've done Maldives twice. Once on a boat and once at macaroni's resort. And that macaroni's is extremely challenging, and it is way above my pay grade. And I did actually get injured and needed nine stitches on the second day of a nine day trip. But Maldives was incredible. That's where I learned to shortboard. And I really am so grateful for that trip. But I am not sure it's in the cards for me to ever go to the Maldives again. It's a very long journey. Very long, tiring journey. Since I'm not a pro, I am not sure it's in the cars.

[18:27] Speaker A: Right. Yeah. Living in Hawaii, where I live full time, everywhere is kind of a journey. And then it's hard to just leave my home break, even though it's so different as we've had it before. And yeah. Kona is not waikiki. Very different. Kona is not oahu, and it's not kauai. It's not any of those places. But it's home. So our waves are shorter. There's a few there's a few. It has to hit, right? So we talked a little bit before and you've just mentioned community and surfing along, and you said you were a community person, but you've also had these recent epiphanies or experiences through your sort of meditation, your surf meditations and Waikikius. I wanted to ask you about these breakthroughs you were having.

[19:16] Speaker B: Yeah, well, part of this midlife awakening was really the beginning of a spiritual journey for me. So I never really considered myself a spiritual person, but I started this journey of kind of the self introspection. And along the way, during Coronavirus, when I was in Nicaragua, I had the opportunity to take part in a psychedelic retreat at Ayahuasca, and that really played a big role in kind of opening my mind to, like, spirituality. And I really started to kind of understand and really dive into more like, the power of the mind. And I did have this one epiphany where I was surfing canoes. It was like 07:00 A.m., the sun was just up. There was a double rainbow over Waikiki, which Hawaii has the strongest rainbows of anywhere I've ever seen in the world. They're just so beautiful and so apparent. There was a double one over the ocean and there were two haunted sea turtles came right around me, which that's like my spirit animal. I just love them. And I was sitting on this amazing wave almost by myself, and the truth was, I still felt like shit inside. I didn't feel good. I felt, like, a little bit depressed. The epiphany to me was it's all an inside job. It doesn't matter how perfect things are outside of you. For me, my experience was I have to take responsibility for how I feel inside. And that really helped me understand I have control over my own mind. In my mind is really what my experience is in the world. I was like, oh, my God, it's all in my mind. It is not outside. It's not what other people are doing to me or what's around me, because I was in literally the most incredible, paradise place on the planet. There was no other place on the planet anyone would rather be if you were an ocean lover. And yet I still didn't feel good inside. And so that was, like, a really big moment for me. I literally looked around and I paddled in and I was like, you know what? I need to work on this. Yeah, like I told you before, surfing is like an active meditation for me when I'm by myself. And I say active meditation because obviously you're active, but it is a meditation because part of meditation for me is like learning how to be present, right? And when you're surfing, you have no choice but to be very present because it's dangerous when you're not. You have to be very there watching everything around you, and your mind can't be all over the place. When my mind starts to wander, I know it's probably time for me to go in because I'm losing focus. And when you lose focus, you just become this buoy in the water, and it can be dangerous. You're not watching your surroundings. I remember when I had a surf coach back in the day. He was like, when you are losing focus, it's really dangerous. You need to actually just come in and regroup and then paddle back out. So that is my act of meditation when I'm alone.

[23:08] Speaker A: Those are both really huge observations, and it is true. I definitely relate that in surfing, I've had those moments. I think your observation why it feels so profound to me is it's not because we've never heard something like that before. But it's true that as surfers, many of us will have those moments. We actually, more than most human beings, will have a moment of being out in the most pristine. I was out the other morning, and I was in a good space, but it was literally just me. The water was like, purple from the sunrise. The whales were jumping, blowing. The dolphins came and jumping. The reef is alive and blue. The fish are underneath. I mean, I'm just sitting there, seriously going, oh, my God, I am the richest woman on Earth. I am the richest woman on Earth. But I've also been out there in those conditions and been I'm pretty good at not thinking about bills or things like that, but just running some sort of tape in my head. It might even be this person paddles out. I'm all by myself, and here comes a person, and I'm pissed about it. And that is the inside job. All of these things there's, how every person affects you and that power you have, it's just rare. I think a lot of people don't ever get that moment of reflection where it's so obvious. And so you articulated that so well, like, okay, if I can't be happy here, this really is an inside job. And that cultivating that power, it's hard even in the most perfect conditions. And that's the other thing, as it shows you, is like, wow, we are not really taught to do this. You're taught to keep in motion and achieve and measure and all of those things. And so you can measure your success in those ways. But measuring your, quote, unquote success on the happiness meter, on the presence meter, is different. And literally, 1 minute you're there, and the next minute it's over. And then you have to go in, like you said, like, oh, I've lost focus. I was doing so good. That's really fascinating. And I can see it extrapolating to every part of life, and I certainly feel it as years go by, you hear that I have the choice to my happiness. It's not just happiness. It's like engagement. It's present connection. It's all of those things of choosing whether or not and then I do also feel like we have to as women in particular. Well, everybody, but I'm only a woman, so I can't speak to all of it. You have to experience what you're going through. You have to experience your feelings. So being present is different than discarding your experience. So you have to have that moment. And it's kind of to me, it is a lot like surfing. Like, you've got the moment where you're waiting for the wave and you're focusing and you're tuning into the ocean and all of that. And then there's the time you paddle, and then there's the time you're on the wave, and then there's what happens after. And all of it is kind of a reflection. Another part about presence to me is what I've noticed is if I paddle for a wave, here comes the wave. And I just it's the one I've been waiting for. The minute I think that I fall, I can never serve that way. The minute I see, oh, this is going to be epic, I fall. So I have instant lessons in presence all the time. Like, I can only be right where I'm at. That doesn't mean I can't look at where I want to go on. But it's a totally different thing than actually being present in your body anyway, in that experience. For anyone that hasn't had a chance to. Obviously not everybody lives in a place where you can have those moments. But most of us that surf do have an opportunity to have those moments, and especially people that are still learning and are surfing more in community. I do think those reflective moments are really powerful. So I definitely encourage everyone. People are sometimes afraid to go out alone. That's a big thing. I hear from women, especially learning in the first couple of years. A lot of women, they don't want to go out alone. They want to always have a buddy or somebody there. But it's important to have time in your own head to focus on those things. Okay then, in this journey of yours, and I read a little bit more about this, I shared with you right before the call about I hadn't really thought about that. You bought this boutique hotel right before COVID so I'm curious. And I had actually scheduled I was supposed to go to maybe not right before, I don't know, sometime in that in that thread. I was actually going to go on this surf trip to Nicaragua with Hollyback to do a tube riding clinic, and my friend and I were supposed to go in November of 2020, and then it got canceled and we weren't able to travel. So I haven't been able to do that again. But I'm curious, just the whole journey of how you ended up finding this hotel, what inspired you? What was the thing that shifted you and then what was the dream and what's been your experience with it?

[28:39] Speaker B: Yeah, it was super interesting. So I spent some time in Costa Rica, but no one ever talked about Nicaragua. And when they did, it was always in a really negative light. So I never had Nicaragua on my site. It was actually my ex husband who bought me this surf trip, and he doesn't surf, and all he did was Google, like, best places to surf in the world. And Nicaraguago was one of the top, was, like, at the top, and I hadn't been before. So he picked basically the highest ranked place that I hadn't been and bought me this ticket. And he was like, well, it's all right paid for, so you should go. So I went, and I took two of my girlfriends surf friends, and we went down and we had a blast. We had a really good time. We had a really good time surfing, and there was just, like, kind of great energy in the country. And we ended up going to dinner at what is now Malibu. And I remember driving down this dark road, and we were like, Where are we? And you pull into this little dirt lot, and all of a sudden, it just opens up into this incredible, beautiful oasis. And the food was incredible, and it was so beautiful. And we went back twice on that trip, and by the end of that trip, I got to know the owners of the hotel, and I actually left the trip owning the lot across the street. I knew the owners, and pretty much two months later, the little cold crisis started. And about three months after that, the owners just sent me an email and said, we're selling. And I said, okay, I'm buying.

[30:44] Speaker A: And what were you hearing about the political crisis? I didn't put that in the first segue because that was another thing, is I was been looking to travel to Nicaragua during that time, and I knew people going in during the political crisis. And then I also knew people who lived there who were being affected by the political crisis. I grew up in the era when there were, like, El Salvador and Sandinistas and there was unrest in Nicaragua. So I think I was really sensitive to it. But, yeah. What was your experience with people you knew there, and what were you thinking about that crisis?

[31:20] Speaker B: I just had just come back from a really great experience in the country, and so I knew what the potential, what it was about. And, yeah, I definitely will not downplay the events of things that happen during the crisis, but I always really believe that. I believed in what the country is about, which is, like, the people are incredible. They are very peaceful people and happy people. Kind. Nicaragua is a really special place. Like, it is the second poorest country by GDP in the Western Hemisphere. But. It doesn't feel that way. So there are no beggars on the streets in Nicaragua. It doesn't feel like poverty. It feels like survival. And it feels like living off the land. And it feels like the way Costa Rica was 20 years ago. I just knew the magic of it by the time it wasn't a long time events of the political crisis. And so it was around, I think, June when it started. And by August it was over. So I went in September to take a look at the resort before executing the deal. And it was okay. It was fine. There weren't any issues anymore. I flew right in. Surf did my thing. Yeah, I executed that deal a week later.

[33:04] Speaker A: And then I read that the GM had actually left for a period of time and gone back to New York. And then I don't know if that person is still running the resort, but that you brought him back.

[33:16] Speaker B: Yeah. Ernesto was the general manager, so he is Nicaraguan, half Nicaraguan, half German. So he was the general manager before. And actually, when I bought it, my deal was, I'm only going to buy it if he stays on. So he actually came out to California to visit with me, and we had a great vibe, and everything went really well because I knew I had to be an absentee owner because I can't be there. And so we got along great, and it ended up that we pretty much brought on everybody, all the staff that was there before. So even now our staff, many of them were still from previously.

[34:04] Speaker A: And you re envisioned this. This was part of the article that I read that was really about, in some ways, how surfing, how surfers have transformed so many places in the world by coming. And it's a blessing and a curse because you find unridden waves and then people come, and then an industry builds up abound it, but it also brings both prosperity and also crowd and all of those pieces. But you saw this vision. You took this. It was not a Surf centric hotel. So what was your vision to transform? It had a unique vision.

[34:41] Speaker B: The previous owners were European, but not necessarily surfers. And so it was simply a luxury hotel, like luxury beach hotel before. And so what I was envisioning was the type of place that I would want to go to. So as like a middle aged adult, middle career, I was willing to pay a little bit more for the comforts of AC and like, really good food, healthy food, and to be taken care of. And I'm envisioning people with a couple of weeks of vacation a year who are spending their hard earned money on this couple of weeks of vacation a year. And so I wanted it to be all inclusive and just kind of mindless, like, you didn't really have to think about it. So that's our experience is the minute you get off a baggage claim, whether it's Barrier, Costa Rica or Managua, Nicaragua, our driver meets you. We hold your hand all the way to the resort. And our food is all inclusive, but a lot of it is from our own farm. So we grow our vegetables and fruits. We have a lime mango, dragon fruit farm and all really healthy. We have some of the best food around. And the surf guiding and the transport to the surf breaks are all included. So because we're a really small boutique resort, we can really personalize all experiences. Each group of surfers, whether it's one person or a family, they're like, assigned a guide, and that guide is with them through their whole stay. And the night before, he will look at the tides and the weather conditions and understanding the level of the surfers, decide on a game plan for the next day. And he'll get all the surfboards ready, and he will get the transport ready, and he will take them to the surf break and sit with them, tell them where to where to sit and help them out. Now, it's not like a private lesson, but it's melting.

[36:42] Speaker A: I'm, like, melting with my hand up over here listening. Okay.

[36:47] Speaker B: It's all included, and it's a small space, so everyone becomes really good friends. We literally have guests who have been to other guests weddings, and so we're actually a favorite with single female travelers. They always make friends, and it's also like a popular place for people to bring non surfing spouses. Also, yoga is included daily, and I own three horses, so I ride every day when I'm there on tattoo. And so there's plenty to do that's non surfing. We've had groups of girls go down and do nothing but sit by the pool and eat and drink.

[37:36] Speaker A: Well, you just described my fantasy playground, especially when you throw in the horses because that was my first love. Well, I always love the ocean, but I had a horse and rode horses. And now we think if for some reason I couldn't be a surfer anymore, I would maybe go back to horses. Wow, though. Wow. What did what a place. What an incredible vision.

[37:59] Speaker B: Also, like, I can't take 100% of the credit because the previous owners, they just had an eye for design, and it is just beautiful. We've won architectural awards, landscaping awards. It's really, really an oasis. It's gorgeous. And every room has its own unique tiling and a semi outdoor shower and garden sitting area. And it just it's really beautiful, and it has a really magical, sexy energy to it.

[38:32] Speaker A: Well, the picture is look great, but it sounds amazing. I'm going to be there. I'm not sure exactly when, but I promise I'm going to be there. Did you have any struggle during COVID Nicaragua didn't totally lock down.

[38:43] Speaker B: No, it did okay. Yeah, we closed for a year.

[38:47] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. I knew they were yeah. No, I didn't know they had totally locked down. Oh, my gosh. So how did you weather that?

[38:59] Speaker B: Well, the way everyone else did. It cost a lot of money to maintain it, so while it was closed, you can't just lay everybody off. We have lots of landscaping and gardens to maintain, and we're at the beach, so if you don't maintain stuff, it just falls apart.

[39:19] Speaker A: Right.

[39:19] Speaker B: We had to keep a maintenance and gardening staff on board. We really went down to the bare bones. The thing about Nicaragua is they are really unfortunately familiar to crisis, whether it's a political crisis or a hurricane hurricane Nate that came and destroyed everything, or it's really prone to natural disasters. They had a tsunami back in the day, so we're really just too well versed in that. When we do have to lay people off, they go back to fishing and herding cattle and living off their land until it's time to be called back. So we survive the way we survive every other time. Those people are survivors that I will give them.

[40:03] Speaker A: That's amazing. And I'm sure you get some credit for your business acumen and how you're able to navigate that.

[40:10] Speaker B: I was really lucky to be in Nicaragua during almost all of Coronavirus with wow.

[40:18] Speaker A: So were you on site then? Were you at the hotel?

[40:21] Speaker B: I did not live. I also own a condo in front of Colorado's, which is a world class barrel. Incredible. It used to be above my pay grade, but I surf it now in small days. It's incredible. So I have a condo there, and so we live there with the family. And Coronavirus started around February, March. We did not wear a mask until July. When we came back to the States, we were just in heaven on our own. Of course, it was sad that the resort was closed, but we had all these breaks to ourselves and why you can understand this, but yes, definitely no. Without the tourists, it was really heavenly. It was amazing, and we definitely still think back on those times.

[41:16] Speaker A: All right, I want to talk about barrels. Have you been barreled?

[41:23] Speaker B: I have, but it was cheating because I went to Kelly Slater's surf ranch.

[41:32] Speaker A: But if you did it, you did it.

[41:33] Speaker B: Yeah, and I've done it with Coach, like on a boogie board. But no, I have not caught a really proper barrel that I could attest to. So that's about all I can say about that.

[41:47] Speaker A: Well, it's my life long dream. I haven't either. I've been surfing a long time, but I'm getting in shape. I'm getting ready for it. I got to go back to Holly's Clinic, but I'll give you Kelly Slater's. All right, let's talk about that way for a minute. What is it like doing that, surfing Kelly Slater's?

[42:03] Speaker B: That was the experience of a lifetime. I don't think I'll go again, but it was extremely stressful I couldn't sleep the whole night before, and I was just stressing out so bad the whole day. And they tell me that they told us everyone stresses, even the pros, because it's all just set up to be really stressful, like the whistle and the horn. And then you're just hanging there, ready for your turn. And then the whistle blows. And then you see the engine starts wearing and then you see this big thing coming at you and then you don't paddle into it the way you would paddle the ocean. So you're like in your mind, you're like, okay, do what they say. Do what they say. The whole thing is really stressful. And then on top of that, each wave I don't know about now, but it was about $500 a wave, right?

[42:54] Speaker A: I don't want to fall.

[42:55] Speaker B: You don't want to fall. And so the whole thing is really stressful. I was with a bunch of pretty good surfers, so we had the hardest, I think the hardest setting. I was also stressed about that, but once you're up, which is it's not a hard wave to enter once you're up, it's pretty dreamy. It's pretty amazing. It's really long. Some people do half and half. We did always, so it was incredibly long, like, over a minute, and then they tell you when the barrel is coming so you can get ready and duck. And so that was incredible. But also, if you fall, it can be pretty perilous. It's very shallow, and I remember scraping the bottom of the concrete.

[43:42] Speaker A: Yikes.

[43:43] Speaker B: So, yeah, it was definitely an experience of a lifetime. But I think I'm good. I want to try Waco, and I'll try the others.

[43:54] Speaker A: I watched the Ultimate Surfer, that reality show. And then when they would do the night version and they're like and you see that and they shot it really well. So that that thing you're talking about is coming and the lights are on and as it looks, you know, and you could tell that these guys were really stressed out, you know, just even even though they were so high leveled. I will say I developed a huge crush on Zeke Lau from watching that show. You never watched it. It's a really funny you know, it's a silly reality show, but the surfers and then they create the drama. Llama. Llama. But there's some amazing surfing in there. Yeah, and they show the Surf Ranch, so it's all set at the Surf Ranch. So it's wave after wave after wave of watching this machine, and they do shoot it, so that it's really intimidating. I do want to ask you, you have all of this stuff happening. Do you still run your construction business?

[44:52] Speaker B: I still own it, but I have a full team, so I'm not really operationally involved anymore.

[44:58] Speaker A: Okay, so you have that running. You have your resort running. I'm guessing there might even be more, but I want to talk about Scarlet society and how that evolved for you?

[45:09] Speaker B: Well, that evolved because as I was going through what was deemed this midlife crisis, I started feeling like there just is not a lot out there for women 40 and over. They don't even advertise to us. All the advertising towards women is like, about beauty and women in their 20s or women fertility and women of caliber age. But it was almost like once you're done having kids, they don't want to think about you anymore. They certainly don't want to think about you having sex. And it's almost like we don't care or want to sell to them. There's not even any advertisements that are directed towards us. And I felt like, really insulted by the whole thing. And along that same time, I read this article that just said, women 40 and over in menopause in that perimenopause age are about to be one 12th of the entire world's population.

[46:09] Speaker A: Wow.

[46:10] Speaker B: And we are already the population with the highest spending power and the most time on our hands because we're past childbearing age, we're no longer little kids. And that is exactly how I felt. I felt like my kids were finally growing. They didn't mean me. Every second of the day they were at school, and I was done having kids. And so I never wanted to see another ad advertisement for anything related to kids anymore. I was like, so over it. And then my business was really doing well and didn't need me to really be so tightly engaged anymore. And I felt like, wow, now I've got some time on my hands. I've got some money, and who wants it? It kind of dawned on me. I was like, you know what? I want to change the cultural narrative on this stuff because we can talk. I think the world is catching on. So if you were ever on the mainland, you probably start seeing like, there's advertisements now for menopause services and this hormone replacement. It's very health related, which is amazing that's where it needs to start is more awareness around the topic of perimenopause and menopause so that we're on offense about it, and not just on defense on things that our body is doing and wondering what it's doing. But to me, you can't even have a conversation about health unless you make it acceptable to have the conversation in general. So the whole idea and what really birthed Scarlet was the idea of changing the cultural narrative and bringing all these topics to the forefront for women and making it okay and not shameful to talk about things like health and menopause. And really when we started writing these editorial articles about these topics, we realized, well, at this age, we really can't talk about steps and relationships without talking about divorce and money. They're all related because money is power. And a lot of these topics are revolving around, like, what are the power dynamics now? At our age that are different than when we were in our twenty s and with a lot of our friends getting divorced. Money really became a big part of that. It's about changing the narrative about these topics, but then also on this triangle of self actualization when we're able to talk about these topics. How about we instill in women's in our culture that we can actually go after our highest potential in life? So it's not just survival like, oh my God, what is my body doing, but what is my mind doing and what is my life doing and how do I live to my highest potential? And the idea of exploration. Exploration of mid career and what's next? Maybe a second career. What the exploration of what's life about after kids now that your identity is not just tied to your kids and how to make it not just tied to your kids. Exploration of new passions and hobbies in life, which is where surfing came in for me, like something else to make life exciting and sexual exploration well. What is it like to go on a date with a girl? I have no idea because I had never done it before. Or what is it like to try out non monogamy and what does that mean? Because that's a whole world that people don't understand. They think, like, non monogamy is like you're living in a polygamous commune. Not at all. It could be just like you and your partner going to a sex party and different exploration of kink and even the word which has so much emotion and stigma to it and what that means. But it's actually just freedom. It's the freedom to explore what you're about and what turned you on and what turned you off. And that is like the whole world unto itself. And boy, like, I am so glad I didn't die without exploring these things. Like, oh my God, this is so interesting and amazing.

[50:47] Speaker A: Oh God, I love it.

[50:52] Speaker B: That these would just be fantasies that live in your head and not able to ever talk about them or explore them. Wow, that's so sad.

[50:59] Speaker A: I love it. That's awesome. So you're talking forty s and I'm in upper fifty s now. And I had a lot of there was a lot of exploration, a lot of different things in my life, too. The strange thing that I've gone through is I was always in a relationship or with different partners or whatever things going on, but I've actually had a very long time of being single. And this is partly just raising my daughter. It's just me and her, and she's 17. So I could never imagine going long periods without sex. Like, to me, that sounded like the end of the world. But it changes. It does change. And past menopause changes too. I sort of joke about it like, I'm not drugged anymore. That makes it sound pejorative because I loved being high on all that. But that hunger. It's just different. Like, it can be cultivated. But I think one reason we fear it's a terror. Like, oh, if I lose my sex drive, I'm just old and shriveled. But that comes from the whole idea of what a woman is later in life. If a man stays single, he's oh, nobody nailed him down. No, he's just a lifelong bachelor. He's just a freedom loving man. If a woman stays single, she's an old mate or she's a crazy cat lady. So you can't imagine that she has control of her sexuality, that it isn't like it's like, oh, nobody wants her anymore. That has really not been my experience, but my experience has been is like, no thanks. I find fewer and fewer people that I would want to blend my body and energy with, and I may find some of them attractive or whatever, but it's a different feeling. So, like, what I crave now is I want really this incredible depth, and I don't know what it's going to mean in terms of commitment. I don't know what that's going to look like for me because I have my own home, I have my own life. I have this whole thing. And I'm kind of like sometimes I think about someone even being in my bed and like, I don't know, maybe can we just go to a hotel? Yeah, but it is I love that you're exploring this. Interestingly. I've interviewed a lot of women just around menopause age, and so we've actually talked a lot about it. And then the last piece was somebody who was still when she talked about getting her period on surf trips. So yeah. Is there anything are you in the perimenopause phase? Is there anything you want to share in that process? Because I haven't been right in perimenopause yet.

[53:47] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't think so. You're still yeah, but one of the things, like I mentioned so one of the things that Scarlett really aims to do is to get people to think about it before it happens. So we actually have this Perry Menopause game plan. It's not an article. It's like a, like, guide that we gather to get people to, like, think through so that they're ready, you know, and then they've thought about it and just to get people to talk about it. That's kind of what happened with one of my friends. She was having all these funny things happen in her life where she was feeling unfocused and anxious and borderline depressed. And she went to, like, five different doctors before finally someone told her, oh, you're in perimenopause. And she didn't know what that was, and none of us knew what that was. And we're pretty educated women. We don't know. Who knows?

[54:55] Speaker A: Seriously, there's no classes in this. You should be like, you should learn about this in middle school.

[55:00] Speaker B: Yeah. Just making it something to talk about is something that we want to focus on and also get people to start thinking even ahead of time, like, okay, what are the health options that I really want to explore? And then finding a health care provider that's on that same level. Yes, once you hit your 40s. So Scarlett has a gynecologist who we partner with, and she just gave up her OB practice and is now focusing only on women 40 and over. And I thought that was such an incredible concept. Like, think about going to a gynecologist office and not sitting around all these pregnant ladies and then having the doctor just, like, blow you off to go to the next pregnant lady, but really sit and think through what you're going through. I think that's a really incredible concept that's starting to take hold is the idea of menopause concierge or menopause medicine.

[56:09] Speaker A: I love this shift. It's so important because it also does usher women into this incredible, powerful time in our lives. Like you said, there's the 40s, but then moving into your 50s, you have this incredible energy and focus that is not focused on relationship. Even if you're partnered, it just changes. And so having yes, this whole, first of all, the dialogue to usher women into that. I had so much fear leading up to menopause. I just thought it was going to shrivel up into this. Nothing was scarier to me than a dry vagina. For some reason, that was the terror of my life and everything that represents because so much of our identity is around that part of our sexuality instead of owning our sexuality differently. So I love this conversation you started and these resources. Most I didn't really do perimenopause. It kind of skipped because I had an ablation and I don't know. And then I went straight from like, I'm ovulating my ovulo. Oh, I'm done. Just kind of happened really fast. But I have so many friends that suffered from it, really suffered from it and did not know what was happening. So I love that you're doing this. So is there any one thing that in the through line of all of these conversations that you're having for women? Is there any one thing that stands out that women really need to hear?

[57:40] Speaker B: I mean, my passion around Scarlet and just in life in general is just really inspiring women to really think.

[57:55] Speaker A: God.

[57:58] Speaker B: Is to really kind of think through the fear and think through if I didn't have this fear, what could be better? Because fear is what holds us back from change, right? It's fear that holds us back from getting divorced, holds us back from moving to a new city. For me, it was moving to the ocean. Fear that prevents us from starting a business, prevents us from asking out this cute guy that we think is amazing. So a lot of it is how to get people to think past the fear and realize their highest potential. And so much of it is like instilled in our society, this fear of divorce, this fear of living on your own, this fear of starting over. We've written several articles in Scarlet about that, about the fear of starting over because we would rather have the devil we know than the one we don't. But if you've read some of the articles, actually, Dr. Hahn wrote an article, a powerful article about this, which is that we know that when you take that step, that change. It's going to be hard. Everything is hard.

[59:24] Speaker A: Starting a business is hard.

[59:25] Speaker B: Moving to a new city is hard. Going through a divorce and separation is really, really hard. And you're always going to go through that difficult time, but almost nobody has regretted going through that time to arrive on the other side. So my goal, my passion in life is to inspire people to think maybe what's on the other side is worth.

[59:51] Speaker A: Walking through this fear and even on the other side. And this is where I think surfing comes in too. And I want to just reiterate, because what you said, you said one sentence that said if you could think through the fear, what could be better? It was something like that. I'll pull it out when I hear you because that really just sort of nails it. Like if you could make your way through it, what could be better? Because it's like a screen. It's like a screen that you can't see through that vision. So first you're just inviting people to actually have the vision.

[01:00:24] Speaker B: Yeah, that exercise, I don't know if you've ever done that exercise where it's like, if you couldn't fail, what would your life look like in every aspect if there was no failure?

[01:00:36] Speaker A: It's interesting just when you even say that, and I've done versions of that, but I just feel myself falling forward because all this pressure has been pushing. And I've not lived a very typical life, so I've taken a lot of chances, but maybe some of them are smaller chances. Maybe I haven't taken as many of the bigger chances in some ways, so I can feel that pressure. But I do think that this is something surfing gives you. The weird thing about surfing is there is no other side. Your other side only lasts infinitesimally. So you have that other it's hard, it's hard, it's hard, it's breakthrough, it's hard, it's hard, it's hard. And that is the little microcosm of life. But that moment, like you're talking about being worth it, that moment of reward, which is that microcosm of what it feels like to be free, what it feels like to be embodied, what it feels like to be present, what it feels like to be whole. I know you're going to have a lot of these, but what is the best day surfing that you can remember?

[01:01:45] Speaker B: I would have to say probably the best surfs that will probably never happen again. Were during coronavirus. We took our boat out to Lance's left in Papoyo, me and three girls and just surfed by ourselves, sitting at the peak, no one else bothering us. Just until sunset. Yeah, all by ourselves. I don't think that will ever happen again.

[01:02:18] Speaker A: Oh, heaven. Oh, that's good. I guess I just lived through you with that one. That was so good. And then what is you kind of addressed this in the very beginning that you're not really hard on yourself in the same way, but what is a bad day like for you and what goes on in your head to kind of get through it?

[01:02:34] Speaker B: A bad day would be if I wasn't feeling great physically or struggling somehow mentally. And that's something that I've actually been working a lot on this last year, was kind of this concept of self soothing and how to get myself to a better place because it's my responsibility to get myself to a better place, not anyone else's. What things can I do to make myself feel better right now is often the question. And we each have to come up with a list of things that we can do to make ourselves feel better. But like, truly understanding the power of emotion and how those vibes, those positive vibes truly bring about like, abundance in our lives is like a whole life's journey. But that's been like that's what I spent a lot of time studying and before this journey and before my psychedelic experience, I didn't really understand emotion. So this has been a this has been a really interesting, amazing, incredible part of like, my spiritual journey.

[01:03:46] Speaker A: So part of your spiritual journey is opening your heart and yeah, really getting into your body in a deep way. So I love that. What's your favorite part about your own surfing? It can be physical, metaphysical, whatever.

[01:04:02] Speaker B: My favorite part, and the thing I'm probably just really proud of is that I love to both shortboard and longboard. Properly longboard and properly shortboard. They are so different and elicit both very different emotional experiences. For me, I didn't learn to properly longboard until about two years ago, which means like nose riding and I mean, I'm actually not at the nose, but properly cross stepping and turning. And I used to just go on coaching, coaching trips and just shortboard or whatever. But I actually started properly getting coaching on longboarding and really loved and enjoyed that. It's chill and beautiful and dreamy and it's so fun. No stress. Whereas shortboarding is like just heart pumping and the speed and the paddling in with two paddles and watching that come at me and learning to turn. Duck diving. Oh man, I love it. I love it for a really long time.

[01:05:22] Speaker A: Yeah, I love it. I love duck diving. It's one of my favorite things. Although recently was in a bad accident because I duct dive under a surfer and yeah, that's. A story for another time. But basically, other than that, I always love duck diving. There's just something in here in Hawaii, and wherever the water is so clear, I always open my eyes. So I open my eyes and you see the water, the white water, and then you see the fish underneath and the reef and I just can't help it. But all of that, that's beautiful description. Is there one thing you're working on, probably more than one thing or that you wish you were better at?

[01:06:02] Speaker B: Yeah, like you said, more than one thing. I have surfboards that I just I reached my goal of being respectful in the lineup, of course, depending on what lineup, but in the lineup that I care about, I'm good. So I was like, oh, well, now what's my next goal? But I just want to get better. I guess at this point it's more about style and turning. The technique, of course, learning the different turns, learning to cut back and longboarding. I still so far to go, but I want to get to the nose and I mean, just get more comfortable taking those steps and turning. Yeah, there's always things to learn.

[01:06:56] Speaker A: There's always things.

[01:06:57] Speaker B: But I am at a really peaceful place in my surfing journey. I'm no longer hard on myself. I just go out and have fun. And I know people always say, oh, the best servers aren't having fun. I literally did not understand at my heart what that meant. And I can say now, look like I'm never going to be in a competition. I have no one to compete against. It's all about having fun. And that truly is my goal now. And that never really was my goal before, but that truly is now about having fun, enjoying who I'm with, and enjoying the ocean for what it is.

[01:07:40] Speaker A: Is there anything that any one thing that you would want other women surfers to know?

[01:07:47] Speaker B: Yeah, just never give up. And it's never too late. It truly is never too late. And find some friends to go out with and do it consistently. That's the thing with surfing. It's literally the hardest thing to do in the world. I mean, I've played a lot of sports and I played sports in college, and I think that surfing has given me more heartache than any other sport that I've ever tried. And it takes real persistence. Like so many people give up or they're just kind of like lackluster about it and it takes a lot of practice.

[01:08:24] Speaker A: It really does take the 1000 hours, the 10,000 hours.

[01:08:28] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure.

[01:08:30] Speaker A: Thank you, Jay. That's a perfect place to end. That's great advice.