#127 The Art of Quitting & Reinvention - Nina Simon on living "off the grid" in an intentional community, taking "turns" in marriage and work, having kids on an unconventional path & leaving her dream job at NASA

• 0:00 – Video intro
• 0:46 – Introduction
• 2:11 – The scripts Nina grew up with
• 5:18 – Did Nina see herself as creative growing up?
• 6:14 – Nina’s education and why she hated her dream job at NASA
• 9:34 – Fulfillment or lack of it at work
• 10:56 – Balancing your passions
• 12:52 – Fitting your life into your job vs fitting your job into your life
• 15:14 – Nina’s approach to money, building a marriage that supports entrepreneurship
• 20:33 – Writing books
• 28:19 – Giving herself a permission
• 31:11 – The freedom to leave
• 33:58 – Making choices that are not “the right choice”
• 37:19 – Should you try to convince other people of your way of life?
• 39:21 – The non-traditional paths and having kids
• 46:53 – Reinventing yourself, knowing when to leave
• 50:46 – Learning from failures
• 53:31 – Constructing backward narratives about our lives
• 1:00:07 – Does Nina have a path role model?
• 1:02:21 – Things that inspired Nina in the last few years
• 1:04:42 – The one thing Nina would say to her younger self
• 1:06:00 – Where can we learn more about Nina?

At each professional crossroad, Nina Simon has made the choice most likely to disappoint her mother. She left an electrical engineering job at NASA to design spy museum exhibits, said goodbye to a museum directorship to start a global movement for more inclusive cultural organizations, and now has put down her CEO hat to write crime fiction. Her first novel, Mother-Daughter Murder Night, will be published in 2023 by William Morrow. Nina lives off the grid in the Santa Cruz mountains with 20 people, 16 chickens, 2 trampolines, and 1 zipline.

We talk about:

• Leaving her dream job

• Living in an intentional “off the grid” community

• What she learned from her ambitious days as a museum industry leader

• Marriage & kids on an unconventional path

• Writing her novelWATCH On YouTube

FOLLOW NINA

• Her Website: NinaSimon.com

• Twitter: @ninaksimonTIMESTAMPS

0:00 Audio intro

0:12 Introduction

1:37 The scripts Nina grew up with

4:43 Did Nina see herself as creative growing up?

5:39 Nina’s education and why she hated her dream job at NASA

12:17 Fitting your life into your job vs fitting your job into your life

14:39 Nina’s approach to money, building a marriage that supports entrepreneurship

19:55 Writing books

27:39 Giving herself a permission

33:17 Making choices that are not “the right choice”

38:37 The non-traditional paths and having kids

46:08 Reinventing yourself, knowing when to leave

52:42 Constructing backward narratives about our lives

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