Your Happy Hour - The Patterns We Present

Episode Date: December 12, 2025

In this episode, we chat to Nicole Serena-Silver about the patterns we present ourselves in our conditioning and the importance of aligning one's core passions with current life stages - being open to change as these may evolve - which means trusting your intuition in decision-making. Not an easy task! So, we delved into the challenges of entrepreneurship, the value of accountability and significance of building that via a community of support that fosters courage.The Feels is all about having those honest conversations, the power of community for personal growth and taking those actionable steps towards being our authentic selves.Thanks for tuning in! Keep it raw and real out there xYHH is produced by swartkat.co - captured via riverside.fm & shared via rss.com.

It's the Friday Feels, and we're back with your first sip of the weekend. You're now tuned in to this week's episode of your happy hour. I'm your host Nicole Carmine, and it's amazing to have you here. I'm your host Nicole Carmine, and it's amazing to have you here. joining me this week as we uncover the truths about being a human and a working professional. What are you up to this Friday? Well, whatever it is, this moment is just for you. Welcome back to episode two of season three. We back at it with another round of amazing conversations with wonderful humans. And we are unpacking the theme of repurposing purpose this month.

So every month we unpack themes that are about being human and a working professional. And this episode I wanted to bring on a very special guest who shares my name. And it's really, really wonderful to have you here with us today, Nicole Serena Silver. A very big welcome to your happy hour and to the field space. Thank you. Thank you. And it's wonderful to have a Nicole squared here on this podcast. I'm thrilled to be here.

thank you yeah of course and gosh Nicole you do so many things so I didn't really know where to start but I know you're you're a business coach you work with founders you work with entrepreneurs you've been an entrepreneur for a really long time and I know you also have an amazing community called the founder circle that you work with you're an author you're a founder of a lot of things you've you've been in Forbes involved with that but I feel like you can tell your journey much, much better than I can. So maybe you just want to give us a little bit of a rundown on how you got to being here today. Absolutely. Well, I'm a multi-potentialite, for sure. I'm very much a creative, and I apply my creativity to business. But in terms of purpose, I have been

focused on purpose for a long time. I mean, at least 15 years, I have a nonprofit as well that helps high school students find their purpose. I authored Vakita Full Potential, which is a career clarity guidebook. And I was writing for Forbes on the future of work, professional development and entrepreneurship. And I've always been an entrepreneur, always. And I've been an entrepreneur.

For me, it was a matter of freedom to truly be myself. And I think entrepreneurship is something that it has so many more facets to it than a lot of people imagine. And I'm kind of reinventing and showing people more choices when it comes to entrepreneurship more than your typical standard way of approaching entrepreneurship. So that's entrepreneurship and professional development have been my main focuses, but there's many other things that I've done because I love to create. But that's kind of the gist of my main expertise and focuses.

Okay, amazing. I feel like it's a really, really good fit for you to come and share on the podcast. We often attract people who are entrepreneurs or founders and in startup because, you know, we're all kind of in this transitionary period and reinventing all the time. So, but even if you're not and you're listening in and tuning in, I'm curious, Nicole, how, what does this theme mean to you? Like when we say repurposing purpose, I know you and I chatted a little bit beforehand and we were talking about mentioning that it's kind of the patterns we present ourselves

throughout our lives and how we find purpose in that. So, yeah, maybe just a little bit of what it means to you personally and your journey. Well, so how I look at things, how we are as humans, it's like imagine a tree. And imagine the roots of a tree is your core patterns, your fundamental patterns, the knee-jerk reactions that you have. And then the trunk is your different perspectives, the different things that happen throughout your life, and then the branches are all the different possibilities. So when I think of repurposing passion and repurposing like your direction or how all the different like repurposing in general, right? I think that it touches every part of our lives when we repurpose.

But I think that that applies to the different branches, the different possibilities. So taking that core pattern and that fundamental and looking at, okay, well, what is it right now that feels most aligned for this season of my life? And I think it's important to always look at that. I think we get stuck and that we can go down the rabbit hole of I've invested so much time and energy and I feel like my expertise lies here. But it's not what makes you happy. So what is your purpose? Maybe that was your purpose for a period of time, but maybe. it's time to repurpose your purpose and look at what is what is best what is best right now for me and it's never too late and I think that one of the things that I hear all the time is the obstacle

of oh but I've already done this or oh but that's going to take so long and it what I've seen happen is that you can apply your transferable skills into so many different ways whether you're starting a business or transitioning careers or whatever that might be and using those transitional skills, you can most likely transition pretty quickly to repurpose your purpose in a more meaningful way that will lead to a lifetime of happiness instead of getting stuck in this muck of like, oh, but I've already invested so much time and energy. Like, no, just go for it. Like, life is too short. The one thing we don't get back is our time and energy. So invest it wisely. I think so too

and you know what's coming to mind for me is well firstly it's really quite hard for I think a lot of people to do that I think we are maybe it's getting a lot easier now but society kind of forces you to pick a direction and then stick with that and now we're seeing people kind of

flit in between jobs and directions a lot more people are more like multi-diverse than they were before and I think it's quite hard because you don't really know who you are beyond that thing that you now designed your life around. So how has that been for you, like going from one thing to another and the journey? Yeah, what has that been like?

Yeah, it's interesting. That's a great question. I think for me, it's easy. For others sometimes to understand it, it's harder. Like my very first ever business, so I've always been an entrepreneur from day one. And when I graduated high school, I went into concert production. and an event production. And I have people from my past where I've evolved so much.

I've done so much since then. But there's people from my past, like one of my dear, dear friends who passed away last year and mentors and angels in my life, Dwayne Wiggins, who was one of the founding members of Tony, Tony, Tony, every time I'd see him, he'd always be like, so, what are we producing? Like, let's work together. I'm like, Dwayne, I'm not doing that anymore, man. And that's been like 25 years that have, that's passed. So sometimes for me, I'm living in it and it's, it's easy for me to shift because that's part of who I am. But for others, they have a hard time wrapping their minds around it.

So how do we move people into understanding that we're shifting because we're all interconnected? And so helping people understand the different parts of ourselves, I think, is an important piece, but there's also you touched on the identity side of things and how there's definitely certain people that identify in what it is that they've created throughout their lives. So how do you start chipping away and shifting that into something different? And it is brave and it isn't easy, but it's worth it. You got to stick to the why is what I would say. Why do you want to do this and get really firm on why you want to be transitioning and that why can help guide you even in those times of like uncomfort because it will be uncomfortable and it will be hard to transition

that's that's part of it but that's part of the initiation and part of the needed piece anything that is easy doesn't allow for you to grow right it's the hard times it's the difficult times that allow for us to grow that's so true and I yeah I think it's really the the fear of discomfort that holds us back from shifting. And it's the same with relationships, right? I mean, we're always encouraged to, if something's not working in a relationship, keep dating, you know, find what works for you and change. But I know a lot of people also stay in relationships that don't necessarily answer the why in that

moment anymore, and that's really difficult to walk away from as well. So I know you've always been this, I mean, I always asked people like 10 years ago, did you know you'd be here, but I feel like this question is like redundant for but how did you decide to be an entrepreneur like when you started i mean was it just something that you knew you wanted to do and what was that journey like do you feel like there were certain challenges that you had to overcome yeah i mean i like many of us i fell into it in many ways and there was a lot of uncertainty and i think that a lot of people every almost everybody experiences this of oh my god who am i

and what am I doing? And that's part of why, I mean, it's a huge part of why I created the nonprofit for high school students and why I wrote the book as well is to give people the tools because we were never given the tools of like, who are we and what do we want to do? So even though I can look back and I can see the patterns now that I'm super clear in what my path is, but being younger, the anxiety that I felt, the questions of like, well, who am I and what I want to do just was nerve-wracking. So, so, you. Yeah, like the pattern, I followed the patterns and I listened to myself and I said yes when there were times to say yes, but not everybody has, has that, that wonderful way of being able to

flow into it. Sometimes we flow in different ways. And I also want to say here that everything that we do, it all matters. So even if you feel like you've been on the wrong path, it still is important. Sometimes you don't, you have no idea how or why it matters, but it does. Like Steve Jobs, he took a calligraphy class and it's not like he was going to go in and be an artist, but that's what changed fonts, right? So we can't connect necessarily the dots looking forward, but looking backwards. So for example, because I really want to emphasize to your listeners, that there's no wrong. You haven't done anything wrong in your path, right? Because I know, lots of people sometimes feel that. Like, oh my God, I wish that I would have X, Y, Z. No, it's wonderful.

It's the patchwork that made you who you are. You're exactly where you need to be. You've been doing exactly what you needed to do. And sometimes you don't know why until years later, maybe decades later, right? So my latest thing right now, what I'm creating is a networking app that helps people create meaningful relationships. And I'm finding what we found in our user interviews is, that the best placement is in conferences. So here comes my past of events, pairing with like my psychology background of like understanding who you are

and how to make connections, right? With my business background. It's like all these different parts of myself are merging right now. And I would have never in a million years expected it, nor did I plan it. It's just that this is what surfaced. So I use my own story as an example of like,

well, you know, you just never know how things will come together. And to be more direct in answering a question, no, I didn't know what I wanted to do. It took me a while to figure it out. And once I started doing the work of looking at who I was and what I wanted to do to develop this for other people, I'm like, oh, okay, I'm kind of here. This is who I am. And I am doing what it is I want to do. And to have that understanding that, yeah, I'm on my path. This is it. Like, it's like, oh it's like a breath of fresh air like oh yeah that's me that's what i'm supposed to be doing i am doing it and it just feels so good oh i love that so much and i'm so grateful that you trusted that because i think a lot of the process is around trusting yourself you know like

when you get those nudges you get those ideas or you do the work internally it's a lot about trusting what you want and who you are and building that safe space within yourself to say like I got this. Like, even if nobody else understands, it's okay because I'm in my path, you know. So I think that takes a lot of courage. So thank you for doing your work in the world and sharing that. And we definitely have to chat. I know we were saying we need to connect on lots of things, but we're also building a bit of a platform with the fields around making life easier for connection and life work and being able to travel and work around the world a lot better. So we should definitely chat about that offline sometime. But I think,

I think it's incredible when you do do the work internally, which I know is the hard part. I think that's the part that we all kind of avoid and resist most of the time to be able to go into our flow. And then it's okay of life changes because you're solid in yourself, you know? And so I am curious, like, how do you find, what do the kids say? And I know the program that you're doing, what is it that they come to you with and say, like, you know, this is what I'm struggling with or that I feel resistance towards. Yeah, I think the biggest piece is having a space of accountability and doing it with a group of people. Even with my guidebook, I say, do it with a friend. If you don't have a group that you

can do it with, do it with a friend. In the nonprofit, it's actually a curriculum that we develop that's introspective and interactive that teachers deliver in their classrooms. So it's a whole class that students go through, which creates that accountability, which creates that stability where they have to go through all the different steps to unsurface who they are. It's interesting as humans how we have such a hard time doing things for ourselves. And knowing that, that it's like, how do we build in the systems to support ourselves, right? And usually that means accountability through others.

and hacking ourselves to be able to go through and really surface those parts of our patterns, which once we have them, they're like jewels that we can keep with us forever. It helps with, you know, if you understand all the intricate parts of who you are, then you can take those and be much more agile as life is shifting as we see in the world right now

and things are shifting that we need to be agile. And so it gives us that ability because we can take those gifts and be like, I can move over here and I can apply it over here. So it's incredibly important. Create those systems of support. Yeah, I believe that's really important too. And I realized, you know, I've also kind of been on a little bit of entrepreneur journey,

but mostly solopreneering it until recently it's starting to create more of a team and having that support structure, being able to work with people, having co-founders that are really incredible to work with. you know, I think, yeah, no man is an island. We try to often do things so much by ourselves. And it's also a consequence of upbringing, culture, lots of different things, you know, your own personality, things that you have to go through. I know I often struggle with that, like having to let go and delegate and say,

please help me. But once you do, I feel like accountability is kind of natural in those communities and teams, because everyone's working towards the same why, with the same passion and then things just flow you know but you have to open yourself up to that so absolutely well and for solo entrepreneurs which i've been the majority of my life i have a co-founder right now but it it is wonderful to have team and to be able to build a team for those that don't have the team one one way that i've gone about it in the past is creating a personal board of directors so you bring in people that you know will tell you the truth

that don't just give you lip service, and it's a group of friends, and you all hold each other accountable. It could be a group of friends. It could be a group of fellow entrepreneurs, but creating, again, the support system so that you're not doing it alone. It's really important. I love that so much. I'm going to steal that idea. And tell me, so in your journey, like you've had people who have been there for you, what is the best advice that someone's given you in your journey that you can share? Oh, the best advice. I would say really the most liberating best advice is to be myself, to trust myself.

It can be incredibly difficult, and you touched on that in terms of listening to yourself. Those intuitive kind of touches, I think, are really important to listen to. And the more you listen to them, the more they speak to you. and the more the more things start coming your way. So I would say that that's something that's been really important. Another thing that a mentor told me is when you are looking for people to be on your team, look for those, how he said it is, look for those that offer you the last piece of their pie, right? Like the last piece that's like sitting at the table, look for those who are generous that are wanting to give

and hopefully it becomes a reciprocal giving and that you know that you're building towards something that you giving is giving to the whole. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah, I think it's often very difficult to build if you're not all energy exchanging in the right way, you know, and yeah. So when you had to do the work to trust yourself,

what did you find was the most kind of practical ways? It's like often we have these doubts that come up, right? And I know for me, it's having like a long internal conversation where I keep having to soothe myself in a way and say, like, it's going to be okay, I have faith. Look at where you were, look at where you are now, and reminding yourself of kind of small increments of trust. You know, like if you want to get to a big mountain, then at least do a little something small to keep building up to that point. That's been really helpful for me. I don't know if it's similar for you.

Yeah, yeah. very much so. I would say the advice that I would give on that side is because it is hard and it is building is to check in when you do feel that like two pieces. One is take a moment and like just pause. Catch that pause to reflect. Check in with your head. Check in with your heart. Check in with your intuition. Are they all aligned or are they potentially are some of them saying one thing and some saying another. And if that's the case, how do you get them in alignment? And then look at everything all the way around so that you can make an accountable choice. Because I would say that there's no right choice and there's no wrong choice. Everything can lead to different outcomes and it's just a

matter of taking into account all of the different pieces that you're weighing and the potential impact so that you can be accountable. So when you make that choice and something goes, let's say, right or or something even goes wrong that it's something that you chose that you're accountable for that it's not if something went wrong you're not a victim if something went right you fully chose that and you can own that so i would say really like taking into account all the aspects and and making that choice and making sure you're fully in alignment pausing checking those different places, your head, your brain, your heart, your emotions, and your gut, your intuition, and make sure that you can get them all in alignment so that you can make an accountable

choice. That's amazing advice. Thank you. I have to remind myself of that often. So for everyone listening, I mean, being human is like an everyday thing, right? It's a journey, so it's never perfect. Yeah, and to give yourself patience, too, with that. Like, don't expect perfection.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I think that's how hardest part is we're also critical of ourselves, you know, and having that grace with yourself is so, so important. So it's kind of a balance between grace and accountability, I find, you know. It's one of, we sometimes sway between one or the other where we kind of really let go. And we're like, oh, life's against you. But I'm curious, I mean, maybe this is a silly question to ask you. but a year from now where do you see yourself i mean you're busy with so many things also how do you

i know you're also a mom like how do you juggle everything and what's what can we celebrate for you in a year from now yeah well my daughter's now in college so um so the mom part i mean i'm always a mom right i'm always moming but yeah being a mom and running my businesses you know has been a difficult challenge for sure a year from now it's an interesting question in this moment because right now there is so much up in the air and so many possibilities that I don't know. I would say my goal with my nonprofit is to hand it over to somebody to run because I'm a creator being very clear on who I am. I'm great at creating things and I also am not the operations and management. So I'm at a place with the nonprofit where I want to hand it over. I'm

talking to Teach for America and like some other organizations about how we can either partner or potentially merge or how I've got a wonderful human who I adore who is currently on the nonprofit grow the name of the nonprofit is grow my future on grows team and so hopefully she'll she'll be able to take it over and to those founders I would say no know what it is when what you're good at and when it's time to bring in other people Zero shame in that. Own what you're good at. And delegate what you're not good at. And so I'm owning that I love to be creative and that I don't want to do operations. And I'm perfectly fine handing it over. So there's that the guidebook, which is really super practical. Like it's like a workbook basically where you, you know, you write in it and you look at like all the different parts of who you are trying to show you like a. It's like one of those, it's so funny, I'm like pulling to the areas where there's writing, but the majority of this, there's, it's doing, not writing, because you can't read about who you are.

So really looking at getting that into more places where it can be used in a group setting, so whether that's in a corporate setting or in universities, military transitioning, civilian life, non-profits as well, like there's lots of different places for it. So expanding that and then, and then working on what's next and the what's next, you know, it might be the app that I'm developing. It might end up being something different. Like I said, right now I'm kind of in this like, okay, like what's happening and going back to talking to the serendipity and listening to intuitively what is supposed to happen next.

I'm in that moment of pause where I'm like, it's not, can I just say, like pause is not an inactive thing either pause is very active right it's like i'm pausing to listen i'm still taking steps but i'm listening so it's it's this interesting thing where we think of pause it's like oh stop everything no pause is actually active so i'm in the active pause I really love that I agree I think sometimes society tells us that silence and pause and

not doing anything seems so wrong but some of the greatest discoveries came from that I mean sitting under the tree and the apple falls down and all of a sudden gravity is discovered or whatever it might be but it came from a moment of reflection and giving yourself a space to maybe let's say channel what is next for you and feel the nudges in your heart, you know.

So, well, I'm very excited for you for the next chapter and to see where that all goes. And as much as we can support that from the field side, we can and will, absolutely. And on the topic of pause, I actually want to say, we're not pressing pause on this podcast yet, but the option is there. And it's a big, big thank you to Riverside,

who we record on, but also our partners, rsets.com, who help us put this podcast out into the world. world. So we want to take a quick moment to say thank you to them. They've been so generous in offering us and also our audience wonderful treats in terms of partnership, but also discounts. So if you want to check out RSS.com, you want to launch your podcast. You can get some discounts via the fields. You can DM us on the socials for that. And then also our latest partner is bomb company who also known as blender bombs who is in the US and I do know they ship internationally

as well and we've partnered with them so you can get a discount on anything that you buy from bomb company with the code the fields and you get an amazing 20% discount on anything that you buy so very nutritious snacks I do miss their money to order my next bomb company blender bombs thank you so much to our partners and then I want to quickly move into a segment that we always do, Nicole. We call it the people, places and spaces, and it's a shout-out to a person or a place that we experienced in this week, that we feel have the feels. So I want to give a shout-out to a place called 59 Rivoli, it's here in Paris, and my team member, Ashley, actually went there this week, and they have a beautiful space

where they help people who are struggling in life and some are homeless, some are just really battling, but they're artists, and they exhibit their work and you can go there and chat to them and they help them get earned from their work and it's just, yeah, it's a beautiful, beautiful space. We love your feels, thanks for what you do in the world and I'm excited to go visit that next week as well.

And then our almost last segment is what we call the James and this is something that happened in your week so I'll start and for me my dream this week was what I learned was to have grace with myself like we were talking about now it's winter it's cold so much has been happening on all the different ranges and I've overslept so many times I've had some late nights too but I really just have to understand that my body can only go so far

in certain things and kind of lead myself with love and others around me And a second dream was really also to embrace a section of my life, a chapter of my life now that I can say to myself that I'm safe to be loved by myself and by others. It's been quite a journey in my own way in that sense. And it's been such a revelation this week that I can be open to that. So those are really two big dreams for me this week. How about for you? Yeah, you know, I'll get real personal here.

I've been really looking at different dynamics when it comes to people that I've met and friendships and kind of evaluating my, how I'm interacting. As you know, I've been part-time living in Paris and part-time here in San Francisco in the Bay Area. And in Paris, I feel like I've been super social and kind of out of body, to be honest, because I've been trying like, okay, who's my friend? group who are my people and then I come to the Bay Area and I have my people and I'm so solid and it feels so good and I'm I'm really examining the gem that I would say is one really knowing like there's certain people who are for us and there's certain people who are not for

us and having patience in Paris to find those people who are going to be my people and having grace with people who may not necessarily be my people and understanding that human dynamics are complex. And yeah, my best friend, she said something. She said, you know, the people that really truly know you know how wonderful you are. And those who may, because I've been, there's been one dynamic that's been first time in a long time that has been very difficult. And so with that situation, she's like, just own who you are, know who you are, know that

you're loved, know that if she really knew you, that she would love you. And that you have choice and to own that. And that has been a big gem for me. I think that that's so important. And to allow people to be where they're at and allow my. to be where I am at and to accept that some people are my people and some people aren't my people. Yeah, it's so important and it's really difficult when you're traveling and when you make jumps between countries and try find your space, right? And it's also I find when you go to different

spaces in the world, there's different energy and you learn something new about yourself. You become different in a way too, but you have to kind of work with that and figure out what that is and what is that groundedness for you in that energy? So I think that's such an important one and I'm glad that you can own that and know that you are loved, you know, every single one of us. And for everyone listening out there,

know that you are loved, know that you have your passion, your purpose, your flow, your path. And I wonder what everyone is feeling about, you know, what your pattern is that's presenting for yourself. And if it's okay for you to pivot and find, you know, your flow in the world so very very last segment Nicole and then I'm going to let you be back and doing all the amazing things that you do in the world is we have a reading list called the

stack and I definitely want to put your book on the stack so we'll do that but I want to ask you what is one book that you can recommend maybe it's that you've read or that you want to read or that's still sitting in the stack there for you to our audience yeah I there's I'm in this interesting place where I'm really looking and examining money and the energetics behind money. There's a great book called The Psychology of Money that is fascinating. And then Lynn Twist wrote The Soul of Money. And I feel like the two combined is very interesting perspectives. So I highly recommend those two books. Oh, amazing. Thank you. I'm also fascinated by money and energy and energy exchange. And what

is money really. We did a whole section in season two. Was it season one? Gosh, I can't even remember anymore on money positivity and the concept around money. And yeah, so I'm definitely, I remember Lynn, I really want to read that book and I would love to also have a conversation with her. So thank you for that recommendation for those. We'll add them to the stack. And for anyone who's looking for book recommendations, you can navigate to our website to thefields.spice and find some recommendations from the podcast on there. And then I just want to say a huge, huge thank you to you for coming on, for sharing your heart and your journey, your story, your advice. And yeah, just so openly, I really, really appreciate it.

With pleasure, with absolute pleasure. Thank you for having me. And thank you to the listeners too for taking the time to listen and to elevate yourselves in this moment. Don't wait. Don't wait. Do it now. There's no time. like the future or like the present to build for you it's all the same yeah yeah what is time a construct of our imagination oh thanks so much Nicole we'll chat soon okay sounds good thank you Nicole if you haven't just yet follow Friday feels on Instagram Facebook TikTok and LinkedIn you can share with us all your fields this week by tagging us at friday fields.com and you can also find the website at that handle and now

as you ease into this weekend take a moment celebrate who you've become what you've overcome and what is yet to come as you do the crazy and cool things that you do as the authentic you you know the truth about life and work is that it's hard but the beauty is this global working experience that you're in while we earn it together. So keep connecting, empowering and inspiring this week. And of course, keep it raw and real. Until next time.