Beauty is Ageless with Roxanne Gould

Jennifer Norman: Hello, beautiful humans. Welcome to today's show. Now, many of you who are new to the human beauty movement wonder what it's all about. This is a movement that I started after working decades in the beauty industry. I was always drawn to the idea of beauty and beautiful things, beautiful art, beautiful fashion, beautiful design, but I learned over time that chasing after beauty left me feeling empty inside.

And this was because I hadn't yet accepted myself. In fact, I often compared myself to the images that I saw in magazines and on screens, and it caused me to reject myself and feel insecure. At one point, I spiraled into a period of self-loathing and even self-destructive behavior. It wasn't until I realized that that hole that I was trying to fill with things and admiration and validation was one that nothing else but myself could fill. So the human beauty movement is for those of you who like me are on this journey of self-love and self-acceptance.

Having worked in the beauty industry, I have witnessed the meltdown that can happen firsthand when a successful young model or actress starts to age. Her outer beauty was her identity, the work and the accolades drove her purpose. And when that starts to change, she loses herself. It is extremely rare to meet a model or actress who has overcome the fear of getting older and learned to embrace the aging process to be okay with herself throughout the phases of her life. So today, I would love to welcome a very special guest to the show.

Meet Roxanne Gould. Roxanne has been a fashion model since she was three years old. Now in her 60s, she is a woman who I believe is a ravishing testament of aging gracefully. Roxanne has so much accumulated wisdom and experience in both outer and inner beauty. So it's such an honor to have her here to share the story of her life's work with you and talk about her new memoir.

Welcome Roxanne.

Roxanne Gould: Thank you, Jennifer. I'm very happy to be here.

Jennifer Norman: Oh, it's such a delight now. My goodness, you have been modeling since the age of three and you have the second longest running modeling career in the fashion industry worldwide. So I think our listeners would love to hear about what it was like in those early years.

Roxanne Gould: Well, I started because my mother was auditioning for a bare Aspirin commercial and she couldn't find a babysitter. So she took me along and the casting director liked the way she and I interacted. So we were both hired. It was for a television commercial. And I think that was one of my first memories when the director was leaning over the bed I was on, and he was telling me what was gonna happen, and I felt very safe.

He was so kind, and my mother was nearby. And I think that's why I've always taken to being in the studio. I've been in the studio like half of my adult life. I really feel comfortable there. And she was not the type of mother that pushed me at all.

So I had a regular childhood and I was a teenager when I decided to really say, I like this idea, let's go for it. And then when my 20s, I started to support myself as a model and I have just been going with it ever since. And it's what I've been doing. And I'm very good at it. I've had the pleasure of working with some of the best people in the industry, the most creative, generous artists in the industry.

And that really suits my character. I like to have the variety and I love the travel and I love meeting new people. And like you, Jennifer, I love beauty and the industry, the fashion industry offers a lot of the clothes and the location and some of the hairstyles and the shoes. It really just uplifts. It's really a tactile experience that can be very fulfilling.

I know it's superficial, but still, we are humans and we like to have things that stimulate us and make us happy. And for me as a woman, those things made me happy. And I just couldn't stop modeling. I just loved what the industry offered. And back then it was, it was a whole different world as we know.

And like you had mentioned, when you get older, the modeling profession ends and it is scary for women in general, particularly models to age and think that they're going to be relevant or significant in society. And that was a big thing to overcome, especially when I was starting to raise my family. I wasn't old, but I wasn't young in the thirties in the industry. They couldn't classify me as an old model yet, but I really wasn't young and youthful. So I thought, my gosh, I might have to stop my modeling career because I'm not working that much.

My agent doesn't know really where to promote me. And I was, I had, I had young children and I persevered because that was my source of income. And that's what I knew. And I loved the flexibility. It was not a nine to five.

So it allowed me to be at home with my children and still work occasionally. You'd get a sitter, whatever. And then I just, all through my thirties, I tried to hold on to my youth. And so I dyed my hair and because I started getting gray hair. And when I was 27 around my temples and I started to pluck them with the tweezer because I was so scared.

I couldn't let people know that I was getting older. So I tried to hide it and I really thought that my career would end if people knew I had gray hair. So can you imagine plucking my hair? The things we do. And so I ended up dying it because I couldn't keep plucking.

And after 10 years of dying it, I wanted to stop because I did not like how it was so toxic. I didn't like the money spent to cover up who I really was. I recently listened to an interview, the host was interviewing Andy McDowell, the actress, and Andy McDowell just went gray and made big news. And one thing that I loved about that interview was when Andy said, I embraced my going gray because I couldn't put up with the charade anymore. And I liked that.

In a sense, it is kind of a charade. We're always trying to spruce up and dance around like everything's always the same. And we change, we evolve, we mature, we start to understand who we are as we get older. And I liked that she has been a beacon to help women embrace who they are. So anyway, back then the interview hadn't happened yet, but I was just tired of covering my gray.

So I turned my head upside down. I cut all my hair off and it was all short and it was all these different colors with salt and pepper, with some of the remnants of strawberry blonde and oh, but I didn't care because I thought I wasn't going to model anymore. So I really didn't have to worry that much about my looks. And my agent at the time, bless her heart. She said, please just take some test shots.

Let's just see just a few test shots. And I thought it would be a waste of time, but She was very adamant and she was tenacious. And so I agreed, took some shots and I tell you, it just catapulted my career in a whole new direction. And I think I was one of the first gray hair models because I was 25 years ago. And at that time-

Jennifer Norman: Oh, that was revolutionary.

Roxanne Gould: It was revolutionary because there was not even division in the agencies for gray haired models, which is now called classic division. So I don't know. I just started to work more as a gray haired model than I did as a brunette because there weren't that many of us.

Jennifer Norman: I just want to dial it back for a moment because for those of you who are just listening, who don't have the privilege of seeing Roxanne on video, she is just a work of genetic mastery. About almost six feet, right? Just tall, slender. Now, being back then in the beauty industry when I was, she would have been the person that we would want to cast. I mean, classic features, beautiful bone structure, very live, very graceful.

And so yeah, just absolutely the picture perfect type of model that really speaks to the classiness of European style as well as all American style. Now, the idea of aging into your thirties as a model back then in beauty, I can recall many conversations about the target market for certain beauty products. And back then anti-aging was just starting out the idea because the concept was more or less you, well, you're going to cover your hair color. There's no question. There was like this massive booming.

I worked for L'Oreal. I worked on hair color. I worked in cosmetics. And it was almost as if, if you were over the age of 34, then we didn't want to market to you, you were not even considered in the age that would be interested in a traditional beauty or cosmetic products, but yeah, we're going to market you hair color because nobody wants to be seen as gray. And as a matter of fact, Andy McDowell was our spokesperson for years and years and years with L'Oreal and yeah, we just adored her because it was like, yeah, she was aging gracefully.

But one of the biggest comments or one of the biggest lines in our excellence cream hair color ads was like, me? What grays? You can't tell that I'm gray. No one will know that I'm dying my hair because it's so natural. And hence, you know, this big boom in hair color and hair dye, and it was just a whole industry.

So yeah, back then being gray was revolutionary. We tried to launch a hair color brand called Gray Chic, and that was in the late 90s, like almost getting into the year 2000, flopped, absolutely flopped because it was ahead of its time, probably by decades. But yeah, I want to say, I mean, lustrous, gorgeous silver hair Roxanne has and very, very striking. And so it does not surprise me that you are still able to attain work, especially with the changing times that we have now in beauty, which is embracing diversity, embracing this concept of pro-aging, would you say?

Roxanne Gould: Yes, exactly. I must admit that I'm blessed that I'm still able to model because of the timing. If I went gray decades ago, it probably wouldn't have happened. But now as a society, we're understanding we need to be inclusive. Inclusivity is the word, and it's the right thing to do.

So like I say, I've been blessed that the timing is such in society that I am able to continue modeling with my gray hair as I am and be a representative. I take it with a high stake of responsibility. I think it's a big responsibility for me to represent women my age. I take it seriously. I really want to encourage women to feel good with how they are.

Do you know How many women come to me and say, I'm so afraid of what my husband will think. I might lose my job. What will my family say if I get gray? I did it for me. And I think that's what women need to do is to make them do what they want.

If they want to tie their hair into their eighties, that's fine. I just am an advocate for women to do what they want as opposed to what they feel they should or have to because of what somebody else says.

Jennifer Norman: For sure. And so once you decided to just relinquish the hair dye and embrace your gray and recognize, well, I'm actually getting work for this. This is actually something that is working for me. Did that help you? Do you feel like with your self-confidence or did you just automatically feel confident in yourself, irregardless?

Tell me about what that experience is like.

Roxanne Gould: I think I have an innate sense of self-confidence being who I am. And I think that helped me in the first place to cut my hair and to let it go natural. And it just made me happy that I was able to still make an income doing what I know how to do and support my family.

Jennifer Norman: For sure. So then let's transition to the next phase of your life. You actually started to do some coaching for women of all ages to help them build self-confidence. What was the impetus behind doing that?

Roxanne Gould: When I decided to just let myself go natural and was happy that I could still do what I do without compromising my own morals, I realized that I do have a deep sense of self-confidence being who I am, the way I am. I guess it trickles down to self-love and self-care. And I realized that I could share this with others. And I started to help teenage girls with their self-confidence. It's that age when they need a mentor or a figure they can look up to.

And of course their mothers, they think don't know anything. So they look to social media and oh my gosh, that's not the place to find that the answer to that. So I decided that I would create a modeling school. If it was modeling, it would attract people. And so I accepted everybody, no matter what they looked like.

And that way I'd get them into the door, into my program. And I would actually, I'd use modeling to help them build self-reliance, self-discipline, self-confidence, self-esteem, because all these things are what you can learn in the modeling industry. And so, yeah.

Jennifer Norman: Tell me how you believe that modeling helps you with your self-confidence. It seems like that was something that from being able to say, yeah, I can hold myself in a certain way. And it is, it's kind of like neurophysical. Like if your posture is down, like with your shoulders slomped and your head's down, and there is something about getting into that superhero pose where you've got that strong, solid stance or your head is held up high, that your brain actually releases different chemicals and you actually are feeling more confident in yourself because of your posture. Is that something like with modeling you think was very helpful for these girls?

Roxanne Gould: I'm glad you brought that up. That was actually one of the sections to my curriculum was posture. Not only does it create endorphins in the serotonin, but it also allows the correct placement of your internal organs. So your whole body is functioning better. And Amy Cuddy is a speaker on and she has a Ted talk.

That's one of the most watched Ted talks. And she talks about that power woman pose and you just hold it for two minutes, two minutes, two minutes. And it does, like you say, change the whole neurological connection from the brain and into how you feel. And I would teach that to my girls. It's empowering to hold yourself in a power pose and it builds self-esteem.

And referring to the modeling, If you're wearing a beautiful outfit, it's going to uplift how you feel. If you're wearing your favorite piece of clothing or your jewelry or something that you just feel incredible in, boom, your confidence is going to rise. It's just how that works as opposed to your slippers and your pajamas. You just kind of come down a notch. But if you're dressed, you present yourself differently.

So this is an internal shift. It's not the kind of confidence that comes because you're dressed to the hilt and people look at you and compliment you. That's fading. This is the other kind of esteem that's built from what you do within yourself.

Jennifer Norman: Right, right. And I think that there is a fine nuance here because there is a sense of self-awareness in all of this. If you're not aware of what your posture is doing to you and if that is impacting you or if your breaths are shallow, you're not taking big beautiful breaths and just taking in and absorbing some fresh air. Of course, if you're not eating properly, nourishing the nutrition and the nourishment that we get is so, so important. But truly it's like, if you feel that you are on a path and it's like, you know, that there is a depletion of self-love and it's because you're feeling a bit of emptiness, you're feeling like you're less whole, you're feeling like you're constantly comparing yourself to somebody else.

Those are the cues that there's something that I need to do to shift myself, but let me start small. These things like a power pose, these things like helping yourself to make your environment a little bit more joyful, natural light. Those things are things that can help to psychologically round out that journey to self-love. And then once it gets into your system, then little by little, you'll be like, yeah, I feel better about myself today. I feel good.

I feel like, you know what? I'm not as down on myself like I used to be a week or so ago. And little by little, you'll just recognize, wow, my spirit is a little bit different. I'm noticing things that are really less about me feeling down on myself or self criticizing or self loathing. I feel better about sharing myself and my smile with the world.

I feel better about presenting myself, whether it be at work in a meeting or whether it be with a relationship with a partner. These are things that can help just little by little. You don't have to be a supermodel or a runway model to be able to integrate these things into your life.

Roxanne Gould: Yes. Yes. And as you develop that awareness, you begin to develop the awareness that you did it. You don't need anybody else or any product. You did it internally with being aware of where you're putting your mind.

Jennifer Norman: Exactly. What you're focusing on. Exactly. I can remember years ago when my parents were still alive and my mom was aging and she was one of those women, God bless her, that was always washing the gray right out of her hair. She did the nice and easy thing.

And there was one occasion where She just decided, you know what, I'm just gonna let myself go gray. And she didn't think much of it until my father actually pulled her aside one day. And he's like, I think I like you better with your darker hair. I don't know, it just makes me a little bit happier. So she actually started redyeing her hair for him.

I think that it was like a symbol of love, but she wasn't necessarily doing it for herself. I think it's interesting to know who we're doing things for. And it might not be a bad thing. It doesn't mean that she loved herself any less. It's something that's so very personal and no one from the outside will be able to recognize what's really going on within you.

I know for myself, I just had a hard time socializing because I felt so insecure. I felt like I would say the wrong thing. I felt like I was wearing the wrong thing. I felt like my body wasn't quite right. And so it was always like I was wearing shoes that didn't quite fit right.

And I just had this kind of pain or this discomfort that was deep seated. And it came across as arrogance or aloofness or being cold or being show-offy. Like I compensated by buying the bag, clothes, by doing the hair. Like all of those things were compensating for feelings of lack inside. And so I think only you will be able to know what's going inside you.

So it is important to take those quiet moments to really get to know yourself. I don't feel like I ever really knew myself until later in life. And I am so happy that Roxanne actually had gone through a journey where now she is actually, she's got three certifications. She is now a Chopra Global Total Wellbeing Coach, a Chopra Health Instructor, and a Chopra Meditation Instructor. By the way, she also graduated with a master's from the American Institute of Holistic Theology in Parapsychic Science.

And this studies the influence religion, philosophy, and science has on mankind. Not too shabby. Roxanne, you're quite the madam of mysticism now. So I would love to have you share some of the learnings and some of the things that you have within your tool belt to help others really get to know themselves on their own paths of self-discovery.

Roxanne Gould: Thank you. I would like to share something simple considering our short interview. And it does take a lifetime to get to know yourself. And the quickest way is through meditation. Now I know some people say, I've tried it, it doesn't work.

Or I don't know if I'm doing it right, or I don't like it, I can't sit still, I have too much to do. Well, a quiet mind is a strong mind. And if you're one of those people that say what I had just mentioned, and is that you think it's not for you, you can try starting with sitting for five minutes, even if your eyes are open, but just sitting and noticing. It's a way to quiet your mind. And a quiet mind is a strong mind.

And if you have a strong mind, then you become aware of your actions and you can change what you don't like about something in yourself, and only you can do that. You are responsible for you. It's quite simple. All these universal truths that have been around for centuries are quite simple, and everything begins with a thought. Anything that you see around you and everything was created because it began with a thought.

So our minds are our most valuable tool, but it's the most underused. And so meditation helps us know our mind. And through that, we know ourselves. And that leads to inner peace and happiness.

Jennifer Norman: It does. I agree with you that once I started to meditate, it was not easy to begin with because if you're like me with ADD, mind is racing, automatically you're thinking, okay, what do I have to do today? What's on my shopping list? Or what's on my to-do list? But it takes practice and you can't be down on yourself.

You can just notice your feelings and emotions that come up, but then like put those aside and try to come back to presence, come back to stillness. And so Roxanne, you actually offer meditation sessions, don't you, as part of your coaching?

Roxanne Gould: I do, I do. We always start the coaching session with a brief meditation to bring us present, and it's amazing with just a few minutes together with breathing, just noticing our breath will do. It just brings us back to the present because our breath is only existing in the present. You can't breathe in the past, you can't breathe in the future. So that it really is a gift to bring our mind to the moment.

And that is actually all that we have is right now. And I offer that to students, clients, and they find that to be one of their favorite parts when we get together, because everybody's racing and going so fast and so much to do. And just those few minutes, they feel more balanced and happy just by me leading them on like a two, three minute meditation before we begin our sessions. It's remarkable how effective it is. And so you said that you started and it was hard for you.

Did you continue? What's your story?

Jennifer Norman: Absolutely. And now I'm one of those daily meditators. It's one of the things that I try to do first thing in the morning. And if there's something that happens first thing in the morning, then I try to come back to it either at a lunch break. And I like to meditate outside.

I've really become like a creature of nature. And I find that the trees and the birds and hearing that and just like the rustling really fills me with so much inner peace. And so it helps me to just feel that gratitude for the present moment. And so that's my practice, anybody's practice can be different, but that's really what I like to do these days.

Roxanne Gould: Good for you that you persevered. Good for you. I put also first thing in the morning, it sets me right. It's so much more balanced than waking up and looking at your phone. I mean, that just pulls you away from where you are.

It's that self nourishing, like a meditative practice, even like I say, five minutes, it really does set your path for the day to be different than if you hurry and fall into your phone and start your day. So it's really beneficial. I'm glad to hear you say that. They say the best time is sunrise and sunset to meditate. So you've got two chances in the day.

I'm kidding. You can meditate anytime you want.

Jennifer Norman: I remember Deepak was actually on an interview and he was saying he wakes up at 430 every morning and he meditates for hours before he starts his day. And he was like, I'm not like everyone. If you can meditate for five minutes, 10 minutes, that's great. You don't have to sit there and meditate for hours like I do. And that is true.

It's really whatever feels right for you at the moment. But I used to be one of those people the first thing in the morning, and I would have the phone right next to my bed on the nightstands, and I would turn over and look at it and automatically right at the beginning of the day, you've lost control. You've already given away your thoughts to whatever is happening on your phone. You've given away your power. And so now I've definitely learned to put the phone in a closet or in the bathroom or in another room because it's just like less opportunity for you to be distracted and for you to start your day being able to take possession of your thoughts, of your mind, of your body, of your life and breathe.

That to me is like the first step towards self-empowerment.

Roxanne Gould: Yes, yes. And like Deepak says, if you roll over and look at your phone first thing in the morning, during the day, you are more reactive. But if you wake up and be meditative, then during the day, you're more responsive. See the difference? React or respond.

When you react, you don't have the same thought. When you respond, you take a moment and then you respond. So it is a totally different way to have, spend your day.

Jennifer Norman: It is. I remember hearing a dear friend of mine say the way that you spell reactive, if you just take that C and move it to the front, become creative. And that's the difference. Reactive or creative. Let's have the opportunity to be more creative.

And how it's not reactive.

Roxanne Gould: Be creators of our life, not reactors to our life.

Jennifer Norman: Exactly, exactly. So now, Roxanne, you wrote a book more than just a pretty face, lessons learned from a lifetime in front of the camera. Can you tell us about that? And not being a writer, I was not a writer until recently either. It is not easy writing a book.

It is not easy.

Roxanne Gould: It is not. It took me a year and a half and COVID to get me to write. So I had many women over the years ask me kind of the same questions. So I thought there might be a whole handful of women out there that have the same questions, but don't have the opportunity to ask me directly. And I thought, well, let's put all those kinds of questions and more into a book.

And it was very challenging because I had to be vulnerable, which is scary. As we know, Brene Brown talks about, that's the best thing, most powerful thing ever, but it is so hard to jump into being vulnerable. And then two, it was very hard to conjure up the memories of my past that were difficult. Over time, those difficult memories seemed to fade and you kind of remember just the better things in life. So I had to go back and it was conjuring up those experiences that were very difficult.

And so I relived those for the sake of the book. So those two things were very difficult, not to mention being disciplined to have to write every day, but how much did I really want to pour out for anybody to read, right? That vulnerability was hard and reliving those moments was very difficult. But what kept me going was that if one person was changed because of those words from that terrible story of my life, then I thought it was worth it to continue. If one person could be healed or make a different decision for their life for the better, then I had to do it.

So here is my book and it is marked because those are the few pages that I read when I give a reading at bookstores. And this is my copy. And the thing that women like the most are the five minute resets that are spread out throughout the book. You know, it'll just five minutes. That's the key word for our conversation, isn't it, Jennifer?

Five minutes, that's all you need. That's how you feel. So they're scattered throughout the book. And then also I have 25 ways to become beautifully strong. I wanted this not to be so much about me, but something that women could take and apply to their own life.

So I would take my life example as a story, as a springboard for the point I wanted to make. Whether it be how important health is, diet, how to get out of abusive relationship, what the industry says women are supposed to be like, and how I overcame these challenges that I think a lot of us face. Even if you're not a model, you're still a woman and in society. So we all share a lot in common. So this is my book that came out in January.

It's been translated in three languages. I have comments coming in constantly. Thank you, thank you. I bought it from my mother. I bought it from my sister.

And it's just so rewarding that I persevered with something that made me a little fearful. Everything you want is on the other side of fear. Yeah, my pride and joy right now, beside my children.

Jennifer Norman: It's really delightful. And the thing that I love about what Roxanne is doing now is that she is acting like a mirror. She is able to through her work, through her own life's journey, through her book, she's able to show and reflect things that you probably are feeling yourself because she's been through so much of this experience, probably to the nth degree having been in the modeling industry, having been in front of the camera, as well as behind the camera. Talk about rejection. Talk about hearing no many, many, many more times as you've heard yes.

And so the resiliency that it does take to get to that place is a wealth of wisdom for you to be able to see, you know what, what I'm going through is really every no is going to lead me to a greater yes in the future. Every rejection that I feel today is for a greater benefit tomorrow. Anything that happens to me physically with the changes in my body, if I've had children, if my hair is going gray, it really doesn't matter. What really matters is your relationship with yourself, the way that you can recognize the true self that you are inside and manifest your life from there on. If you wanna dye your hair after that, if you love yourself and you wanna represent yourself in any way, shape or form you want to, then have at it, girlfriend.

Go forth and do that, but don't do it because you're fearful. Don't do it because you're afraid of what others might think of yourself. That's the recognition, that sense of insecurity. That is the difference between that self-confidence and that self-love or living a life that is not your own. So if you look at Roxanne's website, I'm going to put everything in the show notes, you'll see that she does offer coaching and she's got a wonderful eight week course that you can tap into.

And you can take a further journey and understanding a bit more self discovery with Roxanne by your side. So is there anything that you'd like to share about what people will learn on their eight-week journey with you, Roxanne?

Roxanne Gould: Gee, you know, it's so individualized and everyone needs to learn what they need to learn at that time. A lot of it is described on my website, the steps that we touch on, but it is such a personalized journey. And eight weeks is just the beginning. There are clients that come back and continue because life is a continuing journey and we don't know where it's going to lead us. But if you look at the website, then there are the steps that we tend to start covering when we're together.

Jennifer Norman: Absolutely. Roxanne is one of those individuals that likes to work one-on-one. And so when you take her sessions, you will notice that everything is going to be custom tailored to you. It's not a cookie cutter type of an eight beat program. You're really going to be able to get as much out of it as you wish to and as much as you take from it.

Again, she's just this wonderful, beautiful mirror that is able to shine a light so that you can see a little bit more into yourself, more into the richness, so that you can understand that true beauty that is deep within you, that is just waiting and bursting to come forth out. So with that, Roxanne, I just wanna thank you so much for your work. Thank you so much for the light that you are sharing with the world. Thank you so much for being on the Human Beauty Movement podcast today.

Roxanne Gould: Thank you, Jennifer, for having me. It was an honor that you reached out to me and wanted to speak with me. You're a wonderful woman.

Jennifer Norman: Have a great one.

Roxanne Gould: Thank you.

Jennifer Norman: Thank you for listening to the Human Beauty Movement podcast. Be sure to follow, rate, and review us wherever you stream podcasts. The Human Beauty Movement is a community-based platform that cultivates the beauty of humankind. Check out our workshops, find us on social media, and share our inspiration with all the beautiful humans in your life. Learn more at thehumanbeautymovement.com.

Thank you so much for being a beautiful human.