Cultivating an intentional community is a powerful and critical antidote to the disconnection fed by our current societal structures and now is the time to cultivate. I say that because we’re living in a time where those structures are breaking down. Our individualistic, hierarchical culture is hitting its limits, and it feels rather like it’s composting itself. But compost makes great soil, and with intention, we can use that breakdown to grow something new.
In this episode of Unlimited, I invited sisters Nancy and Amy Harrington to join me in a conversation about cultivating intentional community and the shifts that support connection, collaboration, and care.
Some of what we talk about in this episode includes:
- Rebuilding trust in relationships with other women
- Redefining leadership—from hierarchy to a circle of self and co-leadership
- Developing community agreements rooted in consent, care, and shared responsibility
- Practicing the power of asking, receiving, and mutual support
Through this episode, you’ll gain inspiration and ideas for building community rooted in belonging, consent, and care.
LINKS TO REFERENCES MADE IN THIS EPISODE:
262 Women’s Project with Deb Drummond
Dia Bondi – Communication Coach
Cher Hale – On the Death of Mentorship
CONNECT WITH AMY AND NANCY:
The Passionistas Project Sisterhood
CONNECT WITH VALERIE:
Sign up for Valerie’s newsletter
Apply to be coached on the podcast
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Valerie Friedlander (00:00):
Hello, my friends and welcome to another
(00:02):
episode of Mindset, unlimited.
Mindset tips, tools andinspiration for women leaders.
I'm your host. ValerieFriedlander, ICF certified
coach, sociologist,intersectional feminist artist,
mom and nerd. Today we aretalking about cultivating
intentional community, theshifts that create deeper
connection and belonging. Thisepisode is so special. I am
(00:25):
interviewing two amazing sistersbefore I share about them and
the specifics of what we talkabout, I do want to highlight
the reason why I really wantedto have this episode, and to
have this conversation may seemapparent, but I'm gonna say it
anyway, which is that we are inthis time of decomposing our
(00:47):
usual way of doing things. Wehave kind of peaked out our
individualistic, hierarchical,supremacist culture, and it's
eating itself. And given thatit's spring, you're thinking
about gardening when somethingis decomposing, when you're
putting your compost into thegarden, it's designed to grow
(01:13):
new things. We decompose stuff,we're going to grow new things.
And to do that withintentionality, we want to plant
the seeds that we are choosingto plant, we're going to tend
those plants, and that is whatbuilding, cultivating
intentional community is about.
We need to learn how to builddeeper connections and create
(01:37):
belonging, and that's reallydifficult when we have been
conditioned in all these othermore toxic to our system, both
individually and collectively,when we've learned all these
ways of being, and we'reunlearning them while trying to
do new things, and it'soverwhelming and complicated and
all of that, and it can bereally disheartening, and we
(01:59):
need hope. And I think thathaving these kinds of
conversations and exploring waysthat we have done this in other
spaces, ways other people havedone that in the modeling of it,
ways that we can practice thisway of being with each other is
critical to being able to do ourown planting and our own gardens
(02:23):
and in our own communities aswe're in this period of
decomposition. So all of thatsaid, I want to introduce two
amazing women, sisters, Amy andNancy Harrington, who founded
the passionistas project out ofa deep desire to empower women
around the world, they are eagerto share their knowledge about
(02:46):
building community, creatingsafe spaces for women the power
of storytelling and navigatingprofessional transitions. Both
co founders walked away fromhigh profile jobs in Hollywood
to work together. Amy was the VPof post production and visual
effects for all feature films.
At Warner Brothers working onmovies like The Matrix and Harry
Potter franchises, Nancy leftthe ad agency where she created
(03:10):
Oscar campaigns for Miramax.
Their career as celebrityinterviewers has included chats
with Julia, Louis Dreyfus, RitaMoreno, Lily Tomlin, Laverne,
Cox, Carol Burnett and more nowthrough their global
passionistas project, sisterhoodpodcast and power passionistas
(03:31):
summit, they strive to inspirewomen to follow their passions
and join forces in the fight forequality for all, some of what
we talk about in this episodeinclude building trust in
relationships with other women,redefining leadership from
hierarchy to a circle of selfand CO leadership, developing
(03:51):
community agreements rooted inconsent, care and shared
responsibility, and practicingthe power of asking, receiving
and mutual support. I amthrilled to share this episode
with you, and now withoutfurther ado, let's get started.
(04:17):
Welcome Nancy and Amy. I am soexcited to have you on mindset
unlimited today.
Amy Harrington (04:22):
We're so happy to be here.
Valerie Friedlander (04:26):
There's so many things I want to chat
about. Specifically, we're goingto look at intentional
communities, because you allhave one, and it's so beautiful.
And just the sisterhood there isincredible. I think that's
something that we really needmore of in the world right now,
as we all are navigating somepretty rough waters, and as we
(04:49):
get started, I like to ask folksto share a little bit about
themselves and what is a limitthat you used to take for
granted that you have since.
Unlearned.
Nancy Harrington (05:02):
Excellent.
Well, I'll start. We aresisters, Amy and Nancy
Harrington. Little bit aboutourselves. I won't go into too
much of our history, because I'msure you covered that in our
bio. I don't want to borepeople, but we, we grew up on
the East Coast, near a smalltown near Boston. It came from a
very creative family and endedup in the world of entertainment
(05:23):
because of it. And we left ourjobs together at the same time
and went on a long, long journeyand twisty roads and ended up in
the world of celebrityinterviewing, which ultimately
led us to our first our podcastcalled The passionistas project,
and we decided that we wanted toshine a light on women who don't
(05:47):
get the spotlight very often so,and that has led us to building
our community, which I'm surewe'll talk about later. Limiting
belief. What is a limitingbelief that I have? Drawing a
blank, um, Amy, you go first.
Amy Harrington (06:04):
Right. I'll go first. I'm gonna give you a word
Nan for yours, because I knowit'll help you, which is
leadership. Okay,
Nancy Harrington (06:16):
See, this is why. This is why this works.
Valerie Friedlander (06:18):
I love it.
Amy Harrington (06:19):
This is all about being sisters. I think one
of the limits that I had put onmyself is that I, early in my
career, worked in a very maledominated world where women were
competitive with each other, orthey didn't want to really like
be the girls in the room, sothey wouldn't hang out together,
(06:42):
and they really kept the likefocus. I know I personally kept
focus on like. I don't want themto think of me as a girl. I want
to be one of the guys. And so Ididn't really make connections
with women, and really for along time friendships with
women, and once I broke throughthat, and now I'm surrounded by
(07:05):
women all the time andcollaborating with them and
seeing how beautiful andsupportive and nurturing that
is, I'm always amazed now whenI'm in a conversation like
yesterday, we had a phone callwith a guy, and it was a
business He kind of call and itwas like, Oh, the energy of this
is so very different andinteresting. And I love men, and
(07:28):
I'd like to working with men,but it is there was a limit on
my connection to the feminineside of operating that I now am
so grateful that I'm in touchwith.
Valerie Friedlander (07:41):
What helped you overcome that? I'm just,
curious about about that,because that comes up a lot. I
work with a lot of women in maledominated spaces, and that
there's so many layers to thatresistance that can come up. So
I'm curious what helped you.
Amy Harrington (07:55):
I mean, first was removing myself from the
situation. I left the studiosystem. I had been a studio
executive, so I was and I was ayounger woman with all these men
who are at least 10 years olderthan me. So I just, you know,
really made a consciousdecision, like, I'm not going to
be a girl, I'm just going to beone of the guys. And when I left
(08:19):
that to work with Nancy, becauseNancy and I decided, okay, we
both are leaving our careers andwe're going to do something
together, being around Nancy,obviously, who's my you know,
other half of my soul thatstarted to open me up, but I
still had that, like, thosebarriers of like, we can't trust
that person, we can't let thatperson in and it took a long
(08:42):
time to chip away at that, and Ireally think it wasn't until we
started the podcast and westarted meeting these women,
because the other thing we weredoing was celebrity interviews,
where you're, like, making thesereally amazing conversation
connections with these people.
And we were doing intense, like,three hour celebrity interviews,
and you feel like you'reconnecting. And you know, never
(09:02):
gonna talk to this famous personagain. But with the women we
were interviewing, they'd belike, Let's have coffee next
week. And it was like, Oh, theywant to be our friend. And the
more I spent time with them, andthe more I heard these stories,
and the more I cared about them,it was like, whatever stuff I
have built up, I've got to pushthrough it, because I want to be
(09:26):
in their lives, and I want themin mine. And so I really just
consciously started doing that.
Until now, it's just secondnature. Like, now it's like, oh,
there's an opportunity to be andI'm an introvert, but it's like,
oh, there's an opportunity to bearound a bunch of other women.
Yeah, let's go. Let's do it, youknow? So,
Valerie Friedlander (09:46):
Yeah, yeah, awesome. Okay, cool. I have, I
have more questions, but I alsowant to make sure that Nancy
gets to share.
Nancy Harrington (09:55):
Well, as Amy suggested, and she read my mind.
You're witnessing our sisterpower in action, because it is a
you. Was a huge limit for me. Inever understood that I was a
leader. It wasn't until very,very recently, like within the
last six months, probably, thatI understood that I was a
(10:17):
leader. I, like I said, I'vealways been self employed, so,
you know, it was just me, myselfand I and I'd hire people to
help me, but I didn't think ofthat. I never had people that I
managed, or a crew or staff or,you know, so and then, as we
started to build the community,and, you know, we have women's
equality summits, and we haveall of these things that
(10:39):
innately is leading, but itnever occurred to me that that's
what it was. And someone pointedout recently, someone called US
leaders recently, and I kind ofbristled, like I don't think of
myself as a leader. And when Isaid that to her, she was like,
of course, you're a leader. Youknow, you've built this amazing
community. And she also remindedme that leading you can just
(11:01):
lead yourself. I mean, you leadyourself through your daily
life, you know, and that as asister, I help lead my sister on
my other siblings, and thatthere's a lot of leadership just
innately in your daily life. Butcertainly, by building this
community, I have become aleader and and I'm proud of it,
(11:21):
and I'm I'm happy for it, I'mgrateful for it. So that was
definitely a limit that I had tobreak through to get where we
are.
Valerie Friedlander (11:31):
Yeah, so I'm curious, what did you think,
like, if you could go back towhen that that period of going,
Oh, I'm, I'm not a leader, like,what do you think your
definition for leadership was?
And what do you think it is now?
Nancy Harrington (11:45):
Yeah, I think it was like someone who's in
charge and you have a staff ofpeople, and you, you know,
you're leading a corporation,you're leading a country, you're
leading, you know, you'releading a band, whatever. Like,
I just thought it was somebodywho was in charge and sort of
dictated to people what to do.
And, yeah, I've done that all mylife. I used to produce theater.
I used to own a theater company,like I had, I had a cast and I
(12:05):
had a crew, and, like, so itjust it to me. It was, it was
this vision of someone in ahigher up place, and I didn't
think that I I was at thatlevel, I guess is probably what
it was.
Valerie Friedlander (12:21):
Yeah, so I'm hearing, like, essentially,
like control, like you, you wereimagining it was somebody that
that was like a dictator. Thensaid, All right, go here, do
this, do that, and that there'sthis hierarchy in leadership
where, if you're the leader,you're the one on top and
telling everybody else what todo.
Nancy Harrington (12:39):
So like a pyramid of leadership, as
opposed to a circle that we'vecreated where we're at the
center of that circle, but andthe people are around us, it's
like, completely different kindof leadership.
Valerie Friedlander (12:52):
Yeah. Oh, and such a powerful shift, which
actually kind of sparks me. Imean, that's the that's the
difference that I tend to lookat of like, the difference
between like the masculinestyle, I would even say toxic
masculine. I'm not sure that. Inecessarily think that it's like
innately masculine, becausethat's a whole thing too, but to
(13:14):
think that's that toxic style ofmasculinity that's so
predominant in our culture,compared to the shift that we're
encouraging of being morefeminine and more inclusive and
more circular.
Nancy Harrington (13:32):
Absolutely.
Amy Harrington (13:33):
Yeah, it's beautiful. And I think part of
the way Nancy and I built ourcommunity is, you know, a lot of
online communities are builtaround a person, a figurehead.
I'm the coach, or I'm the, youknow, I'm the expert on this.
And from day one, we're like,we're not coaches. We don't want
to pretend to people that we'reexperts on all these different
(13:56):
topics and business developmentand personal growth and social
impact, like we engage in thosethings, they matter to us, but
we're not going to tell peoplewhat to do. And so from day one,
it was like, this is aboutgiving a space, creating a
space, and bringing in power,passionistas, who are who are
(14:19):
experts on certain topics, whocan impart their wisdom, but
really making it about thecommunity, leading each other,
sharing with each other, so thatit's never about us. We have to
be at the center of the tone ofit, but it's not about like
(14:40):
today, we're going to tell youhow to, you know, lead your
life. It's like, that's not ourstyle. It's, it's about, how can
we collectively support eachother?
Valerie Friedlander (14:50):
Yeah. What inspired you to shift from doing
these celebrity interviews intocreating this community?
Amy Harrington (15:01):
Well, you know, we started around 2016 there was
an election, and then there wasthe ME TOO movement, and the
time's up movement. Things werereally shifting in the world. We
were hearing all of thesestories of women that had gone
through trauma, and they wereamazing stories. They were
(15:21):
powerful stories. They needed tobe heard. But we also wanted to
tell the stories of women thatwere empowered and and do it
following their passion. Sothat's when we decided to do the
podcast. So that was 2017 wesort of solidified this is what
we're going to do. And by 2018we launched the first episode,
(15:45):
and then that led us to ourwomen's equality Summit, where
we, you know, we were hearingall these stories, and we wanted
to do something more, andrealize that the women that get
the stage least often are thewomen in the margins. So we
decided we were going to bringtogether women from marginalized
communities, give them a topicand let them tell their story,
(16:06):
and then have a round table sothat they could come together
and see what they had in common,but also embrace their
differences. And it was a reallybeautiful thing. And we loved
doing this summits and then. Butwe also kind of felt like every
year we'd do the summit, andthere'd be all this great
momentum and these amazingconversations, and then we
(16:27):
weren't nothing would happenafter that. We'd we'd vow like
we're going to keep thisconversation going, and then it
kind of wouldn't sputter out.
And so we we knew there was somea piece missing, and we weren't
sure what that was. And weactually spent a year working
with three different coaches tofigure out what the next step
was. And we finally realizedthat what everyone told us that
they had, but we have they wishthey had, was our sisterhood.
(16:52):
And we realized that, you know,well, what's sisterhood? It's
companionship, it's loyalty,it's someone who's there to lift
you up. It's someone who's thereto celebrate when you win, and
someone to have fun with. And sowe, we thought, you know, well,
we can provide that. So that'swhen we started the community
(17:13):
that we we launched it just alittle over a year ago, online
and and it really has becomethat. And, you know, we it's a
beautiful space where women arejust supporting one another. And
so, yeah, that was our long andwinding road to the sisterhood
community.
Valerie Friedlander (17:33):
Yeah, well, so you hit on a few things that
that stood out to me. And first,if you don't mind my asking,
What is the age gap between thetwo of you?
Amy Harrington (17:43):
I love this question. I'm a younger sister,
and there's five years betweenus.
Valerie Friedlander (17:49):
Okay, yeah, see, I have a younger sister who
is six and a half years youngerthan me, and so I just asked
that because, like, my youngersister worked for me when when I
was in corporate, and she neededa job. And I was like, oh, she'd
be great in this role. And mymom was like, Ooh, I don't know
if that's a good idea for youall to work together like that
(18:09):
could cause problems, because weweren't. I mean, six and a half
years difference, we weren'texactly close when we were
little, she was just annoying.
Amy Harrington (18:18):
I was never annoying.
Nancy Harrington (18:20):
[Laughter] No, actually, Amy and I have been
best friends since born. Thefamily folklore is that I asked
for her to be born because Ididn't want my mother to be
lonely when I went tokindergarten.
Valerie Friedlander (18:34):
Oh, that's adorable. I also asked for my
sister. It was just and Ithought she was fabulous. She
also just came with a lot ofother things that I was like,
Oh, this is, like, a there'smore here
Amy Harrington (18:48):
As sisters will.
So did you hire her? And how did
Valerie Friedlander (18:51):
I did hire her! And she was amazing. And I
it work?
want to say it was probably someof the best times in our
relationship, because, like thetwo of you, we just got each
other, we just were on the samepage. And it was also, like, one
of the few times since I wentoff to college that we actually
lived close to each other, andso being able to, like, be there
(19:14):
for each other, I was a new mom,and so she was there helping
out, and she was my nanny beforeI hired her. So it was a whole
thing, but like, what you'redescribing, and I know this is
not true for everybody and allsiblings, I just want to
acknowledge that that that's notalways true, but I'm a big fan
also of chosen family. I have alot of work and experience in 12
(19:39):
step and having those spaces ofchosen family is really
powerful. And I do have a chosenfamily in my life, and it stood
out to me. I don't know if youall have read Mia bird songs
book, how we show up, but in it,you all, I think you all would
love it. And in it, she talked.
About our relationships and howso we're so conditioned around
(20:03):
the nuclear family in the US atleast, and how important it is
to be expanding our community.
But what that looks like is, youknow, the one relationship that
we sign a contract, essentiallywithout actually signing a
contract. We sign a piece ofpaper, is a marriage, but and so
(20:25):
it's the only one that we thinkof like we say vows and we make
agreements and stuff. But howimportant having agreements are
in relationships and that likecommitments, like you're
actually making a commitment toother people and saying, you
know, this is this is what I amgoing to do. This is how I'm
going to show up. And these arethe expectations that you can
(20:49):
place on my capacity,essentially, and how powerful
that is, but how out of the normthat is. And I'm curious. I
mean, I know that when you havea community, like having
community agreements can bereally helpful, like you're
participating in a community.
And I'm thinking about when youhave people who are so
(21:10):
conditioned by individualism andtransactional relationships,
what are the challenges that youfound in building and holding a
space, a community space,knowing that that's like, the
context most of us are cominginto a relationship with a space
(21:32):
from what are the challenges andlike, how Have you engaged those
challenges to really hold thatspace the way you intended to?
Amy Harrington (21:45):
Yeah, that's really interesting. I think
first and foremost, we havereally tried to set a tone that
being kind to each other andbeing open to listening to each
other's stories is critical andthe basis of it, and it's not a
(22:09):
reward based system like socialmedia where, oh, if I post this,
no one's going to see it,because it didn't get a million
likes, and so it's going to getburied by some algorithm. It's a
place where anybody can come andsay anything. And I think we're
very fortunate because a lot ofthe women who have come in,
(22:32):
especially recently, are beingbrought in by women who are
already there, so theyunderstand, like their friends,
they're going to their friendsand saying, I found a place
where you can be yourself, whereyou're not going to get, you
know, a lot of spam, whereyou're not going to people
aren't going to jump down yourthroat if you state your
(22:53):
opinion. So they're coming inknowing that the the mission is
to be kind to each other to beyourself like Nancy and I are
super vulnerable in the spacewhich isn't really our go to if
you look at our social media,we're not the like vulnerable.
This is what happened today, inmy personal life kind of thing,
(23:15):
but in the sisterhood, we reallyaren't, aren't pretending to be
anything that we're not. We'renot. Like, here's a photo of my
perfect, you know, house witheverything in its place. And,
you know, everything's great. Soit allows other people to do
that too. And I think really atthe root of the success of it is
(23:39):
we do have this social impactpiece. So yes, people come and
they can promote theirbusinesses, and we encourage
that. We also aren't like youcan only post to promote
yourself on this space, in thisspace on Tuesdays at noon. You
know it's like, we want you tothrive. We want people. We look
at it as not promotion as muchas it is. You have a gift to
(24:03):
offer these other women. Shareabout your gift. Don't be super
salesy. Don't you know, pitcheverybody every two hours. But
if you have a workshop coming upthat might help somebody here,
let them know about it. Put itin our calendar. Put it on the
share anything wall. We that'swhy you're here. We want to to,
(24:23):
you know, benefit from yourbrilliance as much as you're
benefiting from other people'sbrilliance. So there's that
component of it. There's alsothe personal growth component,
because everybody we know, andespecially the women in the
community, are just trying to bebetter. You know, live a better
(24:44):
life, reduce their stress,figure out ways to be more
inclusive, all those things. Sopersonal growth is really an
important component of it, andthen the social impact part, we
made sure to include thatbecause when we started. And it
was a small core group of women.
We were like, What makes youknow they're very different
women, but what makes them whatdo they have in common? Every
(25:07):
single one of them was doingwhat they were doing, starting a
business or doing a podcast orstarting a charity because they
wanted to help other people. Andthey're the kind of people that,
when you get on a call withthem, they say to you, before
you get a chance to say to them,What can I do to help you? How
(25:27):
can I support you? And so Ithink, by the nature of having
that social impact piece, itencourages the women who come in
to be the kind of people whowant to be loving and giving and
are they're compassionate andempathetic. So it's kind of a
built in thing. We've had very,very few incidents or instances
(25:52):
where there was an uncomfortablemoment or people were at odds
about something like it, really,I can think of two things, maybe
where there was a conversationor a comment, but there has been
nothing where people are mean toeach other or attacking each
(26:13):
other, because everybody'scoming into it with the right
spirit. So we've just tried toset a tone, you know?
Nancy Harrington (26:24):
Well, said.
Valerie Friedlander (26:28):
Yeah, that makes a huge difference. And,
and so I'm, I'm curious withinthat, because this is one of the
things that I'll see come up, iscaring, giving people. But what
is it? What do you see? And ifyou've needed to like, kind of
support around this receiving.
Because so often the people thatyou know I work with, a lot of
(26:50):
people who are really, you know,high achievers, really
compassionate, want to have asocial impact, and they're
willing to give to all thesepeople, but they're burning out
because they're not, not justbecause they're giving. Because,
I think that's one of the thingswe kind of mix up, is that we
think, Oh, we're burning outbecause we're giving too much.
But oftentimes, what I'm findingis that it's not about the
(27:12):
giving too much, it's about thewall to receiving.
Amy Harrington (27:18):
Yes, totally.
Nancy Harrington (27:21):
We actually, last week, just had a event in
conjunction with Deb Drummond262, she also has a women's
organization that's mostlybusiness focused, but it's very
aligned with what we do. So wedecided to team up, and we had
an Ask party, and that's exactlywhat we talked about is that
Amy Harrington (27:38):
And I think for for me, one of the things I
women aren't good at asking,they're really good at giving,
and they're horrible atreceiving. So this ask party is
a beautiful event, because everywoman in the Zoom Room gets to
ask one thing, but it can be apersonal thing, a business
(28:01):
thing. They're asking for onespecific thing, and everyone in
the room has to respond to herwith either a suggestion or some
advice, or, Oh, I'm going toconnect you with this person.
Or, in some instances, I'm sorryI don't have anything to
contribute to that. I'm going topass. But they at least have to
say that, and it's a beautifulthing, because every single
(28:24):
woman involved has to ask, hasto give, and has to receive,
and, and it really, I think,opens us all up to that. Because
I do. I think women are horribleat receiving, you know. And, and
you're right, it is. It's theburnout. Isn't about the giving,
you know, but, but the receivingis the part that I think we're
(28:45):
the worst at and asking. We'rebad at asking, too.
learned in this last year, eventhat helps me receive more, is
people like to give they likefor you to ask them for their
help, their advice, like, if youdo it with the spirit of, you
(29:10):
know, in this kind of spacewhere everybody's there just
trying to, like, live a betterlife, be kind, it's like, Oh,
you want To help. It makes youfeel good to help me. Or, Oh,
you have this resource that youwould like, that you spend all
this time and energy creating,and you want me to benefit from
(29:31):
that. Like people actually likeit when you turn to them and
say, I would like to ask you forthis, or I need your help, or
whatever it is, I think we'reall conditioned to think like,
I'm a burden. It's a burden.
It's a burden to ask forsomething. It's like, no, it
actually the kind of people weare talking about, the kind of
people that you attract, and weattract, they actually like to
help people.
Nancy Harrington (29:53):
I actually think it was a turning point for
us in our business, when westarted asking for help. Yeah,
you know, because we, in thebeginning, we just made it seem
like we knew everything. We hadall the answers we were, you
know, and then we realized, no,you know what? We need help. We
need support. We need, you know,we need people to pay us,
because we need to keep going.
If we don't, if we aren't makingan income, we're not going to be
(30:15):
able to keep it going. You know.
We need connection. We needadvice. And once we actually
started asking and showing thatwe were vulnerable too, I think
was a turning point for us.
Valerie Friedlander (30:27):
Yeah, definitely. And I mentioned
before we started recording thatI'm doing a training around
attachment and somatics aroundattachment. And one of the
things that really came forwardfor me, because I I had that
asking piece, I had done a lotof work around it, because I
remember being in an Al Anonmeeting, and that idea of, like,
(30:51):
you know, if you like giving,what makes you think other
people don't like it too. And, Imean, I think there's an
attachment component to that, oflike, feeling like a burden. Oh,
my parents are always too busy.
And one of the things that thathas been said one of the
trainings, Gabor Mate spoke, andhe was talking about how trauma
isn't just like what happens toyou, but it's also what doesn't
(31:11):
happen that should have happenedand and so like our society is
not really designed forsupporting child development in
a healthy way. So that was,like, one of those things that
that it was like, oh, okay, I'mclearly functioning off of this
idea that other people don'twant to give and I would be a
(31:33):
burden. Which, okay, we could goback, but we don't need to. What
we need to do is go, Okay. Well,how true is that? And then, of
course, that goes to, like, myown ideas about, like, whether
I'm allowed to say no. And sothen assuming that other people
aren't going to say no if theydon't have the capacity, and
then I am going to be a burden,because if I don't say no when I
don't have the capacity, then,like, then people feel like a
(31:56):
burden instead of like, I feellike I'm giving, and it feels
good to give. So, like all ofthat,
Amy Harrington (32:04):
I have a revolutionary thing related to
that.
Valerie Friedlander (32:07):
Oh, yes.
Amy Harrington (32:09):
So we, we have interviewed and collaborated
with this woman. Her name is DiaBondy. She's amazing. She's a
communications coach. But dia,in her spare time for her hobby
is an auctioneer, and she does,you know, charities will, you
know, bring her in and she'll dothe auction off the husbands and
(32:30):
the muffin baskets and whatever.
And so she came up with thismethodology called Ask like an
auctioneer. Because I think theother thing is, we're also
afraid, right, of thatrejection. Like, I know I don't
like to ask because I don't wantsomeone to say no to me. I feel
like, oh, they don't like meenough, or, Oh my It's not
valuable to them, or whatever itis. Like, I don't like to hear
(32:53):
that. But Dia's whole strategyis, when you're an auctioneer,
you ask until you get a no. Youwant the No, the No is the goal.
So you might, you know, will youpay 200 will you pay 300 you
know you're going and going andgoing and that final No, no
one's going to go to 1000 meansyou got the 900 but you might
(33:15):
have only got the 200 if youdidn't ask, like an auctioneer,
if you were just going for theyes, then you might just
undervalued the thing. So theconcept that the no is actually
what you want to hear changesyour mindset around the word no
so incredibly. It's so powerful,but it's like, okay, or that's
(33:38):
their limit, okay, but I stillgot these four things,
Valerie Friedlander (33:43):
Yes! Our mutual friend Becky mullencamp
started a group about 100rejections. And it's that focus
of, like, I am trying to get 100rejections. So the focus is on,
and usually I I'm like, let'sfocus on what we want, not what
we don't want. But like, if youare focused on, I want 100
rejections, and yeah, you do endup asking like an auctioneer.
(34:06):
But one of the things that Ireally love about the group that
you have, and it kind of speaksto this, is I had done so much
work around this, this asking,and all of that dynamic. And
then when I became a coach and Ientered the entrepreneurship
realm, and the onlineentrepreneurship realm in
particular, it has reallyactivated this like
(34:30):
transactional relationshipdynamic, because asking for help
was constantly, yeah, I'll helpyou for this much money. And
Cher Hale, who was a guest onthis podcast last season in her
sub stack, she wrote about thedeath of mentorship and how
mentorship has really not beenthere, which I see as that space
(34:51):
of, yeah, I did this. I willshow you what I did, versus the
idea of like, yeah, you want toknow what I did. You know, pay
me for. It. It's like the onlinebusiness coaching layer that I
have run into so much and I knowI do want to say, like there are
online business coaches whodon't function off of that
model, and there are a whole lotof them that do. They're nice
(35:15):
people, but because thattransactional style is there,
it's created this resistance toreceiving and asking in me, like
I can feel the vibration in mybody and and that's a whole
thing. So anyway, to wrap backaround what that's one of the
things that I love about yourcommunity is that the the tone
that you're setting and thespace that you're creating is
(35:37):
very much about sharing and andyou keep saying that word, and I
keep meaning to come backaround, and it was storytelling.
It's like, this is my story, andpeople can pick it up, and they
can put it down, and it's all.
It's received like, no matterwhat, like whether and that
whole ask party idea, I meanthat tone somehow vibrationally,
(35:58):
it shifts that transactionalfeeling for me.
Nancy Harrington (36:09):
Well, I think that comes back to the
masculine, feminine energy thingthat you were talking about
earlier. I think there is a bigdifference in women being
nurturing and not astransactional. They're they're
willing to share and uplift andhelp, and yes, at the end of
(36:29):
that, there might be an ask.
There might be like, if you gotsomething out of this, if I
helped you, and you want to domore than I have XYZ that you
can, you know, but it doesn'tstart with that. It doesn't lead
with, Oh, you have a problem.
You pay me X amount of money andI'll help you fix it. It's, How
can I help you? What can I sharewith you? And it is a nurturing
(36:51):
environment. I think, I thinkthat's a big part of it,
Amy Harrington (36:54):
Yeah. I mean, I think when we consciously
decided to, really want to makethis space inclusive. And
through the summits that we weredoing, we we really decided to
focus those on women frommarginalized communities. And
when we built the sisterhood, itwas like we first and foremost,
(37:16):
need to make this a space wherewomen who are marginalized can
come whether that's LGBTQ orblack women or women over 50.
You know, whatever group theyfeel like they're kind of the
box they feel like they're putin. They don't have a place to
go where they can feel safe, andit's key to us that the
(37:44):
marginalized among us in thesisterhood know that they are
protected and they are safe. SoI think that that is kind of the
the thing that makes it lesstransactional. I think,
honestly, it's a business modelflaw. I law, because we're not
(38:04):
just saying like, hey, we wantall the seven figure
entrepreneurs to come in here.
They're welcome. We know womenwho are working massive
corporate jobs who feel just aslonely as a solopreneur because
they can't really talk about howthey feel at work, because they
have to have this mask on thateverything's perfect, and they
(38:24):
have everything under control.
So those people are welcome, butit's really about like, you
know, you feel like you can't beyourself somewhere else, and you
feel alone. You feel like youdon't have a support system, and
you need one. So come here. Andbecause people are coming,
(38:45):
because that's what they need,they're not trying to be salesy.
They they're not trying to getsomething. And the amount of
women in our group are like, Youknow what I'm doing this
workshop for free, because Ithink this is really important
information, that everybodyhaven't and you know, our social
impact content is always freebecause we're like, if it has to
(39:07):
do with making the world abetter place, everybody should
have access to it. The abilityto connect is free because we
want everybody to feel like theycan make connections and they
can make friendships. There areworkshops, there are other
stuff, you know, anthologybooks. There's stuff beyond that
that we put a price tag on. Butthe core stuff, the like, what
(39:31):
do you need to get through theday? Stuff that's always going
to be free for us. And I thinkthat, again, sets a tone. And I
think the people who, if theyare a little too salesy, they
kind of, we naturally get weededout, because it's like people
aren't responding to it. But Iagree. I used to hate the I we
used to do a ton of, especiallyduring COVID, a ton of those
(39:52):
like, oh, sign up for this onehour webinar and we'll teach you
about going live on Facebook.
And so you'd. Sign up, and thewhole thing would be like, the
sales pitch, and then by theend, it would be like, here's
this $5,000 course, and it'slike, you didn't teach me
anything, but the people who inthat hour would actually give
you valuable information and,like, just give it that to you
(40:14):
for free. And if you need more,you can do this. It was like,
All right, I'll sign up forthat.
Valerie Friedlander (40:21):
Yeah, yeah, the relational dynamic. And
that's something that you saidwhen you talked about the
auctioneer thing. The firstthing that came to mind also had
to do with community, and thatis when you're only relying on a
couple people, that becomes abit more burdensome, right, like
or your spouse, or, you know, afriend. But when you have
community, then you have moreshared labor, and it's more, you
(40:46):
know, like we're sharing, but wehave to break free of that, that
way of of thinking aboutourselves as well. But you know,
the other thing that you saidthat right at the beginning,
Amy, where you were talkingabout the journey that you went
on to being able to connect withother women, and that block to,
(41:07):
I don't want to be one of thegirls. I don't want to be seen
as one of the girls, which thenturns into the like, girls are
dangerous, right year round, andour brain makes all these wild
associations that we don't evenrealize that they're making
because it's like, oh, I don'twant to be seen as this. But now
suddenly it's morphed into like,Oh, girls are you know, could be
(41:30):
could be dangerous. Oh, my brainmade these connections. But you
expressing that journey to beingable to connect with people.
It's like that that didn't shiftright away, but you put yourself
in these positions where youwere able to start to change the
associations that were happeninginternally to you, to be able to
(41:55):
actually be in a differentspace. And that is powerful. And
I think that's really helpful tofor people who are listening,
who are interested in communitybuilding, who are interested in
mutual aid, who are interestedin connecting in a way that they
haven't connected before, toreceiving care as much as giving
care and that sort of thing isyou don't have to feel it first.
(42:16):
You don't have to be therefirst. Just place yourself in
those positions where that thatinvite you to start making
different associations. And thepassionist says project
sisterhood could be a greatplace to start practicing that.
So I'd love you know, as we'regetting toward the end of this,
(42:39):
if you could share just a littlebit about, I mean, we've talked
about it the entire time, butlike, Where can people find you?
Where can people find that? I'llhave links in the show notes, of
course, but like, a little bitabout what connecting with that
is.
Nancy Harrington (42:52):
So the easiest way to find us is the
passionistas project.com andonce you're there, there's a
link to go to the sisterhood,where you can join the free
membership. It's very easy. If,once you're there, if you feel
like the upgrade to the premiummembership is what you want to
do, then that's fabulous. And weencourage it, because there's a
(43:12):
lot of amazing content and butyeah, from our website, you can
find us on social media, you canemail us all the things. So
that's the easiest way. Thepassionistasproject.com
Valerie Friedlander (43:26):
Fabulous, and we'll have a link in the
show notes. So as we wrap up, Ilike to ask two questions. One
is, what does it mean to you tobe unlimited?
Nancy Harrington (43:42):
I think it's just that we have the capacity
to do whatever we want to do andand it's all inside us already,
we just have to let it free.
Amy Harrington (43:54):
Yeah, and for me, it's freedom, is the word
that popped into my mind, likethe freedom to follow your
passions, to live your dream, toconnect with the people that
really support you and that youyou feel connected to. And you
know we were. We were very, verylucky kids. We were, I don't
(44:19):
remember ever feeling like wewere told if we wanted to do
something, we couldn't do it.
And so I've always lived my lifethat anything is possible, and I
think that as you go older, theworld starts to put limits on
you, and you've got to just tryand ignore that noise and
remember that. Remember all theamazing things you've already
(44:40):
done, and if you did those,imagine what you can do next.
Yeah.
Valerie Friedlander (44:47):
And then finally, when you want to tap
into an unlimited feeling, whatsong do you listen to?
Amy Harrington (44:58):
There's a it's a musical piece. Your thing, I'm
going music theater.
Valerie Friedlander (45:01):
So many of my guests are musical theater
folks. It's fabulous. I didn'teven know that all the time, but
like, yes, go for it.
Nancy Harrington (45:10):
You stole mine.
Valerie Friedlander (45:14):
You two are adorable.
Amy Harrington (45:17):
There's a song in Pippin called Morning glow,
and it it starts really quiet,and it's dawn and and it builds
to the Sun is in the sky and themusic is booming, and it's a
very inspiring song, and Ihighly recommend it.
Nancy Harrington (45:35):
What's funny is you only stole half of my
answer because I was going tosay Pippin, but I was gonna say
corner of the sky. How to findmy corner of the sky?
Valerie Friedlander (45:49):
Okay, I have a playlist for all the
songs that folks say give themthat unlimited feeling. And it
is such a such a diversegrouping of songs. It's amazing.
So there's, there's somethingfor everybody in in that
playlist, so that'll be linkedin the show notes too. It's just
fun. So thank you. Nancy Amy,thank you so much for joining me
(46:14):
today. It has been a pleasuregetting to know you better and
hearing all the wisdom that youhave to offer and all about the
passionistas project.
Nancy Harrington (46:25):
Thank you so much. It's my pleasure.
Amy Harrington (46:27):
Thank you. Thank you for being a part of it.
Valerie Friedlander (46:29):
Thank you so much for listening. I hope
you enjoyed today's episode, andif you did, I have a little
request, which is, please leavea review for the podcast. It
doesn't have to be long. Itcould be just a couple words. In
Spotify, I think you can onlyjust click stars. So dropping
five stars is super helpfulbecause it tells the platform's
(46:51):
algorithm that you're enjoyingthe podcast and then encourages
it to share it with more peoplewho might be looking for a
podcast like this one. So if youcould take just a moment and do
that, I would be superappreciative, and everything
that we referenced in thisepisode is linked in the show
notes, so be sure to check thatout, and I will talk to you all
(47:15):
next time.
Hello, my friends and welcome to another
(00:02):
episode of Mindset, unlimited.
Mindset tips, tools andinspiration for women leaders.
I'm your host. ValerieFriedlander, ICF certified
coach, sociologist,intersectional feminist artist,
mom and nerd. Today we aretalking about cultivating
intentional community, theshifts that create deeper
connection and belonging. Thisepisode is so special. I am
(00:25):
interviewing two amazing sistersbefore I share about them and
the specifics of what we talkabout, I do want to highlight
the reason why I really wantedto have this episode, and to
have this conversation may seemapparent, but I'm gonna say it
anyway, which is that we are inthis time of decomposing our
(00:47):
usual way of doing things. Wehave kind of peaked out our
individualistic, hierarchical,supremacist culture, and it's
eating itself. And given thatit's spring, you're thinking
about gardening when somethingis decomposing, when you're
putting your compost into thegarden, it's designed to grow
(01:13):
new things. We decompose stuff,we're going to grow new things.
And to do that withintentionality, we want to plant
the seeds that we are choosingto plant, we're going to tend
those plants, and that is whatbuilding, cultivating
intentional community is about.
We need to learn how to builddeeper connections and create
(01:37):
belonging, and that's reallydifficult when we have been
conditioned in all these othermore toxic to our system, both
individually and collectively,when we've learned all these
ways of being, and we'reunlearning them while trying to
do new things, and it'soverwhelming and complicated and
all of that, and it can bereally disheartening, and we
(01:59):
need hope. And I think thathaving these kinds of
conversations and exploring waysthat we have done this in other
spaces, ways other people havedone that in the modeling of it,
ways that we can practice thisway of being with each other is
critical to being able to do ourown planting and our own gardens
(02:23):
and in our own communities aswe're in this period of
decomposition. So all of thatsaid, I want to introduce two
amazing women, sisters, Amy andNancy Harrington, who founded
the passionistas project out ofa deep desire to empower women
around the world, they are eagerto share their knowledge about
(02:46):
building community, creatingsafe spaces for women the power
of storytelling and navigatingprofessional transitions. Both
co founders walked away fromhigh profile jobs in Hollywood
to work together. Amy was the VPof post production and visual
effects for all feature films.
At Warner Brothers working onmovies like The Matrix and Harry
Potter franchises, Nancy leftthe ad agency where she created
(03:10):
Oscar campaigns for Miramax.
Their career as celebrityinterviewers has included chats
with Julia, Louis Dreyfus, RitaMoreno, Lily Tomlin, Laverne,
Cox, Carol Burnett and more nowthrough their global
passionistas project, sisterhoodpodcast and power passionistas
(03:31):
summit, they strive to inspirewomen to follow their passions
and join forces in the fight forequality for all, some of what
we talk about in this episodeinclude building trust in
relationships with other women,redefining leadership from
hierarchy to a circle of selfand CO leadership, developing
(03:51):
community agreements rooted inconsent, care and shared
responsibility, and practicingthe power of asking, receiving
and mutual support. I amthrilled to share this episode
with you, and now withoutfurther ado, let's get started.
(04:17):
Welcome Nancy and Amy. I am soexcited to have you on mindset
unlimited today.
Amy Harrington (04:22):
We're so happy to be here.
Valerie Friedlander (04:26):
There's so many things I want to chat
about. Specifically, we're goingto look at intentional
communities, because you allhave one, and it's so beautiful.
And just the sisterhood there isincredible. I think that's
something that we really needmore of in the world right now,
as we all are navigating somepretty rough waters, and as we
(04:49):
get started, I like to ask folksto share a little bit about
themselves and what is a limitthat you used to take for
granted that you have since.
Unlearned.
Nancy Harrington (05:02):
Excellent.
Well, I'll start. We aresisters, Amy and Nancy
Harrington. Little bit aboutourselves. I won't go into too
much of our history, because I'msure you covered that in our
bio. I don't want to borepeople, but we, we grew up on
the East Coast, near a smalltown near Boston. It came from a
very creative family and endedup in the world of entertainment
(05:23):
because of it. And we left ourjobs together at the same time
and went on a long, long journeyand twisty roads and ended up in
the world of celebrityinterviewing, which ultimately
led us to our first our podcastcalled The passionistas project,
and we decided that we wanted toshine a light on women who don't
(05:47):
get the spotlight very often so,and that has led us to building
our community, which I'm surewe'll talk about later. Limiting
belief. What is a limitingbelief that I have? Drawing a
blank, um, Amy, you go first.
Amy Harrington (06:04):
Right. I'll go first. I'm gonna give you a word
Nan for yours, because I knowit'll help you, which is
leadership. Okay,
Nancy Harrington (06:16):
See, this is why. This is why this works.
Valerie Friedlander (06:18):
I love it.
Amy Harrington (06:19):
This is all about being sisters. I think one
of the limits that I had put onmyself is that I, early in my
career, worked in a very maledominated world where women were
competitive with each other, orthey didn't want to really like
be the girls in the room, sothey wouldn't hang out together,
(06:42):
and they really kept the likefocus. I know I personally kept
focus on like. I don't want themto think of me as a girl. I want
to be one of the guys. And so Ididn't really make connections
with women, and really for along time friendships with
women, and once I broke throughthat, and now I'm surrounded by
(07:05):
women all the time andcollaborating with them and
seeing how beautiful andsupportive and nurturing that
is, I'm always amazed now whenI'm in a conversation like
yesterday, we had a phone callwith a guy, and it was a
business He kind of call and itwas like, Oh, the energy of this
is so very different andinteresting. And I love men, and
(07:28):
I'd like to working with men,but it is there was a limit on
my connection to the feminineside of operating that I now am
so grateful that I'm in touchwith.
Valerie Friedlander (07:41):
What helped you overcome that? I'm just,
curious about about that,because that comes up a lot. I
work with a lot of women in maledominated spaces, and that
there's so many layers to thatresistance that can come up. So
I'm curious what helped you.
Amy Harrington (07:55):
I mean, first was removing myself from the
situation. I left the studiosystem. I had been a studio
executive, so I was and I was ayounger woman with all these men
who are at least 10 years olderthan me. So I just, you know,
really made a consciousdecision, like, I'm not going to
be a girl, I'm just going to beone of the guys. And when I left
(08:19):
that to work with Nancy, becauseNancy and I decided, okay, we
both are leaving our careers andwe're going to do something
together, being around Nancy,obviously, who's my you know,
other half of my soul thatstarted to open me up, but I
still had that, like, thosebarriers of like, we can't trust
that person, we can't let thatperson in and it took a long
(08:42):
time to chip away at that, and Ireally think it wasn't until we
started the podcast and westarted meeting these women,
because the other thing we weredoing was celebrity interviews,
where you're, like, making thesereally amazing conversation
connections with these people.
And we were doing intense, like,three hour celebrity interviews,
and you feel like you'reconnecting. And you know, never
(09:02):
gonna talk to this famous personagain. But with the women we
were interviewing, they'd belike, Let's have coffee next
week. And it was like, Oh, theywant to be our friend. And the
more I spent time with them, andthe more I heard these stories,
and the more I cared about them,it was like, whatever stuff I
have built up, I've got to pushthrough it, because I want to be
(09:26):
in their lives, and I want themin mine. And so I really just
consciously started doing that.
Until now, it's just secondnature. Like, now it's like, oh,
there's an opportunity to be andI'm an introvert, but it's like,
oh, there's an opportunity to bearound a bunch of other women.
Yeah, let's go. Let's do it, youknow? So,
Valerie Friedlander (09:46):
Yeah, yeah, awesome. Okay, cool. I have, I
have more questions, but I alsowant to make sure that Nancy
gets to share.
Nancy Harrington (09:55):
Well, as Amy suggested, and she read my mind.
You're witnessing our sisterpower in action, because it is a
you. Was a huge limit for me. Inever understood that I was a
leader. It wasn't until very,very recently, like within the
last six months, probably, thatI understood that I was a
(10:17):
leader. I, like I said, I'vealways been self employed, so,
you know, it was just me, myselfand I and I'd hire people to
help me, but I didn't think ofthat. I never had people that I
managed, or a crew or staff or,you know, so and then, as we
started to build the community,and, you know, we have women's
equality summits, and we haveall of these things that
(10:39):
innately is leading, but itnever occurred to me that that's
what it was. And someone pointedout recently, someone called US
leaders recently, and I kind ofbristled, like I don't think of
myself as a leader. And when Isaid that to her, she was like,
of course, you're a leader. Youknow, you've built this amazing
community. And she also remindedme that leading you can just
(11:01):
lead yourself. I mean, you leadyourself through your daily
life, you know, and that as asister, I help lead my sister on
my other siblings, and thatthere's a lot of leadership just
innately in your daily life. Butcertainly, by building this
community, I have become aleader and and I'm proud of it,
(11:21):
and I'm I'm happy for it, I'mgrateful for it. So that was
definitely a limit that I had tobreak through to get where we
are.
Valerie Friedlander (11:31):
Yeah, so I'm curious, what did you think,
like, if you could go back towhen that that period of going,
Oh, I'm, I'm not a leader, like,what do you think your
definition for leadership was?
And what do you think it is now?
Nancy Harrington (11:45):
Yeah, I think it was like someone who's in
charge and you have a staff ofpeople, and you, you know,
you're leading a corporation,you're leading a country, you're
leading, you know, you'releading a band, whatever. Like,
I just thought it was somebodywho was in charge and sort of
dictated to people what to do.
And, yeah, I've done that all mylife. I used to produce theater.
I used to own a theater company,like I had, I had a cast and I
(12:05):
had a crew, and, like, so itjust it to me. It was, it was
this vision of someone in ahigher up place, and I didn't
think that I I was at thatlevel, I guess is probably what
it was.
Valerie Friedlander (12:21):
Yeah, so I'm hearing, like, essentially,
like control, like you, you wereimagining it was somebody that
that was like a dictator. Thensaid, All right, go here, do
this, do that, and that there'sthis hierarchy in leadership
where, if you're the leader,you're the one on top and
telling everybody else what todo.
Nancy Harrington (12:39):
So like a pyramid of leadership, as
opposed to a circle that we'vecreated where we're at the
center of that circle, but andthe people are around us, it's
like, completely different kindof leadership.
Valerie Friedlander (12:52):
Yeah. Oh, and such a powerful shift, which
actually kind of sparks me. Imean, that's the that's the
difference that I tend to lookat of like, the difference
between like the masculinestyle, I would even say toxic
masculine. I'm not sure that. Inecessarily think that it's like
innately masculine, becausethat's a whole thing too, but to
(13:14):
think that's that toxic style ofmasculinity that's so
predominant in our culture,compared to the shift that we're
encouraging of being morefeminine and more inclusive and
more circular.
Nancy Harrington (13:32):
Absolutely.
Amy Harrington (13:33):
Yeah, it's beautiful. And I think part of
the way Nancy and I built ourcommunity is, you know, a lot of
online communities are builtaround a person, a figurehead.
I'm the coach, or I'm the, youknow, I'm the expert on this.
And from day one, we're like,we're not coaches. We don't want
to pretend to people that we'reexperts on all these different
(13:56):
topics and business developmentand personal growth and social
impact, like we engage in thosethings, they matter to us, but
we're not going to tell peoplewhat to do. And so from day one,
it was like, this is aboutgiving a space, creating a
space, and bringing in power,passionistas, who are who are
(14:19):
experts on certain topics, whocan impart their wisdom, but
really making it about thecommunity, leading each other,
sharing with each other, so thatit's never about us. We have to
be at the center of the tone ofit, but it's not about like
(14:40):
today, we're going to tell youhow to, you know, lead your
life. It's like, that's not ourstyle. It's, it's about, how can
we collectively support eachother?
Valerie Friedlander (14:50):
Yeah. What inspired you to shift from doing
these celebrity interviews intocreating this community?
Amy Harrington (15:01):
Well, you know, we started around 2016 there was
an election, and then there wasthe ME TOO movement, and the
time's up movement. Things werereally shifting in the world. We
were hearing all of thesestories of women that had gone
through trauma, and they wereamazing stories. They were
(15:21):
powerful stories. They needed tobe heard. But we also wanted to
tell the stories of women thatwere empowered and and do it
following their passion. Sothat's when we decided to do the
podcast. So that was 2017 wesort of solidified this is what
we're going to do. And by 2018we launched the first episode,
(15:45):
and then that led us to ourwomen's equality Summit, where
we, you know, we were hearingall these stories, and we wanted
to do something more, andrealize that the women that get
the stage least often are thewomen in the margins. So we
decided we were going to bringtogether women from marginalized
communities, give them a topicand let them tell their story,
(16:06):
and then have a round table sothat they could come together
and see what they had in common,but also embrace their
differences. And it was a reallybeautiful thing. And we loved
doing this summits and then. Butwe also kind of felt like every
year we'd do the summit, andthere'd be all this great
momentum and these amazingconversations, and then we
(16:27):
weren't nothing would happenafter that. We'd we'd vow like
we're going to keep thisconversation going, and then it
kind of wouldn't sputter out.
And so we we knew there was somea piece missing, and we weren't
sure what that was. And weactually spent a year working
with three different coaches tofigure out what the next step
was. And we finally realizedthat what everyone told us that
they had, but we have they wishthey had, was our sisterhood.
(16:52):
And we realized that, you know,well, what's sisterhood? It's
companionship, it's loyalty,it's someone who's there to lift
you up. It's someone who's thereto celebrate when you win, and
someone to have fun with. And sowe, we thought, you know, well,
we can provide that. So that'swhen we started the community
(17:13):
that we we launched it just alittle over a year ago, online
and and it really has becomethat. And, you know, we it's a
beautiful space where women arejust supporting one another. And
so, yeah, that was our long andwinding road to the sisterhood
community.
Valerie Friedlander (17:33):
Yeah, well, so you hit on a few things that
that stood out to me. And first,if you don't mind my asking,
What is the age gap between thetwo of you?
Amy Harrington (17:43):
I love this question. I'm a younger sister,
and there's five years betweenus.
Valerie Friedlander (17:49):
Okay, yeah, see, I have a younger sister who
is six and a half years youngerthan me, and so I just asked
that because, like, my youngersister worked for me when when I
was in corporate, and she neededa job. And I was like, oh, she'd
be great in this role. And mymom was like, Ooh, I don't know
if that's a good idea for youall to work together like that
(18:09):
could cause problems, because weweren't. I mean, six and a half
years difference, we weren'texactly close when we were
little, she was just annoying.
Amy Harrington (18:18):
I was never annoying.
Nancy Harrington (18:20):
[Laughter] No, actually, Amy and I have been
best friends since born. Thefamily folklore is that I asked
for her to be born because Ididn't want my mother to be
lonely when I went tokindergarten.
Valerie Friedlander (18:34):
Oh, that's adorable. I also asked for my
sister. It was just and Ithought she was fabulous. She
also just came with a lot ofother things that I was like,
Oh, this is, like, a there'smore here
Amy Harrington (18:48):
As sisters will.
So did you hire her? And how did
Valerie Friedlander (18:51):
I did hire her! And she was amazing. And I
it work?
want to say it was probably someof the best times in our
relationship, because, like thetwo of you, we just got each
other, we just were on the samepage. And it was also, like, one
of the few times since I wentoff to college that we actually
lived close to each other, andso being able to, like, be there
(19:14):
for each other, I was a new mom,and so she was there helping
out, and she was my nanny beforeI hired her. So it was a whole
thing, but like, what you'redescribing, and I know this is
not true for everybody and allsiblings, I just want to
acknowledge that that that's notalways true, but I'm a big fan
also of chosen family. I have alot of work and experience in 12
(19:39):
step and having those spaces ofchosen family is really
powerful. And I do have a chosenfamily in my life, and it stood
out to me. I don't know if youall have read Mia bird songs
book, how we show up, but in it,you all, I think you all would
love it. And in it, she talked.
About our relationships and howso we're so conditioned around
(20:03):
the nuclear family in the US atleast, and how important it is
to be expanding our community.
But what that looks like is, youknow, the one relationship that
we sign a contract, essentiallywithout actually signing a
contract. We sign a piece ofpaper, is a marriage, but and so
(20:25):
it's the only one that we thinkof like we say vows and we make
agreements and stuff. But howimportant having agreements are
in relationships and that likecommitments, like you're
actually making a commitment toother people and saying, you
know, this is this is what I amgoing to do. This is how I'm
going to show up. And these arethe expectations that you can
(20:49):
place on my capacity,essentially, and how powerful
that is, but how out of the normthat is. And I'm curious. I
mean, I know that when you havea community, like having
community agreements can bereally helpful, like you're
participating in a community.
And I'm thinking about when youhave people who are so
(21:10):
conditioned by individualism andtransactional relationships,
what are the challenges that youfound in building and holding a
space, a community space,knowing that that's like, the
context most of us are cominginto a relationship with a space
(21:32):
from what are the challenges andlike, how Have you engaged those
challenges to really hold thatspace the way you intended to?
Amy Harrington (21:45):
Yeah, that's really interesting. I think
first and foremost, we havereally tried to set a tone that
being kind to each other andbeing open to listening to each
other's stories is critical andthe basis of it, and it's not a
(22:09):
reward based system like socialmedia where, oh, if I post this,
no one's going to see it,because it didn't get a million
likes, and so it's going to getburied by some algorithm. It's a
place where anybody can come andsay anything. And I think we're
very fortunate because a lot ofthe women who have come in,
(22:32):
especially recently, are beingbrought in by women who are
already there, so theyunderstand, like their friends,
they're going to their friendsand saying, I found a place
where you can be yourself, whereyou're not going to get, you
know, a lot of spam, whereyou're not going to people
aren't going to jump down yourthroat if you state your
(22:53):
opinion. So they're coming inknowing that the the mission is
to be kind to each other to beyourself like Nancy and I are
super vulnerable in the spacewhich isn't really our go to if
you look at our social media,we're not the like vulnerable.
This is what happened today, inmy personal life kind of thing,
(23:15):
but in the sisterhood, we reallyaren't, aren't pretending to be
anything that we're not. We'renot. Like, here's a photo of my
perfect, you know, house witheverything in its place. And,
you know, everything's great. Soit allows other people to do
that too. And I think really atthe root of the success of it is
(23:39):
we do have this social impactpiece. So yes, people come and
they can promote theirbusinesses, and we encourage
that. We also aren't like youcan only post to promote
yourself on this space, in thisspace on Tuesdays at noon. You
know it's like, we want you tothrive. We want people. We look
at it as not promotion as muchas it is. You have a gift to
(24:03):
offer these other women. Shareabout your gift. Don't be super
salesy. Don't you know, pitcheverybody every two hours. But
if you have a workshop coming upthat might help somebody here,
let them know about it. Put itin our calendar. Put it on the
share anything wall. We that'swhy you're here. We want to to,
(24:23):
you know, benefit from yourbrilliance as much as you're
benefiting from other people'sbrilliance. So there's that
component of it. There's alsothe personal growth component,
because everybody we know, andespecially the women in the
community, are just trying to bebetter. You know, live a better
(24:44):
life, reduce their stress,figure out ways to be more
inclusive, all those things. Sopersonal growth is really an
important component of it, andthen the social impact part, we
made sure to include thatbecause when we started. And it
was a small core group of women.
We were like, What makes youknow they're very different
women, but what makes them whatdo they have in common? Every
(25:07):
single one of them was doingwhat they were doing, starting a
business or doing a podcast orstarting a charity because they
wanted to help other people. Andthey're the kind of people that,
when you get on a call withthem, they say to you, before
you get a chance to say to them,What can I do to help you? How
(25:27):
can I support you? And so Ithink, by the nature of having
that social impact piece, itencourages the women who come in
to be the kind of people whowant to be loving and giving and
are they're compassionate andempathetic. So it's kind of a
built in thing. We've had very,very few incidents or instances
(25:52):
where there was an uncomfortablemoment or people were at odds
about something like it, really,I can think of two things, maybe
where there was a conversationor a comment, but there has been
nothing where people are mean toeach other or attacking each
(26:13):
other, because everybody'scoming into it with the right
spirit. So we've just tried toset a tone, you know?
Nancy Harrington (26:24):
Well, said.
Valerie Friedlander (26:28):
Yeah, that makes a huge difference. And,
and so I'm, I'm curious withinthat, because this is one of the
things that I'll see come up, iscaring, giving people. But what
is it? What do you see? And ifyou've needed to like, kind of
support around this receiving.
Because so often the people thatyou know I work with, a lot of
(26:50):
people who are really, you know,high achievers, really
compassionate, want to have asocial impact, and they're
willing to give to all thesepeople, but they're burning out
because they're not, not justbecause they're giving. Because,
I think that's one of the thingswe kind of mix up, is that we
think, Oh, we're burning outbecause we're giving too much.
But oftentimes, what I'm findingis that it's not about the
(27:12):
giving too much, it's about thewall to receiving.
Amy Harrington (27:18):
Yes, totally.
Nancy Harrington (27:21):
We actually, last week, just had a event in
conjunction with Deb Drummond262, she also has a women's
organization that's mostlybusiness focused, but it's very
aligned with what we do. So wedecided to team up, and we had
an Ask party, and that's exactlywhat we talked about is that
Amy Harrington (27:38):
And I think for for me, one of the things I
women aren't good at asking,they're really good at giving,
and they're horrible atreceiving. So this ask party is
a beautiful event, because everywoman in the Zoom Room gets to
ask one thing, but it can be apersonal thing, a business
(28:01):
thing. They're asking for onespecific thing, and everyone in
the room has to respond to herwith either a suggestion or some
advice, or, Oh, I'm going toconnect you with this person.
Or, in some instances, I'm sorryI don't have anything to
contribute to that. I'm going topass. But they at least have to
say that, and it's a beautifulthing, because every single
(28:24):
woman involved has to ask, hasto give, and has to receive,
and, and it really, I think,opens us all up to that. Because
I do. I think women are horribleat receiving, you know. And, and
you're right, it is. It's theburnout. Isn't about the giving,
you know, but, but the receivingis the part that I think we're
(28:45):
the worst at and asking. We'rebad at asking, too.
learned in this last year, eventhat helps me receive more, is
people like to give they likefor you to ask them for their
help, their advice, like, if youdo it with the spirit of, you
(29:10):
know, in this kind of spacewhere everybody's there just
trying to, like, live a betterlife, be kind, it's like, Oh,
you want To help. It makes youfeel good to help me. Or, Oh,
you have this resource that youwould like, that you spend all
this time and energy creating,and you want me to benefit from
(29:31):
that. Like people actually likeit when you turn to them and
say, I would like to ask you forthis, or I need your help, or
whatever it is, I think we'reall conditioned to think like,
I'm a burden. It's a burden.
It's a burden to ask forsomething. It's like, no, it
actually the kind of people weare talking about, the kind of
people that you attract, and weattract, they actually like to
help people.
Nancy Harrington (29:53):
I actually think it was a turning point for
us in our business, when westarted asking for help. Yeah,
you know, because we, in thebeginning, we just made it seem
like we knew everything. We hadall the answers we were, you
know, and then we realized, no,you know what? We need help. We
need support. We need, you know,we need people to pay us,
because we need to keep going.
If we don't, if we aren't makingan income, we're not going to be
(30:15):
able to keep it going. You know.
We need connection. We needadvice. And once we actually
started asking and showing thatwe were vulnerable too, I think
was a turning point for us.
Valerie Friedlander (30:27):
Yeah, definitely. And I mentioned
before we started recording thatI'm doing a training around
attachment and somatics aroundattachment. And one of the
things that really came forwardfor me, because I I had that
asking piece, I had done a lotof work around it, because I
remember being in an Al Anonmeeting, and that idea of, like,
(30:51):
you know, if you like giving,what makes you think other
people don't like it too. And, Imean, I think there's an
attachment component to that, oflike, feeling like a burden. Oh,
my parents are always too busy.
And one of the things that thathas been said one of the
trainings, Gabor Mate spoke, andhe was talking about how trauma
isn't just like what happens toyou, but it's also what doesn't
(31:11):
happen that should have happenedand and so like our society is
not really designed forsupporting child development in
a healthy way. So that was,like, one of those things that
that it was like, oh, okay, I'mclearly functioning off of this
idea that other people don'twant to give and I would be a
(31:33):
burden. Which, okay, we could goback, but we don't need to. What
we need to do is go, Okay. Well,how true is that? And then, of
course, that goes to, like, myown ideas about, like, whether
I'm allowed to say no. And sothen assuming that other people
aren't going to say no if theydon't have the capacity, and
then I am going to be a burden,because if I don't say no when I
don't have the capacity, then,like, then people feel like a
(31:56):
burden instead of like, I feellike I'm giving, and it feels
good to give. So, like all ofthat,
Amy Harrington (32:04):
I have a revolutionary thing related to
that.
Valerie Friedlander (32:07):
Oh, yes.
Amy Harrington (32:09):
So we, we have interviewed and collaborated
with this woman. Her name is DiaBondy. She's amazing. She's a
communications coach. But dia,in her spare time for her hobby
is an auctioneer, and she does,you know, charities will, you
know, bring her in and she'll dothe auction off the husbands and
(32:30):
the muffin baskets and whatever.
And so she came up with thismethodology called Ask like an
auctioneer. Because I think theother thing is, we're also
afraid, right, of thatrejection. Like, I know I don't
like to ask because I don't wantsomeone to say no to me. I feel
like, oh, they don't like meenough, or, Oh my It's not
valuable to them, or whatever itis. Like, I don't like to hear
(32:53):
that. But Dia's whole strategyis, when you're an auctioneer,
you ask until you get a no. Youwant the No, the No is the goal.
So you might, you know, will youpay 200 will you pay 300 you
know you're going and going andgoing and that final No, no
one's going to go to 1000 meansyou got the 900 but you might
(33:15):
have only got the 200 if youdidn't ask, like an auctioneer,
if you were just going for theyes, then you might just
undervalued the thing. So theconcept that the no is actually
what you want to hear changesyour mindset around the word no
so incredibly. It's so powerful,but it's like, okay, or that's
(33:38):
their limit, okay, but I stillgot these four things,
Valerie Friedlander (33:43):
Yes! Our mutual friend Becky mullencamp
started a group about 100rejections. And it's that focus
of, like, I am trying to get 100rejections. So the focus is on,
and usually I I'm like, let'sfocus on what we want, not what
we don't want. But like, if youare focused on, I want 100
rejections, and yeah, you do endup asking like an auctioneer.
(34:06):
But one of the things that Ireally love about the group that
you have, and it kind of speaksto this, is I had done so much
work around this, this asking,and all of that dynamic. And
then when I became a coach and Ientered the entrepreneurship
realm, and the onlineentrepreneurship realm in
particular, it has reallyactivated this like
(34:30):
transactional relationshipdynamic, because asking for help
was constantly, yeah, I'll helpyou for this much money. And
Cher Hale, who was a guest onthis podcast last season in her
sub stack, she wrote about thedeath of mentorship and how
mentorship has really not beenthere, which I see as that space
(34:51):
of, yeah, I did this. I willshow you what I did, versus the
idea of like, yeah, you want toknow what I did. You know, pay
me for. It. It's like the onlinebusiness coaching layer that I
have run into so much and I knowI do want to say, like there are
online business coaches whodon't function off of that
model, and there are a whole lotof them that do. They're nice
(35:15):
people, but because thattransactional style is there,
it's created this resistance toreceiving and asking in me, like
I can feel the vibration in mybody and and that's a whole
thing. So anyway, to wrap backaround what that's one of the
things that I love about yourcommunity is that the the tone
that you're setting and thespace that you're creating is
(35:37):
very much about sharing and andyou keep saying that word, and I
keep meaning to come backaround, and it was storytelling.
It's like, this is my story, andpeople can pick it up, and they
can put it down, and it's all.
It's received like, no matterwhat, like whether and that
whole ask party idea, I meanthat tone somehow vibrationally,
(35:58):
it shifts that transactionalfeeling for me.
Nancy Harrington (36:09):
Well, I think that comes back to the
masculine, feminine energy thingthat you were talking about
earlier. I think there is a bigdifference in women being
nurturing and not astransactional. They're they're
willing to share and uplift andhelp, and yes, at the end of
(36:29):
that, there might be an ask.
There might be like, if you gotsomething out of this, if I
helped you, and you want to domore than I have XYZ that you
can, you know, but it doesn'tstart with that. It doesn't lead
with, Oh, you have a problem.
You pay me X amount of money andI'll help you fix it. It's, How
can I help you? What can I sharewith you? And it is a nurturing
(36:51):
environment. I think, I thinkthat's a big part of it,
Amy Harrington (36:54):
Yeah. I mean, I think when we consciously
decided to, really want to makethis space inclusive. And
through the summits that we weredoing, we we really decided to
focus those on women frommarginalized communities. And
when we built the sisterhood, itwas like we first and foremost,
(37:16):
need to make this a space wherewomen who are marginalized can
come whether that's LGBTQ orblack women or women over 50.
You know, whatever group theyfeel like they're kind of the
box they feel like they're putin. They don't have a place to
go where they can feel safe, andit's key to us that the
(37:44):
marginalized among us in thesisterhood know that they are
protected and they are safe. SoI think that that is kind of the
the thing that makes it lesstransactional. I think,
honestly, it's a business modelflaw. I law, because we're not
(38:04):
just saying like, hey, we wantall the seven figure
entrepreneurs to come in here.
They're welcome. We know womenwho are working massive
corporate jobs who feel just aslonely as a solopreneur because
they can't really talk about howthey feel at work, because they
have to have this mask on thateverything's perfect, and they
(38:24):
have everything under control.
So those people are welcome, butit's really about like, you
know, you feel like you can't beyourself somewhere else, and you
feel alone. You feel like youdon't have a support system, and
you need one. So come here. Andbecause people are coming,
(38:45):
because that's what they need,they're not trying to be salesy.
They they're not trying to getsomething. And the amount of
women in our group are like, Youknow what I'm doing this
workshop for free, because Ithink this is really important
information, that everybodyhaven't and you know, our social
impact content is always freebecause we're like, if it has to
(39:07):
do with making the world abetter place, everybody should
have access to it. The abilityto connect is free because we
want everybody to feel like theycan make connections and they
can make friendships. There areworkshops, there are other
stuff, you know, anthologybooks. There's stuff beyond that
that we put a price tag on. Butthe core stuff, the like, what
(39:31):
do you need to get through theday? Stuff that's always going
to be free for us. And I thinkthat, again, sets a tone. And I
think the people who, if theyare a little too salesy, they
kind of, we naturally get weededout, because it's like people
aren't responding to it. But Iagree. I used to hate the I we
used to do a ton of, especiallyduring COVID, a ton of those
(39:52):
like, oh, sign up for this onehour webinar and we'll teach you
about going live on Facebook.
And so you'd. Sign up, and thewhole thing would be like, the
sales pitch, and then by theend, it would be like, here's
this $5,000 course, and it'slike, you didn't teach me
anything, but the people who inthat hour would actually give
you valuable information and,like, just give it that to you
(40:14):
for free. And if you need more,you can do this. It was like,
All right, I'll sign up forthat.
Valerie Friedlander (40:21):
Yeah, yeah, the relational dynamic. And
that's something that you saidwhen you talked about the
auctioneer thing. The firstthing that came to mind also had
to do with community, and thatis when you're only relying on a
couple people, that becomes abit more burdensome, right, like
or your spouse, or, you know, afriend. But when you have
community, then you have moreshared labor, and it's more, you
(40:46):
know, like we're sharing, but wehave to break free of that, that
way of of thinking aboutourselves as well. But you know,
the other thing that you saidthat right at the beginning,
Amy, where you were talkingabout the journey that you went
on to being able to connect withother women, and that block to,
(41:07):
I don't want to be one of thegirls. I don't want to be seen
as one of the girls, which thenturns into the like, girls are
dangerous, right year round, andour brain makes all these wild
associations that we don't evenrealize that they're making
because it's like, oh, I don'twant to be seen as this. But now
suddenly it's morphed into like,Oh, girls are you know, could be
(41:30):
could be dangerous. Oh, my brainmade these connections. But you
expressing that journey to beingable to connect with people.
It's like that that didn't shiftright away, but you put yourself
in these positions where youwere able to start to change the
associations that were happeninginternally to you, to be able to
(41:55):
actually be in a differentspace. And that is powerful. And
I think that's really helpful tofor people who are listening,
who are interested in communitybuilding, who are interested in
mutual aid, who are interestedin connecting in a way that they
haven't connected before, toreceiving care as much as giving
care and that sort of thing isyou don't have to feel it first.
(42:16):
You don't have to be therefirst. Just place yourself in
those positions where that thatinvite you to start making
different associations. And thepassionist says project
sisterhood could be a greatplace to start practicing that.
So I'd love you know, as we'regetting toward the end of this,
(42:39):
if you could share just a littlebit about, I mean, we've talked
about it the entire time, butlike, Where can people find you?
Where can people find that? I'llhave links in the show notes, of
course, but like, a little bitabout what connecting with that
is.
Nancy Harrington (42:52):
So the easiest way to find us is the
passionistas project.com andonce you're there, there's a
link to go to the sisterhood,where you can join the free
membership. It's very easy. If,once you're there, if you feel
like the upgrade to the premiummembership is what you want to
do, then that's fabulous. And weencourage it, because there's a
(43:12):
lot of amazing content and butyeah, from our website, you can
find us on social media, you canemail us all the things. So
that's the easiest way. Thepassionistasproject.com
Valerie Friedlander (43:26):
Fabulous, and we'll have a link in the
show notes. So as we wrap up, Ilike to ask two questions. One
is, what does it mean to you tobe unlimited?
Nancy Harrington (43:42):
I think it's just that we have the capacity
to do whatever we want to do andand it's all inside us already,
we just have to let it free.
Amy Harrington (43:54):
Yeah, and for me, it's freedom, is the word
that popped into my mind, likethe freedom to follow your
passions, to live your dream, toconnect with the people that
really support you and that youyou feel connected to. And you
know we were. We were very, verylucky kids. We were, I don't
(44:19):
remember ever feeling like wewere told if we wanted to do
something, we couldn't do it.
And so I've always lived my lifethat anything is possible, and I
think that as you go older, theworld starts to put limits on
you, and you've got to just tryand ignore that noise and
remember that. Remember all theamazing things you've already
(44:40):
done, and if you did those,imagine what you can do next.
Yeah.
Valerie Friedlander (44:47):
And then finally, when you want to tap
into an unlimited feeling, whatsong do you listen to?
Amy Harrington (44:58):
There's a it's a musical piece. Your thing, I'm
going music theater.
Valerie Friedlander (45:01):
So many of my guests are musical theater
folks. It's fabulous. I didn'teven know that all the time, but
like, yes, go for it.
Nancy Harrington (45:10):
You stole mine.
Valerie Friedlander (45:14):
You two are adorable.
Amy Harrington (45:17):
There's a song in Pippin called Morning glow,
and it it starts really quiet,and it's dawn and and it builds
to the Sun is in the sky and themusic is booming, and it's a
very inspiring song, and Ihighly recommend it.
Nancy Harrington (45:35):
What's funny is you only stole half of my
answer because I was going tosay Pippin, but I was gonna say
corner of the sky. How to findmy corner of the sky?
Valerie Friedlander (45:49):
Okay, I have a playlist for all the
songs that folks say give themthat unlimited feeling. And it
is such a such a diversegrouping of songs. It's amazing.
So there's, there's somethingfor everybody in in that
playlist, so that'll be linkedin the show notes too. It's just
fun. So thank you. Nancy Amy,thank you so much for joining me
(46:14):
today. It has been a pleasuregetting to know you better and
hearing all the wisdom that youhave to offer and all about the
passionistas project.
Nancy Harrington (46:25):
Thank you so much. It's my pleasure.
Amy Harrington (46:27):
Thank you. Thank you for being a part of it.
Valerie Friedlander (46:29):
Thank you so much for listening. I hope
you enjoyed today's episode, andif you did, I have a little
request, which is, please leavea review for the podcast. It
doesn't have to be long. Itcould be just a couple words. In
Spotify, I think you can onlyjust click stars. So dropping
five stars is super helpfulbecause it tells the platform's
(46:51):
algorithm that you're enjoyingthe podcast and then encourages
it to share it with more peoplewho might be looking for a
podcast like this one. So if youcould take just a moment and do
that, I would be superappreciative, and everything
that we referenced in thisepisode is linked in the show
notes, so be sure to check thatout, and I will talk to you all
(47:15):
next time.
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