335: Embracing Authentic Aging with Tosca Reno: Resilience, Renewal, and Rediscovering Your Self-Worth

00:00:00 - Ella

Hey, you're on air with Ella, and this is a very special day for me because I have on the show today Tosca Reno and Tosca, the last time we spoke on the air was maybe 2015, 2016. It's been a minute.

00:00:14 - Tosca Reno

It's been a minute. And it's been a COVID minute, too.

00:00:18 - Ella

A few things have happened in that minute quite a bit, you guys, to give you some context, when Tosca and I originally spoke, we were talking about our journeys. I was a newly minted 40 something year old. You were in your 50s. We're not so far apart in age. We were just sort of early entrance to those decades, and we were talking about the transitions we experienced and taking care of our bodies and that sort of thing. Well, Tosca, I ain't in my 40s anymore. How about you?

00:00:51 - Tosca Reno

No, I'm looking at a birthday pretty soon that should mark me as a senior citizen, but I'm not playing that game.

00:00:58 - Ella

This is one of those shows. I'm going to be incredibly shallow for just one moment. You immediately have to click on the show notes or go to Tosca's Instagram page and check out this hot woman. She looks absolutely amazing. You are my absolute inspiration. And if anyone tells you you look good for your age, you have my permission to punch them in the face.

00:01:23 - Tosca Reno

I know. For your age. What does that mean?

00:01:26 - Ella

Right? I mean, we're a positive show, but there's a line, Tosca. There's a line.

00:01:31 - Tosca Reno

There's a line. And I think that line is becoming ever more present because there's more of us that are standing at the vanguard of this. What I think is a new energy around women, aging and fat conversation.

00:01:43 - Ella

That's exactly right. And to be honest, that's the non shallow side of why I've always been so attracted to you. I love your energy. I love your refusal to play into whatever society says is supposed to happen and embracing who you are. And this antiaging thing, not for me. This pro living, pro energy, and not going quietly into the night thing, that's for me. And that's what I see in you. And that's why I admire you so much.

00:02:15 - Tosca Reno

I think anti does a disservice, or antiaging does a disservice to the people who have left this world too soon. Like, I have a son who passed at 24. He would love to have aged a bit longer, so I don't use that term either. I feel like what we want is a long health span living in the fullest expression of ourselves rather than let me get myself this skinny and this hot, but I can't move and I can't think.

00:02:43 - Ella

Tosca, tell us who you are and what you do.

00:02:51 - Tosca Reno

All right. Well, I sort of exploded onto the scene with the eat clean diet books. My friends and my followers call me the OG, the original gangster. In fact, so did Dr. Oz. And, yeah, so I'm known for being the founder and the person who instigated the entire eat clean movement some 20 years ago. Up until that point, people were talking about it, but they weren't really doing it in the fullest expression of itself. Now we're here to stay.

00:03:18 - Ella

Yeah. You are a category inventor in my book. What are you known for now?

00:03:27 - Tosca Reno

What I'm known for now is probably that I had a massive amount of acclaim and success. I sold 4 million copies of my books, and now I'm on the reinvention tour. Yes, Madonna did it first. But I'm finding my way to a different expression of self, because I feel when the universe delivers you a series of events and you're asked to pay attention, those are there for a reason. And that is helping me to evolve to this next level of self. And that's been my journey for the last, I'm going to say, decade, really. It's been a lot of work, a lot of looking under the hood at the dark.

00:04:06 - Ella

Appear. Fortunately, and unfortunately, that appears to be the only way to do it.

00:04:10 - Tosca Reno

Yeah.

00:04:11 - Ella

Tosca, you are a hot commodity in the wellness industry. People want you to come on and talk about your strike sugar programs and talk about the microbiome and talk about metabolic catalysts. I want to talk about you, and you're such a champ. You're such a sport. Because I want to talk about Tosca. I love having people who are showing what's possible and willing to tell the truth about it. I love that combination. And that's why I wanted to share a little bit more Tosca energy on the show today.

00:04:44 - Tosca Reno

That's going to be fun.

00:04:46 - Ella

Well, let's go back just a little bit. Okay. Let's go back and dive into your story just a little bit, because, I don't know. I'm just going to surmise that you did not enter the world and know that you were destined for fame and fortune and glory and all the roses. What was early life like for you?

00:05:08 - Tosca Reno

Oh, gosh. Early life. I was born to very strict Dutch roman catholic immigrant parents. They were part of the massive post war immigration that occurred from Holland or the Netherlands to Canada. And so my parents were among those 1.4 million people. I believe at the time that diaspora, they had very little. My mother came with the sewing machine and the intention to take care of her kids and my dad the same. So we lived a very modest life. However, the foundation of that life was always. Can sound like a terrible thing to say, like peasant food. They did not buy the boxed packaged crap, they didn't tap into the media. I didn't know what a rice Krispy was while all my friends were eating them night and day. So I was a little bit out of the loop there. But at the same time, a very strict life. And I was athletic as well. I played soccer, I swam, all kinds of stuff. But a strict life can also put the lid on a very energetic person. And I've been described as having enough energy that I feel like a tornado. But I was probably squished into a teacup and so I had to explode and explore and get myself into trouble. And yeah, my heaviest I weighed. I remember that day, looking at the scale, 204 pounds. Ella, I didn't know what had happened to me.

00:06:35 - Ella

But you weren't happy. I'm going to go ahead and guess you weren't happy. I know you got married. Did you get married in your 20s, Tosca?

00:06:43 - Tosca Reno

I did. I got married early because again, I was of that ilk where you went to school, you got married, you had the kids, you just behaved yourself. And these were, I call these programs. So we're programmed to participate in other people's beliefs and stories about what they think should happen to you. And I didn't have what I would call the wherewithal to question that because my parents were also extremely strict and once in a while a little bit violent. So let's just park that there. But I really wasn't willing to challenge myself that way. Yes, I was miserable. Miserable. And then I married basically someone who was very much like my parents. And so I lived with domestic abuse until the day that I had taken enough of it. That was 17 years. Not fun.

00:07:33 - Ella

Oh, my word. I feel like when I immerse myself in your story and when I hear you talk about your story, I feel like, in a way, your life almost began at 40. In a sense. Obviously, we're not discounting the experiences and the lessons learned, but the real Tosca started emerging around the age of 40. I point that out for a couple of reasons. One is there are a lot of people listening who feel like they haven't peaked yet. They're still, like, waiting for their moment. And I don't intend on ever peaking, because on the other side of a peak, it's a decline. But humor me here and tell me a little bit about what that awakening was like for you and how did you experience it?

00:08:18 - Tosca Reno

I experienced it as a world of possibilities. In my dreams, I saw myself as an amazing Olympic figure skater and all the lights were on me. But in my real life, I was so far from that. So I literally thought that raising my children, which is a beautiful thing to be a mother, I have absolutely no regrets about that. But I thought, is that all there is to life? Because I felt this spark inside of me that said, no, there's something more. So when I began to really live my life at the age of 40 and dip my toe into the vast world of opportunities, I couldn't have imagined the things that would have happened, that were going to happen to me. I just couldn't imagine. And they did happen. I had no idea. So I remember having this feeling driving down the highway one day going, so many possibilities. There's so many things I can do. I had no idea. I don't have to follow the prescribed path of all these other spellcasters. No, thank you. Yeah, it was like I came alive.

00:09:19 - Ella

I don't believe in what the Internet tries to sell us when it's like. And then the one thing happened and it changed my life forever. I wish that were true. I wish it were that simple because it's so neat and it's so tidy. What I'm imagining is that you had a series of events that started opening your eyes to things. Could you share some of the highlights with us? Like, what were some of the catalysts for change for you? I imagine you got a divorce. That's going to go out on a limb.

00:09:49 - Tosca Reno

That's right. The Keystone move. I decided that I would stand up for myself because if I didn't, what I was showing my three girls at the time was something dangerous and I knew the pattern would repeat. So, yes, I went to school. I became a teacher and there was a seminal moment on the playground as a grade one teacher, that's what I was doing where I met this man who would bring his daughter to school every day. And I was shocked that this man was bringing his daughter to school. But one day he engaged me in a conversation about fitness. And of course, I have no idea who this man is, no clue at all. And I say something daft like, oh, I run and I count my calories. And then he just laughs out loud and says, and if I were a betting man, I would take a nickel off every person who ever said that I'd be rich and goes, I'm not rich, but I know that that does not work. And that was the moment when, for the first time, I dared to think differently about what I was doing or how I might get myself to become a lean person, because he issued a challenge. And it turns out this person, of course, was Robert Kennedy, who brought bodybuilding to North America. I honestly no idea. Living under a rock, he brought Arnold.

00:11:03 - Ella

Schwarzenegger and women's fitness to North American mainstream. Is that fair to say?

00:11:09 - Tosca Reno

That is. And eating. Yes, yes, together we did that. So, yes, that is completely fair. So here I am, this silly little grade one teacher, teaching his daughter, I know nothing about fitness, but, oh, no, look at me. And he just laughed at me.

00:11:32 - Ella

Well, he must have laughed at you in a charming way, because you married him, Tosca.

00:11:40 - Tosca Reno

Well, first I let him boss me around because he became my trainer, because the challenge he issued was all right. If you think that you can get yourself fit, then I'm going to issue you a challenge. You're going to compete in a bodybuilding contest at the age of. Took me a year to get ready. 41. Compete at 42. And you're just going to have to train as I train you and eat as I tell you to. At this point, we're not in a relationship. He's coaching me, and he hates coaching people, especially women. So he took me on, and I stood on stage in Las Vegas, my very first show as a bodybuilding competitor. I blew my mind. But the magic of the journey was he showed me something that I had never physically experienced in my body before, which was the capacity to literally change the function and shape of your physique through food and training. And that's really the root of eating clean. It just blew my mind, because suddenly I remember one day, at first, I didn't know what a triceps was. He just laughed at me for that. But then I remember one day, he'd like me to train in jog bra and shorts. Because you have to see your body, you have to get back into your body to know it. And when you're a victim of domestic abuse, you don't want to be in your body. You put the wall up. So to take my. I can feel the feelings of it right here, right now, to take my shirt off and just be in a jog bra and shorts, felt dangerous to me. And yet I trusted him enough that when I looked in the mirror, I could see a new aspect of myself. I could see muscles, and I could see tone, and I no longer saw obesity, which was, as I say, I can feel the emotional experience of that journey, even.

00:13:34 - Ella

Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of women who are not victims of acute trauma, capital T trauma, they still can channel those feelings, Tosca. They've been so cut off from their bodies that it is a terribly vulnerable thing, not even to view themselves, as you describe, but even to go to a gym and to be exercising in person with other people feels terribly exposed. How do you counsel people in that position?

00:14:07 - Tosca Reno

Well, I was that person. So I do remember going to the gym first and being literally cloaked. Like, I wore the baggiest t shirt and the biggest, baggiest pants, because I didn't want anybody to validate the evidence that I already was aware of, that I was obese. So I would go in the farthest corner of the gym where there weren't too many people hanging around, and certainly no meatheads, no bodybuilders, or I would go in the farthest treadmill and just, I'm hiding over there. But I remember as my body changed, my view of myself changed, and I could see that I wasn't the person I always had believed myself to be. So I started taking center stage. Hello. Let me just come to the gym now with my cute little outfits on, and watching the experience of changing myself, not only in the mirror, because it happens in front of a mirror, if you're paying attention, but also as you get to know people in the gym, where they can see your strength building and they see something new. And I remember a woman who had been formerly me, like someone who had come to the gym also in her baggy clothes, hiding in the corner. And I was very compassionate for that person because I was her. But I could see that if I kept up my work, I would inspire others to do the same.

00:15:27 - Ella

Yeah. That's actually what appeals to me so much about your journey. And here you are, though. You are competing in bodybuilding at the age of 42, which I have to say is still just a shocking thing to consider for me, anyway. And I think that's so badass. But you come in the top five, your career starts to take off. Robert either started or already had the magazine oxygen, which again, category first, a fitness magazine for women. Am I getting that right?

00:16:04 - Tosca Reno

Absolutely right. Oxygen. Yeah. So he had begun it, but it came into its heyday when I became on the scene. And he noticed because of that win, we got an avalanche of emails because it was email in the day, right? And letters. And the response was, oh, my God, we have permission at the age of 40 to not be our 65 year old grandmother type. We actually can show up in this way. And that's what breathed new life into oxygen magazine. So Bob would invite other women of my age who were now also, I think I was swimming upstream at that time. Nobody was doing that. Nobody was competing, and I was doing it. And that's where raise the bar came from. And it became. Oxygen was the most widely read magazine, fitness magazine for women. And then I got a cover and it just exploded even more.

00:16:55 - Ella

And raise the bar was your column.

00:16:57 - Tosca Reno

Yeah

00:16:59 - Ella

Yeah. Okay. Okay. So you are now having this Cinderella experience. You're fully in your ballgown. You are collecting accolades. What was that like? Did you have a complete cognitive dissidence between who you thought you were and who you became, or did your transformation? Was it as mental and spiritual as it was physical?

00:17:24 - Tosca Reno

Let's say that I couldn't believe, in many cases, what was happening to me. It was a lot, but I remained grounded. I wouldn't say that I had a full spiritual awakening until a couple of years later. So that will come into our conversation. You can ask me, but I remember feeling a tremendous sense of responsibility that there are women out there like me who need help and I don't want them to suffer. So I'd love to really share my story from that point of view. I didn't become the person who was like, oh, look at know. Because Instagram wasn't a thing so much then, social media and stuff. So I had a big Facebook following, but it wasn't the way it is today. So it all felt very authentic. I still have copies of letters that I've written to clients and they will write me back and say, look, you wrote this to me, or it signed all my books. It just felt like a beautiful blossoming that probably should have happened a long time ago, but now I had the right context and the right Bengali to teach me.

00:18:29 - Ella

And I wish, in a sense, that that's where it stayed, but it did not. Homeostasis, right? Never does. But you actually had quite a dramatic conclusion to what I called your Cinderella experience. And I don't mean that in a cheeky way at all. Tosco what happened in your personal life, talk to us about that.

00:18:53 - Tosca Reno

So the ride was incredible. I wrote 17 books, became a New York Times bestselling author was the star of my own Gemini award winning TV show, which in Canada is similar to, oh, God, what do you call it in the States? What is it? Emmy. That was crazy. And yet it all felt like, I can do this. And then in 2008, we had the decline, of course, the financial decline. And because many of our magazines were published in the United States as well as Canada and around the world, we started to get hit by that. Now, what was weird is my books were published by Robert Kennedy Publishing, but Tosca Reno's books were skyrocketing. From 2007 to 2012, we sold 4 million copies of my books. You can do the math on how much money that might be. 2011, my Robert's son, who was my stepson, passed because we had become married, of course, and he was 24. These were complications from a car accident. So that was a tragedy which seemed to spark a series of tragedies, because a year later, Robert, who was the love of my life, truly he was, for me, someone who just was able to see what I couldn't see in myself and brought the best out in me. He passed suddenly from cancer. I was just absolutely shocked. But I was left with the business, and this was all new to me. I'm not a publisher. I don't know how to do these things. I can write, I can be in front of the camera. But anyway, so from there, in 2013, I was forced to bankrupt the publishing business, because he had been bankrupt even prior to declaring it. So now that was not a personal bankruptcy, that was a business bankruptcy, but that left me with tremendous amounts of debt. His debts, which I had to pay, the business debts, I had to resolve the bankruptcy. I had to figure out what to do with all of our children, namely the magazines and books. And it was a horrendous, brought me to my knees apocalypse. It was horrendous, and it affected my children, myself, my self esteem. Now, with the grace of time, the benefit of the softening of those hard edges, I realize that this was something that I had to experience. This was given to me to develop a greater sense of awareness of what others might be going through, because you can't live a Cinderella life all the time. And I had it. So what is this learning that I now must take? Yeah.

00:21:28 - Ella

And that brings us much closer to the current timeline. Right? And as you start to near this decade that we're presently in, I just see such a peaceful energy from you still vitality and exuberance and power and energy, and yet a peace and a wisdom that you clearly, clearly earned can you tell me about this really second profound awakening in your life and what it comprised?

00:22:02 - Tosca Reno

Oh, yes. So thank you for that. I will say that I went kicking and screaming, my first act, when I realized, just if I can say this shit storm that I was facing, you.

00:22:17 - Ella

Can say it, but if you whisper it, it's much better.

00:22:21 - Tosca Reno

Okay. There's a lot of shoveling of manure. The first act I did just. You can picture this. I went into Robert's closet with all his fancy schmancy jackets and clothes because he did love to dress. And I threw them all on the driveway, and I got in the truck and I just drove over them because I was so mad that he had betrayed me. And then I picked up all those clothes and I put them in the truck and I brought them to some thrift store or whatever. I'm like, I can't live with this stuff.

00:22:46 - Ella

He betrayed you by dying? Is that what you mean?

00:22:50 - Tosca Reno

He could have died. What he didn't do was he didn't tell me what I was going to face, and he knew it got you. And I knew that he knew it because I did the forensic accounting to see. Okay, what is going on here? Okay. So anyway, that's that. So the day came, and this was actually after I appeared on the Dr. Oz show. The day came when I realized the full weight of the debt and the task that I was facing, that I literally became catatonic. My daughter came to visit. She's a naturopathic doctor, and she was literally talking to me. And it was as if I was in one of those slow mode. I couldn't understand. I couldn't answer, I couldn't make my mouth work. And I realized I'm going to need some help here. And that is when I began to explore this spiritual, or, if you will, the emotional aspect of wellness. Because the definition of wellness according to the World Health Organization is eating clean and exercise. But it's also emotional self care, because this and your heart need to come with you. And I was shut down. And now I began that painful process of opening up. And that took me ten years. There was a lot of fugly crying. There was a lot of howling, not at the moon, just like, of pain. I tried plant medicine because I know that that is the BS excavator, where there are some things that are so deeply stuck in the psyche that you need to get them out, which I did.

00:24:18 - Ella

Wait, what did you try? We just talked about this, and I'm fascinated by the topic. Okay.

00:24:24 - Tosca Reno

So I tried psilocybin mushrooms with a guide.

00:24:27 - Ella

Psilocybin. Okay.

00:24:32 - Tosca Reno

I did it five times, the very last journey being absolutely, I pretty sure that I burst a black, vile energy out of the front of my face. People who thought would claim the same, but then afterwards, to soften that experience is very traumatic. I did it with one of my friends who's a guide, who's an energy worker, and we did it together in a field on a summer day. And it was just absolutely breathtaking. So I will remain with that one, but all the work was necessary. Then I went to Hawaii for three months to live on the big island, but not in tourist country. I lived among the locals and went to a place called South Point, and we worked with shaman healer, which is twelve. It's five d to twelve d energy. It's wild. Like, if she doesn't want you there, she'll kick you out. And this is where I would say I had my most profound experiences, because I was able to reach this point of ascension or expansion without plant medicine. That's how much I was ready to embrace that other world, that spiritual, emotional self.

00:25:42 - Ella

Yeah.

00:25:43 - Tosca Reno

And then I knew that some of the work that I had to do in Hawaii had to do with my mom, because our relationship had been contentious, but I knew she was dying. I had seen it in a vision. And so, for a good year and a half, I did all this work in relation to my mother last year. This time last year, she was passing. Okay, I hope you can hear this correctly. It was a beautiful experience as far as death goes, because I was not in fear, and because I had left nothing unresolved with her from my heart to hers, I gave her my love, my respect, my acknowledgment. I know you did the best you could. It wasn't easy, and sometimes it wasn't fun on my end. But I see you. I see what you did, who you are, and that really helped me. Whereas I have three siblings who. It was like porcupine quills came out. They were angry, and they didn't know what to do with themselves. So I'm so grateful for that. And this is, I think what this emotional piece is all about is this moment now of gratitude, where I can say that was a really tough and public debacle and a painful experience. But now I know something that I didn't know before.

00:27:01 - Ella

Yeah. And you talk about, in your healing journey, you talk about three e's of wellness, and I was really curious about that. And I'm guessing that one of them is emotions and emotional. Okay. And you've just brilliantly laid that out for us. What are the other two?

00:27:18 - Tosca Reno

Eating clean. Okay, so what we nourish ourselves with, because in my mind, and I'm going to invite listeners to consider this, the food that we see out there in the grocery store, I'd like you to forget about what you think food is, because that's not food. The experiment that we've been working on the public since the 1940s with processed, engineered foods is not working. And please be courageous enough to see that. So when you go into the grocery store, do not be duped by what you see. Eating clean is food that is absolutely immersed with energy and information for the cells. Information for the cells, right? Because we are 40 trillion bacterial cells and maybe 50 to 60 trillion human cells, and we all have to get along and eat, right? And if we're eating chips, it's not going to work. So information for the cells, eating clean, whole, nutrient dense, properly prepared, well sourced foods, exercise, movement. You might not like to move, but movement itself elevates you to the highest, best self because it encourages all the good stuff. It just changes who you are as a person. And that is my story. That's my eat clean story, because I was a slug before that, truly. And then the emotional self care piece, which is being willing to, I say, look under the hood of the car at the dark parts of you. Because whatever has come into our lives for one reason or another, our soul has drawn to us to explore, to process, to integrate, and to learn from.

00:28:52 - Ella

Okay, thank you. I was genuinely curious about what they represented for you. Eating clean and exercise and emotional well being. Tosca, you've been so open and honest and shared in some of the profound suffering that has existed in your life. And I have what might be the most personal question to ask you, so feel free to. We can take it out. But when you experience life the way that you did in the second half of living, which is to say you were celebrated for your physical attributes, and then you built a business on helping other women achieve results in their physicality. Now, you and I both know that taking care of your body is about so much more than what size jeans you wear. Like, so much more. And the benefits are 360 degrees. And we do not even have time to articulate why taking care of yourself is a spiritual event. Okay? We both feel that way. But let me ask you this. When you're a beautiful woman and you're on magazine covers and you're celebrated, let's be honest for the way that you look and what you've accomplished physically. What is it like as you move farther away from that point in time? Because we're all staring at in the face. And I will share in the interest of mutual vulnerability that I fully intend to remain as aspirational as I possibly can. Maybe only to like four people. But whatever, until I'm dead, right? Because I care. I care about excellence, and I care about treating my body a certain way. I care about being really strong. I care about standing upright. I care about being able to run after things when I want them, literally and figuratively. However, I also have to appreciate that the world is not going to celebrate me for the way that I look when I'm pick an age, fill in the blank with any age. So I have to unattach my worth from my physicality while still investing in both. What is that like for you, if you don't mind me asking?

00:31:09 - Tosca Reno

It's a well phrased question because it's not an easy one to ask, because it does ask us to look at ourselves from a different point of view and to distance ourselves from the social media requirements. The one thing I will say about that is it does feel different. And I'm going to tell you, I love this. When I competed, I was literally naked on stage. The bikinis that you wear, you have to use surgical glue to apply lest anything pop out, okay? So just imagine that and you're 40 and change. And last time I competed, I was nearly 53. Almost ten years ago. I would tell you this as naked as I was on that stage in my physical self, I have never been more naked and done more difficult sets and reps than in this emotional self care journey. And I think that is the purpose of it all. Because you and I are here and you doing your work and me doing mine, we are all here to become vessels of light. What that means is we are to pull love and knowledge into ourselves and then radiate it back out to those who will receive it. And so the task, and frankly, the duty, is to continue what we do fearlessly. Because you and I are needed to tell this story now more than ever, we know that we are at a turning point in the physical vibrational history of humankind. And I intend to be fully integrated into the story, into the history, into the future of what's coming. And for that to happen, I have to be disengaged from this aesthetic. Oh my God, is my butt cute? To strong, purposeful, resilient in my mind, intelligent about my choices, my compassion, my wisdom, my thought my feeling that, to me, is going to be the far greater message, because now I have four daughters and I have grandchildren. What are they watching their Oma do? This is where my, I can feel this energy here. That is my purpose and my point. And I want that to shine out for so many unfulfilled and unrealized women who. You're there. We see you now. You're welcome to come, come with us and do this together.

00:33:37 - Ella

40 years from now, when you aren't speaking directly into their ears, perhaps, Tosca, what do you hope they hear from you? What are you instilling in them now that you want them to hear? Decades from now that I can still.

00:33:55 - Tosca Reno

Swing me a good old kettlebell, I still know how to make my oatmeal in the morning. I'm still writing. I can still verbalize. I can still leave a legacy. Very important to me. In fact, one thing that scares me deeply is if I don't leave a legacy, what will I have accomplished on this planet? So for me, that's just a piece that I need to share. And I hope even with my grandchildren, when they see know, they'll remember something about me. Like Oma likes to put her hands in the dirt, or my daughters will say, my mother was always, she was a ball buster, but she showed us the way.

00:34:34 - Ella

I hope you don't mind. I want to touch on the concept of legacy. Someone just asked me about this, and I want to share an idea with you in case that it's of value to those who are joining us in this conversation. I said, I'm different. My life is not as public as yours, Tosca, and I have no doubt that you will remain a force and a presence for far longer than most. Quite frankly, I don't delude myself for one moment to think that is true of me. In fact, I expect that by, say, the third generation, my name will probably rarely, if ever, be mentioned. And I don't consider that a negative thing. And I'm going to share with you why? Because you're my friend and I want to have this conversation with you. I believe that so much of our idea of legacy is slightly misled and that, truthfully, you, as an example, are creating so many ripples in the pond right now. Every time you help a woman right now, you have just created another set of ripples. Every time you shine your light on somebody or share your gift with somebody in the world, and you operate only in the spaces you operate, doesn't have to be on the global scale, doesn't have to be in front of millions. When you operate in the spaces you occupy, you are creating ripples in the pond. And those ripples, as you know how ripples work, they create ripples because they are their own catalysts and you are impacting the world for future ripple after ripple after ripple because of what you are doing right now by uplifting women.

00:36:22 - Tosca Reno

Wow, that feels beautiful. And I can feel the ripples.

00:36:28 - Ella

I think it's so important for us to know that because a lot of people. You're an aspirational figure, Tosca. And a lot of people are like, okay, I'll have what she's having. But I didn't. So I'm probably not going to be doing competitions at 52 or. That doesn't matter. Every single person joining in this conversation with us today has their gifts in their spaces. So I think their legacy and yours scale is immaterial. And your job is to start right where you are and use what you have and do what you can.

00:37:04 - Tosca Reno

Oh, I am with you in that pond 100%. My mother would get upset if we didn't get involved in politics, thinking that we had to stand in the middle of the arena to make an impact. And I said, mom, you don't understand every single thing. I do. You do. She does. He does is the arena. And we are radiating out our truth through our behaviors, our words, our actions, our responses, our creativity, whatever it may be. And each is so important to the entire human story. The fabric that we're building together is made of all of you listening, all of us. One light might be brighter than the other, but they're all equally valuable.

00:37:51 - Ella

My last question to you was going to be, what message do you want to leave my listeners with? And I think you just shared it with us, but I'll leave it again in case you want to repeat or add anything. What would you say to the many, many women in lots of different places in the world who are joining us today about what is possible?

00:38:18 - Tosca Reno

I would say that your intuition brought you to listen to this podcast, acknowledge and honor that, and be willing to be so courageous as to take your place fully in this human story, in the one we're telling right now. Because maybe you haven't told your story yet, but it deserves to be told. And I feel your potential could be as that way that I felt that day driving in the car. Limitless possibilities. I want to explore them all because there is nothing worse. As Melville wrote in Moby Dick is that of a half lived life. There is nothing with greater regrets. Don't leave those things on the table. Do it. Just do it.

00:39:04 - Ella

Tosca, thank you for your light. And thank you for your energy. And thank you for your vitality and gut. You do have a really cute butt.

00:39:13 - Tosca Reno

[laughs] That's so cute. Ella. Back at you.