2042: From Burnout to Flow State: How to Achieve More Without Doing More

What happens when you've checked all the boxes? The career, the family, the financial success, the home. You've done everything you were supposed to do, and yet something still feels...off. Maybe you're exhausted. Maybe you've become so good at achieving that you don't actually know how to stop. Or maybe, as you move through midlife, you're starting to wonder: Is this really what I want? And who am I when I'm not busy getting things done? My guest today knows this reckoning intimately. Unni Turrettini is an author, speaker and former Wall Street professional whose latest book, Soulware https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GY27FLSV?lv=shuf&channelId=500&plpRedirect=mhFallback, explores how we can reconnect with ourselves in a world that increasingly rewards productivity, performance and external validation. Unni spent years in high-pressure legal and financial roles, pushing herself so hard that she once physically collapsed at a professional event. But even after building what looked like a picture-perfect life, she found herself questioning why she still felt unfulfilled. Today, we're exploring the difference between healthy ambition and what Unni calls fear-driven overachieving. We'll talk about why midlife can trigger a crisis of identity, how to stop operating in constant survival mode, and why giving yourself permission to work less might actually make you more creative, productive and even profitable. And in a very timely twist, we'll explore how Unni uses AI, including ChatGPT, to help reconnect with herself rather than become even more dependent on technology. How's midlife going? Fill out Farnoosh's survey https://www.jotform.com/build/262556781257063 and help shape the podcast in 2027. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• 1:42Speaker 05

  So Money, episode 2042, From Burnout to Flow State. How to Achieve More Without Doing More.

• 1:50Speaker 06

  You're listening to So Money with award-winning money guru Farnoosh Torabi. Each day, get a 30-minute dose of financial inspiration from the world's top business minds, authors, influencers, and from Farnoosh herself. Looking for ways to save on gas or double your double coupons? Sorry, you're in the wrong place. Seeking profound ways to live a richer, happier life? Welcome to So Money.

• 2:17Speaker 07

  I spoke with this man who has a law firm the other day, and he was telling me, Uni, even if I have told myself and I totally can shut down at 6:00 PM and not respond to emails, the fact that not responding makes me more stressed than actually just sitting down a couple of hours responding. And that's when it's like become the high achiever has become the overachiever. Where you just cannot shut it down. You cannot take a break from it.

• 2:48Speaker 05

  Welcome back to So Money, everybody. I'm Farnoosh. So what happens when you've checked off all the boxes? The career, family, financial success, the home? You've done everything you were supposed to do and something still feels off? Maybe you're just really tired. Maybe you've become so good at achieving that you don't actually know how to stop. Or maybe as you move through midlife, you're starting to wonder, is this really what I want? And who am I when I'm not busy getting things done? My guest today knows this reckoning intimately. Uni Turatini is an author, speaker, and former Wall Street professional, whose latest book, Soulware, explores how we can reconnect with ourselves in a world that increasingly rewards productivity, performance, and external validation.

• 3:33Speaker 05

  Uni spent years in high-pressure legal and financial roles, pushing herself so hard that she once physically collapsed at a professional event. But even after building what looked like a picture-perfect life, she found herself questioning why she still felt unfulfilled. Today, we're exploring the difference between healthy ambition and what Uni calls fear-driven overachieving. We'll talk about why midlife can trigger a crisis of identity, how to stop operating in constant survival mode, and why giving yourself permission to work less might actually make you more creative, productive, even profitable. And in a very timely twist, we'll explore how Uni uses AI, including ChatGPT, to help

• 4:14Speaker 05

  reconnect with herself rather than become even more dependent on technology. Here's Uni Turatini.

• 4:24Speaker 05

  Uni Turatini, welcome back to So Money and congrats on your latest book, Soulware.

• 4:30Speaker 07

  Thank you, Farnoosh. Oh, my gosh, I'm so happy to be back here talking with you.

• 4:36Speaker 05

  I've had the privilege of knowing you for a while. And even with this last book, you know, getting a little bit of the behind the scenes and the journey as it is, the long journey to coming out with a book. This is not your first time around the rodeo, but this one was a very special and especially challenging book for you personally. You kind of went through a metamorphosis. It was around 2025. You were ready to sit down and write the book, but it just wasn't happening, even though you had it all in your mind. You knew it, you were living it, but it just wasn't working. Tell us about that moment.

• 5:14Speaker 07

  Yeah, so this book, it's a very personal book. You know, my, my two other books, very sort of journalistic approach, research, outline, you know, kind of like coloring within the frame. And this was just not having it. I tried all the things, Farnoosh, with, you know, I hired editors. I was trying to be super strategic. Okay, let's figure out the outline. I knew what the book, I could feel it, I could see it, but it just would not come down on the page. And it was, that was actually a process over a couple of years.

• 5:54Speaker 07

  And then in January 2025, I was in this really different place where my husband and I had separated. He had moved out of the country. I'm in Norway with my two, with our two kids. And it was just like one of these times where, first of all, in Norway, January, it's dark. It's like pitch black 24/7. There's like no light and very like quiet, nothing happening right after the holiday season and everything. So I was kind of just like home a lot and having all this time. And I was like, this is the perfect time to write this book.

• 6:35Speaker 07

  And it just wouldn't have it that I was supposed to create an outline and to have the same sort of very intellectual process as I have had, you know, with the other former books. So it was really about a lot of letting go, a lot of surrendering to this process and really allowing myself to journal. It was really about like just letting myself write and journal without having a specific chapter in mind, without really knowing what it was going to look like. And so, and, and by continuing doing that, it just became the book. But I didn't know what it was going to look like.

• 7:19Speaker 07

  It was really, it was super uncomfortable, I would say.

• 7:24Speaker 05

  Yeah. Well, you gotta get uncomfortable. There's no, there's no success that comes with absolute comfort. This title of your book, Soulware, it's very clever, especially since it, it doesn't ignore AI. It actually, from what I understand, it encourages us to understand it and leverage it in a smart way. So tell us about just the definition of soulware and what you really want listeners to walk away with it. How is it different from, you know, personality, mindset, or mental health?

• 8:00Speaker 07

  Yeah. So soulware is really the operating system on the inside. It's how we operate. And so we've been functioning from overachieving, getting things done, external validation, just reaching one goal after the next. And we're, we don't even stop in between to, to feel good about ourselves and what we've accomplished. So that's, that's very also typical high achiever, just continuing, keep going, and it's never enough. So that's the operating. So as human beings, we have two modes. We are either in survival mode, which is fear-driven, or we're in what I call creator

• 8:43Speaker 07

  mode, which is the other operating system that I encourage people to move over into in my book, which is the other operating system. And it's where we are connected to ourselves, because that's when we, we tune in instead of tuning out and looking for external validation, external success, if you will. And it's really about connecting with who we truly are when we're not achieving. Like, who, like, who are we without those titles and the accolades and the degrees and the status, right? And that's the next challenge I see in our, in our society, individual as, as individuals

• 9:28Speaker 07

  and, and the whole, the whole global society is to not lose ourselves. And even more important now, with AI coming in even stronger, you know, one day it's going to, you know, super AI is going to, super intelligent AI is going to take over. We need to know who we are as human beings so that we don't become the machines. Or taken over by the machines.

• 9:53Speaker 05

  So a two-part follow-up to this. How do we make space to get back to who we are at the core? Because life kind of takes over, right? Your to-do list takes over, your checklist, all the things. And I would say it's a luxury to be able to slow down and really tune in to Uni when she was 12 years old, or Farnoosh when she was just getting out of college, bright-eyed and ambitious, and really pursuing things more from a place of desire.

• 10:25Speaker 05

  And then how does AI help us and complement that journey as opposed to becoming this tool that sort of numbs us and dumbs us down?

• 10:36Speaker 07

  Yeah. So first of all, I think you're absolutely right. It is a luxury to be able to slow down and to have some quiet space in your day. To me, that that takes a bit of discipline to I set aside time in my calendar. It's like scheduled in because otherwise I won't do it. So that's my time to to I meditate, I journal, I reflect, just getting off to a good start, shifting my state so that I go into my day, not in survival mode, not not in with this urgency, high stress, but in a state where I actually, it's it's also um how the brain functions, connecting, it's really about connecting

• 11:19Speaker 07

  my brain to the to the prefrontal cortex where which is the thinking brain, the creative center. Because in survival mode, the amygdala part of the brain takes over and hijacks and we in limit access to the prefrontal cortex, which means that just making decisions, just having clarity is so much harder, takes so much effort. So being connected is actually a superpower and it actually makes you more efficient. So I wouldn't say that it's about slowing down. I would say that it's really about operating in this different state where everything you do is super specific and

• 11:59Speaker 07

  super efficient. So I actually get more done when I'm in creator mode than when I'm in survival

• 12:07Speaker 05

  Interesting. And how does AI facilitate or augment your creator mode?

• 12:14Speaker 07

  So the way that I do this is I will often, not every day, but I, you know, when I feel that I'm a little stuck on something or when I'm like, because it's it's easy to get triggered by survival. It's it's so easy. It can be your mother-in-law, it can be a comment from someone on social media, whatever it is, it's so easy to get triggered and to feel that fear and just the amygdala takes over immediately. So sometimes I get stuck. And then what I do is I have then created a project, either, you know, I mean, I I use chat GPT Claude, you know, a little, you know, little bit of each.

• 12:50Speaker 07

  And I have this project then in my AI and it reminds me and I put in some prompts there and it just reminds me, I tell this, okay, so listen, this is what I'm dealing with. Help me get back, like, help me, give me some questions, like, help me to just have a little bit of a of a of challenging me of what I'm dealing with right now and how I can get back to my my creator mode, back to myself. And so it will, it will do that, actually. So I use AI very specifically for this reason. And it's not at all therapy, because, I mean, I I'm I'm super, I'm so open

• 13:31Speaker 07

  to therapy, coaching, all the things to become better humans and just better people. So I use that too. But in my, if I need just five minutes to help me get back, I find that AI is a is a great tool for that.

• 13:48Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's good. I like that you're so pragmatic with it because, you know, with a title like Soulware, someone might write it off as like, hmm, I don't know if I'm going to have actually like, a realistic framework here, because maybe I'm not somebody who's super, you know, into journaling or or meditation. But you're saying it's not either or, it's not, it's not analog or AI, it's how to bridge it. And first, though, get centered with who you are, who maybe you have forgotten you are. I think this is something that is such a pervasive theme in midlife. You get to a place where you're like, what, what, what, okay, like you're writing your book, you

• 14:30Speaker 05

  know, you had the perfect life, you know, the perfect home, all of these physical achievements that that signal that you have accomplished a lot, right? That you know what you're doing and you know what you want, the home, the family, the career. But, you know, there's a nagging voice in your mind that's like, um, what, what is this all for? If I'm still feeling not myself, why is midlife, you think, such a triggering place in our life spectrum where we're asking a lot of these questions as opposed to maybe in the beginning of life, when you could argue the stakes are still high, right? That first job, that second job, making good decisions early on

• 15:15Speaker 05

  in life can set you up for success, yet in midlife, it's when you really struggle with the decision making more than I would say ever.

• 15:21Speaker 07

  Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's, it's, in a way, it's just built like that, because in the beginning of our our careers in our life, we're we're getting prepared, we're building, right? We're building something. And our society also tells us, I mean, it's so clear, like, you know, go do this, go get your college degree, get your your MBA, get your law degree, whatever it is, right? And then, you know, get your job, work on Wall Street, do all these things. And, you know, and then you get married, and then you have the kids. And so we do all these things with the ultimate goal, at least it was for me, and I think it is for a lot of people, with when I have done all those things, then I'll be good.

• 16:06Speaker 05

  Right.

• 16:06Speaker 07

  Then I'll be happy, then I'll feel fulfilled. And for me, I remember so clearly at home with my, I was, I was taking a break from from work at that time, and I was with my two babies, and my son was playing, and my daughter was there, she wanted to play with him, but she was too little and he wouldn't have it. And she was kind of crying and I picked her up and I, you know, held her in my arms. And and with all the love that I have in my heart for my kids, because of course, I love them more than anything, I still felt so empty inside and so unfulfilled.

• 16:45Speaker 07

  And that was, I think that was really the moment for me when I was like, there's something wrong with me. Like, how how can I be in this position and have all the things I thought would make me happy? And still, I feel empty. And so for me, that's when my sort of soul journey began. And I, you know, I I went to therapy, I tried coaching, I read all the books in the self-help aisle. I, you know, I tried all sorts of things. And no one could really, it was really, really strange,

• 17:25Speaker 07

  like, no one could really tell me what was wrong with me. And I understand now that nothing was wrong with me, but that was a moment in my time where I actually had them, even though I was busy, because I was home with two small babies, and there's no harder work than that, seriously. I still had the the mental, like, had had time in my mind to reflect. And I think that's, I think life just brings us to these moments, and usually it's midlife, right?

• 17:55Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 17:55Speaker 07

  When we actually like, oh, but I've done all the things, I've reached that thing, I've done that, I have the kids, I have the husband, I have the the job. And still, that's when we start, and that's when a lot of people, you know, buy the sports car or have a facelift or, you know,

• 18:13Speaker 05

  Right. It's an expensive, it can be, and a costly

• 18:20Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 18:20Speaker 05

  period in your life, actually physically costly, like it can, you know, show up in your credit card statement, because you're right, you tried to mask what's going on and and heal what's going on with these more material things, more societally accepted markers of success. So with that in mind, if someone is still in the throes of feeling as though there's something missing, not themselves, they have all the things, you said, you know, at that point for you, you thought that there was something wrong with you. What is the reframe that you want someone to have in that moment so that they can start a more constructive journey to healing and rebuilding in some cases?

• 19:05Speaker 07

  For me, anyway, and and I'm not saying that this is the solution to everyone, but what we tend to do in our society is that when then we go to the doctor, and I did too, like, what's wrong with me? There's something wrong, you know, and then the doctor is like, well, you you're probably depressed. So here, how like, take, take a little bit of medication, something. And I, for me, that wasn't the right choice. I'm not saying that it's not right for for for other people. But it's, you know, and also, I think we're trying to escape from our own feelings, from really sitting close with, because we have to go through those moments. It's a little bit of a dark night

• 19:47Speaker 07

  of a soul, where you have to go through the discomfort of just sitting with yourself and all the stuff that comes up, like all the stuff, like the dislike, the sadness, the things that you regret, the things that maybe your life didn't turn out the way you were were hoping it would be, right? I mean, 50% of people, I think the statistic is now, get divorced. So there's a lot of like, people, you know, there's a lot of grief, a lot of sadness, a lot of regrets. Maybe your career didn't go the way you you wanted it to go. All these things, we have to actually deal with them without trying to numb it with either with medication or or alcohol. You know,

• 20:26Speaker 07

  I alcohol for me was like, I love having fun. So and there were always a lot of parties in my life, in my, in my, around me, right? So there was always like dinner parties, friends, always alcohol involved. And and all of that was all fun. And I never had a problem with alcohol. It still numbed me and took me away from actually sitting, sitting with myself and and feeling all the things. So I think taking that, like, going through that feeling and having someone to talk to about it, like, really, and AI can be someone that you, like, not the one, but someone, but,

• 21:07Speaker 07

  like, you can, you can also chat with AI about these things as well, because, and a therapist or a coach, someone to like, sort out what you're actually dealing with. And but instead of, but do that instead of not dealing with it, not feeling it. I would say that's a good start.

• 21:28Speaker 05

  You have spent a decade in high-pressure legal and finance roles. You worked on Wall Street, in New York City. What was the exact moment you realized, this is what you write about in your book, that your drive was survival dressed up as ambition, not passion?

• 21:47Speaker 07

  I think there were several moments for sure, but I had, I remember so vividly, I was at this, it was kind of like a cocktail dinner. Everybody was standing up and it was professional. It was in a professional capacity. And I was talking with someone who, you know, like a potential client and I passed out.

• 22:14Speaker 05

  Passed out?

• 22:16Speaker 07

  Yeah, completely, just like fell, passed out, waking up, everyone's standing, you know, over me. I was super embarrassed. I could not believe it. And I wanted to continue, you know, staying on and getting up on my feet. And that was like, no, no, no, you're going home. So that was, and I, I was kind of like, okay, that, that's a one-off, you know, you know, never happen again.

• 22:40Speaker 05

  Fluke.

• 22:41Speaker 07

  It did happen. Fluke, exactly. And just realizing that I was so exhausted, but as, and I write about this in my book, about high achievers, and the thing about high achievers, and you're one of them for a new show, like, cause, cause I'm, you know, the, what I know about you, is that we can continue for a really long time. It's like a high functioning burnout, I would say. Like we, we just keep going, keep going, and we just pick ourselves up and we keep going. And I think that's also very, you know, New York, you know, that's also like very that Wall Street, that finance, that, you know, what we do in these big cities

• 23:25Speaker 07

  and what we do in our professions in our, in our lives.

• 23:27Speaker 05

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• 26:48Speaker 00

  Hey, we're Nick and Jack, hosts of The Best One Yet.

• 26:50Speaker 01

  Behind every episode, there's research, emails, spreadsheets, and our shared Google Doc, the headline hammer.

• 26:55Speaker 00

  With Google Workspace with Gemini, Google's AI is built right into the premium versions of tools we already use, like Gmail, Docs, and Sheets. No new tools or extra logins, just personalized AI for the way we work.

• 27:06Speaker 01

  That means less time on the work around the work and more time finding the stories worth talking about.

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  Get AI tools for work. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini at go.o.gle/workspacewithgemini. That's go.o.gle/workspacewithgemini.

• 27:23Speaker 05

  How do you define high achiever? Because the opposite is low achiever, and I don't think anybody wants to be that, you know, like, everybody wants to be a high achiever, but when does it kind of veer into toxic, toxic high achieving?

• 27:36Speaker 07

  So I realized that when I was writing the book, because I was talking about high achievers, but what, and, and, and I love, don't get me wrong, I love the high achiever, the high achievers that I work with and that I, that I serve and that I speak to in my community on social media. I love these people because these people are so, you can count on them. They will always show up. They, they fix the thing. When everyone else panics, they, they just figure it out and they get going, right? But the, the high achiever can really quickly turn into the overachiever. And that's when that mode, that's when I, that's when they get into this survival

• 28:17Speaker 07

  mode, and that's the default mode. That's when everything is, is urgent, like constantly. Everything is, has to be done yesterday. And they can't stop, because if they stop, it feels super comfortable. So I, I spoke with this, this, um, this, this man who has a law firm the other day, and he was telling me, Uni, even if I have told myself, and I totally can, um, like shut down at 6:00 PM and not respond to emails, the fact that not responding makes me more stressed than actually just sitting down a couple of hours responding. And that's when it's like become, the high achiever has become the overachiever,

• 29:01Speaker 07

  where you just cannot shut it down. You cannot take a break from it. So the goal that I say, so it's like, it's like fear-driven. It's like never enough. That's what, that's what the, the high achiever in that sort of, that overachieving mode goes into, if that makes sense.

• 29:21Speaker 05

  It does. I mean, listen, in midlife, I've had this reckoning with myself, and I think your book really applies a lot to people who are at the center of their lives, right? Where they've accomplished a lot, but there's still so much more ahead. And we know there's sort of the quarter life crisis in your early twenties, but the midlife crisis is real. And the, the costs are even higher if you can't figure things out for yourself. So how are you practicing soulware in your life? Give us some concrete examples of how you have, even going back to that early day, early days of holding your babies and feeling that emptiness to today. What were some of the

• 30:03Speaker 05

  shifts that you made or the, just the awakenings that you had?

• 30:09Speaker 07

  I think the biggest awakening for me, and that is something that I've discovered and come to in recent years, is that I am not more efficient or more productive or more profitable when I overwork. So being constantly in that work mode, because I think my addiction, if anything, is to work. I can work 24/7, like really. I can, if, if there's, you know, if I don't need to bring my daughter to, to some sort of activity or, you know, I need to go grocery shopping, whatever, I can, I can sit and work. I also

• 30:50Speaker 07

  love what I do. So I can just spend that time working, but it doesn't make me any more money. It doesn't make me more efficient or more productive. So I've really come to this conclusion for me, that I actually have to set limits for myself, also working for myself. It's a little different when you work for someone else, which I used to do. But setting limits is like, okay, my working hours are from then to then, and that's it. That's and then after that, or and before that, um, I'm not working. I'm actually giving myself then that space, which also makes me much more efficient when I am working.

• 31:34Speaker 07

  Because, you know, when I have the time, I will take the time to finish something. So I really implement for me those sort of white spaces before and after where I, um, I like movement. For me, movement is helping me get into a right state of mind, a right state in my body as well. So go, you know, taking a walk with trees, you know, just nature a little bit.

• 32:00Speaker 05

  Mm hmm.

• 32:00Speaker 07

  Yeah, exactly. Meditate, I meditate in the morning. I love meditation. I love journaling, so I actually love that. But movement is a really good way as well. So really taking the, taking a little bit of time, and it doesn't have to be a lot. But for me, just that, and it's, and, and when you think of it that way, that I'm actually more productive with less time, that also, I don't feel any guilt for not, um, taking a bit of time for me to reconnect with me. So I think that's the biggest sort of way shifting how I function

• 32:41Speaker 07

  has been that, just not allowing myself to, you know, for the working hours to go way into the evening, for example.

• 32:50Speaker 05

  Yeah, and being really intentional about it. Um, because as a workaholic, and I can probably, uh, join you in that, in that domain, it's really tempting. Someone's like, can you do this task? And you're like, watch me do 10 of it, 10 of them, you know, in under five minutes. I'm a task master. And really putting maybe intentional pockets of time in your schedule for yourself to do the things that help you reset, whether that's even just napping or going for a walk or doing something, I think, offline, can we safely say? Detached detachment.

• 33:27Speaker 07

  For sure. Absolutely. Like, I have a dog. And for me, I know, and I have a Boston Terrier, and he is a little hyperactive and he very clingy and he wants attention. So I think there is a reason, there is a deeper reason why I have this type of dog. Because, you know, when I'm with him, and he demands that I play with him, when I'm playing with him and spending time with him, I like, dogs have this amazing ability to just be in the present moment, right? So when I'm with him, it's like, and, and this actually, this is scientifically proven, that when we spend time with animals and we, we, we, you know, we, we cuddle with them and, and we play with them,

• 34:12Speaker 07

  our nervous system regulates. Because they are so regulated. And when another being, another person is very regulated, we get regulated because that is, is transferable. When someone is super stressed around us and super agitated, we get agitated too. So it's like, goes both ways. So it's actually really good to have, for me, I discovered that my dog is a really good, uh, nervous system regulator, right? But another person can be that too.

• 34:44Speaker 05

  Mm hmm. And so what did your soulware metamorphosis, if we can say, kind of, what did it bring you home to? Because you write about that in the book, that you're not lost. You just sort of have gotten too far from home, home base, if you will. So, so in concrete terms, what were those, what, what was that state for you that you had been getting, that you had gone adrift from?

• 35:10Speaker 07

  So that state is what I call, that's what I call creator mode. So that, so that's the other state. So we're either in survival or we're in creator mode.

• 35:19Speaker 05

  So how did you get back? What was creator mode for you?

• 35:23Speaker 07

  So creator mode for me is when I am at peace with myself, when I'm really connected, just connected with me, and I feel no sense of urgency. And I can just, in a way, just sit there. It's, many people call it flow state. It's the same thing. So you can just be, and I can still work. I can still be in communication with people. I can, I can work, I can write, I can, I can send out a proposal, I can be on a call and be in that state of flow. It's just that what, what happens in that state of flow, it feels really good, first of all. You feel really connected. And you're also very attuned to other people, what they're feeling, what they're,

• 36:07Speaker 07

  you know, so you're picking up on, I would say, better quality information. It's really interesting, actually. This is something that, um, the CIA teaches their agents before they send them out into the field to gather intelligence, which is information. So what they do is that they teach them to detach themselves from their physical body, their, their emotions, their mental state. And from that detached state, put themselves into someone else's shoes and then really deeply understand where that person is coming from, their pains, their, their traumas, their desires, their intentions. Exactly, yeah, exactly. So, uh, so, you know, but doing that, it just gives you access to better information

• 36:51Speaker 07

  because you're, because you're, you, you're so connected. You're actually, when you're in fight or flight, that's when all that matters to, to your brain in that time is to scan for danger. So you're constantly scanning for danger, keeping the body safe.

• 37:06Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 37:07Speaker 07

  But, but any information that is not useful to keep your body safe, it just gets discarded. So we miss out on things. We miss out on opportunities. We miss out on, on, um, just other people's, how they're feeling, how they're doing, and we can become, you know, kind of cold and egocentric and, and just not the best versions of ourselves. So to me, when I'm connected, I feel very much at peace. I'm very, I'm much more generous with myself, but also with other people. I'm a much better mom and, and, you know, just friend and family member because I'm actually there.

• 37:49Speaker 07

  I'm present and I can pick up on, when my daughter comes home from school and something happened, you know, before, you know, when I was like, super stressed, I just wouldn't pick up on it. But now I'm like, mm, tell me, what happened?

• 38:03Speaker 05

  Yeah. I tell you, being in midlife with all of its travails, I think one of the benefits to this thesis that you have around kind of, um, getting more in tune with yourself and reprioritizing your life, we know, because we have the life experience, what needs our immediate attention versus what can wait? And we forget that some things can wait. We tend to, if you're like that workaholic, high achiever, everything, to your point earlier, needs to be done yesterday. But I think when we can acknowledge the patterns in our lives, when, for example, maybe we did urgently address something and then realized, like, it could have taken four more days.

• 38:47Speaker 05

  Like, I remember, you know, um, when I was writing my last book, I was like, really strict with the deadlines that my editor had given me. I was like, she said it's due April 21st, it has to be done April 21st. And I went through Herculean efforts to get it to, but it was, I, like, a week or two weeks before, I was like, I don't know if I can do this. And I asked for an extension. And you know what? She was like, sure, I'm going to be on vacation for the next month anyway. I won't even be able to read your book, even if you submit it by April 21st. And I was like, what? So that, you know, those moments in my life have all been teachable moments where, yeah, in your mind, something seems ablaze, but it's actually not.

• 39:30Speaker 05

  And you don't even know until you kind of go through it and learn the hard way. So now in your 40s, now in your 50s, when you're trying to give yourself more permission to recalibrate your day to day life so that you have more time for yourself, so that you can feel more joy and, and be more creative modeed, creative mode minded, that, um, take inventory of these little lessons that we've learned along the way. Maybe we've, we've, we've, we've shelved them, we've forgotten about them, but remind yourself of them because it is information and data for how to design your life and, and what, again, needs our attention today versus in six weeks. I tell my kids this too, I try to train them on this.

• 40:13Speaker 05

  When my kids come to me with anxiety because, um, they're worried about a test or they're worried about, um, FOMO or whatever, all the fears, right? I'm like, do you remember the last time you were afraid of this? This, not this particular thing, but when you felt this fear, right? What happened? And they'll say, a lot of times they'll say, I don't know, I don't think anything, right? It wasn't like a memory, nothing that would have stood out to them that has become a core memory, let's just say. So I'm like, okay, remember that. And, and maybe you can examine this moment in your life a little differently now because you know, because life has taught you that it's not that important. Or bad things won't happen.

• 40:56Speaker 05

  So, uh, Uni, thank you so much for coming and, um, a global visitor to So Money.

• 41:03Speaker 07

  Thank you so much for having me.

• 41:05Speaker 05

  Absolutely, you're based in Norway and congrats on World Cup. I know we, Norway didn't finish first, but it was a very exciting time for Norway there for a moment and.

• 41:14Speaker 07

  So exciting.

• 41:16Speaker 05

  So exciting. We actually had the team here in my town in Montclair staying. It was so, so cool. I really miss, I really miss it. Was, is World Cup is big in Norway, I'm sure, because of your team, but.

• 41:26Speaker 07

  It is, but especially this year because we made it. And I, I, I think it was like almost 30 years since the last time we made it to the World Cup. So it was a big deal for Norway, yeah.

• 41:36Speaker 05

  And listeners, viewers, if you're not following Uni online, please follow her on Instagram. I, I love your videos. They're so clear and action driven and fun to watch. You really are in the flow state, I have to say. And I'm learning because I'm trying to figure out my Instagram. I'm always trying to figure out my Instagram strategy. Up until now, it's been not, to not have a strategy, but I think that's got to change in the new year. But, um, thanks for all the inspiration and, uh, the help.

• 42:06Speaker 07

  Oh, my gosh, thank you so much, Farnoosh. And, I mean, you have been such an inspiration for me all these years. So it's such a pleasure to be here talking with you. Thank you.

• 42:18Speaker 05

  Congrats. Thanks so much to Uni Tarotini for joining us. I've got links to all her work, her book and her website and her Instagram in our show notes. Check it out. And if you'd like to watch this interview, a reminder, we are on YouTube. I'll see you back here on Friday for Ask Farnoosh, and I hope your day is so money.

• 42:48Speaker 00

  Hey, we're Nick and Jack, hosts of The Best One Yet. Behind every episode, there's research, emails, spreadsheets, and our shared Google Doc, the headline hammer. With Google Workspace with Gemini, Google's AI is built right into the premium versions of tools we already use, like Gmail, Docs, and Sheets. No new tools or extra logins, just personalized AI for the way we work. That means less time on the work around the work and more time finding the stories worth talking about. Get AI tools for work. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini at goo.gle/workspacewithGemini. That's goo.gle/workspacewithGemini.

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