Janet Neal Interviews Cindy for Superbwoman

Cindy is Janet Neal's very first guest on her show "The Superb woman." The Superb woman is an organization that helps women step into their power for the betterment of all. Watch the video to hear how Cindy's passion for the Pro-age Revolution fits into the mission of the organization.

 

 

 

 

Video Transcript:

Janet: Hello and welcome to Superbwoman Sundays at 7. I am your host, Janet Neal, the founder and Queen Bee at the Superbwoman. Welcome to the very first Superb woman Sundays at 7. I am so excited to be bringing this to you. Let me tell you a little bit about the Superbwoman in case you don't know. It's an organization that I started in order to help women step into their power and put it back, that positive energy, back into the world for the betterment of all. It's about turning those stressed out, guilt-ridden superwomen into women who are comfortable in their own skin, who've taken the time to understand what their values are, their talents, their strengths, and are now living joy-filled, should-free lives by using those strengths and talents and putting that energy, that positive energy, back into the world for the betterment of all.

Like I like to say, a superbwoman is all about the BE. So, I am really grateful to have met amazing, powerful women on my path recently, and I've been inspired by each one of them. I believe that it's important for all of us to have mentors and guides on our path. And I decided that I should be sharing these wonderful superbwomen that I've been meeting along the way with all of you out there because all of us can benefit from knowing each other. So without any further ado, I want to introduce you to my very first guest, my friend Cindy Joseph of BOOM! by Cindy Joseph. BOOM! by Cindy Joseph is a natural skincare line and Cindy will tell you a little bit about it. I happen to be wearing it right now. Love it.

Cindy is a makeup artist turned supermodel, and she is indeed a superb woman. She and I met at an event in New York City called The Silver Sisters networking event, I guess, which was absolutely fabulous. And we also attended a retreat together called Women At Woodstock last year. And I was extremely fortunate to participate in her very first Pro-age Revolution rally in San Francisco last summer. Cindy is a passionate woman and she's beautiful both inside and out. Welcome, Cindy.

Cindy: Thank you, honey. You look beautiful, and I'm so happy to be here with you. I'm so excited that you're doing this. And I get to introduce you to so many of my customers and fans. They actually get to see your beautiful face and hear your amazing words and feel your amazing spirit.

Janet: Thank you. Well, I'm so excited to have you here. So for those of you who don't know, Cindy, Cindy, could you just take some time and tell us, you know, how you got to where you are? What is your story? How did you go from being a makeup artist to becoming a supermodel?

Cindy: Wow. That's a long story and I'll...

Janet: You only have a half an hour.

Cindy: No problem. Pull up a chair, pour a glass of wine. I did want to clarify one thing. When you and I met, it was The Silver Sisters March on Time Square.

Janet: Indeed it was.

Cindy: There were 65 of us, long hair, short hair, spiked hair, everyone was silver hair from age 25 to 84, and it was the day before Hurricane Sandy hit. So I love to say The Silver Sisters took Times Square by storm.

Janet: Yes, absolutely right. I remember that.

Cindy: Yeah, and that's where we met. And then you came to the rally in San Francisco, which was just so exciting, so amazing. It was the first public rally for the Pro-Age Revolution. So I think it all started when I was born, when we were all born, right? I like to say I was a makeup artist for 27 years. I've been modeling now for 14 years but I have been a woman my entire life. So I get it.

 

I get how it feels to be judged by our looks only or mostly. And then to look at all the magazines and think, "Okay, I don't look like that, so what do I do? How do I get accepted? How do I feel valued?" And, you know, just the whole mirage that women have to deal with their whole lives and it's a conversation that we've been having for a very, very long time. And it's continuing and it's growing. And the Pro-age Revolution is really about women recognizing themselves and each other, giving each other support and realizing that we grew up in that anti-age society and we're the biggest anti-ageists of all because we're, you know, concerned about the wrinkles and we got to have wrinkle cream and, you know, ageless beauty, and all of this. And I'm here to say, screw all that. Throw it out the door. First off, it's a big, fat lie. And I have been in the very industry that has created that lie, right?

Janet: Right.

Cindy: Okay. So love all the models, love all the young girls, love all the tall skinny bodies, and the short wide bodies, and the big noses and the little noses. I love all women and all women of every age. But I didn't love myself for many, many years because I put on these critical glasses, these critical filters. I looked in the mirror and I wasn't right. "Yeah, I gotta fix this, fix this, change this, do this. Oh God, I gotta make my hair like this and get all contorted so when I walked out the door," I at least looked like I thought I was supposed to look to be accepted, to be valued, to be considered attractive, and on and on.

So I got in the very industry that convinced me that I wasn't right because at the ripe old age of about 17, 16 or 17, somehow I woke up and smelled the coffee and I realized that everything I was doing every morning before I went to high school, I had to look a certain way to be accepted, to be considered attractive. And, you know, you start going through puberty so that's all involved in there too. That it was all a lie, and I stopped wearing makeup. I stopped shaving my legs. I stopped the whole thing and said, "Okay, here I am. This is it." And I just started to get an inkling of finding myself right, exactly the way I was. I started talking about it, and I started sharing it. Well, at the same time, I was attracted to the fashion magazines and the beauty magazines because it's women and it's us doing the stuff that's fun and exciting. So on one hand, it's like, "No, I don't need to make my eyes bigger or smaller or more slanty, or make my skin lighter or darker, or anything like that, but it's fun to play dress up. It's fun to, you know, get together with my girlfriends and go shopping and like, 'Oh my God, that looks so cute on you, and that's so fun.' And to express our sexuality and our sensuality and all that." So there's this like double thing going on.

We've been playing dress up since we were little kids, little boys like playing dress up. It's fun. So I was really grappling and trying to figure out what's the difference between one camp and the other camp. And I thought back and I thought people have been piercing themselves, tattooing themselves, making themselves up, you know, the human race, through many different cultures for millenniums, millenniums. So what's the difference? Well, I started reading and I started looking at National Geographic, you know, anything I could get my hands on, and I realized that the cultural motivation for all of those different things was celebration, ritual. It wasn't insecurity and fear. So one idea was, you know, for women doing all the things that we did and do, is motivated by desire, pleasure, excitement, culture, ritual, etc.

And the other camp is, am I enough? Was motivated by fear and desperation. So I got really clear about that, and I thought, "Well, I still want to have fun." So I found a happy medium. I actually started shaving my legs because I actually liked this smoothness, and the prettiness. It's not that I think hairy legs are horrible, but I do relate to that as a guy thing more than a female thing. So I started picking and choosing what I liked, what my preferences were, because it made me happy.

Janet: Yeah, and you and I talked about this, that...and that's exactly what I believe a superbwoman is all about. Like I said, it's tuning into what's important to you. And you and I had talked about this, the thing about dyeing your hair. You know, I chose not to dye my hair after a while because I didn't want to dye my hair. And so share what you were just telling me about what you hear from people.

 

Cindy: Well, I hear a lot of things and sometimes when I start talking about this stuff, and I talk about how anti-ageists we are and wear your silver hair with pride, wear your, you know, crow's feet and your wrinkles and your turkey neck and whatever it is with pride. I am not ageless, I am age-full and having age, living life. Aging is just living. You become more passionate, you become more tuned into yourself. I find that I am more of who I am. So I'm looking forward to getting older because I'm going to be more and more and more of who I am.

Janet: I love that. That's beautiful. I really love that age-full, not ageless.

Cindy: Ageless is like this blank slate. It's like I worked hard for these wrinkles and these age spots and this silver hair. But when I get passionate and I start talking about that, some women hear it and they think I'm saying, "You've got to have silver hair, or throw out the bottle of dye." It's like, "No, I get it. I'm a woman." I grew up in the same society that judges us so heavily. And for your work, for your self-esteem, for whatever reason, if you want to have a purple Mohawk, make your hair blonde if you're brunette, or make your hair brunette if you're silver, go for it, babe. But notice what's motivating you. Are you being motivated by intelligence, education, professional viewpoint? Are you being motivated by fun and pleasure? It's like, "Yeah, a purple Mohawk would suit my life right now really well, it would help me express who I am." So I love this word, superbwoman, you're in control, baby, and do it because it makes you happy. And the fact that it makes you happy is going to make you more attractive. If you put your hair in a little silver granny bun or you...you know, no matter what you do, it's going to work because you're excited about it and you are expressing yourself. So there are no shoulds here. It's like everything is open and you go for it.

Janet: Amen, sister.

Cindy: Amen.

Janet: So speaking of shoulds, what is one should that you have released in your life?

Cindy: Man, we're born with so many. Don't do this, don't do this, you should be this, you should be that. I would say probably the one that really affected me the most happened in my mid to late 40s and it was the "I should be successful. I should be productive." And I consider those masculine goals, masculine points of view, and I started tuning into my feminine. And I don't mean feminine as women, I mean the feminine and masculine that's in both of us. It's a Jungian concept, anima, animus. And I realized I've been tracking on my masculine because I've grown up in a male-oriented society. Success, production, goal, and that can be a blast. I'm a woman but my prerogative is to choose anything I want. But I realized I hadn't paid attention to my essence which is pleasure-oriented. I am a woman, I am pleasure-oriented. So I took out the I should be disciplined, I should be linear, I should be success-oriented, and I shifted to being pleasure-oriented, not because I should, but because it's my pleasure, and that's changed my entire life.

Janet: Wonderful. And so it's not that you're saying that you don't want to be successful, but you're successful coming from a different place.

Cindy: Well, I learned this really great quote and I think it says it all. "If you go for success, pleasure is 50/50. If you go for pleasure, success is guaranteed."

Janet: Oh, I love that. Yeah, that's

 

Cindy: Yeah, that's Victor Baranco, brilliant man, passed away, amazing teacher and mentor. And what it means is clearly what it says. But if I go for what pleasures me, I can't go wrong. You know, I remember when I was a makeup artist, and I started thinking, "I've got to do exactly what the client wants." And then I realized they hired me as a professional, not only because I could put makeup on a model, on a woman, but I could do it with my concept of what would be best for this particular application. Is it an ad for aspirin, or is it an ad for, "Vogue Magazine?" Is it a young girl? Is it an older woman? And I thought, "I've got to please myself first because then I've succeeded." And then if I please everybody else also, great, more success.

So that's kind of the deal. It's like make sure you are listening to yourself and what you know is right, what you know is authentic for you. And if everybody else goes for it, great. I guess that's what you're supposed to be doing and nobody else likes it, well, at least you can walk away going, "Well, I'm happy with it."

Janet: Right. Yep, that's important. I just want to mention to our viewers out there that if you have a question for myself, or for Cindy, please go ahead and type it in on your screen and send it along and we'll be glad to get to it.

Cindy: I love questions, anything, about anything. About lip liner, or how do I build my self-esteem?

Janet: Where do you see yourself heading from here, Cindy?

Cindy: Well, the thing I'm most passionate about is the Pro-age Revolution. I love my cosmetics. And if anybody out there doesn't know about them, they basically don't change the way you look. Your derrière is the right size. Your nose is the right shape. You're perfect just the way you are. And when you're happy, as a makeup artist, I noticed this with all the models, when a woman is happy, her circulation revs up, her skin becomes kind of glimmery and dewy, and that's what my cosmetics do. It just recreates what you already look like when you're really happy.

So that's great. I want to keep building the business. It's wonderful. I love it. And I always consider cosmetics, sweater sales, and all of that as a meeting place for women. Once we get together, we drop the superficial stuff and we really start talking about what's really important about our lives, our families, our health, our society, our cultures, and our future. So I look to the future. What I'm excited about is growing the Pro-age Revolution, and come to my website boombycindyjoseph.com. I have a blog called Saturdays with Cindy and I talk about all of these subjects from self-esteem to, you know, silver hair, to young, to old, the whole ball of wax, you know, and I'm responding to you. I'm really responding to my fans and my customers and answering questions that you're interested in. And we all have something of value to put into this revolution. And we all have a legacy to pass to our daughters, our nieces, our granddaughters. I would love to know that my granddaughters are going to grow up in a pro-age society, in a society that says, "Life gets better after 30, and even better after 40, and even better after 50."

This concept that we have a prime of our life, that there's this crescendo and that's the best you can be, and from that point on, it's downhill, I think that is an absurd notion. I don't think it's scientific. I've thrown that paradigm out the door. And I will tell you that right this minute is the prime of your life, right this minute is the prime of my life, and the next few minutes, that's going to be the prime. And that the concept of aging, that aging is really just another word for living. You start aging the moment you're born and you continue until the moment you die. So every moment, every breath you take is the prime of your life.

Janet: That's beautiful. So I do have a question here. They want to know who has influenced you along your way. You know, if you don't do this in a vacuum, who has influenced you along the way?

Cindy: Great question. Nobody can do it alone. I was naturally fascinated by older people. You know, I was 12 and I'm looking up at 16-year-olds. And then I'm 16 and I'm looking up at 21-year-olds. I'm 50 and I'm looking up at 70-year-olds. And I figured the longer you lived, you've had more practice at it. So you must know more. So I was always willing and interested to listen and look to older people and say, "What do you know that I might not know?" And I bumped into a bunch of women between 10 and 30 years older than me when I was in my mid-40s and these women had started living together with their men in a group situation called Lafayette Morehouse. And they teach courses about us, about women, about men, about life, about communication, about sensuality. For a while there, they were considered like the Sex School, which is completely absurd. Sensuality is just feeling, it's about your nervous system. It's about your body, and everything we do is physical. We see, we taste, we listen, we smell, and we touch. We are sensual creatures. That's how we perceive the world, is through our five senses. So I started taking these courses and they blew me out of the water. And one of the things I loved is they were descriptive rather than prescriptive.

So here we're all these amazing women who were between the ages of 45 and 80. And they were enjoying their lives deeper and more intensely than anybody I had ever met on the planet. And I was like, "I want some of that." So I started taking course after course and became friends with them and those are the women that really led me to understand that I am a pleasure-oriented creature and I started living my life completely different. I didn't wake up in the morning anymore, you know, thinking about my size and my butt and my face and am I attractive and am I might good enough, and am I funny enough and smart enough? I just started having fun. And my life changed. So yes, that was a good question. Thank you so much.

Janet: Thanks. Here we have a question from Luanne. She wants to know if you think you'll be developing a facial cleanser. So we're moving into the details here, Cindy.

Cindy: Okay, facial cleansers. I get asked that every day. What do you use?

Janet: I've even asked you that question.

Cindy: Yeah, yeah. So I figure anything I put in my eyes, if it doesn't sting, is going to be safe for my skin. Okay, number one. Number two, I found out that Johnson's baby shampoo didn't sting baby's eyes back in the day because they put a Novocain in it, not because it was safe. I don't think that's legal anymore. There is a company called you Usana, U-S-A-N-A, they make vitamins, all kinds of stuff. I'm not into any of it except for their cleanser. And the reason it doesn't sting is because it has very safe ingredients. I am researching. I am looking to see if I can make a facial cleanser as wonderful as that one. That is the one I've been using myself. So I'd like to develop one, I'm still researching. If you have any tips, if you have any ideas, let me know, I'm very interested, but in the meantime, Gentle Cleanser by Usana. You can get it on the internet or through distributors. There you go.

Janet: Great. There was another question. I missed whose name. Hold on, I'll tell you who it's from, from Tammy who wants to know, what do you think of all the clothes designers who give rules about women can or cannot wear over the ages of 50 or 60, etc., and what kind of hairstyles, etc.? These popular designers need to take a second thought if we are to change the way that people think. Your comment.

Cindy: I think it's up to us. I think it's up to you. I think it's up to me. I think it's up to every woman to choose your wardrobe, your colors, your style, and how you're expressing yourself, what do you feel good in? And that women that listen to designers dictating to them are probably just not solid in where they stand with their own self-expression. And that's fine too. You know, that's okay. You know, we're not just born knowing ourselves, it takes time, it takes experimentation. So I experiment with my clothes. And I can't tell you how many things I've bought and ended up throwing away going, "Oh my God." You know, how do I want to feel? How do I want to look? And I actually discovered that how my clothes feel on me is more important than how they look on me because if they feel good, then I'm going to feel good, and I'm going to look better. But what do I think of designers that dictate?

I don't think that they are arrogant people that have decided how the world should look, I think that they are responding to women. They are responding to the market and I know a lot of them and they're totally wonderful people. And most of them are artists. They think of the human body...they think of clothing as more sculpture. You know, they talk about silhouette and texture and all that. So I think it's less practical and it's more about costume and fun. So I try to take a positive viewpoint and try to understand them. They're just people. They're just struggling and trying to figure things out as we all are from birth to death. And a lot of them do change their minds about women and life. And most of them wear the same thing every day. They never wear their own designs, which I think is pretty fascinating.

Janet: That is pretty interesting. I totally agree with you on the...I mean, it gets back to the whole...again, the concept of the Superbwoman is somebody who's following their own...you know, what resonates within them. And so that's a really good point that you made that, you know, people can dictate whatever and it's learning to go within and to find out what works for you.

Cindy: And I don't know if they're dictating. You know, when people ask me, "Well, how do you think older women should wear their makeup?" I mean, they've asked me a question, so I'm going to give them my opinion. It's kind of an interesting position to be in. You know, I just think we need to love ourselves more and love each other more and be gentle. And like you say, I love your...you should get rid of should. Get rid of the should...

Janet: Well, the thing with shoulds is that shoulds contain the guilt that when you're living according to shoulds, that's when the guilt starts seeping in. So get rid of the shoulds, get rid of the guilt.

Cindy: Yeah, and a great description by that same guy, Vic Baranco, guilt is a present time judgment on a past time moment. So you know that whole thing about hindsight's 20/20? Well, your judgment today is totally different than how you would have judged yourself then. So there's nothing to feel guilty about. You did the best you could at every prime moment of your life.

Janet: Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, we are winding down here, so I want to thank you very much, Cindy, for being my guest and I want to thank all of the viewers out there who chimed in, and I want to encourage you to go to Cindy's website. It's boombycindyjoseph.com, correct?

Cindy: Yes.

Janet: And visit her Saturdays with Cindy, her webinars. They're fabulous. She also does these kinds of webinars. So, you know, go to her website and find out more about that, use her products. They're wonderful. And I also, you might have noticed on your screen at the bottom, there's a link, take advantage of the coaching discounts that I'm putting out there for those of you who joined us today. So if you're interested in learning more about coaching, please fill out the form and I'll be glad to get back to you. So, Cindy, any last thoughts before we wrap up today?

Cindy: Well, I love you. I think you're amazing. I want everybody to go to your website and read your book and you're such a heartfelt person and you're also a brilliant coach. I mean, you've even just like coached me in our conversations as friends, which I think is amazing. And one of my favorite quotes which will go back to the subject of beauty and all that is...was apparently given by Rosalind Russell, and that is, "Taking joy in life is a woman's best cosmetic."

Janet: Beautiful. Well, thank you so much. This has been fun. And I look forward to seeing all of you next Sunday with Superbwoman Sundays at 7.

Cindy: I'll be there.

Janet: Have a great week.

Cindy: Thank you.