Episode 282: How 1 Woman Built a School, Adopted 93 Kids & Changed the World | Maggie Doyne | BlinkNow Foundation & Between the Mountain & the Sky
At 18, Maggie Doyne bought land in Nepal. By 23, she had built a school, founded a nonprofit, and become a mother to 50. Her story is a blueprint for heart-led leadership and lasting impact. In this episode, Kara and Maggie talk about parenting, grief, vision, and the difference between ego and mission. They also explore how we measure success, what it takes to sustain a nonprofit, and how Maggie continues to evolve as a leader.
“I wanted to create a world where children are safe, and feed and have their most basic human needs met. It’s the only way to break the cycles of poverty, trauma, and everything else that is needed. ”
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Between the Mountain and the Sky (book)
Between the Mountain and the Sky (documentary)
Mountain Queen (documentary)
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Chapters:
(00:00:00) – How a Gap Year Became a Global Mission
(00:06:00) – Founding BlinkNow and Reimagining Orphan Care
(00:10:00) – Building a Community School and a New Model for Change
(00:19:00) – How to Stay Grounded When You’re Changing the World
(00:27:00) – Parenting 93 Children and Creating a Legacy
(00:36:00) – Behind the Scenes of the Documentary
(00:42:00) – Burnout, Balance, and Showing Up Anyway
(00:48:00) – What We Watch Shapes the World We Create
(00:57:00) – Maggie’s Call to Action: Follow Love, Not Fear
Follow along using the Transcript
I've been living in Nepal for 18, 19 years now and created an organization to really target community driven, community owned poverty alleviation and working with parental loss. There was a lot of orphans. There was extreme multidimensional poverty.
That's the incredible Maggie Doyne. I'm Kara Duffy, and this is the Powerful Ladies Podcast.
I'm just so excited that you were a yes, because to set the stage for everyone who's listening, I am sitting The last row possible in the theater. I'm up against the back wall, up top, and I'm sitting with a few women, but a bunch of very outdoorsy, strong men in the back row to watch the show. Your movie being premiered at Mountain Film Festival this past May.
I had no idea what I was walking into. I'm like, that one looks good. Let's go. I did not know that I should have brought an entire backpack full of tissues. I did not know that it would change so many perspectives I was having and be left feeling so empowered because of what an incredible human you are.
Thank you. All the feels I was having. All kinds of experiences that night too, you know, I hadn't watched the film in its entirety just because it was so emotional. I was in the front row surrounded by my children and there was something incredibly powerful, vulnerable, anxiety provoking about watching your life on a screen in a theater with 800 other people who, who were also having that same experience, but you felt the collective, like, la, ga. Tears. I remember these two gals behind me were just sobbing and I was like, hold it together. It was like they took the cries out of me. They were crying for me and I could just hold steady. So yeah, it was, it was a powerful film and I'm glad you were there to hold. I think we all collectively held it together.
We didn't hold it together, but we held the pain and the grief and that experience together. And I felt. way lighter after sharing that story.
It, really, people talk about transcendental experiences, like being in a spiritual space or being in a yoga class or being in this, like, you know, well known magical place.
But I think to your point, like everyone who was there like part of why I love the mountain film. Festival community. It's like everyone's just good people, like it's good people who care and share a lot of values and just want to spotlight stories and make the world better. And so I think having a room full of people who are coming from that place and then seeing your film between a mountain and a sky and like the story of it all.
Like it was the right group to like hold that container and take some of it on and it like all of us were left like we walked out and then we're looking at running into Jedediah Jenkins and him being like, okay, so we're not going to any other movies because we have to process that for three hours, right?
I'm like, yes, correct. He's like, we're all going to hug and process it. I'm like, yes.
I left that theater and I just walked. I was like, I just have to walk and move my body. Yeah, it was a lot to process and I thank you for being there to share it. You know, when we were deciding what festivals to go to and what to apply to, I just told my husband, I was like, I only want to go to Mountain Film.
That's the only one I care about. That's the only one I care about. And it's cause it did feel like a hug and it felt like, All of us coming together. So yeah, still reeling from that experience for sure.
Well, I jumped right into sharing the behind the scenes. So let's go back a step and tell everyone listening your name, where you are, at least today in the world, and all the things that you are up to, because you are one of the most subtle, badass, inspiring people I have had the of getting to meet in real life.
Oh, thanks. So my name is Maggie Doan. I am the co founder of an incredible organization called Blink Now, changing the world in the blink of an eye. And my story began, I'm actually from New Jersey. What part of New Jersey? It's a little town called Mendham. I'm from.
I was born in Ridgewood, so that's why I was asking. Northern Jersey.
We Jersey girls, it's like, we were right around the corner from each other. It was the suburbs. I grew up on a cul de sac with a trampoline in my backyard and a dog and two sisters and a mom and a dad and pretty much your standard suburban Childhood, I went to public school, played sports, and you'll relate to this, but like the expectation amongst the privileged suburban girls of New Jersey is that you get really good grades and you do all the right things and you get into college and it has to be a good college and, you know, and I kind of just had this moment at 18.
I think it showed up as like fear and I was like, I don't have any idea what I want to do, what I want to be, where I want to study, what college, like, and, and the first kind of step off the beaten track for me was deciding to take a gap year. And no intentions of like changing anything in the world or doing any service or, you know, other than outside of myself, I just had questions about, My own purpose and journey.
And so I took a gap year. My second semester, I ended up in Northeastern India. And at the time I couldn't have even placed Nepal on a map. But I started to meet Nepali people, migrants, refugees, children working in, in a, in a center there, and it was called Ramana's Garden, met my co founder, and it was the year 2005 when Nepal was kind of unraveling from this major crisis and civil war.
And I decided to go to Nepal with my friend Suneetha and find her home and find her village. She had been a refugee herself, and I basically. fell in love with Nepal with the Midwestern region. I moved there stayed there, built a life there. I've been living in Nepal for 18, 19 years now. And with my co founder, Tope created an organization to really target Community driven community owned poverty alleviation and working with parental loss.
There was a lot of orphans. There is extreme multidimensional poverty. And so my co founders, an orphan himself, and we were just like, we need to target these issues in a different way. And we set out to create a home and a school and a women's center and It's basically like a beautiful fabric of a community development org now, with sustainability and food and farming and, and then it's just.
My life. I've become a mother there. I ended up making children.
Well, and a preface. Yeah. Like, you're, you're really making this sound like it's no big deal. And that is the farthest from the truth. Because you've created one of the largest children's centers in Nepal. And you have adopted how many children?
I don't know. 93. Like this is not a joke. Like this is such a, like, people get be like, oh, like we should adopt one. You're like, no, you've 93. And it, it's not stopping. Right. Like it's 93 so far.
Well, I, I should explain like, basically what was happening at the time is that orphanages were these horrible, awful, dismal places that were dark and had really bad outcomes.
That's like our foster care system.
Mm-Hmm. .
So our system. in the world for raising the most vulnerable at risk children are broken. And I could see that, especially in my travels and in working with children. I love children. I was a babysitter. I was, you know, I had a beautiful childhood. And so I kind of, even though I was super young, see the myths correlate, like, you know, if you can't create a world where children are safe and fed and have their most basic human needs and rights met, you're going to have Generations and generations and cycles and trajectories of poverty and violence and more vulnerable children and more multi generational trauma.
And so, we set out to create a new kind of home and to re envision what this could be. And at Coppola Valley Children's Home, the walls are bright yellow, and there's a swing set, and there's puppies, and there's always music playing and pancakes being cooked and there's a rooftop where we have dance parties and there's, when it's raining, we go up and play in the rain and there's soccer balls and we tried to like really flip the narrative of what, Residential home could be and what family can look like.
And it seemed really simple at the time. I still think it's really simple. Like raise kids with love and they turn out amazing, but it was, it was revolutionary and it ended up changing a community and a region. And we took that same ethos and built a full service community school. And now BlinkNow is really, truly a model for inspiring others and changing the way we do development work around the world.
It's just, I am proud of you and, and you, how old were you when you adopted your first child?
So I was 20 and I want to read it. It's not just me. We created like a family. There's aunties, there's uncles, my co founders, like very much a father figure. Now my husband. We kind of created a home environment filled with people.
It's like commune. Yeah. That filled with, it's like a children's village. And I'm a mother figure and but yeah, became a mom. Very, very young. Unexpectedly. Very unexpectedly. And was raising children as I was just coming out, being a child myself.
I think what's so interesting is that. You stepped into this and you were building this organization the same time that you were figuring out what motherhood, like all the things are being figured out as you went.
And I think it just speaks to like what you said. It is simple. Like changing the world is simple. We already have the answers to change things. It's just, who's going to do the simple. work to actually make it happen. And I mean, there's the love that comes out of the film and I really want everyone to see it.
And I cannot wait to, to see how it keeps echoing and making more magic for you and everyone who watches it. Because it's one of the best movies I've ever seen in my entire life. And it, but it, there's, there's the full cycle of, of human story in there because it's not all rainbows and saving the world.
Like there's so much heartache and struggle in it. And that's the whole foundation of everything that you've created as well. Like both, both existing in the same place, I think is one of the most beautiful things about it. the film and also what you're doing and to see how incredible these kids are.
It's and, and to know that it's not the same thing could happen for kids everywhere. Like, why aren't we replicating this model in every city, country? Like, how do we do the echo effect? How can BlinkNow be everywhere?
That's the dream. That's the wish. We are sort of open source. learning model where people and community leaders can take pieces of the learnings and the blueprints and, and take bits and pieces.
Hopefully the next iteration of where we go in the next few decades. But yeah, it's like a simple solution, but as the film unravels, it starts with pure intentions and this I don't know what to do, but I have to do something better. And I can't look away from this riverbed where children are breaking rocks to survive.
And then you see the layers of complication and the layers of questions. I always think like it's better to guide with questions than answers. And I think that was the thing that we had going for us being so young and so novice. And so I don't want to say naive, but like pure and let's do this. And then you realize, Oh my gosh, there's a lot to this.
And that's why it's become a lifelong. Mission and vision. And there are complicated things about it, and that's why we need communities and communities themselves self determining what change is going to look like and multi dimensional poverty needs multi dimensional solutions. And that was kind of The footprint and the models that we built and kind of created.
And then there's the simple layer of just like, just because you're born into less doesn't mean you deserve scraps and you deserve less. And so how do we create quality and how do we create love and the mission and how do we truly raise children? Cause you know, you can give a kid a backpack and put them to school, but how many of us are going to raise our children?
And then, and you step into that right away in the book and in the movie and And we tried to lead with questions and not answers and leave everyone with the question of like, where do we go from here? How do we find hope? How do we ground ourselves in love? How do we return to heart? How do we keep ourselves like getting up and getting up again and again and again in this world where we are so hit with the suffering and the trauma and the hopelessness and the helplessness?
Because we go through these stages. I don't know about you, but some days you just want to put a fence up and like, get under your cover and hide. And then, and yet we're being called to show up and to change things. And how do we walk? And how do we not get too hard and stay soft and stay hopeful? And I think, My husband, who's the filmmaker, captured that really beautifully.
It's just, to be a human right now is hard. And to love is hard, and it's brave. And yet it's the only way, it's the only way through.
Yeah, and it's the most human thing to do. Like, I, I think that, I write personally in the past two weeks. I've just been so happy that the Olympics are on, which sounds so silly. Yes, totally obsessed. And like here, like even the commercials around the Olympics are like hope and inspiration and loving your neighbor. And like Coke, Coca Cola is the commercial where everyone's just hugging. I'm like, can we have this all the time? Like, why is this only for two weeks, every four years or every two years?
I'm like, this is what it is. The U. S. needs. This is what the global collective needs. Like we have to stop having the majority of our conversations be about how everyone's bad and things are ending and instead look at all the things that are happening every day that are like, there are so many miracles happening and there are so many people who are stepping up to the plate and I just, I don't, it doesn't have to be this hard or this complicated.
I just, I think what you guys are doing, you know, the book, the movie, like it's showing that It is like your initial instincts of like, no, just like give them a hug. Just love them. Like feed them. Like all these things that we would do intuitively are the answers. So like, how do we move all the other junk out of the way?
Yeah, I think that's a good point of moving the other junk and the distraction and the fear and the things that are being thrown at us. And it's not like a Pollyanna kind of thing or like a just be positive. It's like, no, there are pressing issues. There are problems. And there's also solutions that work and we, we can live on a planet where there's enough for everyone.
We can return, return to a more restorative equilibrium. We have to believe that as a human family, we can achieve a place that is peaceful and a place where every child can, can prosper. And we have to keep a clear and open. vision and mind. So it's like there is work to do. And yet we cannot get paralyzed right now.
And we're getting thrown so much. I mean, I'm all about the Olympic fever as well. Talk about like badass women. Yeah, showing us the way. And I think it's like this return. So, first of all, we're starving for it. We're just starving for like, anything that can give us that sense of like, just do it. But I agree.
It's like, how do we stay clear and centered and calm and just get ourselves to work? And our callings are all different too, right? But, but, I think we have been in a place of, ugh, I, I don't know what to do, so I'm just gonna do nothing. And, and I think as a humanity, we're gonna get to an elevated place where it's like, no, we're all gonna do something and we're all gonna do our part.
And enough of us doing that something and doing our part and taking that one step is gonna be the tipping point to get to where we need to go. But I'm a pretty optimistic person. Even despite everything I've been through, I'd like to live in optimism and belief that the world's going to be okay and humanity is going to be okay.
Well, and how can you not when you see it in the kids faces every day? Like that's, that's who gets to decide that we, like, that it keeps going that way, right?
For me, it's children. It's something we can all agree on, I hope. It's something that is so pure and so innocent and to me sacred, I mean, there's nothing that makes me feel hope more than a child's safe and giggling and marveling at the earth and in wonder and to me, it's like, whatever we can do, like, I will put it all on the line to fight for that, to fight for children having a childhood.
With wonder and joy and fulfillment and ease. It's, I will fight for it to my death. I will be here. You will see me fighting for that because I think it's all we have left to fight for.
And that, the next thing for me is like, you are fighting every day and there's no way for us to have the balance that we always want.
And the to do list that you have, I imagine, and I know it's, again, it's not just you, it's the entire team, you truly have a village around this that's supporting all the ideas and all the people and all the kids involved. But your to do list, like I imagine you like drop it and it's like a scroll that just like goes out the door down, probably goes into another country at this point.
So how are you every day going to bed feeling like I did enough? Or has that, is that the golden thing to achieve?
So, you hit the question that I'm working through myself a lot. It's the kind of career and mission. I'm a CEO, I'm a mother to young adult children, to teenagers, to infants, to a toddler. I'm working in humanitarianism and philanthropy, which is a real burnout, real difficult sector. So I'm 37 now being called to, like, figure some of this stuff out.
And it's the kind of life where you could work all day, every day, morning till night, 18, 19, 20 hours and still not be done. And there's so much need, right? And so much to do. And I used to just work and I still do, you know, all the time because when you're so like that workaholism takes on because you really believe and you've got that passion or like that hunger and the, oh my gosh, this matters so much.
There are literal lives on the line. And yes. realizing that it is a marathon and I want to be doing this when I'm 80 and I probably will need to be doing this when we're 80. I mean, I think it's going to take a lifetime and so just pacing. Pacing and like planning and like really staying in my heart remembering to breathe, remembering to walk, remembering to drink a glass of water, go to the bathroom or just, yeah, needing to stay like sane.
And as you know, you've been close to the story. Like there are times when you want to quit. There are times when you want to give up. This has been really hard. It's been a very difficult 19 years. And and so I think at some point you realize I'm still showing up, like I'm still here. I did it one more day.
And just like one day at a time and rest when I need to and sleep when I need to and realize that like I'm in this for the long haul, I'm not going anywhere. And so I need to show up every single day as my best, most centered, most heartfelt self. I think we're all being called to do that, right?
Like, how do you still show up as, you know, as your best self and work through the anxiety and work through the ups and downs and work through the like 10, 000 things that are constantly, I don't think my list is any longer than any other. working woman. We all have stuff.
We all have long lists. I just think yours might be at a magnitude of like factor 10 because most, you know, it's like, Oh, my one, two, four kids, not 93.
It's, you know, if you, if we even across looking just within the business, like, yeah, you're the CEO, but you're the CEO of so many pillars of things. And as someone who has multiple businesses, like everyone. But it, it's the matter of team, right? So I guess how, how are you, how are you adding more people?
How are you delegating? How are you giving it away so that you can keep expanding?
Yeah. So I think because I was so young, I knew that I knew nothing like, and that is actually a superpower because you're like, well, I don't know. I know I want to do this. I know I can do it, but I know I need a lot of help.
And I think it helped me to be like, how do I find the person who can, or how to, what can, so I'd say like one of my superpowers is just people, right? Like partnering with Taupe finding community leaders, finding, you know, our executive director is amazing. I mean, our boards are incredible. Our community stakeholders are incredible.
So yeah, it's creating a mission that will live beyond you. And your heart and at the end of the day, as a mom, especially if something happens to me tomorrow, I need to know that my Children will live on my youngest two babies in the home right now are only six months old. So it's again, keeping that big picture and creating a mission that lives beyond yourself as a founder is really important.
So it cannot be founder driven. It cannot be just me, me, me, me, me. It really does have to be a collective and a collective purpose. And anything's link now has done a really great job of bringing folks together around the world who share that. Wish and share that promise. And so every day I do a gut check every year, I think just like everybody else, we're following a strategic plan.
We've got goals, we've got. Smart goals. We've got strategies and objectives and everything down to the task. We're in a sauna. We're on Google drive. We're on Slack. I mean, just hustling it out. That's, that's the way to do it. And luckily for me, I love it. It's like the life it's, it's my world and yeah, there's still a lot I want to do. Yeah.
I'm going to pivot the conversation a little bit, because one of the things that I was left with from the film was also that you're allowed to have 93 children and Find a guy who's like, yes, i'm all in on that plan and as someone who is Currently single and looking for someone who wants to be on board for my insane It was so inspiring because there's so much in the contrary that's being discussed in modern dating world.
How, how lucky do you feel your meeting was and that he's just like, yes, I'm just a yes. Like that's how it occurred to me. And I'm sure that's not the full reality of it all, but finding someone who is a yes to you. What was that experience for you and how has it changed what you're up to?
My gosh. Our love story is my favorite love story.
I can only speak for myself and my own journey, but you know, I spent my twenties just like laser focused on creating this thing and doing this thing. And I wasn't looking, you know, I, and if anything, it just seemed like this thing that would never happen. Right. Or it, it just, there was no feasible way.
There was no one I could picture. That would fit into this like very complicated puzzle. And then I met Jeremy. And now I'm like, I can't imagine my life without him fitting into the puzzle. It was the same thing when I got pregnant with a biological child, I was like, Oh, I, I, I can't imagine. And then what this is going to be like, and then my biological child just like felt.
Ruby just fit in and we love her so much. I can't imagine our family without her. And. I don't know. It's like surrendering, trusting. I was set up. I was a really good friend, Libby Solana. She had a vision. She met him on a job. She saw him. She knew me and she was just like, these two people have to meet.
We did. We hit it off right away. And things that should have felt really complicated, like him moving to Nepal and like taking all over the kids and figuring out melding careers forever. We're so simple and it was so easy. And it worked and it fit we're a very compatible matchup and it's, he's made my life even more beautiful.
He wasn't a prince in shining armor that made everything easier. He wasn't, didn't take the pain away. He didn't take, you know, any of the complexities away, but he's a rock solid partner, he's a tree. You know, was when he left, he had a career in film and he was making commercials and had he had a great career and when we met, he picked up his camera.
The only thing he knew was to start filming and teaching the kids how to film and take pictures and portraits. And that is why the film is so raw and so real. Mm-Hmm. was because it was literally just him and some of his friends. Following this story for nine or 10 years. And yeah, I'm really grateful for it.
It's the, it makes the film less of a like humanitarian nonprofit film and a little bit of love story and a little bit of rom com and a little bit of, yeah. It's just like awesome. I made it awesome. He almost left that whole part out of the film and it. I think it is what makes it real and true, right? We all need a love story.
Well, and I think we all need a love story. And there's so many love stories in the movie. It's not just your love story, right? It's, it's you and your co founder. It's you and the kids. It's like, there's all these interpersonal relationships that like the movie just oozes love, which is like, I saw a post this morning about Tim Waltz, the new VP candidate and yeah, and the, the post just said, I didn't realize how bad America needed a dad that could give him a hug and change a spark plug.
And it's like, yes, we do. We really just need a hug right now. And it's not just. It's not just the U. S. Like there's such a need for this hug, which again, your movie and then the Olympics and all these things that we could pull in that are just showing people being good people. Like why the fact that this is shocking and startling and needed is more what I'm concerned about.
It's like we, we forgot for a second. I, I've been loving the Tim Walz stuff too. It's like, Oh, sorry Tim Walz is outside cleaning my grill right now. And oh, we had to leave at 4 39 in the morning cause Tim Walz didn't want to hit traffic and he had the car all packed. It's like, yeah. And he's eating cookies and like there's this return to what is real and what is true and what makes us human and what makes us alive. We're, and I think maybe we forgot it for a minute, or things got really polarizing or social media entered the scene. It was like, but now it's, I dunno. I wanna believe that there's a return to love.
Mm-Hmm. . And like, how do we show up every day as our most loving, compassionate self and show up in love for our world and for our communities and for our families?
So, and that, that makes it feel a lot simpler, you know, in, in a time where things are really overwhelming. And I think, I think Jeremy did a really good job in the film of just being like, justice, justice. This is one story of love. This is one story of heart. And it was beautiful. I'm grateful for it.
Me too.
I'm so grateful that you guys shared it with us. Like, I want more. Like, is there, is there going to be a series happening? It's like, how do we, how do we turn this into like the the good, the big brother we needed, not the one that we got on TV?
I hope. I mean, so at the moment we're, we're looking for a distributor and just, we need to find a home for it.
And then, yes, hopefully lots more. I mean, the crazy thing is, is that we had. Nine years worth of footage and to cut a 90 minute documentary. He had tried a series, he had tried multiple episodes. He had tried, like, there were so many storylines. In fact, like the CEO entrepreneur in me was like, I hated the film.
What about the greatest film in the world? Like, what about the women's center? Like you missed and like, it was really hard to remove. I was very removed from the filmmaking process and I was like, and it became this like really personal story, but yeah, I think there's so much room for more. You know, I have to be honest and say that when we were shopping the series around a lot of the distributors were like, Oh, sorry, we're looking for crime right now or we're looking in for thriller or we're looking for like cult movies.
And when you look at online streaming, it's a lot of scandals, scammers. Murder mystery, like, there's a lot of darkness in what we watch the swindler. So it was a good reminder to me of like, if we're watching these things, if the media that we're taking in is all violence and swindler and, you know, culty, it's just, if that's what we're watching violence, then that's the world that we're creating.
So why are we, Yes. We have to find a distributor that wants a story about love and children. And I have to tell you, when we were shopping this film, a lot of people wanted crime and thriller and true murder mystery and the guy that killed Kat in Cats and I just like, there's a lot of, I know, think about it, look at the headlines out there.
Well, and I've been thinking a lot about this because of the Olympic effect, like, I don't know, no one's watching, no one I know is watching anything else right now. And I'm so curious what the data set is, because I'm also seeing so many talking on threads or Instagram or TikTok about how everyone's mental health is feeling better.
Like magically, we all feel better in the past week because we've been watching the Olympics and I'm like, are people, I hope the executives are getting that and seeing this because We don't want to it's a reason why we go back to shows like friends or modern family or things that just remind us of like, like, okay, we're gonna be all right.
Like this is we all that other stuff is so so minuscule. And in fact, the last crime thing I watched was something in Italy and I went down a rabbit hole googling how many murders are in Italy. Almost none. In fact, there was a year where there weren't any. And then I started ranking every country and like really looking at where the problem is.
And us is ranked number two in murders a year, but we don't show up on the other list because of our population size. But I'm like, I don't care about the verse population size. I care about the total number. Like, why is this okay? And to your point, what are we creating that's allowing that to be acceptable and that to be something that we're consuming?
Yeah. I don't want there to be more crime dramas because then there needs to be more crime.
Yeah. Oh my gosh. It's again, so simple and so true. I think we do need to think a lot about what we're consuming at the moment. What are we consuming as a collective humanity? Like, what are we consuming?
How are we spending our time? What are we watching? What are we taking in? What are we contributing to? And like, there's a reason why we're all struggling with mental health and anxiety and depression and the paralysis we've been through some hard things. And yet, how are we going to continue to show up?
What do we need to watch and what do we need to consume and contribute in order to show up better? So, yeah, I hope the film Does that I hope it gets out. I hope millions of people see it. I hope people feel hope I hope people are called to love write love letters, you know all the things. Let's see We'll find it.
We'll find a we'll find a landing space for it for sure.
And when I come back to you as badass CEO Not not a job. You probably imagined if you go back to eight year old you would she have imagined that this is your life?
No, no. I think even 17 year old, 18 I never imagined it in a million years.
And every day I wake up and I'm like, I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful for getting to do the, getting to live getting to do work. That's meaningful that I love my kids mostly. I mean, I'm just so grateful for my kids there. I'm so proud of them. And yeah, no, this was not in the card. None of this was in the card.
None of it. So I'm pretty, pretty lucky.
What are the words powerful and ladies mean to you? And do their definitions change when they're next to each other?
Yeah. Powerful ladies. Like I see Amy Cuddy's like power pose and I see all like the strong Olympian women, you know, our rugby player, favorite, and Simone and our track stars. Like I just. Yeah, I see physical strength mental strength, emotional strength. Yeah. I think powerful ladies like showing up as who they are, as their full, true, authentic selves.
Like that's when I feel my most powerful. And the word ladies at the end just like gives me the image of like all of the cool women that we get to walk the planet with right now. Like what a cool time to be alive. There's inspiration everywhere we look from science to sport to technology to like watching women claim these spaces and show up.
We're getting there. Writers and creatives. I just think it's What a cool time to be alive.
Who are you when you're not CEO and you're not mom? Like, what are you nerding out about? Geeking out about? Like, Are you a swifty? Are you like, what else? What else makes like, I feel like there's so much light shining on this part of you.
That's so huge. And it's also like, you're a regular, complicated, well rounded modern woman. So like, who, who else are you?
Yeah, when people meet me, they're like, Oh my gosh, you're so not what I expected. And I want to be like, what did you expect? I don't know, like, I, I, I always think like, never want to lose my meanness.
Like I am a humanitarian and I'm silly and I like to be funny and I like to be light. I like to dance in the kitchen. I'm an aunt, you know, to my nieces and nephews and I'm a neighbor. I struggled with that. You know, when you start working, I started working, got into my career when I was 18, 19 years old.
And there was the period where I think I lost myself and I was only that. And actually it was during COVID that we had to lead this major COVID migrant crisis. There were 4 million Nepali migrants across the border who we needed to bring home. And I I for months and months and months and with a team of people on a, a Welcome Home Nepal campaign.
And after that I got reunited with my husband and our 2-year-old and ended up in Canada Jeremy's Canadian. And I ended up on an island off of an island in the San Juans off in Vancouver Island. And I had to just stop and pause during Covid and I was in the middle of a forest in a teeny tiny cabin ice in isolation for 14 days.
And. I had this sort of crisis moment because I had never asked myself, who am I without all of that? Who am I when I'm not a humanitarian, a philanthropist, this Nepal identity? And I used the time during COVID to write my book, to ask those questions, to walk and just figure out more of my identity and kind of come back to myself.
I'm competitive. I love to play soccer. I think I love the olympics so much
I saw your post with you and the kids being like we trash talk each other and we complain about the you know who's reffing and who's not and yeah, I was like this is just so real and normal and I think that's the Like I just i'm so curious who these people thought you would be when they met you
I think like you think of this And I'm like, there's like peace in the world, but I'm like, I grew up in Jersey.
We're tough. We're like, you know, go get it and change it. And there, there are soft parts of me. There are hard parts of me. There are parts of really working on I'm a work in progress. I've got a lot to figure out. I've got issues just like everybody else. And I'm still on that journey of figuring it out.
Like I have a lot to figure out. This is hard. Lifing is really hard.
Lifing is hard. Yeah. That's the thing. Lifing is hard when you're up to big things and you keep adding new ideas to the list. Like that's the hard part. Like, and I think that's, I want people to be happy, but what I really want more is for people to be satisfied because I think that there's a conversation right now about happiness over everything.
And I'm like, no one I know who is up to cool shit, who is inspired by themselves. I think would say they're happy every day because there's some days that are really hard and there's some days that totally suck and but there's other days that you are waking up and it feels like Christmas morning because you cannot wait to do what you're going to do.
And I think I heard someone recently talk about. The rule of thirds, if you're up to big things, like one third, you're going to love it. One third, you're going to hate it. And one third, you're going to be like crying because of how hard you're working. And those are the thirds. There's no, like, you don't get it all the time.
It's like this moving through the spaces because there's a correlation right now between happiness and comfort that I think is limiting our abilities to be the bigger versions of ourselves.
Oh my god, so beautifully said. You know, I've been reflecting on the same thing. Because I'm like, am I a problem that I'm experiencing this role, like my highest highs and then my lowest lows, like, can we just hang out like somewhere in the middle, level it out a little Maggie.
And then I thought, well, maybe it's proportionate. Like maybe if you want to have all this love and those moments where you're like, I'm so grateful to be alive of 8 billion people, I feel like if you want to live those moments, you also have just have. And love more because the more you love, it's a vulnerability because your heart is so open and you love so much, but the more you love, there's more opportunity for, for the loss and the disappointment and those people we love suffer.
It's just inevitable. Nobody gets like an easy pass. And I've been thinking a lot about like, maybe these ups and downs aren't a me problem. It's like, that is the problem. What it means to be human, your greatest highs and your lowest lows and you're jumping out of bed. Everything's great today. And then you're like, I can barely move out of bed and maybe just embrace that and think that it's not like a default in my settings.
And Liz Gilbert. Is a writer who I love and she wrote the book Big Magic.
I love that book. It is our most recommended book on this podcast.
But she, she has the concept of like a shit sandwich. Yeah. And that helps me a lot because like, She says like, yeah, in every job, if you like love your job, there's also just a shit sandwich.
And so that's really helped me. I was like, Oh, I'm just, this is a shit sandwich day. I just have to eat it or like, just get through this thing. And we want careers and lives to all be picture perfect and romantic and these magical moments and these best days and pitter pattering of the rain and the sunshine and the, but it's like, no, a lot of it's just grindy and gritty and you just have to and like get through it and that's okay.
And why are we, why are we selling anything otherwise? Like, that really helped me to be like, Liz Gilbert has shit sandwich things where she's just like, Being a writer or a lawyer or a doctor, like, so I, that helped me a lot.
Well, no matter what job you have, someone thinks it's glamorous and magical, but that's the tip of the iceberg.
It's the. If you're lucky, 10 percent of what you're actually doing. I worked in Fort in apparel for 20 years before doing everything I'm doing now. And people are like, Oh, that's so cool. You're doing this and that. And I'm like, it was cool for four seconds when this is in this happen. Otherwise I've been on an airplane every two weeks and this, and this, like, that's not the fun part.
We all want like a hero story and this thought of like everybody else has it all together and all figured out and there's ease and there's just perfectly skinny and perfectly this and then it's just like, no, no, we're all just like humans trying to human and like get off the pedestal. Stop putting other people.
It's so true. But if all the glory that we really crave, right, that purpose oriented kind, and glory is maybe not the right word, but like to have those glorious moments, we have to be doing the scary gutsy, I don't want to things. Otherwise, we just kind of hang out in our small life and things are flat and we're not being, we're not using.
The power we have to do anything.
Yeah, we're so capable of so much more. We are like, especially women. Did you end up seeing Mountain Queen? No, not yet. It's on Netflix. Okay, go get it. Like we're so capable of so much and no, it won't be easy and it'll be in the gut and it'll spill out everywhere, but like we're only alive.
We get this one shot, like, I want to feel all there is to feel and do all there is to do and go out strong and go out knowing that I was my bravest, most vulnerable, most. rested when I needed to. I agree. I agree. We only get as much as we give. And
How has living so long in Nepal shifted your views on spirituality?
Well, the way I was raised, and then just being in Nepal spiritually, it's a very accepting place. open to all spiritualities and faith. And it comes back to like, even in Buddhism and Hinduism It's a real, if you look at all of the faiths and spirituality, it's a real, like, just compassionate love kind of vibe, which I really love.
But yeah, I think it was a really great place to be in that it was tolerant and accepting and everybody's welcome and all ideas are at the table. And yeah, it is a really spiritual place for sure. And also very accepting and tolerant place, which I really love. That's the kind of spirituality I'm into.
Like you have your beliefs single on your journey. I'm on mine. Hopefully we meet up and that, that jives well with me. And, and yeah, I love it.
Speaking of crossing paths have you and Carol Dunham met and cross paths?
You know, we know of each other and we've been in similar circles and we need to meet. I know we need to meet.
She's been on the podcast and she was someone I met at Mountain Film the year before and fell in love with. But yes, you guys need to, need to hang out because again, just like such a person that is oozing light and love and like, let's just fix things.
Let's just love on people and fix things. And I think like within my business coaching world, like I, I, people ask like, what's your niche? I'm like, no, we're it's values based. This is not an industry thing, but light and love are like anyone who's doing their thing from light and love. Let's help them.
Let's help them make it better and easier. Yeah. And she's in that on that team.
Yeah. Yeah. Just stay in the light. Stay in the joy. Stay in the silliness. Stay centered. Stay grounded. We got this.
So we ask everyone in the podcast where you put yourself on the powerful lady scale. If zero is average everyday human and 10 is the most powerful lady you can imagine, where would you put yourself today and on an average day?
Oh, I'm gonna go zero. I feel pretty average. Yeah some moments where I'm like a two or three. Where I'm like, oh, on the good high end of the roller coaster, I'm like, I got this. Let's go. But most of the time, just a standard B minus.
I know like one of the my core memories from Mountain Film this year was running into you and your friends and kids coming out from swimming in the river and just how happy you were.
It was everyone had already seen the movie and you were just actually, it looked like you were able to actually be sort of on a vacation and just playing. And it was so nice to, you know, See, see your story and then run into you and just have you be mean and saying hi to everyone on the trail. And I'm like, whoever this human is, we're keeping her because that, that's the humans that I want to be holding hands with changing the world, right?
Is that how that experience was for you? Like, did you feel like you could actually have fun and play when you were there?
Yes. 100%. And I very vividly remember that moment, that stream, river was freezing cold, and we all were like cold dipping, my friends and I, and I got out and I think I was dripping wet and the sun was, you know, coming down and I, I would say I do play a lot play is like a really important part of my life, and it's something that I think makes me unique.
And that's because I'm surrounded with children all the time and surrounded by children. And I have a two year old at the moment, my son and a six year old daughter. So we're always playing. And even in the moments where you get lost in your head, I'm surrounded by hundreds of children that are like, look, look at this rock.
It shines like the moon or like, they don't let you stay in that place too long. And so. Yeah, I'm always trying to play, always trying to keep it light. I think to counterbalance some of the darkness and intensity, it's really important that I find my way to the light because of the rest of my world being dark and being really intense.
I think it made me seek out and gravitate towards people who can play and keep things a bit. Lighter. And it's the only way for me to survive. Actually, it's essential for my survival because if I go dark, it's harder for me to get back and by keeping play and levity and just like, just, yeah, those moments to let loose and come back to my childlike self, the childlike self that found him on the river and the childlike self who I love so much. Like, yeah, it's my way of loving myself, I think. I need her. I need that version of Maggie because the other Maggie is not very fun. She's dark She cries She's anxious. She bites all of her nails off. She's super intense and super competitive So I think I've been trying especially as I get older, right?
Because when you get older it gets a lot and get a lot more serious and adulting is so hard So I think we do need to play more
Yeah, well, you know, this is a pretty powerful group of women and people who just love making magic happen whenever we can. What is on your to do list, to manifest list, your wish list?
What do you need? How can we help?
Oh my goodness. Well, everybody can follow along at BlinkNow. org. Find us on social, like, and share, and there's constantly calls to action, like, we need volunteers, we need educators, we need this person to help us with this curriculum. My book is out, it's called Between the Mountain and the Sky so supporting that.
We're looking for a home for the film between them out in the sky. So follow along and find out and and see if we can help us with that. And yeah, just one small step. Everybody do your thing where you are. That actually gives me more comfort than anything in the world. Keep doing your badass, powerful lady things.
And enough of us will change the world.
Whenever I'm feeling down and like, I don't want to, I don't want to be powerful today. I force myself to stand up and put my hands out at my sides and hold hands with the imaginary, well, not imaginary, but the not in front of me women that I know are, Like you are kicking ass every day.
It's like, no, we're not. I have to remind myself in that gesture that I'm not doing it by myself. And cause all the things that we, as women know, have to be changed. Like it's a huge list, but there's so much comfort knowing like, Oh, you've got that over there. Okay. Who's got that over there? It's like, we're dividing and conquering in different ways.
And kind of what we're talking about now is like, how do we. Bring powerful ladies together so we can be more connected and amplifying each other in different ways because You know, I think about and one of the things we're working I was like if we just got some of these women around a table like could we what big things could we move in?
One conversation because I'm just such a believer in the right people in the right room can shift the world mountains. So how do we need to be facilitating that work? So we can skip some steps instead of like take every step up the challenge that we have. Cause there's some secret hacks. I think we can tap into with each other.
Yeah. Oh my gosh. In a big way. And for any nonprofit leaders, like we got to join forces and collaborate more than ever. Cause all of us want the same thing. Right? Like, we all want the same thing. We all want a better world for, for everybody.
Yeah, I love that. It's beautiful. What do you personally need? How, how can I support you human to human?
Oh God. Text me every day. And tell me to take a deep breath. And go for a walk.
No, I'm working on talking about this with a friend. Not making self care one more performative thing that I'm failing at, like one more performance and Like with the long to do list, I find that because all of this information that we're getting, there's a lot of shoulds. Oh, so many. We should be putting collagen in our water.
We should be electrolyting. We should be doing weights so that our muscle mass doesn't whatever. We should be journaling. We should be, red light therapy. Then it's like, yeah, and then you add that with like the food. We should be eating more protein yeah. And then you add that to like the list of mothering and cing and working and parenting and being a daughter and being a sister. It's like, oh, there are 10,000 things and I'm just really trying to. Not bite all of those pucks and say like, Hey Maggie, like, what, where are you at? Like, what do you need today?
And I need help with that. I need help. I need help from other women in that same space of just like, what's working, what are you doing? And not turning because other, I think I'm finding myself like in shame and guilt a lot because like, well, I didn't do that thing. Oh, there you go again. You didn't do that again.
He didn't do this. But like, how many things can we do? How many things can we carry?
It's, it's insane. The expectations that are on women right now in particular from having to uphold patriarchal standards and having to step into new female standards and then you can't fail, have to do it all. Like there's all these layers that are just so unnecessary and looking at some of these things that might be more on the trends side of things that are just like quickly going by.
And I, I always think of some of these suggestions that we should be doing and about as if they're tangible things. Is this going to end up in my yard sale in six months? Because if it is, I don't want it. Like I don't need yard sale junk. Cause it's. I've been looking at a lot of the same things as well, like, I just, I want, I want the simple minimized version.
Cause that's all I have capacity for. So like all like, what am I saying yes to versus what sounds great for somebody else. But it's, it's so hard. Like I can't, I don't have someone I met recently told me they spent three hours on Bumble and that's how they got their New relationship. And I went, I don't have 30 minutes for Bumble.
Like I just don't. And if I don't have 30 minutes for something I really care about and want to be creating, I'm like, I don't have that to spend in my bathroom either. So I think it's really interesting that I'm here in Orange County, California, where there's like so much pressure for. The physical appearance of things and you're hanging out in Nepal, where I would imagine it's a little different scale and we're still having the same conversation.
Like what? No, we're I'm deleting the conversation. Like, yeah, it's It's, it's too much. I agree with you. So what can we delete?
Yeah, I'm, I'm working on a lot of that. I'm working on a lot of that. And honestly, I mean, I think we're in the same age bracket ish of growing up and thinking this. We had a lot of, we had a lot of unlearning to do in terms of body image in terms of, yeah, just what we're supposed to be and what we're supposed to do and what we're supposed to look like and all of the shitheads and yeah, so personally, like, that's my, that's the thing I want to figure out because Or, or just work my way through the next few years, because I don't want to be like a stereotypical, burnt out, angry, hard, overstimulated, blah, overcaffeinated.
But we'll see. I also just have to recognize, you know, I'm in a big chapter right now with parenthood. And work and it's just I'm in the midst of it all right now, but we'll see that's what I'm working on personally It's hard.
I think you're doing great you yeah, I mean you you inspire me and you give me so much like courage and Like it's courage to step into the things that sound insane and usually i'm good at that But like to see the level that you're playing at i'm like, oh We're not big enough.
Let's go. Let's go. Maggie needs our help, right? So it's like thank you for being that person for me And then also like the vulnerability that you've shared in every experience I've had with you but especially today I'm just reminding people that I Talk a lot about how to have it all and it's not about having all the things that other people tell us We're supposed to have It's really about taking that going back to what we want and know in our heart is what we're supposed to do and have.
And I just really honor that you are asking yourselves those questions probably by the minute based on who else is coming into your space.
How we all are, you know, we started talking about the movie, you know, the movie is about my greatest shame, my greatest pain, my greatest failure. And that's why it was such a nightmare to have up on the screen.
I mean, you see me giving birth, you see me gaining 80 pounds, you see me losing the love of my life and what I thought my whole family, I mean, I just, I just There's a lot of difficulty up there and when I watched the movie, like I was able to just look at myself through a lens of love and compassion and mercy.
Like I had mercy for her instead of seeing all the failure and all the things I didn't do and the ways that, you know, all that shame. And that was a really powerful, like therapeutic experience of like, just have more mercy for yourself. And so, yeah, I think I need that. I think I'm going to be showing up in that way of like, it's okay.
You know, it's okay. We're going to still lose. We're still going to suffer. We're going to have hard days and we're going to keep showing up for each other as women. And
you're perfect just the way you are, right? Like you're worthy just the way you are. It's, I mean, giving up the word deserve and replacing it with worthy.
Because deserve means that we resent whatever we had to do to get there. And I'm like, I don't want that. I don't want to be resenting it. I'll be mad about things. I'll wish it was done a different way. But you said it before about like having to unlearn the worthiness tied to production. It's like, no, like we're worthy of having all this stuff happen.
And so are all the people you're helping right now. Yeah. You don't have to, there's no performance needed to be worthy of, especially things that you're giving people, like it's just what we should be doing as humans. So I have taken up so much of your time. Thank you for extra minutes as well. That's a good thing. for being a yes.
Oh, I. I hope we get to see each other soon. I'll be following the podcast and thank you for bringing this into the world and creating space for all of us. It's so cool. Thanks for sharing your platform with me. Of course. Thank you.
All the links to connect with Maggie blink now. Between the mountain and the sky film and book and everything else that she's up to are in our show notes at the powerful ladies. com. Please subscribe to this podcast. Wherever you're listening and leave us a rating and review, join us on Instagram at powerful ladies.
And if you're looking to connect directly with me, visit Kara Duffy. com or Kara underscore Duffy on Instagram. I'll be back next week with a brand new episode. Until then, I hope you're taking on being powerful in your life. Go be awesome and up to something you love.
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Created and hosted by Kara Duffy
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Music by Joakim Karud
