Jennifer Tracy: In my mind, for women, I think especially women today, we all are so focused on, and this is what I found in terms of ... because I do coach women, professional coaching on the side and we talk about a whole bunch of things.
Jennifer Tracy: One of the things or the topics that is near and dear to my heart obviously is about financial independence, right? We're so focused on finding a job that A, yes, we should love. We should feel passion about it. Then, knowing how to ask for our worth. We can go down this road about the fact that women make 80 cents with comparative dollar. All this other stuff. How do we leverage the best deal comp package whatever it is? This is what I'm finding that enough women are truly, fully understanding that, okay, so you're making this money but now, what are you doing with it?
Speaker 2: You're listening to the MILF podcast. This is the show where we talk about motherhood and sexuality with amazing women with fascinating stories to share on the joys of being a MILF. Now, here's your host, the MILFiest MILF I know, Jennifer Tracy.
Jennifer Tracy: Hey guys, welcome back to the show. This is MILF podcast, the show where we talk about motherhood, entrepreneurship, sexuality and everything in between. I'm Jennifer Tracy, your host, so excited you guys.
Jennifer Tracy: October. I've been talking about this the last couple weeks because October is LGBTQ History Month. We celebrate that here in the US. You guys in the UK and Canada also celebrate in October. Other countries have different months that they celebrated. Here, it's October, which is also my favorite month. I love October. I actually got married in October. I love the fall. I love the freshness. There's a change in the air. After the fall equinox something magical happens. It also celebrates LGBTQ which is very, very close to my heart.
Jennifer Tracy: I currently live and have lived in West Hollywood for 20 years. I love living here. I love the community here. I love how much the community embraces everybody. That's something that when I move, I'm really going to miss. I don't know when I'm moving, but it is probably happening because of school situations, which is fine. That's great. It's going to be a privilege to move where I'm moving but I am going to miss that. One of the things I love about West Hollywood is just anything goes literally, literally anything goes. You can let your freak flag fly and everybody just celebrates that.
Jennifer Tracy: There's something so beautiful about that. When I was 14 living in Denver in a super, super white suburb of Denver, I started modeling professionally and I was thrust into the world of downtown Denver like the art scene. I was surrounded by LGBT community at that time, which was 1990. Oh my god, I felt like I could finally let my hair down. I was a cis gender straight white as white gets girl. It was just so wonderful to be around this community of people who, I mean, I was a kid and I was surrounded by adults, which was really cool and great. Also, they just were themselves and I wasn't accustomed to being around that. There was something so attractive, so, so attractive about it.
Jennifer Tracy: Then, when I moved to New York, same thing. When I was like a day 18 I moved to New York and same. I spent a lot of time in the village back then, that was 1993. In 1993, I had my Doc Martens. Oh yeah, I had all y little floral dresses. I was very like Nirvana Pearl Jam era. I was 117 pounds. That's a whole other story. Boy, I think back to that time, it's crazy. I lived in a women's hotel, you guys. I lived in a women's ... actually it was a women's Christian hotel even though it wasn't like it was religious or anything but like the founders and how they got their money, I think was through the church maybe.
Jennifer Tracy: The first floor was like a salon, like a lobby. You could have gentlemen callers up until 8:00 p.m. with you in the lobby, right? That they weren't allowed upstairs, which was great, actually. There were women there from all over the world. I remember this one woman who was from Brazil. I mean, we were all super young, like anywhere from 17 to ... I think you had to be between 17 and 25 to live there. You got your own room with a twin bed and a sink and a window. Then, it was shared bathrooms. There was a phone in the hallway, a landline, because there weren't cell phones yet. I had a beeper. I had a pager. That's how my agents would tell me that I ... They would page me at the end of the day and tell me about my auditions for the next day.
Jennifer Tracy: I would have to go to a pay phone or that hall phone and write it down and then go look on the map. God, this is all coming back to me. I had to look at my New York City map and map out where the auditions were and how I would get from one to the next and which trains I would have to take. I can't believe I survived that. It was in the dead of summer because my birthday is in June, I had just graduated. I turned 18. I flew to New York. It was hot as fuck. I was going on auditions. Oh my god. You know what? Just something great about being just young and naive and just going for it. I learned a lot. I learned a lot about myself that summer.
Jennifer Tracy: Then, I had a nervous breakdown, I think, in October and I came home. I went to college, I was like, "I can't do this. I can't do this anymore," but that's another story.
Jennifer Tracy: Anyway, I love how me talking about LGBT History Month lead me into the black hole of my modeling career 27 years ago. Yup, 27 years ago. Wow. Twenty six, something like that. Holy cow. Anyway, Clutch Gifts is our sponsor for today's episode. They curate these beautiful, beautiful gift boxes centered around sommelier small wines, sommelier tested small wines. I don't know if I'm saying that right. Some people say sommelier but it's actually S-O-M-M-E-L-I-E-R, sommelier, I think that's the French pronunciation if I'm going back to my French, sommelier. Anyway, I'm totally effing it all up.
Jennifer Tracy: Amazing wines and then they pair them with these beautiful curated little gifts, like candles, and matches and books and board games and you have so many things to choose from and you just pick out what's going to be perfect for your person. Then, they ship it to them. Then, your person calls you and says, "Oh my god, I've never received such a beautiful gift box. Thank you so much." You say, "Yeah I know." Then to yourself, you say, "I'm so glad I got that 15% off because I entered the code MILF15 in the checkout cart online. I didn't even have to leave my home. Now I look like a baller."
Jennifer Tracy: That's your story. If you want it to be just go to clutchgifts.com. Without further ado, here's my interview with Christine Joy Luck Sarno. I hope you enjoy. Hi, Christine.
Christine Sarno: Hi, Jennifer. How are you?
Jennifer Tracy: I'm good. I'm so happy to be here in your beautiful home and this amazing cheese plate that you made for me.
Christine Sarno: I love you for saying that. First of all, I'm so excited to be on your show and to just have this girl chat with you. Secondly, you compliment me too much. This is just from Trader Joe's. It's like I'm telling you.
Jennifer Tracy: Honey, it's a beautiful charcuterie there, you guys. Okay, wait a minute. It's so funny. Everyone does this one. Because I gush, as you guys know, I tend to gush over my guest because I'm just in love with them. It's not just a chees plate from Trader Joe's. It's on a beautiful, long rectangular ceramic dish. It's got all of topknot on it. There's perfectly washed grapes on the end. There's a cheese knife. I mean, come on, and she's got little side cheese plates with pictures of Swiss cheese on it. Come on.
Christine Sarno: All right.
Jennifer Tracy: Thank you, thank you.
Christine Sarno: I'm an overachiever. You're welcome.
Jennifer Tracy: It's good. It's so good. It's so good. It's good. Okay, let's dive in. Where were you born and raised?
Christine Sarno: Wow. Okay, way back when. I was born in Taipei in Taiwan. That's where my mom is from. That's where my parents met. That's kind of where we kick start this journey.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah
Christine Sarno: Overseas.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, I love it.
Christine Sarno: How long did you live there before coming to the US?
Jennifer Tracy: All right, so I'm going to give you ... I'll give you like the condensed version of the long story, but essentially, my dad was in the Air Force and he's American, Italian Irish descent, grew up in New Jersey. When he went into the surfaces and when he finished his military portion of his career, he basically took his engineering background and decided to work for a company called General Instruments. At that time, they were making semiconductors and basically, all of the technology that was ... it was a booming industry at the time because of all of the military defense contracts.
Jennifer Tracy: Basically, I mean, they were building parts that went into fighter planes and that sort of thing. They opened an operations division in Taipei. My father was relocating from the US right to Taiwan. I think it was just really, for him, I've ... My father has always had a love of the Asian culture and obviously Asian women. The story really goes, my parents met in 1968. At that time, the expats would always love to go out to the officer's clubs. That was like that was the scene.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: That's where they were going out for cocktails and go dancing and meet the cute little Asian ladies, right, Taiwanese girls. My mom love music like all of the ... just American music, all the import music, you know, Motown and she love to dance. That was her jam. My father saw her on the dance floor with her girlfriends. He said it was love at first sight. Yeah. He asked her to dance. I know.
Jennifer Tracy: That's so sweet.
Christine Sarno: He asked mom to dance and they always tell the story. I remember being a kid and it was cute when I was little, but by the time I was a teenager, I'm like, "Guys, I'm over it."
Jennifer Tracy: You're sick of it.
Christine Sarno: Because they would say, and then we got married and then and Christine was made in Taiwan and there's a stamp on her butt, right that says, that. Yeah, okay. We lived there till I was three. My sister was born, my younger sister, she's 18 months younger. Then, when I was about three and a half, my dad was basically given an opportunity to relocate back to New York. We moved back to the US in 1974. My mom wasn't a big fan of that decision. It was a troubled marriage pretty early on. Long story short, though, my mom pretty much came to this country under duress. She felt she didn't have a choice, and she didn't want to lose her girls. We ended up in New York. We lived there for another six years and we can go into more detail about what that was like, but when ...
Jennifer Tracy: What part of New York were you in, the city?
Christine Sarno: We grew up in Long Island.
Jennifer Tracy: In Long Island, okay.
Christine Sarno: In Long Island, yeah. Same company but they had a New York ... one of their New York offices were based in Long Island.
Jennifer Tracy: Okay.
Christine Sarno: We lived like this suburban lifestyle in Long Island. From the outside, we were just part of the regular middle class suburban families. I think it was for me, it was a struggle because I was born in another country, I had a mom that ... where English was a second language. That was already a barrier for her to really get acclimated to this new country and this new life. Then, there was arguing and abuse going on in the household. It was just those years were really interesting trying to grow up. Then, also at that time, being a kid in the mid '70s, when you're of mixed descent and you're growing up in a predominantly white neighborhood.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh, sure, yeah.
Christine Sarno: Yeah, it just didn't know ...
Jennifer Tracy: You were holding a lot on your little six-year-old plate.
Christine Sarno: We're trying to figure it out, right.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah. Yeah.
Christine Sarno: It was a lot of memories that I choose not to go back and relive often and there's ... I've processed a lot of that and I understand that those experiences have actually helped to mold and shape who I am today. I'm grateful for all of it. It wasn't really the happiest childhood to be honest. Then, when I was nine, my father was given the opportunity to go back to Taiwan again, and my mom was so happy about it. I think, that was truly the beginning of the end to the marriage because we were there for three more years. My mom was a completely different person. I think she had evolved living in the States. I think it was for her, I think, it might have strengthened her a bit to come back to her home country, and to be able to reconnect with family.
Jennifer Tracy: Sure.
Christine Sarno: Who had actually, in all honesty, abandoned her when she had made the decision to marry an American man. We lived there for three more years and then move back to the US again permanently when I was 13.
Jennifer Tracy: Wow. What was it like going back to Taiwan when you ... I'm sorry, Taipei.
Christine Sarno: Taipei is the capital of Taiwan.
Jennifer Tracy: Okay. I got confused for a second.
Christine Sarno: Yeah, no, it's all good. Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: It [Whitey McWhitey 00:14:11], over here.
Christine Sarno: No, it's good.
Jennifer Tracy: Wait. Okay, you moved back to Taipei, the capital of Taiwan when you were nine, what was that like making that shift back again? I mean, I'm sure you were still swirling within what you're describing as a dysfunctional household anyway. No matter where you go, there you are but.
Christine Sarno: For me, I think at that point, when you're a nine-year-old kid, you have your friends, but I think that age to make that transition, to make a major move like that. If I look back, I would say, I'm glad it happened when I was nine.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, and not 13.
Christine Sarno: Not when I was 13 or 14.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: Again, my dad, he was a senior leader. He held a very high position in this company. We live like expats. We went to a private English-speaking school, international school. The same thing too, it was really difficult to, I think, acclimate because not so much that we didn't want to make friends or try to establish a sense of community there. Because things were so bad at home and always so bad at home, it's difficult to have friends come over, with my dad was had way too many drinks. It was difficult to have friends come over when my parents were screaming at each other.
Christine Sarno: During those years, it was almost like we kept all of the stress and the pressure of what we are experiencing at home to ourselves.
Jennifer Tracy: Right.
Christine Sarno: I think that's also combined with there's a cultural influence there too. In the Asian culture, you don't share anything that might cause you to lose face, right?
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah. You got to keep it together.
Christine Sarno: You got to keep it together.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: You have to have the semblance of a life that is charmed. There's no trouble at home. Having an Irish Italian Catholic father where it's the same thing too, you keep your problems in the house, you don't talk about it with other people.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: It was definitely an interesting way to grow up. On the one hand, that represented its own challenges and had its own impact. On the other hand, I have to say, just the ability to experience my life in two different countries and also experience the both sides, right, of my ethnic makeup, the differences in these cultures, I think, was very powerful because I ... as an adult now, I think for me, I pulled the positives out of both of it. Growing up in New York taught me, even in Long Island, taught me to be pretty tough kid.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: There are street smart that I learned when you are with a bunch of kids. A lot of my friends we're from like Queens and Brooklyn.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: Hanging out with people that are from like, the tri state area.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: There's a certain level of ...
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: ... street smart.
Jennifer Tracy: Scrappy.
Christine Sarno: Scrappy that comes with it.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: Which I really appreciated.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah. Yeah.
Christine Sarno: Then, on my mom's side of the culture, which there's so much, I don't know, purity and elegance and history about the Asian culture and specifically about being Chinese. I remember, sometimes after school, my mom would take us to take walks in sometimes the local gardens and we would walk around the temples and you just ...
Jennifer Tracy: That's really magical.
Christine Sarno: It was very magical.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: Going grocery shopping was so much fun too even on weekends.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: Right down the block, we would have ... that's when I was actually introduced to the concept of a farmers market, was growing up in Taiwan.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: Where you would literally go down the street, literally two blocks away and every morning, it's like fresh fruits and vegetables. I mean, you get to pick your fish of the day, literally out of the fish tank.
Jennifer Tracy: Wow.
Christine Sarno: What you're going to cook for dinner that night. Just to experience that was wonderful too.
Jennifer Tracy: That's so neat. That is cool. Okay, you're a teenager, and I'm sorry, you said you moved back to the States as a teenager?
Christine Sarno: Yeah, when I was 13.
Jennifer Tracy: Okay.
Christine Sarno: In time for eighth grade.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh, just in time. Just in puberty.
Christine Sarno: Oh, yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah. Perfect. You moved back to New York again?
Christine Sarno: I move back to New York, back to Long Island. For good this time.
Jennifer Tracy: Okay.
Christine Sarno: Yeah, that was a lot of fun.
Jennifer Tracy: Then, you met your scrappy friends. You guys hangout and you're like, West Side Story. No, I'm kidding.
Christine Sarno: Kind of sort of.
Jennifer Tracy: You're a jet, all the way. I mean, yeah, I was just actually thinking about this the other day, and I was talking to Sabrina about it, in my super duper, super duper, super duper white high school, private high school in the suburbs of Denver. We did West Side Story my senior year. I really wanted the part of Anita, right. Me like super white super blonde and so I got the part, and I wore a wig, like a curly wig. This is 1992 or 3, I can't remember if it was a fall. I graduated in the spring of '93. Anyway, and I put self-tanner on, right. Now I'm a 44-year-old woman looking back at that I'm like, that was so racist. That was so culturally appropriation that was like so ... I mean, the fact was, we did have ethnic ... we had girls that were, one of my best friends was Lebanese, she should have gotten the part.
Jennifer Tracy: Anyway, there was this whole long list of things, but I look back at that, and I'm just like, wow, anyway, that just reminded me the West Side Story thing of how that would not fly today.
Christine Sarno: I know, but I'm sure you looked hot, right, and you got the part, a girl's got to do what a girl's got to do.
Jennifer Tracy: I mean, it was almost embarrassing, but I was like, I got to share about that because it's just like what are we. I mean and I was 17. I mean, I take some responsibility but what were the adults thinking in that scenario? Like, oh, this is fine.
Christine Sarno: I'm thinking they thought like she's super talented and she looks the part and she's hot.
Jennifer Tracy: Thank you. I'll take that. I'll take that for now to make myself feel better, but oh, my goodness, oh, my goodness. Anyway, I digressed. You're in New York and then what happens?
Christine Sarno: Then what happens...
Jennifer Tracy: To your young adult's life.
Christine Sarno: ... to my young adult life.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: I think it was, everything did come to head when we moved back. My mom had had enough. I remember when I was little, especially the first six years of living in New York, some of the memories that I had is she literally came to the US, again, not speaking very much English. Not having a network of support here. Didn't have a job. My dad controlled the finances. I can't imagine what she went through. It like watching somebody trapped in a no-win situation. My mom, is in a new country with two little, basically two toddlers, trying to navigate an abusive marriage with an alcoholic, who's basically is controlling the reigns, right? To her credit, this woman is unbelievably resilient and she's fierce. My mom is fierce with a capital F.
Jennifer Tracy: I like that.
Christine Sarno: Yeah. She really pushed through. I think what was really important for my mom is that as she was starting to pick up more and more, of the English language, and she was starting to make some friends, even back in the '70s.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: We had some empowered women.
Jennifer Tracy: Yes. Yes.
Christine Sarno: That were guiding my mom to just try to do better for stuff and they encouraged my mom when she had a grasp of English to try to find work. That was really difficult. My father was dead set against it. He felt that her job was to sit home and take care of myself and my sister. I'm actually really proud of my mom that she did find employment and interestingly enough, my mom found employment at a company, in the same industry as my dad. In the semiconductor industry, basically working doing just soldering work, basically manual labor for minimum wage.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: It gave her some sense of independence and it put her outside of the home, in an environment where she could just start to grow, I think, as a woman. She found a caregiver for me and my sister. That was like some of the first steps of my mom trying to find independence. I think, obviously, as the years passed, my mom was growing stronger as a woman and she was coming into her own.
Christine Sarno: By the time we moved back to the States the second time around, I think she just decided I had had enough. When I was 15, my parents, my mom actually initiated the divorce. That was definitely not an easy road for either of them.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: My experience too, is even during that time, like I had to be an advocate for my mother but that was a role that I played my whole life. When my mom couldn't speak English and we had to go to the bank or the grocery store and she had a question about something, I was translating for her. If she felt she was in a situation where she was either being disrespected and didn't know how to respond, I'm the one that would basically be her mouth piece even as a kid, and I was speaking to adults on her behalf.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: I'm so passionate about this, like, it's my whole life, I feel like I have always wanted to protect women to find a way to empower them to like use their strength, their voice to go after what they want in life, to find a way to build or establish some platform of independence so that they have choices to not find themselves stuck.
Jennifer Tracy: Yes.
Christine Sarno: I think having the mom that I ... In the situation that she was in growing up in the household that I did, I think that was kind of the boot camp of training for me. Yeah. At 15, my mom decided to initiate a divorce and it was a pretty messy one. She got through it.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah. You guys all got through it together, you and your sister, and your mom.
Christine Sarno: We did.
Jennifer Tracy: Then, you ended up going away to college on a full ride. I read the Voyage LA, it was wonderful.
Christine Sarno: You did. The story goes like this. Thank you for mentioning that.
Jennifer Tracy: Because that's impressive. That's not an easy thing to get.
Christine Sarno: Thank you. It was such an interesting decision for me to make and I'll tell you, I ended up going to a university in Long Island that gave me a full academic scholarship. It was not my top school. It wasn't my first pick but it was the right pick. Because I knew that if I ... My number one school which I got into was NYU. At that time, my parents, as divorced generally happens to impact couples this way, but really financially destroyed both of them.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: Right? There was no money unless I wanted to take a oodles of student loans out. I had already learned very early on by growing up in a household where my mother had no money to call her own, right, no financial control over her life, that I needed to make fiscally responsible decisions, if that's what I wanted in my life. Either I could go out and basically take on a ton of student loans, go to school of my choice or I could take a free ride, right, and call my shots and basically graduate debt free.
Jennifer Tracy: That's incredible that you have that level of awareness at what 17, 18. Most kids don't think like that.
Christine Sarno: It's interesting. The funny thing is this, if I look back and this drives me nuts today, Jennifer, is that because of the sheer reality of my life and my situation, I had no choice but to become financially literate early on. I had to write out the checks for the bills for my mom.
Jennifer Tracy: Right, oh my gosh.
Christine Sarno: I had to help her understand. I was reading through financial documents in high school, like when my mom was working like what's 401K? What's?
Jennifer Tracy: Wow.
Christine Sarno: I was already doing my homework.
Jennifer Tracy: That's great.
Christine Sarno: Early on.
Jennifer Tracy: We should mandate that.
Christine Sarno: It drives me nuts ...
Jennifer Tracy: Seriously.
Christine Sarno: ... that this is not something that's required. It's not required education in schools.
Jennifer Tracy: Miserable.
Christine Sarno: The teacher, I mean, don't get me wrong, because some of my favorite classes in high school were in the arts and literature, and all that stuff.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: At the end of the day, and this isn't often taught in household, it really isn't.
Jennifer Tracy: No.
Christine Sarno: I think kids today, it just blows my mind how they treat money.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh, yeah. I mean, I was in college, I remember in college my first day at BU, I had to transfer to BU, it was my second year of college technically. There were all these people, this is 1994 or 5, and they signed me up for credit card. I didn't really know what I was getting into. They gave me some insane limit at that time. I think it was like $15,000 or something. I didn't really even have a concept of what I was getting myself into. I just was like, "Oh, free money." I was so naïve. Yeah, it's dangerous. It's really dangerous.
Christine Sarno: It really can be. It's also one of those things to where it's exciting like all of a sudden you felt like, oh, I do have some ...
Jennifer Tracy: Independence.
Christine Sarno: ... independence and financial trouble, but what we don't realize and it's very easy to go down this really dangerous rabbit hole financially. If we don't really understand kind of how money works. Two years ago, I read a book about planning for like wealth in the future, just there are so many great authors out there, I mean, someone as basic as Suze Orman.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: It was stuff that I hadn't even thought about that I should be paying attention to in terms of how to protect myself and my family, because I was reading books on mutual funds in college, like yeah, saving money, like where should I be putting it?
Jennifer Tracy: That's so sexy. That's so amazing.
Christine Sarno: Inflation versus like interest rates or crap. It was just like, okay. If I am head of household, and I'm the primary breadwinner, and I've got two children to support, what happens if something happens to me? Things that people don't necessarily want to think about. Do I have all the right legal documentation in place?
Jennifer Tracy: Yup.
Christine Sarno: How often should that be updated?
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, have I named someone that's going to step in and speak for me all those things.
Christine Sarno: A million percent.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: A million percent. A million percent. Then, there's amazing platforms out there like digital platforms out there that you could actually ... There's ways that you can do this absolutely turned ...
Jennifer Tracy: Low costs. Yeah. Totally.
Christine Sarno: Low cost. They don't necessarily have to call a lawyer. Then, I think, a great book that women should read is, Rich Dad Poor Dad. I don't know if you're familiar with that book.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah. Very familiar. Yeah. Yeah.
Christine Sarno: Right?
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: It's just, again, it's a little bit of a reminder on, it's not just about making money to pay your bills. In my mind, for women, I think especially women today, we all are so focused on, and this is what I found in terms of ... because I do coach women, professional coaching on the side and we talk about a whole bunch of things.
Christine Sarno: One of the things or the topics that is near and dear to my heart obviously is about financial independence, right? We're so focused on finding a job that A, yes, we should love. We should feel passion about it. Then, knowing how to ask for our worth. We can go down this road about the fact that women make 80 cents with comparative dollar.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: All this other stuff. How do we leverage the best deal comp package whatever it is? This is what I'm finding that enough women are truly fully understanding that, okay, so you're making this money but now, what are you doing with it?
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah. Yeah.
Christine Sarno: Right?
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: How are you investing?
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: Right? It goes even beyond spending. What are you doing to create a platform that supports your dreams, your happiness, your independence, your ability to make choices?
Jennifer Tracy: Yup.
Christine Sarno: If you've got a crappy partner, you can walk away.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: Right? If you're in a job situation that is not serving you anymore, that it's okay because you know you got a couple months or a year or a couple of years that allow you to take the time that you need to find something else that's commensurate with your experience and your expectations about pay.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: You don't stay in a job that you're miserable at.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah. Having those skills is equal to and utilizing them of what you're talking about investing in yourself really. You're like buying your freedom pass basically. You're buying your own freedom.
Christine Sarno: You're buying your freedom pass and you know what I'm finding too? We talk about also women like know your worth or communicate your worth or ask for what you deserve. It's really hard to do that when you are in a place where you feel very vulnerable.
Christine Sarno: If you can't look around and go, "If I'm going to be on my own, if I have to be on my own, if I have to pay my mortgage, if I have to X, Y, or Z on my own, yeah, I can do it."
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: By the way, Joe Schmo on in this day.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: You don't get to disrespect me, right?
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: Or, senior leader in this company.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: You don't get to manipulate a situation in this way at work. I'm not going to tolerate it because I don't need this shit.
Jennifer Tracy: Yes. Yeah. Preach. There's so much. They're so fascinating and thank you for sharing that history about your origin and your mother's journey because I do think that's so interesting. When we look at the lineage of our mothers and I could go off about mine. I'm not going to right now. Not go off about her but I mean, I could go on about my mom and what I've learned from her and then her mother before her and her mother before her.
Jennifer Tracy: Just looking at the choices that they were faced with, within their circumstances and how I am now doing what I'm doing. I'm so grateful that I have the ability to make the choices that I have, that I am a single woman, divorced, amicably and forging a new path for myself. That's something that nobody in my maternal line was able to do.
Christine Sarno: You're a pioneer.
Jennifer Tracy: Okay. I'll take it.
Christine Sarno: I'm going to give you extra badass credit because you have to figure this out on your own, right?
Jennifer Tracy: Yup.
Christine Sarno: On top of that, you have a son which means that you're modeling the type of woman. I have a feeling that he's going to find a partner that is very similar to mom which is a great thing.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: Good for you.
Jennifer Tracy: Thanks.
Christine Sarno: I tip my hat to you my dear.
Jennifer Tracy: Thank you.
Christine Sarno: I do.
Jennifer Tracy: Thank you. Thank you. I want to talk about your journey to motherhood. We're going to skip several steps and I know you went to New York. You went to Long Island for college. You did that. Then, you went to Manhattan and you kicked ass in Manhattan, kind of just give me a little to that.
Christine Sarno: Yeah. You know what? Senior year of college, this was ... I graduated in 1993. I'll be 48 this year. Yeah. Yeah. I love it.
Jennifer Tracy: It feels so good.
Christine Sarno: It does feel good.
Jennifer Tracy: It's so good.
Christine Sarno: It looks pretty, fucking amazing too.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: As I look at this gorgeous woman in front of me.
Jennifer Tracy: Okay. Wait a minute, wait a minute because now we're going to go on this tiny rabbit hole. When I first met Christine, it was at the Self Care Project which Jackie McDougall hosted along with Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz. Both of whom have been on my show.
Jennifer Tracy: I was sitting at the Oxford house and I was sitting next to Christine. I just kept looking at her. You were so, you always are, so beautiful. I was like, "Shit. I recognize her from something." I think it was from Instagram. I don't know where it was from or some article I'd seen you and I don't know what it was. I was like, "I know her."
Jennifer Tracy: I thought you were an actress. I felt a little like giddy. I had a little crush on you. I was like, "She's so pretty. She probably won't even look at me." Then, you turned to me and you smiled, this radiant smile. I was like, "Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my gosh. She looked at me."
Christine Sarno: You're so generous.
Jennifer Tracy: It's true. It's true. It's true.
Christine Sarno: I think I was flouring like a huge like 40-year-old acne zit. I think that day I have ...
Jennifer Tracy: That is nowhere near my memory of you. My memory of you is completely photoshopped beauty.
Christine Sarno: Oh my god.
Jennifer Tracy: Flawless skin and like wow. Hair, just hair, just that hair. Okay. Okay. You went to Long ...
Christine Sarno: All right.
Jennifer Tracy: Okay.
Christine Sarno: Right, 1993.
Jennifer Tracy: '93.
Christine Sarno: We were just actually coming out of recession then too. The job market wasn't in our favor. If you're in the East Coast, you're generally trying to get a job in New York City primarily in financial services. There are a lot of people that kind of went into the stock market and all that stuff or finding something in advertising.
Christine Sarno: My friends, who were seniors, a year ahead of me were really struggling to find work. Some of them opted to go into grad school and get their MBA, whatever. There were some that had to take a year or two off. Senior year, first semester I decided to get my resume pulled together. I wasn't going to wait until last minute. I sat down with some professors who could help me in the business department. I did that. I started interviewing while I was still in school.
Christine Sarno: This was, yeah, senior year second semester and interviewed with a number of different companies. The one that was most attractive to me was obviously multimedia company based in New York. It was Rupert Murdoch's news corporation ...
Jennifer Tracy: That's so awesome.
Christine Sarno: ... back then when he used to own like HarperCollins Book Publishers. TV Guide. Do you even remember TV Guide?
Jennifer Tracy: Of course, I do.
Christine Sarno: Fox was just like, that was falling kind of under the umbrella.
Jennifer Tracy: Yes.
Christine Sarno: It was really neat. I went to work for their printing division because they had initiated in that particular year, this new sales career track program. They were actually heavily recruiting from top schools in the East Coast. Why they picked HAFTR, I have no idea because they were recruiting from Notre Dame. They were recruiting from like all these Ivy League schools. They came on to the HAFTR campus. I remember going, "This is the job I wanted."
Christine Sarno: When I ended up getting the call to come in to interview, because they were basically initiating their first class, their beta class, of undergraduate recruits that they were going to develop along this sales career track. Basically, turn us into their top performers.
Jennifer Tracy: They were grooming you guys.
Christine Sarno: They were grooming us. There were 10 of us. Ten of us selected across all these schools and I happen to be one of them. I was so excited. We were in this big boarding room in midtown. Literally, this beautiful mahogany table.
Jennifer Tracy: Wow.
Christine Sarno: They had croissants and all kinds of pastries in the middle of the table and nobody wanted to touch one. We're all so stressed out studying the list of senior leaders that we were going to meet with.
Jennifer Tracy: Wow.
Christine Sarno: Yeah. It was so great. I remember to this day I just ... the memory of this is so vivid for me. I felt so intimidated, for as confident as I was as a kid and as confident as I was in high school and in college, in this moment, I didn't feel like I was worthy.
Christine Sarno: I was here with all of these amazing candidates from schools that were just prestigious schools. To be one of 10, I looked around the room and just feel the tension and that energy and that competitive energy already because we know New York's life.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: I was so stressed out. I was. The first couple of interviews, I felt I had aced but there was just this one and this is the one that drives me crazy to this day. She was the first female executive that interviewed me that day. First female. Maybe it's to my benefit that she decided to be the hard ... She was the hard ass of all of them.
Christine Sarno: At the end of our half hour interview, she goes, "What makes you think you're more qualified than the rest of the candidates in the room that have graduated from more prestigious schools than you?"
Jennifer Tracy: Now, wait a minute. Were you in the room with all the candidates?
Christine Sarno: No.
Jennifer Tracy: She brought you one-on-one.
Christine Sarno: This is a one-on-one.
Jennifer Tracy: Okay.
Christine Sarno: This is a one-on-one. I was like, I got mad. It was a fuck you moment.
Jennifer Tracy: Really? What happened?
Christine Sarno: It was. Then, all of a sudden, the Christine that wanted to protect my mom, wanted just be ... I was always the voice in my group of friends. I'm the one that's going to step in and if I have to tell somebody off, I will.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: I'm so glad she asked me that question because I said to her, I said, "Listen." I said, "I'm not worried about it." I said, "I'm going to lead by example here and I'm going to show them how it's done."
Jennifer Tracy: What was her reaction? She was floored.
Christine Sarno: She's like, "Good answer."
Jennifer Tracy: Yes.
Christine Sarno: Good answer.
Jennifer Tracy: That's so sexy. Oh my god. That's amazing.
Christine Sarno: Good answer.
Jennifer Tracy: You were what, 22?
Christine Sarno: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: That's so amazing.
Christine Sarno: Twenty-two. Trust me, when I walked out of that room, I think I was in a daze.
Jennifer Tracy: I'm sure. You were shocked.
Christine Sarno: I literally felt like someone like sucker punched me but it was ...
Jennifer Tracy: I love that. I love that.
Christine Sarno: Yeah. Then, I ended up getting the job.
Jennifer Tracy: My gosh. How long did you stay there?
Christine Sarno: I was with that company for a total of six years. Actually, about two and half almost three year, I was pushing for promotion pretty quickly and they didn't have an opening in Manhattan but they did have one in LA.
Jennifer Tracy: That's ...
Christine Sarno: That's how I ended up in Los Angeles.
Jennifer Tracy: I see.
Christine Sarno: Yeah. I jumped at that opportunity really, really fast because it was, first of all, I'm not married, no kids. Rent, I just had to worry about rent. No car.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: Nothing to really tie me down.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: I'm an adventurer. I love trying new things, seeing new places. This was a wonderful opportunity and talk about it would be one level of compensation increase if I stayed in New York, which would be okay if there was an opening. To have to relocate they know that, that is. That's a bigger ask. The increase in pay and opportunity was much more significant. That's why I ended up in Los Angeles.
Christine Sarno: I remember, they sent me on a plane in November of ... This is '95 to just meet with the office out here to see if I'd like it. They were so smart. They put me up in Santa Monica. Literally, I'm just like as I think about this now just ... I'm waking up to 70 degree weather, 75 degree weather and it's sunny and there's palm trees and that happened to be one of the worst winters in the East Coast too.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah. You're like, "I'm no brainer."
Christine Sarno: It's a done deal. I don't have to shovel myself out of my apartment in snow to get on the subway.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: I think I could do this for a little while. I've never looked back and lived here ever since. Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh my gosh. I want to skip ahead a little bit.
Christine Sarno: Okay.
Jennifer Tracy: To you becoming a mom.
Christine Sarno: Okay.
Jennifer Tracy: What was that journey like for you? Did you always know you wanted to have kids?
Christine Sarno: I had no interest in becoming a mother. That was not ...
Jennifer Tracy: I love it when women say that. I love it because I want to hear that journey.
Christine Sarno: Yeah. It blows me away because I can't even imagine my life without these two beautiful individuals. Recently, somebody asked me, "Christine, have you ever been in love?" Pretty much every major long-term relationship I've been in, I've loved deeply. I've been the one to decide to leave.
Christine Sarno: A girlfriend who's just trying, we were just having a deep conversation. She's like, "Do you think you were ever in love with your partners? Do you know? What's that feeling of in love for you?" I was like, "I know I've loved deeply when it comes to partners in my life but that in love feeling, I would say I would actually attribute to the love that I have for my kids." I'm so blessed that they are my world because I could experience love that profound, right?
Jennifer Tracy: I so get that. I always say, people ask about my son and I say, "He's the love of my life. He's the love of my life."
Christine Sarno: I personally feel. I don't know. I'm sure you can understand. They're the only two that can break my heart.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh, god. Tell me about that. I know. You're way ahead of me because your guys, yours are teens. I'm already like, he's going to move away because he's just like me and he's going to want to get the hell out. As he should. I'm just going to be like, when he's 18. Also, I want him to have that experience but I know that it's like.
Jennifer Tracy: That's why even the days that are hard like today he stayed home because he was sick and I had to juggle some child care. Luckily, I was able to get some. I have to just go, this is so fleeting. This time is so fleeting and he's going to grow up and he's going to go away. It's just not going to be the same.
Christine Sarno: It is. I know you're having these conversations, I'm sure, with other moms with older sons but it almost happens overnight. Where like the roundness in their cheeks start to disappear and you hear the deepening ...
Jennifer Tracy: The voice.
Christine Sarno: ... of the voice.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh my god. Your boy is how old?
Christine Sarno: Ryan will be 16 in December.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh my gosh.
Christine Sarno: I know.
Jennifer Tracy: He's almost driving.
Christine Sarno: He's almost driving and I've asked him. He's such a sweetheart because on his cell phone, his outgoing voicemail or when you call to leave a message, it's still his voice from when he was 12, I think. I've asked him not to change it so I can still hear that baby voice when I call.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh my god.
Christine Sarno: He's such a sweet kid. He's so accommodating. He hasn't changed it. Either he wants to make me happier or he's just forgotten, because everybody is texting now.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah. They don't call each other.
Christine Sarno: They don't call each other.
Jennifer Tracy: They don't leave voicemails.
Christine Sarno: No. They don't leave voicemails and they don't write full sentences. I'm lucky in the morning now. I remember when he used to wake up in the morning, I'd be in the kitchen and he'd hugged me from behind and say, "Good morning, mommy. I love you."
Christine Sarno: Now, he'll walk by the kitchen, he'll see me in the kitchen and I'll say, "Good morning, Honey. How are you?" He'll give me the what's up nod and maybe a grunt if I'm lucky and then keep walking. I've tried the what's up nod. I'm already getting it. My son is not ... He is grumpy in the morning. He goes outside to pee. That's his [inaudible 00:46:47].
Christine Sarno: We live in LA. We live in LA. He started doing this about a year ago. He goes in our backyard in his little bungalow in West Hollywood. He goes in the backyard and he pees on this gravel. I come out like if I come out in any of the next few hours, I see the wet swirly marks of where he's just like ... It's so funny. I don't know. That's such a man thing.
Jennifer Tracy: It is a man thing.
Christine Sarno: To go pee outside, mark your territory.
Jennifer Tracy: Mark your territory. Either that or he's trying to write something.
Christine Sarno: Both. I think both. I think both. Oh my god.
Jennifer Tracy: Boys are the best. The boys are the best. They are. They are. Girls too. Girls too but there's something about them and having not grown up with brothers ...
Christine Sarno: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: ... or male cousins. He's just like this magnificent experiment from me ...
Christine Sarno: Yes, yes.
Jennifer Tracy: ... so amazing. Okay. You didn't want kids?
Christine Sarno: I didn't want kids. I was too career focused.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: In fact, that was actually one of the reasons why my first marriage never worked out. I was married before I have met Ryan and Lily's dad.
Jennifer Tracy: Okay.
Christine Sarno: My only husband actually because he's the only one I was married to. First very significant long-term relationship was he was 13 years older than me. That marriage didn't work out for a variety of different reasons. It was a very amicable parting that we did part as friends.
Jennifer Tracy: How long were you married?
Christine Sarno: We were married for two years together for about six.
Jennifer Tracy: Okay.
Christine Sarno: Yeah. I think a part of the challenge too is that we really wanted different things out of our lives at that time. He was ready to settle down and start a family. I think he really wanted a stay at home mom and wife and he had this picture. He was ready for that. I told him I had. I was open to the idea of having kids but I also really wanted to see where my career was going to go.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: To have time with him as a partner, to travel and do things together. He wanted to just get married and have kids right away. It was too much, I think, for me. I thought it was best. I walked away from that.
Christine Sarno: Then, I met Ryan and Lily's dad about a year after that. It was super fun, kind of whirlwind, amazing dating. We were just crazy in love and interestingly enough and I know so many women say this but I really believed this can be the case for me. I'd never had like really regular periods. My cycle is so. For the six years that I was with my first husband, we weren't necessarily being very mindful not to get pregnant.
Jennifer Tracy: Right.
Christine Sarno: There are number of times where I could have gotten pregnant but I never did.
Jennifer Tracy: Right.
Christine Sarno: There was this idea in my mind that maybe my body, if I was ever going to do it might not even come easily for me.
Jennifer Tracy: Right.
Christine Sarno: A long story short, almost a year into dating Ryan and Lily's dad, we had a pretty fabulous weekend. We were like, it hasn't happened yet. What's the chances, right? Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: Wow.
Christine Sarno: It came as a surprise in such a beautiful way. I was living in Santa Monica at the time and their dad was living in this part of LA. I was already ready to buy a home. Actually, a second property, believe it or not, because I already owned in Santa Monica. I was ready for something bigger.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: We were looking in this area. This is the house that we're actually chatting in now.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: It was during ASCO, I thought it was just the stress of work and trying to see if we could make this house work and all this stuff. I didn't realize that my period was, I was late. I remember at that time going, "I don't remember my boobs ever get this tender before a period. Maybe I should test."
Christine Sarno: Long story short, we took a pregnancy test and there was a little man right there. Yeah. I remember that we two freaking out like, "Oh my gosh. I've had three girl's nights this week." I'm just like, "What was I doing." I had way too many apple martinis."
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah. Everybody, yeah. I did that with cheese. I was like, "I ate cheese." I think that's the American culture. It's kind of alarmist about all that stuff.
Christine Sarno: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: The fact is there's plenty of women that still smoke. I shouldn't even, but like Parisian women have a cigarette every now and again during their pregnancy or not that you should ever smoke when you're pregnant but I'm just saying. Or they have wine
Christine Sarno: We're almost like hypervigilant about ...
Jennifer Tracy: We are.
Christine Sarno: ... avoiding anything and everything that could possibly have an impact on a healthy pregnancy.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah. I tell you something. Ryan was probably one of the ... It was such a beautiful experience to be pregnant.
Christine Sarno: Of course, I remember when I showed the pregnancy test to my children's father, he's like, "I'm so excited." He's like, "I want this baby. I want us to be a family." That was really hard for me because in all honesty to be completely transparent, I couldn't say the same thing.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: I remember I called my mom that night. I said, "Mom, I don't know what to do." My career is really taking off and I've only been with this man for just about a year. This is really going to fast track us into something I don't know. She said, "Sometimes honey, sometimes, someone upstairs has to make the decisions for us, that are the best for us because we can't make them for ourselves."
Christine Sarno: She's like, "I'm not telling you what to do" but she said, "I have no regrets in spite of all the things that we've had to experience." She said, "You and your sister are my success."
Jennifer Tracy: That chills. That's beautiful. Yeah.
Christine Sarno: I have no regrets in light of everything I've experienced in my life, in my own life.
Jennifer Tracy: Then, take me through that. You had Ryan and then you had Lily shortly thereafter.
Christine Sarno: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: They're pretty close in age.
Christine Sarno: Yeah. Lily is 18 months younger. My sister and I are Irish twins and then my kids are Irish twins too.
Jennifer Tracy: Perfect.
Christine Sarno: Yes.
Jennifer Tracy: Are they close?
Christine Sarno: They are. They are. I think it's for Ryan and Lily, they get on each other's nerves and always have. Sibling thing. My relationship with their father didn't last. It didn't work out the way that I think we had hoped.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: From very early on because we separated when Ryan was and a half and Lily was two. They've always had each other. Even if they had to go from mom's home to dad's home, what was consistent was the fact that they were always together.
Jennifer Tracy: Yes. That's so comforting.
Christine Sarno: It is comforting and I think it actually help to strengthen that bond.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: Between the two of them. The times that I remember Ryan would antagonize his sister, which would drive me nuts and sometimes I would feel like. The five minutes that mom can sit in quiet and actually, "Ryan, why do you have to tease your sister?" He would be the first to come to her rescue.
Christine Sarno: I have this beautiful memory we were actually at West Hollywood Park and Lily was playing by herself with a little sand pail and shovel. Ryan was hanging out in the jungle gym with some boys that he had met. This little boy, I don't know, maybe he had a soft spot for Lily and the way little boys show it. He came over and grabber her shovel and her pail and ran off with it. She started to cry. She's like, "My shovel, my pail." Ryan jumped down from the jungle gym, before I had the chance to even get up and kind of ...
Jennifer Tracy: Intervene, yeah.
Christine Sarno: ... intervene, right. He jumped down from the jungle gym and chased this little boy and was like, "That's my sister's. Give that back to me." It's so sweet to see that.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: They're really tight.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah. That's awesome.
Christine Sarno: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: You found yourself in this position of being a single parent and you had already done all this work at that time to set yourself up for this very thing of being an independent woman, having your own money, having your own career and having your own deal.
Christine Sarno: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: What was that like? It was still hard as hell.
Christine Sarno: It was so hard as hell. Jennifer, one of the things that I don't want to ... I don't want to mislead. I'm not like a, "Hey, this is not cutting it for me, see a piece." We as women, man, we just exhaust all possible avenues and we do as ... by the time we're done, we were done a long time ago.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: I do want to make that clear that whether it was my first marriage, my relationship with Ryan and Lily's dad like there were problems.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: There were problems that we were trying to fix that just couldn't be fixed. For me, when you get to this place where apathy sets in and it's just not healthy.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: It wasn't like I just woke up one night said, "Hey, you're not as exciting as you used to be."
Jennifer Tracy: Of course.
Christine Sarno: We had our problems and we couldn't make them work. I was very, very unhappy. I was very unhappy. I think the decision to part wasn't easy.
Jennifer Tracy: Of course.
Christine Sarno: I felt it was important to move forward. I don't think he was very happy about that decision. Actually, it was difficult. As I shared with you, lawyers had to get involved. Sometimes, when people hurt in a break up, they leverage anything that they can to make the other person or the other party feel that hurt.
Jennifer Tracy: Yes.
Christine Sarno: Maybe my situation because I was financially stable and secure and for the better part of our relationship, I was the one who was the primary breadwinner. I think that was one of the ways that my ex could create an impact in my life.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: Yeah. We go through that.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: We go through that. So many people go through that, whether it's husband suing wife, wife suing husband or just whatever the situation may be.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: I think, in retrospect and I'm glad that I didn't allow that process to go on longer than it should have, is that all of that time, energy and resources on a variety of different levels to tracks from just moving forward and having a happier future.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: Speaker 1; Again, my mom being the wise. She's the OG of coaching for me.
Jennifer Tracy: Cool.
Christine Sarno: She's the original.
Jennifer Tracy: Right. Is your mom still with us?
Christine Sarno: My mom is still with us, yeah. We talk weekly.
Jennifer Tracy: She lives in New York?
Christine Sarno: Still lives in New York, yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh my gosh.
Christine Sarno: We have like a crazy Chinese-American mom daughter dynamic where she still kind of wants to tell me what to do but at the same time too she's proud of my independence.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: She's always been one of the first people, if not the first, that I would go to just to get her counsel because she's really wise. She's been through a lot. She reminded she said, "Money comes and goes, your health, your life, you don't get that back. While you're busy fighting," she's like, "you're not in a position to build your future."
Jennifer Tracy: Yes.
Christine Sarno: She said, "It will come back to you but you have to be able to have the time and the resources for it." Again, I said, "You're right."
Jennifer Tracy: That's so wise.
Christine Sarno: I remember calling the lawyers that week going, "Let's settle. Let's figure this out."
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah. Let's get this done.
Christine Sarno: It's time. Let's get it done. I'm tired of paying for your vacations.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah. Totally, totally, because what it is. Yeah.
Christine Sarno: I that was a really hard time for me. That was a tipping point I think in terms of my health and that was scary.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: Because what that felt like for me was, especially at the kids' ages, Ryan and Lily's ages was, oh my god, like I'm my mom all over again.
Christine Sarno: Sure.
Jennifer Tracy: Basically, I've got two kids and they're small children and I'm in a toxic situation and I'm with no one that's got my back. How am I going to do this?
Christine Sarno: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: How am I going to maintain like a career and still make sure that I could put a roof over the head and build for their future? How am I going to do all this? That was a scary time for sure.
Christine Sarno: That's really vulnerable speaking back to what you're saying about how does a woman express her worth and vocalize and ask for her worth when she's feeling vulnerability? There's nothing more vulnerable than being a mama bear and going, "I have to protect these two innocent little beings. "
Jennifer Tracy: Right.
Jennifer Tracy: I really do a lot. Yeah.
Christine Sarno: Yeah. It does. It musters courage and resilience. Listen, I also think too that, it fuels the fire in our belly to then go for what it is we feel we deserve for the sake of our children.
Christine Sarno: Yes, yes, 100%. Wow. Wow. Let me just look at the time. Let's get present with where you're at now. You have two teenagers that are just sailing. They're doing so great. That's got to feel really good.
Jennifer Tracy: Yes, thank you. I am so proud of these kids. I really am. Trust me, as a single mom, I still carry guilt lots of guilt, right, about not creating what this picture of a family life I thought I was going to have for these kids. For the amount of time that I didn't have with them, the things that I've missed to make sure that I could still prepare for their future, our future, their future.
Jennifer Tracy: The interesting thing is, is that these kids are so ... Kids are so smart, man, they really are.
Christine Sarno: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: I think, if anything, it's given them also the ability to become independent in their own way as well.
Christine Sarno: Yeah, yeah. I can even see that with my kid and it's really interesting.
Jennifer Tracy: Right. Especially sons because when they're ... A friend of mine who's a child psychologist, but she said, "Generally, when there is no father figure in the home, in the actual home, the son usually decides to act as the man of the house."
Christine Sarno: Yeah, yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: You'll see it in how they love you.
Christine Sarno: Oh my god.
Jennifer Tracy: Right?
Jennifer Tracy: Just the other day, I was killing myself putting these Pier 1 furniture, never again, never again. I will only order fully assembled furniture or I should have followed my instinct which was to use TaskRabbit and have Alejandro, this very, very, very handsome young man who's come over twice. He put my son's bunk beds together and one other piece of furniture, I forgot. He's very pleasant to look at while he's doing it.
Christine Sarno: I want an Alejandro.
Jennifer Tracy: He's really, really handsome. Very young though. I could just look at him and go, "You're yummy to look at while you're putting my furniture together." I should have done that for like 200 bucks.
Jennifer Tracy: Anyway, I spent eight hours. I had a breakdown. I was very premenstrual. My son was outside playing and I started crying because of the table, and he came over and he was stroking my hair and he said, "It's okay, mommy." He said, "I got you." I cried even saying this. He goes, "Maybe you should just take a break for a little bit."
Jennifer Tracy: It's so beautiful. That's the best. He's so sweet. It was like he took on that role of the man in my life, because he is. He is.
Jennifer Tracy: I know. Not only is that sweet, but I also feel that there's something about that is wonderfully positive too.
Christine Sarno: Yes, yes.
Jennifer Tracy: Our sons are going to be nurturing partners. They're going to know what it's like to be a very independent woman, be with a very independent woman that's you know, and maybe because they grew up with the mothers that they have, right. They'll be able to know how best to respond.
Jennifer Tracy: Totally. He didn't try to fix me.
Christine Sarno: Right.
Jennifer Tracy: He didn't shame my feelings. He just held me in that emotion and let me have it. Then, I got up and I did take a break or whatever, but I think that's a big thing in all of my relationships. My romantic relationships, I never was with, I think, men in general and bless them that they don't know how to hold a woman in her varying emotional states. That's where the whole like, "A woman's PMS-ing." Or, "The woman is crazy," or, "The woman is unstable."
Christine Sarno: You're right. They're emotional. You're very emotional.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah. It's like, well, you as the man get to just hold the space. Like let me storm. Let me be emotional. Look, I will come around. This is my process.
Christine Sarno: Right.
Jennifer Tracy: just hold the space. If I can raise my son to do that, he's going to win a million percent. That's just, hey, you know, Mars, Venus with all of that stuff too, but I think how beautiful and I'm so glad that you can relate on this level like I truly believe that my interaction, my dynamic with my son is in the hopes that, hey, I think I would love for him to find a partner. I want him to find someone that he doesn't have to take care of, or he's not looking for someone to take care of him.
Christine Sarno: Yes.
Jennifer Tracy: Like someone that he wants to be with that's going to challenge him that's got her own passions, whatever it may be, but then to also be able to have to kind of best respond to her needs, her emotions all of that stuff. Because at the end of the day, you want your kids to be happy too, right.
Christine Sarno: Absolutely. That's a skill. That's a skill that we learn whether we know it or not.
Jennifer Tracy: Exactly.
Christine Sarno: Okay. What are you up to now? You started before we hit record, you were telling me a little bit about what you do. I want to hear too about the coaching.
Jennifer Tracy: Okay.
Christine Sarno: Because I think that's so interesting and something that our listeners will really want to know about.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah. For sure.
Christine Sarno: Because you have so much to offer already. We've already gotten so much just from this hour talking to you.
Jennifer Tracy: We haven't even talked about what it's like to be almost 48 and dating.
Christine Sarno: We've got to get into that because you know, I have my stories.
Christine Sarno: Jennifer Tracy: I only know. Later.
Christine Sarno: Okay.
Jennifer Tracy: Right now, I mean in terms of my corporate career, right. I've found myself really, especially in like the last five to seven years, really gravitating more towards tech-based companies and even more so now towards mission-based companies. Some type of where there's an alignment with some type of do good in this world.
Jennifer Tracy: The last few companies, I've consulted with great company that's a platform in terms of delivering coaching to employee parents, right. A previous company was how do we distribute media as but in such a way that it gives the consumer the ability to opt in to just watching out, so stuff is not just pushed out to them when you don't want it and to reward them for that time. In some way, shape or form but they get to have control over that.
Jennifer Tracy: Even most recently, working with a company called the Baby Box Company, which I love. It's essentially delivering parenting education in a non-judgmental way to expectant parents. Then, you're rewarded for just learning about different topics. You talked about like postpartum. I mean, that's also part of their plan course content. It's rewarding people in some way or doing something to create some good in this world that's not just about selling stuff.
Jennifer Tracy: Because I came from a background where I was working for companies that help me help brands sell two or three more extra bottles of bleach to consumers, kind of that transactional sale that years ago was really ... it was lucrative. I was making a lot of money, selling for those types of companies who are establishing business development relationships with those companies. It's not creating the impact that I'd like it to.
Jennifer Tracy: More and more, I'm continuing to move in that direction. I'm actually looking for companies to align with and to support in that way, where maybe some platforms, different companies that I'm looking at, where it's, maybe it's a subscription-based. You buy the service or this product, but a significant percentage of those proceeds are going back into the community, or back to help different I guess groups or causes where they need the funding. That to me is really important.
Jennifer Tracy: Then, I would say probably in the last three years now, I've been working with individual coaching clients primarily focused on just professional growth and helping to navigate whether they're through more so along the lines if they're still working in a corporate environment, or a company environment and how to negotiate better salaries. How to deal with maybe like ... it could be as something as basic as they've got a very challenging situation with senior leadership. They're looking for ways to get more recognition. It's really about helping to support them in terms of finding their voice which has a lot to do with what they're worth.
Christine Sarno: Do you primarily work with women coaching? Only women.
Jennifer Tracy: Only women.
Christine Sarno: Yeah, yeah
Jennifer Tracy: Only women.
Christine Sarno: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: Not to say that I don't love the men.
Christine Sarno: Yeah, right.
Jennifer Tracy: Work dynamics are very different for women. I still believe that's the case. After 25 some odd years of being in the corporate side of my life, the industries have definitely shifted and changed in terms of how women are supported. We still have ways to go. We really still have ways to go. I just believe that it's still just as hard for women to break that glass ceiling. What I'm finding in terms of the women that I coach is that we start to talk about things outside of work. Oftentimes, it gets into like relationships in that sort of thing.
Jennifer Tracy: It's the discussion and the tone and the direction that I take is very congruent with how they could potentially be approaching things from a professional perspective. I try to help them take a look at it like your personal life is the same.
Christine Sarno: Of course.
Jennifer Tracy: Right? If you're going to negotiate hard as hell for great comp package, why wouldn't you do that in a relationship?
Christine Sarno: Yeah. Yeah. That's the perfect segue into dating in your 40s. Let's get in there. Let's get up in there. Are you currently dating?
Jennifer Tracy: Actually, I'm dating somebody.
Christine Sarno: You're dating.
Jennifer Tracy: Now, I'm dating somebody now. Yeah, I would say that I have found myself in a relationship, a pretty new one.
Christine Sarno: Wow.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah. It's only been a couple months, five months, six months. Yeah.
Christine Sarno: Okay, that's substantial.
Jennifer Tracy: It is. I mean, it is. I guess, right?
Christine Sarno: I think so. Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: We're still seeing where this goes which is wonderful. I think as a single mom, who's got a very full plate, right, and career and a whole host of other things. I think it's not easy. It's not easy to date and it's not easy to be in a relationship.
Christine Sarno: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: Dare I say that especially a woman in her 40s, it's a tough time. The men that I've met before I met this current bow or partner. He's a graduate from fuck-buddy. No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. No, I'm not. There has to be that component too. Otherwise, I'd be, come on now. That's got to be good too.
Christine Sarno: Yes.
Jennifer Tracy: No. I mean, no. We actually met on a dating app.
Christine Sarno: That's how it's happening now.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: I mean that's. Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: The first date was FaceTime date.
Christine Sarno: Oh my god, because you were in different parts of the country or something?
Jennifer Tracy: No, believe it or not. I laugh about this now, because when he proposed a FaceTime date, I was like, "Dude, what are you expecting to do on this FaceTime?" Right.
Christine Sarno: Right, right.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah. Mama don't play that, right? What about taking me out to dinner that kind of thing. It was so funny. His way of dating now is to just have an opportunity to connect with somebody and just speak with somebody and see if there's even a connection before you just show up on a blind date. Pretty much, it's like a blind date right?
Christine Sarno: Smart. Yeah
Jennifer Tracy: Realize now you got to sit through a dinner or something.
Christine Sarno: Yes, yes. That's true. That's pretty smart of him.
Jennifer Tracy: He's a smart guy. He is. The FaceTime date, it actually went well. I would say that it was good enough that he was interested in making sure that he was able to take me out to dinner before he had to go back on the road.
Jennifer Tracy: He was in LA. He'd been in LA for a couple of weeks. He was actually donating some time on the gentle ... is it the gentle farm or the gentle farmer ...
Christine Sarno: Oh, yeah, right. I think it's called the Gentle Barn.
Jennifer Tracy: Gentle Barn. I'm sorry. Yeah. His dream is to own a country estate. Yeah. He wants to he wants to have a farm at some point ...
Christine Sarno: Oh, he sounds really cute. Does he have a brother?
Jennifer Tracy: Married. I was just about, married and in fact, I've met the wife and the kids. No. I mean, wonderful. Yes. Brother is wonderful, but you know, that would be nasty.
Christine Sarno: Oh, god, no. Oh, god. Hell no.
Jennifer Tracy: I'm sure he has friends. It's been a wonderful experience so far. I found that before ... Josh, his name is Josh. Let me put his name out there because I'm an open book. I mean, he's significantly younger. He's 36, will be 36. I'll be turning 48. I didn't necessarily go into this thinking that this was going to turn into something, you know, right?
Christine Sarno: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: That was ...
Christine Sarno: Substantial. Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: Substantial. It's really been great. Even prior to even meeting Josh, what I'm noticing especially as a woman at this age who already has kids, who's already has an established career is doing her own thing is that it's really difficult, I think, to meet somebody who appreciates all of those different things going on in your life.
Christine Sarno: And isn't intimidated.
Jennifer Tracy: And isn't intimidated.
Christine Sarno: That's the thing. Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: I personally, this is my opinion. I think men that are "age-appropriate" for me right now, I've gone on a number of dates with men that are like, they don't know what to do with me. They don't.
Christine Sarno: They don't. I will concur like I just ... that has been my experience.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, it's again, I think it goes back to this thing of like that mother relationship that these men have had with their mothers whatever like it all stems from that. It really does. Would you say because in my experience it's like, whoa, okay which is not necessarily looking to get married or have kids, like she's been there done that. Or, she has her own money. I can't really call the shots on this one.
Christine Sarno: Yeah, yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: It's, well, she's intelligent. Shit. Or, maybe she drives a little nicer car than I do. It's almost like they don't feel comfortable. They don't feel manly enough, maybe.
Christine Sarno: I think they don't know how to feel ... Then, this is a sweeping generalization. I think in this kind of dynamic, they don't know how to access their masculinity in a way that feels satisfying to them.
Jennifer Tracy: I like that. Yeah.
Christine Sarno: It's like. Really again, it goes back to the thing. I was saying about you know, I'm always so proud of my son and he can be a little shit too sometimes. I mean we got ready for school. We were late and I said, "We're going to be late for the bus." He said, "Mom, I don't give a fuck." He's 10. He's 10. I was like, "All right, glad you know how you feel about that and you feel comfortable expressing it." Jesus, what am I doing? He has the ability because I've done that with him since he was a baby. To be with whatever is going on, for me, for his friends and even his teachers will say like, "He is solid. He's the calm in the storm when things are going."
Christine Sarno: He has his own storms, but I think for these men on these dates, like when I would show up for some of the dates, they would just like, be like.
Jennifer Tracy: Because you're gorgeous. Just you walk in to the right and they're like, oh boy.
Christine Sarno: I think it's just they just don't. Again, they don't know how to access their masculinity in a way that's satisfying to them which is really they just need to sit back and relax.
Jennifer Tracy: Relax and just be themselves and be vulnerable and just be, just, I don't know.
Christine Sarno: Just hold the space. They don't have to dazzle. I shared about this a couple weeks ago on my last solo podcast, I was in a relationship with this man off and on for a year that I was deeply in love, just hopelessly in love with him. He had these certain insecurities and he kept pushing me away, pushing me, pushing me away and part of it was he would share like, "I don't feel like I make enough money or I don't feel like" ... I was like, "I don't care about any about that. I don't need your money. I don't want your money. I'll make the money. You can stop working." You know what I mean? I would say this to him like jokingly, but not. It's like that's not what I love about you. That's not what I'm attracted to in you. He's a wonderful father.
Christine Sarno: There's just some old training that they all have of I have to be this provider and I have to be this thing. You can provide for me in other ways.
Jennifer Tracy: A million percent.
Christine Sarno: That is a mutual like give and take. I don't know. I don't know. I don't have the answer obviously and I always joke about romantically, my Achilles heel is romance like I just can't seem to get it right.
Jennifer Tracy: We have to keep putting ourselves out there though, right?
Christine Sarno: I'm so glad you met Josh and you guys are having fun.
Jennifer Tracy: We're having fun. We are having fun. He's a great guy and a good person. It's also a wonderful time I think in a woman's life a given where we both are at this life stage, where we can go into this without any expecting specific hard outcomes from the time span.
Christine Sarno: Yes.
Jennifer Tracy: Let's just go with the flow.
Christine Sarno: Yeah. Let's just enjoy each other.
Jennifer Tracy: Let's just enjoy each other. Let's see where it takes us and how life evolves together.
Christine Sarno: Yeah. Because that's all it's going to happen anyway, whether or not you think, I mean, now looking back to when I had my wedding and my this. I know. The baby and none of it turned out at all how I thought it was going to. Divorce is a wake-up call, right, in that there are no guarantees.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah. Yeah.
Christine Sarno: Oh, don't worry. Don't worry. My editor can cut it out or we could just leave it.
Jennifer Tracy: Okay.
Christine Sarno: The phone is ringing.
Jennifer Tracy: That's my home line. That's where all the telemarketers go.
Christine Sarno: Oh my god. It's the worst of the worst and this is the hour when they call, right? They know you're going to be home.
Jennifer Tracy: That's right.
Christine Sarno: Let's see. Okay. I think we're at the time where I get to ask you the fun questions.
Jennifer Tracy: Drum roll.
Christine Sarno: This has been so much fun. Oh my god. This has been so much fun.
Jennifer Tracy: I am having a blast. Thank you.
Christine Sarno: Thank you. Okay. I just inhaled my own saliva one second. Do you guys ever do that? You're like, excuse me. Christine is like, no I never do that. What do you think about Christine when you hear the word MILF?
Jennifer Tracy: Us.
Christine Sarno: Yes, yes, yes.
Jennifer Tracy: You girl and me.
Christine Sarno: Yes, yes.
Jennifer Tracy: Yes. Absolutely, the two of us. I think, how about this? Any mom.
Christine Sarno: Yes.
Jennifer Tracy: Any mom, any mom.
Christine Sarno: Yes. Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: I honor all of us. Yeah.
Christine Sarno: Amen.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, yeah.
Christine Sarno: What's something you've changed your mind about recently?
Jennifer Tracy: Specifically, as it relates to dating and then even in my professional life now at this stage, not being so tied to having hard outcomes, to being really open to what is going to happen next and not having to have the answers right away.
Christine Sarno: Yeah. I love that. Someone recently said to me, a mentor of mine. She said, "Jennifer you're really good at planning, and you're really good at outlining, and you're really good at forecasting." She said, "Then, that's great." She said, "You have to leave room for magic."
Jennifer Tracy: Oh, yeah, I love that.
Christine Sarno: Oh, yes. You forget about magic.
Jennifer Tracy: I love that. It's so true.
Christine Sarno: How do you define success?
Jennifer Tracy: I don't want it to be as general as just saying happiness. I think success is having the ability, right, to create what that looks like for yourself. To be empowered enough, to create that, right, and happiness we all define that differently. The way you define it the way I ... I mean and for me personally, so success is maybe just knowing that I will always have the freedom to make any choice that I want that serves me and the people that I love the most. Yeah.
Christine Sarno: I love that. I love that. Okay, lightning round of questions.
Jennifer Tracy: I love this.
Christine Sarno: Ocean or desert?
Jennifer Tracy: Ocean. Do you want insult at the desert [crosstalk 01:23:19]?
Christine Sarno: I have dust in on all my private parts and gosh. That's one of the reasons why I didn't end up going to burning man.
Jennifer Tracy: I'm just going to say burning man. Yeah.
Christine Sarno: Burn baby. A favorite junk food?
Jennifer Tracy: Nutella.
Christine Sarno: Girl, you're singing to me right now. I remember discovering Nutella when I lived in France when I did a semester abroad and it was like, "Where have I been living?"
Jennifer Tracy: The angels sing when you take a spoonful of that.
Christine Sarno: They do. I mean that was part of my 30 pounds I gained in France. That and all the booze I drank and all the croissants and fresh bread and [crosstalk 01:23:57] it's worth it. Yeah. Movies or Broadway show?
Jennifer Tracy: Movies.
Christine Sarno: You took a moment on it.
Jennifer Tracy: I took a moment because I just like, I mean there have been some powerful Broadway shows I've been to but I tend to really get immersed in a movie theater in a different way.
Christine Sarno: Yeah. There's a different intimacy.
Jennifer Tracy: Different. Yeah, yeah.
Christine Sarno: Daytime sex or nighttime sex?
Jennifer Tracy: 24/7 sex, girl.
Christine Sarno: Yes, girl. I had a feeling that was going to be your answer. Texting or talking?
Jennifer Tracy: Talking. I can't stand texting, talking please.
Christine Sarno: Cat person or a dog person.
Jennifer Tracy: Dog person. I'm allergic to cats.
Christine Sarno: Me too.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: Have you ever worn a unitard?
Jennifer Tracy: Maybe as part of a Halloween costume? Lingerie kind of. No, no, no.
Christine Sarno: No.
Jennifer Tracy: No. It was like as a body stocking like a unitard?
Christine Sarno: Yeah. A body stocking.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Christine Sarno: It's like yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh, yeah. Then, yeah.
Christine Sarno: Okay. I thought you looked really hot in that. Shower or bathtub?
Jennifer Tracy: Bathtub.
Christine Sarno: Yeah. Ice cream or chocolate?
Jennifer Tracy: Chocolate.
Christine Sarno: On a scale of one to ten how good are you at ping pong?
Jennifer Tracy: All right. This is so embarrassing because I'm half Chinese. I suck. I suck balls, ping-pong balls. I suck at it so much. I suck ping pong balls. Oh my god.
Christine Sarno: What is your biggest pet peeve?
Jennifer Tracy: My biggest pet peeve? When people are late.
Christine Sarno: Oh, thank god, I was on time today.
Jennifer Tracy: When they're not respectful.
Christine Sarno: I'm always on time. I'm always on time.
Jennifer Tracy: No. I mean it happens, but I just think it's like ... It's something about I've always been early, early for meetings and stuff like that.
Christine Sarno: Me too. I was actually early here. I sat on the street for 15 minutes because I didn't want to ring your doorbell too early.
Jennifer Tracy: You're so cute. You could have come in and started.
Christine Sarno: I'm that same way too and I get so anxious if I'm going to be late. I get severely anxious. I'd rather cool my heels for half an hour and having gotten there too early than have the anxiety of being late.
Jennifer Tracy: For me, it's a gesture of consideration and respect for someone else's time.
Christine Sarno: Agreed.
Jennifer Tracy: It's an easy way to show them how important they are to you and when you're late. It's one thing look, if you're late and you know gosh stuck in traffic it's like ...
Christine Sarno: Yeah, things happen.
Jennifer Tracy: ... make phone call. Or, sent somebody a text and say, "Look, I'm sorry." When people just show up late. Yeah, that's kind of like.
Christine Sarno: Yeah. If you could push a button and it would make everyone in the world 7% happier, but it would also place a worldwide ban on all hair styling products, would you push it?
Jennifer Tracy: Yes, I would. I got to tell you this girl loves her hair. That's a tough one.
Christine Sarno: You have really good hair.
Jennifer Tracy: I appreciate that.
Christine Sarno: Yeah. You have really good. Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: I wouldn't because I make the right decision.
Christine Sarno: Superpower choice, invisibility, ability to fly or super strength.
Jennifer Tracy: Super strength. I like super strength.
Christine Sarno: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: I think we women already have it, but I wouldn't mind an extra dose of it.
Christine Sarno: Yeah, no kidding, no kidding. Would you rather have a penis where your tailbone is or a third eye?
Jennifer Tracy: The penis works and you get an orgasm from using that penis?
Christine Sarno: Yup, fully functional.
Jennifer Tracy: Penis, who doesn't want more orgasms?
Christine Sarno: I'm just thinking of this now and this is episode, I think, you're episode 69.
Jennifer Tracy: Yes. I love that number.
Christine Sarno: Appropriately so. I think you are. Oh, no. Wait, I think you're 71.
Jennifer Tracy: That's ...
Christine Sarno: Oh, I just gave you, I'm sorry
Jennifer Tracy: That's okay, that was the year I was born and so it's even better.
Christine Sarno: Even better, even better.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, I'll take it.
Christine Sarno: I can't remember. Anyway, what I was going to just say was just realizing after 70 times of asking that I just realized I should have made it so that you could fuck yourself with your own penis.
Jennifer Tracy: I should have said, damn it ...
Christine Sarno: Kind of like male Yogis so they can get themselves blowjobs?
Jennifer Tracy: Yes, yes. Oh my god.
Christine Sarno: Respect for any guy that can do that. That's all I'm going to say, respect. Hashtag respect. Hashtag self blowjob.
Jennifer Tracy: That's right. Oh my god. Yeah.
Christine Sarno: What was the name of your first pet?
Jennifer Tracy: Jimmy. Yeah. He was our dog in Taiwan and my mom said he looked like a peanut farmer, so she named him Jimmy Carter.
Christine Sarno: What was the name of the street you grew up on? You can pick.
Jennifer Tracy: I can pick any one. Okay. Pinetree.
Christine Sarno: Your porn name is Jimmy Pine?
Jennifer Tracy: Jimmy Pine?
Christine Sarno: Like Jimmy Pinetree.
Jennifer Tracy: It sounds like I need to break out a banjo.
Christine Sarno: I think so.
Jennifer Tracy: Right? All of a sudden, the movie Deliverance is running through my head.
Christine Sarno: Oh my god.
Jennifer Tracy: Christine, thank you so much. You're just a joy and a treasure.
Christine Sarno: Jennifer, I love you. Thank you.
Jennifer Tracy: I love you.
Christine Sarno: Thank you for having me. I had so much fun. I really, it is such an honor. Thank you.
Jennifer Tracy: Thank you. Hey guys. Thanks so much for listening. I really hope you enjoyed my conversation with Christine. Join me next week for episode 70, 70, you guys. Oh my god. That's a big milestone. I'm going to be celebrating by bringing you a solo episode with just me. I have a few other little surprises in that episode as well. I can't believe it. Episode 70, this is big time. This is big time. Remember to go to clutchgifts.com to get your gift code of MILF 15 to get 15% off. I love you guys.