Religion major Sarah Lugaric was drawn to the myths and narratives that all cultures have to help us understand ourselves and our place in the world. In her business life, she was likewise interested in understanding the culture, who was showing up and why. But after finally marrying that with her love of nature and outdoor leadership, she began unlocking different paths to helping others live with more grounding, authenticity, and security. Find out how navigating the world sometimes takes looking inward and protecting space, time, and that which you love.
Guest Sarah Lugaric was drawn to the study of religion and the myths and narratives that all cultures have to help us understand ourselves and our place in the world. Leaving college without the clearest sense of who she was, but with a job on Wall Street, she learned the culture of business and found that she was still interested in what that said about being human. She didn’t love banking, though, and when she finally quit, she took a 30-day sea kayaking trip, rekindling her relationship with nature and herself. She found a consulting company that applied the leadership lessons that had served her so well in the wilderness to organizations and their employees, marrying two important aspects of herself.
When she had the chance to work with the captains of industry and the environmental world to bridge cultures and make positive environmental change, the glacial pace of that change and the missed opportunities caused her to take a break, spending time with her growing family, and unlock different paths to help others live with more grounding, authenticity, and security.
In his episode, find out from Sarah how navigating the world sometimes takes looking inward and protecting space, time, and that which you love…on ROADS TAKEN...with Leslie Jennings Rowley.
About This Episode's Guest
Sarah Lugaric provides the tools to build resilient organizations, families, and individuals through her work as a founder of Seven Streams Group, a transformational coaching and consulting firm and also as the founder of Equipt, the groundbreaking personal emergency preparedness consultancy. Shenow lives in North Carolina with her husband and three kids, dogs, cats, chickens and goats.
Mentioned on this episode: Joseph Campbell
Executive Producer/Host: Leslie Jennings Rowley
Music: Brian Burrows
Find more episodes at https://roadstakenshow.com
Email the show at RoadsTakenShow@gmail.com
Sarah Lugaric: Like what's the answer? What do you do when you're on a mountain top and you're holding a map and you have to get to a safe place before dark that's halfway to meeting your instructor and everyone's fighting? I wish I knew what to do in this situation. And that is what I ended up doing for a career. I was, I'm still fascinated by that.
Leslie Jennings Rowley: Religion major Sarah Lugaric was drawn to the myths and narratives that all cultures have to help us understand ourselves and our place in the world. In her business life, she was likewise interested in understanding the culture, who was showing up and why. But after finally marrying that with her love of nature and outdoor leadership, she began unlocking different paths to helping others live with more grounding, authenticity, and security. Find out how navigating the world sometimes takes looking inward and protecting space, time, and that which you love...on today's Roads Taken with me, Leslie Jennings Rowley
I'm here today with Sarah Lugaric, and we are going to talk about hoping for the best and planning for the worst and seeing where our roads take us.
So, Sarah, thank you so much for being here today.
SL: You're welcome. Thank you so much for inviting me reaching out.
LJR: So Sarah, we start this the same way. I ask the same two questions and they are these: when we were in college, who were you? And when we were getting ready to leave, who did you think you would become?
SL: When I was in college, who was I? Gosh, I feel like I was so young. I think the whole concept of a gap year would have been great for me because I felt a little lost navigating, you know, being out in a bigger place and, you know, just trying to stay afloat and figure things out. And when I look back, I go, I wish I'd dug in more to the study.
I obviously walked away loving so many amazing people and some amazing professors, but like, I've heard other people say this. So just having the wish to go back today and do it all over again, you know, would be so fun and so interesting.
LJR: But I know you did have an academic focus and it was religion, right?
SL: Yes.
LJR: What drew you to that? I mean, I know, yes you said you would have liked to have made that experience a little richer, but what was it about that coursework?
SL: Yeah. You know, actually, it really, I think that does stem a lot from my major, because actually when I got to Dartmouth, I was like, I think I want to do something at the intersection of sociology, psychology and religion. And I think if I'd pushed harder through that to get to what I was really interested in, it wasn't until I first heard of Joseph Campbell, which it was a long time after I graduated, but I figured out who Joseph Campbell was. And I was like, oh, that's it. And it…for people who don't know Joseph Campbell, it's, it really is about the meaning, about our myths and how they're really just some common, essential things across all culture, across all time that we tell out in our stories and what that says about humanity, what it says about being human. It brings us all together. And part of it is a way to just understand who we are. This, this was my interest. I might be now projecting it onto Joseph Campbell cause, but it's really, I'm interested in how religion gives us a framework to understand ourselves. And our place in the world and the world at large, and actually what I was interested in and I didn't, I think I took like one Islam class. And I think when I, when I took that class a class on Islam, I was like, huh, this feels like a really interesting conundrum where, you know, Western religions are declining around the world and Islam is, even at that point, it was like the fastest growing religion in the world. And it was very all encompassing. It was not just this, well, I'm a spiritual person, but I don't really go to church. It was like the exact opposite. It's like it prescribes, I was just fascinated, like it prescribes, every element of daily life and the values that, those sorts of strict rules happen to be very different than where the Western cultures were going. So I just had this, like, where's that going to go? How's that going to play out? I'm really curious about it. It's still defines so much of our conflicts today and our worlds today that I just think without that understanding and that framework it's harder to understand other people, you know, other certainly other societies. And I think if you can back into, which again was the thing I was interested in, that essentially, they're just some, some basic things that, that you can pull out of it that are true for everyone. And if we could focus on those things, if we could distill it down to the basics and then just realize the rest are just details on top. I just think there's a lot of power in that.
LJR: Yeah. Yeah. And so you said as you were coming in, you felt like a little naive and that you were navigating a bigger world than maybe you saw coming. You had this underlying thing of I want to understand ourselves, our place in the world. We were still really young, even when we left. How, what was that first navigation step for you out of college to start that process of understanding who you were, what your place in the world was going to be. Were you on that track yet? Or was it still a couple steps away.
SL: Well, you know, what's great is I thought where I might want to take this was to kind of understand like a foreign policy. Like how could marry the things that I was interested in and the, and a way to improve the world and relations with that mindset and just have a way to influence things. I went to one like international relations, foreign policy, grad school presentation. I talked to the woman right afterwards and I said, you know, what's the most important thing if I were to apply, like, what is the thing that you're really looking for? And I think they might've said knowing exactly what you want to do with it. And I was like, oh, I don't know exactly what I want to do with it. And for some reason, like that was it. I just never went to another, like I just like was so weird that I was so easily stopped. I was like, well, I guess I'm not going to do that. I don't know what I'm going to do. And then I just wandered into an info session with somebody like a friend of mine who was already going, cause I wasn't paying attention to corporate recruiting. That was definitely not what I was thinking about doing. And somehow they wanted to interview me, you know. And so I ended up at JP Morgan of all places, which is not…I expected to be out in San Francisco and doing something that was not banking in New York City. But it ended up being one of the most fun periods of my life. I really did. I didn't enjoy banking at all, but I enjoyed New York in that time of my life a lot. It was, it was really fun to live in New York. I'm glad I did it.
LJR: And those are good experiences, even if they aren't as that re recruiting woman or graduate school woman said, like, you need to know sometimes you just need some time to figure out what it is and have fun.
SL: And you know what, it did give me what I need to know, because it gave me a business foundation. And as somebody who took like one economics class in college and was like, well, I'm not doing that again. I was able to get my confidence and I actually did very well, unexpectedly. Because I assumed because I was so uninterested in it, I couldn't possibly be good at it. You couldn't be good at things that you're uninterested in, but, and it can be even harder to get out. It was hard every year. I'd be like, this is my last year I'm going to go. And then I would get like a review or promotion and be like, oh, well, you know, like I'll just stick it out for a little longer. And when I finally left, it was like, I could see how I could just keep saying, stick it out a little longer and just get paid more and more. But I don't like this. Like, I don't want to be, I don't want to keep doing this.
LJR: So how, how did you find that strength to say no? Was there something that you could say yes to?
SL: Well, you know what? I told them, I wanted to go to San Francisco and they offered me a promotion in San Francisco, a VP position in San Francisco. And I was like, oh, now what do I do? Like, I still don't want that.
LJR: But you did go to San Francisco.
SL: I did it. I did. So what I did is I when I quit as a reward for myself was I booked a three-week sea kayaking trip with, with NOLS because my…I think a high point of my college career was my, what I did with my semester off. I did a 90-day outward bound like hiking. It was a semester program, so it was like canyoneering, climbing, rafting.
LJR: Okay. Let's back that up. Where did that come from? Was that a love before getting into the hills of New Hampshire? Or was that something that kind of blossomed when you were there? Because, I didn't know this about you at all.
SL: I know, I know this is the part of me that I wish I could go back. Cause I remember going to like a DOC meeting and being like, I don't look like these people. I don't fit in. Like I like, I'm not cool. Like my family didn't grow up hiking. I'm not like I love the outdoors and I'm, I'm like drawn to it or I was right at that stage. I still am. I'm deeply drawn to the outdoors now. And that's what I want to do for the rest of my life. But back then, I just didn't have the confidence. And so I just, I went to like one meeting and then I left. I mean, how immature was my thinking? So, yeah. That's why I got stopped. And I don't think I did much with it. I didn't take advantage of the outdoors at Dartmouth. Like I should've camped so much more. I wish I had. But that's okay. It's I, I did eventually do it. When I told my parents, I wanted to do this, this outward bound thing that I'd read about, they were like, you're crazy. It's like, did you get this idea? And honestly, I think the only thing I can point to is in seventh grade, we did like this survival, like this, whatever they, they, it was our outdoors trip in seventh grade at the school I went to. And I think it was maybe five days, probably was less cause we were…anyway…I just remember hiking up. And having this weird feeling, cause other people were complaining of being like, I could do this for like 10 hours. That's the thought I had and there wasn't any particular reason. I just, for some reason, I was like, I love this. I just really, really like being out here. I did that Outward Bound and it was just that same feeling of like, oh my God. I'm so present every day was so long, there was no autopilot. It was part of what defined the career I went into because I remember on that Outward Bound, like there's a point where the, the instructor of hands, the maps over to you guys and into small groups and they were like: We'll meet you at this point in two days and you have to get from where you are to there and figure out which, you know, whether you have the capability to, you know, hike up a certain route and how long it's likely to take and where to camp. And I remember being, like, I got put with a bad group, like, I didn't like these…And there was one kid that always had an issue with everything. And I was like, oh God. And he's going to clash with, like, I could see it all. And sure enough, within like five minutes, everybody was like, fighting. And I just, like somebody else completely checked out. And I was like, oh my God, we have to figure out what to do.
Like, I wish I knew what to do in this situation. I wish like, what's the answer? What do you do when you're like, you're on a mountain top and you're holding a map and you have to get to a safe place before dark that's halfway to meeting your instructor and everyone's fighting. I wish I knew what to do in this situation. And that is what I ended up for a career. I'm still fascinated by that. Like, and it basically doing that in the corporate environment as ultimately what I chose to do. I quit JP Morgan, I did this sea kayaking trip at the end of the trip. The instructors said, we want to recommend you for the instructor program because we're trying to recruit more women. And I didn't have a confidence. And this is a, not a fun story that I keep telling this, this story, but I, I just was like, I'm not strong. I didn't feel strong enough. Like I wasn't one of the ones who could like do the in the kayak, in the sea kayak. And I wasn't like the fastest strongest ones. So I didn't see that I could do that. And I also didn't see that it was actually the other piece of me that that was that they were like, I guess seeing, because at the end of every night I was like, we should do a thing where we all go around and we just like acknowledgements, like, what did you appreciate about somebody that day? Like what's the thing that they did or said or who they were like, like, that'd be a nice way to close the night or start the circle, whatever it was. And I just think whether you're in the outdoors or anywhere, that's an important conversation to have. So when I moved to San Francisco without a job, but I had a bunch of friends there and it was the.com era. So that was all exciting. And so I was looking at one of those dotcom like startup magazines called the Industry Standard when I was staying with one of them for like the first week. And I saw an article about this company that did that. They did like leadership. I could recognize that what they did. I was like, finally, I was like, that's an interesting take on business. I was not interested in that financial piece, but I was interested in the people piece, but not like the HR people piece, like the, like what's really going on under the surface when you're in a room, the power dynamics, like who's showing up and why. And like whose ideas might not get, be getting listened to that are actually great ideas. And then breaking up the kind of like negative behaviors or patterns or bringing awareness to people or situations that allow people that unlock barriers. I find that stuff really interesting. And, and reading this article, I was like, oh, you can do that in a business context. That's a way that I could marry my, you know, I have a business background But I, what I really love is this. So maybe I'll go and call them. And I ended up getting a job there. That's where I worked for a long time, actually.
LJR: Just cold-called after reading this article.
SL: Yes. Yeah.
LJR: I love that.
SL: And when they ask for recommendations, I think I might've gotten one from JP Morgan, like a senior person at JP Morgan, but the other one was my NOLS instructor. And by the way, I ended up hiring her seven years ago to go back to that same place in Baja for a one week trip, with my best friends throughout my life, a sea kayaking trip for one week with that same woman who wrote the recommendation letter for that first consulting job. And, and one of the reasons they called me is they were like, we thought that was so cool that you got your outward bound, like your NOLs instructor to write one of your recommendations.But it was perfect because that is what they did and that, that spoke to them a lot. Yeah.
LJR: Yeah. And I'm sure you were not only great at it, but didn't have that feeling of, oh, I'm I can be good at something that I really don't like. You could be good at something that you really did like, and that fired you up and brought all those connections of that religion major looking for what unites us and what makes us stronger and what makes us human and all of those things. So that was a great, I'm so glad you read that article. That’s amazing.
SL: I know. Well, that's life is like that, isn't it? You know, and you've, I'm sure there's like the thousand things that were, were not used for. You know, but like those, those are the milestones that when you look backwards, you can, now you can connect the dots. I knew, I knew I'd have one of those kinds of careers where you look backwards and connect the dots. Instead of scoping it out. I'm not a goal. Some people came into Dartmouth, like I'm clear what I want to do. That's what I want to do. And then, you know, 10 years later they were doing it. I'm like, I can make sense of it later, but it did not make sense in the moment.
LJR: Yeah, but the next step made sense. Didn't…is that when you went off on your own?
SL: Right. So actually what I did, what happened actually is this is that I got pregnant. Also, there were things about that company that I was like, I don't know that that's necessarily going to be the fit long-term, but I loved the work. I wanted to do the work of what they were doing, but not necessarily build the company that they wanted to build, in the way they wanted to build it. And so basically I thought, well, I'll let them know that I can, I can just work and just do the jobs. You know, if I can take on jobs from them and I can have the flexibility to be home with my daughter. But shortly after that, one of the partners left and started another company called Blue Sky Sustainability Consulting, which. You know, like great. I would love to take on projects with you. And he said, that's great. I'm looking for people to help. And the first client he got was Walmart to basically launch Walmart’s sustainability efforts. And it, that was such an interesting project to get pulled into. You know, it's like the oddest marriage in the world. We were this, you know, sustainability, Bay Area, you know, very mission driven group of people going into Walmart and Bentonville, Arkansas, that was all about saving money and, you know, producing results above everything else. But it was also the best place to do that work because if you could move the needle, you know, an inch at Walmart, you could move it a football field out in the world because what they say has such an amazing ripple effect. So it was amazing. It was also amazing from like the cultural, like, it was so interesting to learn another culture. And that is actually, again, another reason what I, what I loved about working at JP Morgan is to understand the culture of Wall Street and the language of that's another like view of the world. It's another slice of things. It's like finance is important too just know. I don't like it. I don't want to study it all the time. But I was glad I had that in my toolkit so that when I was working with someone who was from the finance team at a company or had that lens, I had the credibility. I wasn't just like, Hey, I'm a leadership development consultant. You know, I'm here to talk about this. It was like, I get it. I can speak to the things that I know that you care about because I understand that kind of bottom line, numbers driven, you know, and just kind of respect for the understanding of business. There are people like that out there, and it's good to be able to, to craft the message in such a way that you can effect change, because in a sense, we were doing some in a sense that some culture change, you know, to even be able to accept the idea of environmental sustainability as being a legitimate thing.
LJR: Something to care about.
SL: Yeah, like, is it important? Is it really happening in this world if there's no climate change. And then also for, you know, for like their customer, the Walmart customer is like a busy mom of three. They they're very clear and it's like, there's a certain income and this needed to appeal to someone that might not have an extra budget to spend on it or understand, or have the time to engage. Or think about why it's better or worse. So there were so many different perspectives to consider. And how do you help somebody, you know, understanding what's their underlying context of what their view of seeing the world. How do you speak to that wherever they are? How do you understand it in such a way to speak to it? And that was, I think, a time in my life where I just, I loved that it all lined up. Whereas I want to do that in service of something that's really important.
But it was hard. It was hard, heavy work that didn't go fast. It was sad to watch how slowly it went. It was sad to see the opportunity they had and the gap between what could have been. I mean, I was in a room with the head of every major product that the Nestle's and all the biggest companies globally, like those, the consumer products, people and all of these NGOs like WWF and Environmental Defense and from all over, just like what an incredibly influential group of people. The people who had the information on like the impacts environmentally or socially sitting in the same room for three days, with the people who, you know, pulled the strings at like, you know, Coca Cola, like that's, those are the bottles that are going to go out into the ocean and like they're all in the same place. And I think I'm just really sad that more couldn't get accomplished. And I got a little bit jaded such that like when that project kind of wrapped up, like the phases that I was working on, I, I felt like I needed a break because it was hard.
LJR: Yeah. But your break coincided with a growing family.
SL: Yes, it did it. Yeah. I think that really helped me determine that I wanted to continue to work flexibly. And then I ended up having to take a break for some health reasons in the family, which was hard, you know, to take a break, to have to interrupt things. I said no to projects for probably about six months. And when I thought about going back, there was a part of me that had that same internal rebellion I did when I was in banking. I should say what I think it was really reacting to wasn't business, but just the pretense. It was like, I don't want to be in another conference room with, and like walk through an office with cubes where there's not enough light and there was something, I think that was what I was really responding to is I do feel like I'm getting called to do something in the outdoors again, and I've really wrestled with what that looks like. It was a lot easier to take the outdoor learnings and insights into the boardroom or the office, the company, because in a sense to make this sustainable and to have the impact, I really would love to do this, this kind of work that I want to do, which is taking women outside for, you know, retreats. I would really like to do that with women in business. I mean, there's no women that I wouldn't want to do it with, but of course I just feel like I have a lot of my friends are stressed out overloaded women that are juggling 12 hats and holding everything. And there's something so healing about the outdoors and the ability to unplug. You know, you're never offline anymore. There's no cell reception there. You know, you go on a spa weekend with your girlfriends and someone's always calling home to talk to family or text or answering a work text, like you're off the grid. And that was special, what year was that? Like the early nineties that was special now it's special in a totally different, and I think life restoring way that, you know, again, I love a good girl's weekend. That's where there's pampering and a spa and great drinks. But. When I went on my first trip like this again, after being a mom, it was like, oh, this is amazing. You know, like you're a wife, you're a daughter, you're a friend. But like none of that was present. You know, you're just out there like responsible for yourself and you get a chance to reflect on your journey. And like who you are and in a way that at least I felt super disconnected from being the architect of that. You know, you're just kind of responding to needs all the time. So to turn that off and just listen to what's there when you turn off having to be present for everyone else's needs, it's like a little voice. It can be kind of a quiet voice. Yeah. I mean, it was just, it's moving and I would love to give more people that opportunity.
And I think I'm also really interested in supporting more women in power and business in supporting women everywhere. There are so many different slices that I feel like this could be healing for. But just again, my friends are now very high up in organizations. There have a lot of influence in the world, and I'm so proud that they're good people doing good things out in the world. And I want to support that. I want to support a vision of their life being successful in the ways that really make people successful, not just business. Don't give it all over to business, but what does it really look like? Like you get to our, we were the ones that get to decide now. You're finally in a position of power to like reinvent business and make it into one that actually serves our world and, and the people that work at these companies better. And to do that, you'd have to be in balance yourself and have times to reflect and not just be like constantly, you know, focusing on the next thing. So that's what I really want to do.
When you said family intervened…So that's when family intervened is I took a two-year wilderness meditation facilitator to get a certification through Spirit Rock, which is this amazing place outside of San Francisco. It, all of this, this whole idea was coming together for me. I was like, okay, I'd gotten my 10 day wilderness medicine certification. And then I did this, this other certification. And then I found out I was pregnant.
Obviously like what a gift, but also like I was 42. I had a 10 and a 12 year old and I, it was like, it was probably a good time where I could start to think about going, you know, like I could go away for a week long retreat, you know, into the wilderness where you can't reach anybody. And suddenly I was like, oh, I don't know that I can do that right now. I don't think I can do that right now.
LJR: Yeah. So when you press pause on that project, this other one you took up, I find personally just fascinating, particularly in light of…you kind of talked about one of the reasons this is so inspiring to you, as you know, that particularly women have this feeling of we're responding to needs of others all the time. And there is a moment for you. You were in high responding to needs mode with like a natural disaster emergency.
SL: Yeah. Yeah. I've often thought about this work that I'm about to talk about as also being something for anxious. People like it worked out, it was something to do. And, and anxiety is often the feeling of being out of control. And I know when I first moved out to San Francisco and I was. I was acutely aware that an earthquake could happen at any time. I do remember. I was like, I don't like driving over this Bay Bridge. I don't like that it fell once during an earthquake. I don't like how long it is. I never got used to the fact that like, there was this, like something hanging over your head, like the next big one is likely to happen. And I think when I asked like, what if it happens…for all of my thirties, like, what would have happened is. I would've had nothing I would have, I don't know. I would have figured out and think about it. It was just me, you know, I was like, oh yeah, we should have an earthquake kit. I don't know if I took a single precaution. But I do know that everything changed when I had kids. And I do remember having this thought, like, now what what's happening is if any, like if an earthquake happens, then there's no services for five or 10 days. Or we have to rapid evac for these wildfires that are starting to happen. That weren't happening when I first moved out there, which is so sad. Like now, it's not just, oh, I didn't prepare for myself. I'll figure it out. It's like, oh, holy crap. I've got the people I love the most looking up at me in this moment of like panic and need. And, and do I want to say like, Oh, I, I never got around to doing that. I'm so sorry. Like I didn't put away our essential medication or I didn't put aside an extra lovey, you know, like, or our important paperwork so you could start school somewhere. Like I didn't do any of that. So now we're left with nothing. It was the feeling like there's something I could have done, but I just didn't get to it.
It's so important, but it never makes it to the top of any busy parent’s to do list. It's not the soccer game that's happening at three o'clock or the, you know, form that needs to get filled out. Or the like these little people who need stuff all the time. You know, it's almost preparing for disasters feels like taxes, but they're never due until it's too late. And nobody's ever asking to see proof that you've done it. But it's a really big deal. And the longer I lived out in California, it really happened with the wildfires. It was the first PG&E power shutoffs, qhere after the fires, [LJR: Napa] yeah the Paradise fires, they started preemptively turning off the power because that was clearly under certain conditions, like the match that was starting, these massive wildfires. And I remember seeing like it, they did not do a good job of communicating it and I, and, and also it was very inconsistent. So one place, it would be like, be prepared for 24 to 48 hours or something. And then, but I remember seeing one post that said for up to seven days without power. And I started seeing, like, there was fine print everywhere, and I was like, that's different. That's different. Being ready for 24 hours is different than seven days when I've got three kids and two dogs and chickens and cats, and in this age of electronics and keeping everyone, and by the way, there might be bad air quality. So air purifiers, and I was like, This is, this seems like a really big deal. Why aren't people freaking out more? Cause I was like, I started to be like, we're going to need a generator. And the generators were all selling out and I opened up, I had packed an emergency kit like five years before that finally. And I opened it up and the container, which was like a recommended container. And I stored it outside. So if my garage fell in an earthquake it wouldn't be crushed. But that meant that it got water in it and I opened it up and there was you know, nothing that was remotely useful. There was nothing for the baby. You know, there was an old rusty can of dog food for the dog that had since died. Like there was nothing, you know, everything like batteries were corroded. I was like, oh my God, I was someone who actually took some steps to do something about it. And in this moment still, I don't have what I need. Yeah, so that reinforced it. And I was like, you know what? I feel like I should be able to call someone to do this.
Cause I had just called someone to babyproof my house because I'd forgotten all of that. And I'm like, I'm not going to read those books again. There's somebody that comes and does this. Let's just do it. And I remember going to sleep that night being like I’m a good mom finally, like I felt really crappy that whole time. And I was like, well, maybe there's somebody I can hire to do the same thing who would just come to my house and like walk around my house and say, oh, this is, you know, here's the right latch for your door. I was like, well, what if they were like, oh, here's whether the turn off your gas you know a nd where is it and how do I do it? And here's when you turn it off and, you know, here's where you should store for your house. Here's where you should store your earthquake stuff. Or you know, just walk you through the whole process. And there wasn't. I looked and looked and looked and there was nobody I could hire. I was like, well, maybe I'll put something together. Like maybe I could do that. You know, I got a website and a brand and I built the foundation and then the pandemic hit.
LJR: And that throws everything in the air, right?
SL: I wanted to happen. I want it to exist. I really do. I think it's important. It has to be made easier. These disasters are going to be happening more and more. And I lived, my daughter went to high school at Sonoma Academy. These people are traumatized. The kids that she went to high school with, like so many of them have lost houses or a neighbor, a family member have lost houses. And year after year, the smoke comes back. There's a fire in one of the same places that there was a fire. There’s this literal fire drill that has everybody's like nervous system all disrupted and you know, if on top of that, we're not ready?
I know when the power outage happened, my kids, but the older ones were like, I feel so relaxed. I feel so lucky. Like this is like, it felt so good to hear all this stuff and know that we were going to be fine. Cause you had already gotten the generator and tested it and gotten enough gasoline. And like we knew we had everything ready. And I was like, I would like everybody to have that feeling, you know, like there's, there's something very empowering about it and there's a resilience piece and there's a yeah. Anyway…
LJR: All of these ideas and all of your ability to get stuff done and have bigger thoughts for how we can live richer lives and more calm, authentic lives is clearly going to serve you and serve lots of people in the future. So wherever the path, the next project or the next outing takes you, I'm sure it's going to be great. And I'm just really glad that you shared all this with us, Sarah. Thank you so much.
SL: Thank you. Thank you. It was a pleasure.
LJR: That was Sarah Lugaric, who now lives in North Carolina with her husband and three kids. She provides the tools to build resilient organizations, families, and individuals through her work as a founder of Seven Streams Group, a transformational coaching and consulting firm and also as the founder of Equipt, the groundbreaking personal emergency preparedness consultancy. Find out more@equipthq.com each week. Each week we are so pleased to tell you stories of people finding gaps in what is needed in the world and filling them their own way. If you have a gap in your listening history with us, check out the full archive at RoadsTakenShow.com to find more of me, Leslie Jennings Rowley, and my guests on Roads Taken.