Welcome And Big Identity Question

Announcer 0:01

Welcome to Aging with Purpose and Passion, the podcast for women over 50 and beyond who know much more lies ahead of them. Listen to real stories, hard truths, and life-changing choices that may leave you seeing your own life a little differently. Here's your host, work and life transition coach, Beverley Glazer.

Beverley Glazer 0:28

Who are you when the career that defined you is suddenly gone? Welcome to Aging with Purpose and Passion. I'm Beverley Glazer, a work and life transition coach for accomplished women over 50, to help you make clear decisions about what you want in your life and to make that happen. And you can find me at reinventedpossible.com. These conversations go beyond inspiring stories. They're about the moments that make you stop, question what you know, and make the difficult choices to move on. We don't sugarcoat the hard parts here. We talk about what changed, what it took to move through it, and what became possible because of it. Today I'm joined by Annette Mashi, the founder of Write Wizards. Annette creates magic with words. She helps women architects, interior designers, and women in the construction industry become more visible and to establish their expertise and attract the clients and projects that they want. But Annette didn't set out to build the life she has today. Her story crosses countries, careers, and more than one moment when she questioned the identity that she no longer knew. If you've ever looked at your life and felt lost, this conversation is for you. And stay with us to the end, and I'll share some quick takeaways and actions that you could use for yourself too.

Annette’s Early Life And Ambition

Beverley Glazer 2:09

So welcome, Annette. Welcome. Thank you, Beverley. I'm so honored to be here. So exciting. Annette, you're now in Israel, but you grew up in Philadelphia. What was that life like in Philadelphia back in the day?

Annette Mashi 2:26

Oh, back in the day. I, you know, I remember that TV show called the that 80s TV show where they talked about it like the Goldbergs. That was like so. I don't know if your listeners know, but there was a TV show called The Goldbergs, and it was like it was like that. Um, I am the oldest of five kids. My father worked, owned a hardware store. My mother was a bank teller. Most of well, in the beginning she didn't work at all. And then she, when my kid, my sisters got a little older, then she started to work um as a bank teller. Um typical suburban family doing our thing, going out, playing sports here and there.

Beverley Glazer 3:10

Um five kids is not typical, is it?

Annette Mashi 3:14

No, no, five, you're right. Five kids is not is definitely not typical. Definitely not typical at all. Um, yeah, but she had five my grandparents live nearby, so I think that they helped out a lot. She had help. Yes, we definitely need help.

Beverley Glazer 3:30

But

From Computers to Architecture

Beverley Glazer 3:31

for sure. But you decided to study both computers as well as architecture. That's two different disciplines. Why did that draw you?

Annette Mashi 3:43

So I started out in computers because my uncle was um working in the computer industry. And so I said, okay, you know, he's this is a good field for the future. So yes, in the 80s it was brand new. Nobody really knew what computers could do. So I started studying computers. Um, also when I when you look at it, the amount of women in that, I thought, oh, well, there's like not a really, there's not a lot of women in that field. So, you know, I could definitely find a nice husband. So that was like part of my part of my thinking. And then I studied the computers and I thought that I would be like me and my PC alone in a cold dark room. And I'm a people person, and I thought, wow, how am I gonna do that? It's not me. Um, and so the guy next door was studying architecture. I said, that sounds interesting. So I started studying architecture at night, and I really liked it because I liked the design. I had that creative brain, and architecture has the logic behind it. So I started studying both and finished first the computer degree and then the architectural degree.

Beverley Glazer 4:52

Okay. And so did you always have uh um a love for Israel and and the culture of the Middle East? Did you always were you always drawn to that?

Annette Mashi 5:04

Good question. Um, I think I always had Judaism, the Judaism in me. Um, we grew up conservative, going to synagogue on a regular basis. I had my bat mitvah I had my confirmation. So it was always an important part of my life. Um I went to Drexel and they have a co-op program. So I did try a couple of times to get to Israel either from co-op or over the summer in summer programs, but I never I never made it. I never made it here. Um and I I had a tie just to the religion, but not necessarily to the country. Right. So

Starting Over in a New Country

Annette Mashi 5:44

you went to Israel. I went to Israel. So so we went to Israel. Yeah, my parents took us uh on a big family trip, and we we came here and we traveled around the country in uh, I guess 1998. Around that time, we traveled around the country. It was lovely, but I never ever thought that I would that I would move here or that I would live here, um, you know, support Israel from afar.

Beverley Glazer 6:09

Right.

Annette Mashi 6:10

Um, and then I met my husband and he's Israeli. And I said it wouldn't be fair to get married to him if I wouldn't ever think about leaving the states and living in Israel. So I told him that I would try it for five years. And and yeah, I know it's been a very, very long five years. It's been it, I'm now here for 30 years. But I'm I said I would either live near my family or his family. So I said, okay, we'll try it. We'll live near your family. Okay. And so you moved to Israel. I moved to Israel. Um, yeah, big leap, not a lot of thought. Um, people asked me, I was like, oh, I must have been drunk at the time. I had not thought this decision through. I had not thought about the fact that they speak a different language. I had not thought about the culture, that it's it's a different culture. There's Ashkenazic Jews from um Europe, there's Sephardic Jews, they're very different. They eat different things, they have different um, you know, customs and traditions. I and I moved here, it was my husband and I, and um, my one-year-old daughter, and we moved in with my in-laws, and I started learning Hebrew, and it was a slow process. I learned Hebrew along with all the Russian immigrants that had come to the country. So she would, the the Ulpan teacher would explain things to all of them, and then she'd say, and now for you, and she would talk to me and explain things to me. Um, yeah, but I was I was very lost, very alone, very uh unaware of the surroundings and and truly dependent on my husband.

Beverley Glazer 7:59

And and did your mother-in-law, did the family, did anybody around you speak English other than your husband?

Annette Mashi 8:06

Um not really. Uh like my sister-in-law's uh words here and there, they do learn some English, but not fluently. Um I think there was a handful of people that spoke English in the community that I moved to. A lot of people live in, you know, in Jerusalem or in Tel Aviv. There's a bigger English community, but where we moved, where his family lived, they did not. Um I just felt isolated. It was it was scary, it was isolating. And whenever, whenever, like now I think about doing hard things, I remember I picked myself up, I moved to Israel. I can do anything, I can run the world. It's it's uh yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Beverley Glazer 8:56

Let me ask you, Annette, did you ever say to yourself, what did I do? Or even think to your husband, you know what? I'm gonna go back. I'm going back to Philadelphia.

Annette Mashi 9:05

I can't live like this. Probably all the time. Probably all the time it was, but when when you're like living day to day, you're living day to day. I mean, I found a job. I worked, um, I worked for Intel. It was an English-speaking company. I was working with people outside of Israel. So there was English involved in that, even though they weren't necessarily sitting near me. They were from Ireland, they were from Malaysia, um, they were from Costa Rica, California, but at least there was English at you know, during during the day, during my job. Um, making friends was hard because we there was a language barrier. There's it's it's very, yeah, it's just very different. They have different ideas, different philosophy. Um, so it was it was hard. It was hard, but uh, and I'm sure I've said like I was like, I'm out of here.

Beverley Glazer 10:05

Right.

Annette Mashi 10:06

But you just continue day to day. Like I guess I never had enough strength to say uh that's it, I'm leaving. And right, it was just moving day to day, continuing, working, working, cleaning, dusting, cooking, all of that is day to day, no matter where you live.

Beverley Glazer 10:22

Yeah, trying to make it work. Yeah.

Leaving Intel After 17 Years

Beverley Glazer 10:25

And you worked for Intel for 17 years.

Annette Mashi 10:28

Yes. What happened then? So I worked for Intel for 17 years. Um, I noticed that nobody retires from the company. It was it was a big wake-up call because I saw that as people would get older, they would kind of just fade away or Intel would phase them out. Um, and so I realized it was only a matter of time before I would be the next person on the list. It was they were always doing cost-saving measures, trying to reduce staff, and the staff that they reduce is always not always, but a lot of the time, it's it's the employees that have been there for a while who are making substantial money that they can then reduce the labor force and and pay less or outsource it. Um, and so when I think of that song like Should I stay or should I go? You know, that like so I would I hit a point where I was like, Should I stay or should I go? And I knew that I was on the next wave. And if I didn't leave, it I it would just come back in another year or two, and I would again be in the same situation. And I thought I would just be older. Like, what's the point in staying? I'll just be older. So I left. I left.

The Six Day Teaching Experiment

Annette Mashi 11:58

Okay. You jumped into what? I jumped into, I jumped into the void. I mean, because I really when when I left, I said, I'm gonna be a teacher. I'm like, I'm gonna teach these Israeli kids how to speak English. I'm gonna help them. They really need it. Their English is awful. So I found a job at a school. Now I didn't have any experience. I had experience teaching English, I had experience teaching people how to use computers. I did not have experience teaching kids, and I did not have experience teaching English. But I mean, how hard could it be? It's a language I speak, right? Should be simple. Right. So I jumped in and I started teaching at the I guess um middle school, the middle school, like right? Yeah, the middle school, 13-year-old. It was awful. It was awful, awful. Um I didn't have the Hebrew, so I couldn't really roll call the names of the kids.

Beverley Glazer 13:01

Right.

Annette Mashi 13:01

And so it would take me 45 minutes to go through the attendance sheet, and by that time the class was over. The kids were awful. They would play with slime, they would ask to go to the bathroom all the time. They would run around the classroom. I remember there was one kid run around the classroom chased by another kid, and I would be chasing the two of them. I thought, this is a sitcom. It's a sitcom. This is not, this is I it I lasted six days, three days one week, three days the other week. And I said, This is not, I don't, I don't care. This is not for me. Um, and so I I left, I left the teaching. And then then I was stuck with trying to figure out what will I do? What what can I do? Um, and I think a lot of us find ourselves in that kind of situation where you're you're all of a sudden the the ground falls out from underneath you and you're wondering, where do I go? Where do I go from here? So what did you do?

Finding a New Direction Through Writing

Annette Mashi 13:54

What did I do? So I looked at um, like one of the things that Intel did was allowed us to go out and to work with counselors and network with people. Um they had a the program to kind of like replace you, like or or let you help help you find your place. I'm sure there's better words, counsel you to um and I I started to look at like what I did, what I liked, what I liked, what my strengths were, what I was good at, what I was interested in. Um, and that's where I said I I've always been writing training manuals, I've always been documenting, I've always been like explaining things to people, um simplifying information. So I said, I like to do that. I like the writing piece. In addition to that, I liked said, well, I like the design, I like the design world. I have the degree in architecture, so why not why not try to combine the two in some way, shape, or form? And I threw people that I knew got referrals to do writing projects and do marketing. So I started marketing for architects and designers. Amazing.

Beverley Glazer 15:13

Yeah. Did it ever along the way occur to you when you were over 50 without a job that this is too late for me? I I I can't do anything, the competition is too steep.

Annette Mashi 15:29

So remember, Beverley, I moved to Israel.

Speaker 15:32

So you can't move to Israel.

Annette Mashi 15:35

I didn't really, I didn't really worry about the competition. I just kind of put one foot in front of the other and moved forward. I didn't really let it um, you know, I didn't feel there, there must might have been days where I felt like that's it, I'm gonna like stay in my bed under the comforter and and and not ever move. But most of the time I was like, okay, well, I'm gonna do this thing, let's move forward. And I was on a bus trip with a woman from Lehigh Valley. It was they have a program in Israel called Birthright, which is that they bring kids to Israel to see the see what the country is like. So they have a program called Momentum, which is like birthright for women. And they brought women from Lehigh Valley, which is the like our partnership sister city. So they brought them to Israel, and I was on this program with them, and one of the women was doing writing for architects. She had a client, she was writing for architects, and we were talking about that. And I had studied architecture, and she was telling me about her job, and we decided to write an article about the trip from my point of view as like an Israeli, even though I'm not really that's air quotes, Israeli, even though I'm not really Israeli. And she would write about it from somebody visiting from the state. So we I did, and she said, You write really well. Let and when she left her is her um architecture clients, she said you should take this job. And she passed me that job, and that's how I got the job. That's how I got those clients that I've now been writing for for six years through a bus trip.

Beverley Glazer 17:22

It's incredible, yes. Did you ever feel that now I've I've come full circle? This is where I want to be.

Annette Mashi 17:30

I think I feel that way now. I think that um I've tried writing for for different people. I tried writing for energy healers, I've tried writing for uh women coaches, I've tried um lots of different professions. I I feel like I have the language, the the language of of design. I've been through the program, I understand what they need, um, and I enjoy it. So I like working with them. And I I feel like I've found my place.

When Life Changes the Plan Again

Beverley Glazer 18:00

So you also talk about resilience, having to put one foot ahead of the other, keep on going. What changed you since you've moved to Israel?

Annette Mashi 18:14

Um wow, balls of steel. I I think that um I think that the world is really hard. It's it's really hard and you get thrown a lot of curveballs, things that you you think that you can plan your life and you can't always plan your life. I I mean, like even if we talk about infertility, you think you can, oh, you know, you get married, you're gonna have kids. It's like a given. And and it's not, it's it's not, none of that is given. And so going through that, it's it strengthens you. Going through learning to deal with a foreign culture, a foreign language strengthens you. Um, it laid off, you know, leaving Intel strengthened me because I felt like that was my identity. I was an Intel employee. I was an Intel employee for 17 years. That's like part of your culture, and it was gone. All of a sudden it was I it, you know, it was my choice, but it was gone. Um and then October 7th, and the which is right around the corner again, and you know, we're thinking three years. It's been three years since October 7th. We saw the world turn on everybody, on on Israel, on Jewish people, anti-Semitism is on the rise. I saw people they they talked about in in Tel Aviv, they had a a board, a whiteboard, where they asked people to come up and if you knew somebody that had that had been killed on October 7th, write their name on the board. In 15 minutes the board was full. Fifte minutes. So many people affected, the whole country has been affected. We're all living through uh PTSD. I and you can't even say that we're through it because we're not through it, because we still have soldiers fighting all the time um on all the fronts. It's strength. It's just pulling from strength, believing in God, pulling from strength, um, prayer, moving forward because we have no other choice. We we don't. It's either it it's sink or swim. And and we weren't we have been here, the Jewish people have been here for what, 5,000 years, 57, 58, I don't, or 58, 57, I'm not even sure. But something been here, done that, moving forward, and um our strength of being together is is and and supporting each other is really what we have to move us forward.

Beverley Glazer 21:08

So what I'm hearing is you're still putting one foot ahead of the other, yes, day by day.

Annette Mashi 21:14

Day by day, day by day, day by day, yes.

Rebuilding Identity After a Career Change

Beverley Glazer 21:18

What advice would you give to someone whose identity is completely lost, just like yours?

Annette Mashi 21:25

I think that I would say just breathe, regroup. You have the power within yourself to move forward. And there are people around you that love you, that support you, that can help you do that. Because I think that was one of the biggest things is knowing that I wasn't going through this alone, knowing that there were other people around, other women in business, other English speaking women in business that I could also talk to that. Understood being there. So getting help from someone, getting counseling from someone, being in a room with the right people that can support you, that can listen, that can hold space. That when you have a bad day, it's there's somebody there that can pick you up and hold your hand and get you through it.

Takeaways and Resources

Beverley Glazer 22:21

Thank you, Annette. Annette Matchy is the founder of Right Wizards, where she creates magic with words. She gives visibility to women architects and career designers and women in the construction industry. She positions them as experts, demonstrates their value, and helps them stand out from their competition. Here are a few takeaways from this episode. What looks like a loss can lead somewhere you never could have predicted. You don't need to have a whole plan. You just need the courage to take one small step. And you are more than your career or your title that wants to find you. If you're identifying with this episode, here are a few things that you would do for yourself right now. Ask yourself, what talent or knowledge have you left behind 20 years ago? Ask others what your strengths are. They can probably see them better than you can. And get curious about what you love and plan to do it. For similar episodes on Aging, With Purpose and Passion, check out Who Are You Without the Career. That's episode 181. And you've built a life now what? That's episode 190. And if you're looking for podcasts for older women, women over 70 aging reimagined is an award-winning podcast community that celebrates wisdom, resilience, and women over 70. That's womenover70.com. And so where can people find you? Please share your links.

Annette Mashi 24:02

So the best place to connect with me is on LinkedIn. It's um and at not be all one word, or you can connect with me on my website, writewizards.com. That's W-R-I-T-E Wizards, W-I-S-D-A-R-D-S.com.

Beverley Glazer 24:20

And those links are in the show notes and they're on my site too. That's reinventimpossible.com. And now, my friends, what's next for you? What are you ready to leave behind as you move forward? Send me a message. I'd love to hear from you. And if this episode spoke to you, subscribe and share it with someone who may need to hear it. And remember, you only have one life, so live it with purpose and aging with purpose with Beverly Glazer.

Announcer 24:58

For more conversations and to explore Beverley's work, visit reinventimpossible.com. This story ends here. Yours may just be beginning.