An Unlikely, Uplifting Story of Getting Fired at 50 with Author + Artist Wendi Knox
Show Snapshot:
When life knocked Wendi Knox down, hundreds of red dragonflies lifted her up.
Fired at 50 from a job that was her identity, Wendi had a life-changing, storybook run-in that was so transformative, she just couldn't keep it to herself. Wendi wrote and illustrated the inspirational tale From Muck To Magic to share how renewal (and reinvention) is often rooted in the darkest terrain.
We cover ideas for finding light in darkness, how to reframe misfortune, and why we need to break free of the “age cage.”
In This Episode We Cover:
What happened when Wendi asked the universe—Am I too old to reinvent?
How the blossoming of a dragonfly is the midlife metaphor you didn’t know you needed.
Why magic and rebirth is often rooted in dark terrain.
The surprising power of feeling your feelings in a world that prioritizes positivity.
Navigating loss, grief, negativity and midlife.
How to pledge allegiance to your heart.
Breaking free of the “age cage.”
Are you telling yourself an “age story” that keeps you stuck? Time for age-story myth busting.
What it takes to get published, write a TEDX Talk, and reinvent.
Quotable:
I was just was so desperate, I said a prayer to the universe, and I asked, 'Am I too old to reinvent myself? Please give me a sign.' I went for a walk and when I came home, my backyard was filled with hundreds of red dragonflies.
Many of us are stuck and imprisoned in the narratives of what it is to be an aging woman in our culture. When we connect with the wisdom of our own hearts and find what brings us joy, what lights us up, what gives our hearts a yes—that makes such a difference.
Transcript:
Katie Fogarty [0:22]:
Welcome to A Certain Age, a show for women who are unafraid to age out loud. If you’ve made it to midlife there is no doubt, none at all, that you have faced disappointment and loss. My guest today is a woman who took a major loss and life upheaval and alchemized it into art and story and is now spreading the power of self-love to light the darkness as we navigate challenges and change. Meet Wendi Knox, a former Los Angeles ad creative, author of, From Muck to Magic, and a self-proclaimed uplifter, perhaps the best title of all. Welcome, Wendi.
Wendi Knox [0:58]:
Oh, I’m so happy to be here Katie.
Katie [1:00]:
I’m really thrilled. You have such a beautiful book, I follow you on social media, and I was thrilled to get my own copy of From Muck to Magic and get my hands on your beautiful illustrations. I would love it if we could start by having you share the origin story of this book.
Wendi [1:16]:
Okay. Well, once upon a time [Katie laughs] I had a job as the only Senior Vice President Creative Director at one of the biggest ad agencies in Los Angeles. I was in charge of advertising for brands like Honda and Acura. And around 50, I lost that job and they said it was on cutbacks but honestly it felt a lot like agism and sexism. Advertising is such a young business, and I was the only one at my age, the only woman at 50 in a position like that.
So, I found myself one day, sobbing in my backyard because this hadn’t just been a job, it was a career that I’d worked up the corporate ladder for 25 years to get to this position. And I was kind of like Don Draper, you know, from Mad Men but without the cigarettes. [Katie laughs] So, it was a pretty big job, and it was a pretty big loss because, at the time, I had a little boy at home, I had parents having physical and financial problems, and a husband who is an entrepreneur, which I say is French for “no health plan.”
Katie [2:40]:
[laughs] I love it. By the way, I’m stealing that line one day, I’m stealing it. I know you’re a copywriter but I’m stealing that, that’s awesome.
Wendi [2:48]:
[laughs] It’s okay, just put a TM after it. [Katie laughs] So, there I was, sobbing in my backyard and not knowing what I was going to do next. And I just was so desperate, I said a prayer to the universe, and I asked, “Am I too old to reinvent myself? Please give me a sign.” I went for a walk and when I came home, my backyard was filled with hundreds of red dragonflies. I’d never seen a dragonfly in my backyard, I didn’t know they came in red. And they ended up staying for four days and by that point, I started googling dragonflies like crazy and I discovered that dragonflies spend most of their lives crawling in the muck at the bottom of a pond and while they’re down there, they shed their old skin and grow new skin up to 15 times, over four years until one day, they climb out of the pond into the sunlight and their wings unfurl and they take off, later in life.
And when I read this, I was so blown away and I thought, “Oh my god, they’re giving me a message. I asked for a sign, they don’t even get their wings until later in life.” I think they were coming to me because I’m a dragonfly. And that was really only the beginning, it was nuts. Everywhere I went in LA there were dragonflies, on all the freeways; the 110, the 405, the 10. On Hollywood Blvd, Sunset Blvd, and finally one day, my husband and I were on vacation and there was another swarm of red dragonflies and as crazy as it sounds I said, "I think these dragonflies know I’m a writer and a branding expert and I think they want me to get their story out in the world.” [Katie laughs] I know it’s insane, my husband rolled his eyes as he often does, but those dragonflies were the inspiration behind my book.
I said another prayer and I said, “How can I uplift and inspire people with this dragonfly story?” And I found myself in a lot of muck in other areas of my life, but then one day, something propelled me, kind of like the dragonfly, to crawl toward the light. I sat at my computer and the words to a poem came to me and I started meditating on how to illustrate it and one by one the paintings came… You have the book, it’s kind of like… I think of it as Dr. Seuss for adults. “Have you ever been so stuck? So stuck in the muck, with the yuck and the guck, that you thought what the…”
Katie [5:42]:
[laughs] I love this. First of all, I’m blown away by this story, it’s such a compelling visual. Just to hear— I have the book, so I see how you’ve illustrated it. But hearing your words describe these hundreds of red dragonflies and the fact that they shed their wings and recreate themselves 15 times is so wild, I had absolutely zero idea. What an incredible story. So, what has the response been to this book as you’ve been sharing it and bringing it out into the world?
Wendi [6:14]:
Well, you know, it’s interesting. There are people who just when they see my paintings start crying in recognition. When I was at the book fair at UCLA a couple of years ago, I had a little 10-year-old girl come up and she took out the money she’d saved from her allowance to buy it. I hadn’t really thought of it for children, but this little girl had lost her mother, and the idea of growing our magic in the muck of loss and grief, touched her. I’ve had people suffering from depression who it’s touched, people who have undergone great loss or, you know, women who are getting older, who are growing our wings later in life. It seems to touch people in different ways. There are some people that just say, “Oh, that’s cute,” and, “Okay.” And then there are other people that it really stirs deeply, and I think like the dragonflies it kind of sprinkles its magic in whatever way someone…
Katie [7:26]:
Somebody needs it at that time.
Wendi [7:29]:
Yeah, exactly.
Katie [7:31]:
Wendi, I’m curious, you wrote the book in 2018, this was two years before the world changed overnight. We’ve had a very unsettling, depressing, at times deeply scary, world over the last two years. How have you found magic in the muck of the past two years?
Wendi [7:52]:
That is such a great question and actually, for me, I had even more muck than the pandemic. I have a son who is 27 now, but he has suffered from depression and addiction, and we faced some very scary times at the beginning of the pandemic. And my husband – who I’ve been married to for 35 years and is my best friend and soulmate – he got a kind of scary diagnosis which fortunately is looking much better than we thought. So, the two people closest to me were in a very deep crisis and I was the glue holding this together so there was muck on the outside world and there was a lot of muck on my inside world.
And one of the lessons of the dragonfly, it sounds crazy, but to be one with the muck. They spend a lot of time in the muck, and they find sustenance there, it’s where they nourish themselves and they shed the old story, the old skin to grow their wings. So, one of the things that I do when I’m going through times like that is I allow myself to feel the feelings because I believe that the only way to get out of the muck, the emotional muck we all find ourselves in, is to allow ourselves to feel our feelings. So, I give myself the opportunity to cry, to yell, to kick, to do lions in yoga, whatever it takes.
I also look for the gifts in the muck. I mean, as difficult as it is at times, even with COVID, there’s been tremendous gifts; people learning how to be instead of do, people connecting in different ways, people discovering what really matters. So, I believe that even in the suckiest, yuckiest times [Katie laughs] there are gifts, there is magic. And the more grateful we can be for that, the more our lives transform.
Katie [10:07]:
Such a beautiful way to sort of tackle challenge and transition and fear, I love everything that you shared and I love the way that you process this for yourself. We’re going to head into a quick break but when we come back, I want to ask you what would be some tools you might offer listeners as they look to reframe their own situation to take it from muck to magic? We’ll be after this quick break.
[Ad break]
Katie [11:37]:
Wendi, we’re back. You shared so beautifully some of the ways that you navigate feeling and managing challenging situations; allowing yourself to feel fully present in the grief and sob, and cry, and maybe work it out in yoga. All wonderful suggestions. What might you offer listeners as a tool if they need to reframe and navigate, and throw their arms around their own situations that feel, you know, mucky?
Wendi [12:08]:
Well, one of the things that I’ve been thinking about a lot which is a big source of muck – and it’s so appropriate because it’s the name of your show – is aging in our culture. And the stories, I call it an “Age Cage,” where so many of us are stuck and imprisoned in these stories, these narratives of what it is to be an aging woman in our culture. And one of the ways that I have been navigating this is… I call it, finding the light, finding what lights you up. There are so many, so many negative images about aging and there are so many things, even besides aging, in the outside world that we can't control. So, I find that when we connect with the wisdom of our own hearts and really go within to find what brings us joy, what lights us up, what gives our hearts a yes; that makes such a difference.
So, one of the things I do is I go outside… I live in Ojai, California which is such a beautiful place, but wherever you are, to go outside and to breathe and to maybe lay in the grass or lay on the ground, I call it pledging allegiance to your heart. We’re so busy with what’s going on out there and pleasing everyone else. Putting your hand on your heart and ask, what would make you feel good right now? The dragonflies crawl toward the light and that’s where the wings open. If we crawl toward what lights us up; maybe it’s taking a time out and just sitting and reading something inspiring, maybe it’s walking barefoot in the grass, maybe it’s doing something you loved doing as child-like as blowing bubbles. Something to shift the energy and remind you of the little moments of magic and to listen to your own heart instead of the news, anticipating what would make your spouse or your kid, or your boss happy. But really take the time to listen to what would fill you up.
Katie [14:35]:
This notion of pledging allegiance to your own heart is so beautiful and it’s such a…it’s sort of sticky, it’s going to stick in my consciousness, it’s going to be something I think about a lot when I’m making choices about how I spend my time. And some of the tools that you offered are really simple; get outside, get into nature, ask yourself what you want to do and what used to light you up, and to really prioritize that. That’s wonderful.
So, this is the “Age Cage” that you’re talking about. You’d shared with me when I invited you to be a guest, that you were working on a TED Talk. Is this the topic that you’re going to be focusing on during this talk?
Wendi [15:19]:
Yes, it’s called “Breaking Out of the Age Cage,” and it’s about changing the stories we tell ourselves, individually and as a culture. I was thinking about how I grew up in a time – I’m a little older than you – I grew up in a time when they said, and maybe they did this when you were little too, that a lady never tells her age.
Katie [15:45]:
Mmm, right. Yes, that’s common but sort of a dated notion. But I guess it probably sticks in peoples’…
Wendi [15:53]:
It’s still in there, it’s still in there. You talk about aging out loud and I’m doing that now but I still know a lot of women who will not say their age because they’re afraid it’s going to hold them back career-wise and I’ve seen that in my own life. So, in my talk, I talk about the origins of where some of these thoughts and beliefs about aging come from and I talk about becoming aware of the stories and then reframing them. A lot of my career in advertising was about repositioning products and finding, taking a weakness of a product and turning it into a strength. I believe we need to do that with aging, and rebrand aging. And instead of thinking of it as… I was thinking if I wrote a tagline for aging it would be, “Aging, it’s about becoming more of who you are not, less of what you were.”
Katie [16:59]:
Interesting.
Wendi [16:59]:
And telling ourselves a different story.
Katie [17:05]:
Because stories are so powerful. It really helps, I’ve had guests on this show, I’ve had Elise Museles come on to talk about Food Story and her book and about shifting the narrative around her relationship to food. I love this notion of shifting our narrative around aging. We do tell ourselves age stories, you just shared one: ladies don’t share their age. What are other age stories do you feel impact women? Wendi, how old are you? May I ask…
Wendi [17:34]:
I’m 68.
Katie [17:36]:
You’re 68. So, what’s an age – because you reference your generation – what would be an age story that you hear from your own peers?
Wendi [17:42]:
I’ll tell you. When my husband and I moved out of Los Angeles to this magical little town, it’s like an hour and a half from LA, called Ojai, people would say to me, “Oh, so are you retiring?” And I would look at them like, aghast because honestly, I feel like I’m just getting started. [Katie laughs] I feel like I’m just figuring out what I’m really meant to do, what my soul’s work is. They’d say, “Are you retiring?” And I’d have to stop myself and say, okay that’s their story and not mine, how can I reframe this? So, I say, “No I’m not retiring. I’m refiring.” [laughs]
Katie [18:29]:
Nice.
Wendi [18:30]:
It’s like, you know really listening carefully or when somebody, I hear people say all the time and I just hate this, “Well, at our age, we don’t need to do this anymore. At our age…” Anything that starts with, “At our age…” [Katie laughs] bugs me because honestly, you know, I’ve got little arthritis in my feet but other than that, I feel the youngest I’ve ever felt because I feel like I’ve really connected in with what my passion is and a calling that’s bigger than myself. I feel like that keeps us young and vibrant. But you know, we’re surrounded by a culture with these anti-aging products and everybody’s picture retouched and I’ve decided that the best anti-aging product is our brain and if we retrain our brain, it can make a difference in how we age. I’ve even read studies where they said that when you have a more positive attitude about aging, it can add like seven and a half years to your life.
Katie [19:42]:
I bet. I absolutely… Our mind is so powerful, and we believe the stories that we tell ourselves. And if we tell ourselves a story that we’re too old, or too “Fill in the blank…” to do something, you know, we’re right. But if you tell yourself, “Why not me?” and you put yourself in that spirit of optimism and possibility, you know, maybe it’s going to happen. It might not, but you’re halfway there; you haven’t set yourself up for failure by refusing to even start or try.
So, Wendi, you said that we tell ourselves stories both individually and as a culture. We’ve touched on a few of the stories that you’ve shared or that you’ve heard firsthand. What are some of the cultural stories that society says about aging that you want to be shifting with your talk and with your work and advocacy?
Wendi [20:35]:
Well, you know, it starts when we’re young with just like the fairy tales we’ve heard, the older women are these scary old witches that live in the forest and gobble up little children. Or the movies that I saw as a kid, and I’m sure you have too, of the older spinster, lonely woman, or the crazy cat woman, or the poor bigger woman. and those things kind of go into our bloodstream.
There was a time, I’ve read a bunch of books about this, thousands of years ago at the time when the goddess was worshipped, older women were revered in the culture. And there are still a few cultures where they are, but not exactly ours. But they were the medicine women and the wise women and the leaders. When you look at our culture, older women are referred to as “hags.” And in the dictionary, a hag is defined as an ugly, old woman. But ironically, the world hag comes from the Greek word hagio, which means holy. And the word crone in the dictionary is defined as a skinny, ugly, old woman. And the word crone is derived from crown. So, just the words that we use, you know…
Katie [22:10]:
Yeah, aging has a real vocabulary problem and I’ve had this conversation with multiple guests. I had Christine Marie Mason of Rosebud Woman, which is a luxury line of plant-based feminine and sexual wellness care products and she’s got a wonderful book called Reverence, and she talks about this notion croning, which used to be something that was a ritual to welcome women into their post-menopausal phase and their rightful place in culture, as you shared, the wise woman, the matriarchal leader of a culture. Now we hear the word crone, and we instantly think of a Disney witch.
So, some of the words have been co-opted and I don’t know, just transformed in a negative way. But we do have a problem with aging because we have age boxes like Gen X, which I identify with, we’ve got Boomers, we have Gen Z, all this stuff and there’s just not enough of a vocabulary for describing sort of these everblooming people. Gina Pell, another guest on this show has been defined as being a perennial; somebody who is everblooming. And that’s a wonderful word, and we all need to take it on and use it. But you know, there should be other ways. I even struggle with the word midlife, which I use all the time…. I’m 52. Am I really living to 104? I don’t know, we’ll see. We’ll see [ laughs]. You know, it’s tricky.
Any listener who is nodding their head right now and thinking there should be better words, please give them to me. You can DM me on Instagram or send me your ideas because we really do need to have a new vocabulary to describe this concept of getting older in a way that doesn’t feel negative.
Wendi [24:03]:
Well, you know, I’ve actually thought a lot about that and in my perfect world, we would be called dragonflies. Because we’re shedding our old stories, we’re shedding the need to please everyone, and the need… you know, we’re shedding lack of confidence hopefully and a lot of the things that are struggles when you’re younger. We’re growing more into our true selves, our true colors. It’s an expansive model of aging and transformation as opposed to shrinking to fit and disappearing. I don’t know if that’ll catch on, Katie.
Katie [24:48]:
Wendi, you’re making it catch on and I’m going to help you because we’re talking about your book and this concept of being a dragonfly!
So, I want to shift gears for a minute and ask you a question. You shared at the top of the show that you had this very dislocating identity collapse when you lost your job, that was a big part of your identity at 50, and you know, we're so impacted that you were sobbing in your yard and asking the universe for assistance to kind of give you a sign and get you back on your footing. I want to ask you what role your age and midlife experience at that, played during this moment and how you reacted. I think this is a two-part question. Was losing your job at 50, harder than losing it at a younger age? But what role, if any, did midlife and your experience and wisdom play in allowing you to bounce back? Since this is a two-part question, let’s start at the beginning. Do you think losing a job at 50 is harder than at 30? Does being a certain age impact, did it play a role at that moment?
Wendi [26:02]:
Yes. Now, when I look back at it, 50 sounds so young. [laughs] It’s kind of hard for me to believe I was freaked out. There are so many women, things have shifted in that time, 50 seems a lot younger than it did. I remember when I was in my thirties and I was freelancing at one of the really highly awarded creative agencies in LA, and there was this woman who was 50… There were very few role models for me, creative women at a high level, in those days. And this woman had won every award there was to win and I just looked up to her so much. And I was shocked to hear a bunch of young guys in the creative department talking about her, that she was a hack. Now, why was she a hack? Because she was around 50. What did they think? This brilliant woman had an expiration date on her talent? But that was the message.
So, when I turned 50, I remember my male partner meant well but it really stung me, he said, "Well, you’re not going to tell anyone you’re turning 50, are you?” And I just thought that was ridiculous. So, I did tell people, that my husband brought a cake to my creative department on my birthday, and I lost my job a few months later. Now, coincidence? I don’t think so. And the thing is, there were very few women at the top in ad agencies and even fewer… I was the only one in our company. There were other executive women, but they didn’t have children; their job was their whole everything. And I was concerned that there were so few jobs at my level for women and I wasn’t going to be able to get another one. And I was so tarnished from this trusting relationship with a company that felt like family, or that’s how they position themselves, that I couldn’t bring myself to go back in. So yeah, I think my age made a big difference.
Katie [28:26]:
I’m sure that it did. By the way, when you say that this was 18 years ago or so and that things might have changed… I’m not so sure. Because I’ve had a bunch of ad creatives on this show, and I don’t think advertising…there’s still a lot of ageism in that industry and there’s a lot of ageism in other industries as well. Did your age, and did the fact that you were 50 and at midlife and had this experience, play any role in your ability to bounce back and recognize that you were turning from muck to magic? What role, if any, did your age and experience play?
Wendi [29:04]:
Well…
Katie [29:07]:
Because it’s a double-sided coin. Maybe you lost your job but… I want to hear more about it.
Wendi [29:12]:
Well I mean, I found… Listen, the gift was I got to be the one picking up my kid at school and having quality time with him. And I started making friends, the only women I knew are these women in advertising, I hadn’t gotten to be much of a mommy and my kind of person because I always had to leave to go to work so I kind of enjoyed the things that maybe other women were bored with… being home. I started inviting other women, I joined this group called The Goddess Collective and it was a lot of what I call goddess-preneurs; women using their creativity and creating their own path. And if I met a woman that I really resonated with, I’d invite her over to tea. And for me to be able to have tea in my garden with a woman, just talking about life, was so inspiring and like, a huge gift.
So, I found a lot of gifts. And the other gift was after years of being the more steady breadwinner while my husband was so entrepreneur, things shifted and he really upped his game in a different way and I got to have more freedom and I freelanced instead of taking on another corporate job. So, there were a lot of gifts in it.
Katie [30:43]:
A lot of gifts. I think this sort of pulls us back full circle to where we started with is this notion of reframing the muck. Part of it is, looking and seeing the things that are the unexpected gifts in a situation, and if we choose to focus on like…The pandemic and unexpected gift might be less of a commute, or maybe more time with a loved one, or a better relationship with our puppy. Whatever it might be, even during incredibly challenging times, when we can focus on the silver linings and… You know, the pandemic really stripped things away. We got very, very, very focused on what was right in front of us, and you realized that maybe the health of your child was more important than other things. It allowed us to be grateful for things that we might have been ignoring in our busy, always-on lives.
Wendi [31:35]:
You know, one of the things that I noticed with this, finding the gifts in our struggles or the magic in the muck, is there’s also this thing, I don’t know if you’ve heard the term, “Spiritual bypass.” Where people just want to be positive and I think it’s really important, like with my job, I mourned the loss of that job. I went to this painting retreat, I painted paintings of sobbing women. I mean, I had a lot to get out. So, you know, again, it’s like what I said before, allowing yourself the opportunity to crawl through the muck and not immediately have to say, “Oh, this is positive.” Because there’s loss, there’s grief, there are all kinds of feelings that end up, I believe, feeding us and becoming gifts. But we have to allow ourselves to go through them.
Katie [32:34]:
Absolutely, we are whole people, we have joys, loss, tension, and sadness. To be present in all of those feelings is what makes us human and what makes us dragonflies, Wendi. [Wendi laughs] We’re going to shift gears now and move into our speed round because we’re near the end of our show. I love doing this at the end. It’s just a quick one- or two-word answer so we can get a little more from you before we wrap up. Are you ready?
Wendi [33:00]:
I think so.
Katie [33:01]:
[laughs] People sometimes sound nervous. It’s totally fun and it’s zero pressure. Okay. Writing From Muck to Magic was _____.
Wendi [33:13]:
A catharsis.
Katie [33:14]:
Nice. This simple activity always pulls me out of the muck _____.
Wendi [33:20]:
Finding what’s right when things go wrong.
Katie [33:24]:
The last new thing I tried that lifted my spirits _____.
Wendi [33:29]:
Oh, I’ve been taking mixed media classes and I just love it
Katie [33:34]:
Nice. I love learning new things too. All right, when I see a friend struggling, here’s how I help _____.
Wendi [33:43]:
I try, mostly, to listen. And to be and not do.
Katie [33:52]:
The best part of creating a TED Talk is _____.
Wendi [33:58]:
[sighs] Bringing something out into the world that’s been deep inside of me forever.
Katie [34:06]:
The hardest part of creating a TED Talk _____.
Wendi [34:10]:
Is believing that people want to know what I have to say. [both laugh]
Katie [34:15]:
They do. They do, Wendi.
Wendi [34:18]:
Thank you.
Katie [34:19]:
If I could time travel, I would go back and tell my 50-year-old self this when she lost her big job: _____.
Wendi [34:26]:
It’s the best thing that ever happened to you!
Katie [34:29]:
Fabulous. Finally, your one-word answer to complete this sentence: As I age, I feel _____.
Wendi [34:38]:
Joyful.
Katie [34:40]:
Joyful. Beautiful. Thank you, Wendi, this has been so much fun and so thought-provoking. I will never look at a dragonfly again without thinking of you. But before we say goodbye, I want to make sure our listeners know how to find you, your book, and be following along so they can learn when your TEDx is live.
Wendi [34:59]:
Oh, thank you, Katie. My website is wendiknox.com and because I had to be different, I spelled Wendi with an I, my mother never forgave me. That’s where you’ll find my book and my blog and my TEDx Talk when it’s done.
Katie [35:25]:
Fabulous, I will put that into the show notes. Thank you, Wendi.
Wendi [35:29]:
Thank you.
Katie [35:30]:
This wraps A Certain Age, a show for women who are aging without apology. Join me next Monday when I talked with Celeste Lee of Caire Beauty, which reimagined skincare for women struggling with hormone decline and menopause.
Want to make sure you never miss an episode of A Certain Age? Sign up for our free weekly newsletter, AGE BOLDLY, over at acertainagepod.com. Or follow the fun on Instagram @acertainagepod.
Special thanks to Michael Mancini who composed and produced our theme music. See you next time and until then: age boldly, beauties.