Did a Full Ironman at 51: Dr Iris Nafshi on Athletic Identity, Mom Guilt, and the SHERO Framework | #165

**Dr. Vonda Wright** (0:00)
I am really excited to be back with you on Dr. Vonda Show with a guest that is gonna talk to us today about things that we haven't talked about here before. Mom guilt, role in identity, family support and what it means. Dr. Iris Nafshi, she has four boys. She completed a triathlon at 50 and is a scholar doing research on women who are actually doing what we all aspire to do.

**Dr. Iris Nafshi** (0:26)
Selfless is this idea that you give everything for your kids. Being selfish is taking time for yourself to do what's important to you. Not every mom feels guilty, but there's many that do. And the reason that they are is what society is expecting of moms.

**Dr. Vonda Wright** (0:40)
We always start with values because values will motivate and fuel the goals. The woman who ages most powerfully, what does she do or have than other women who don't?

**Dr. Iris Nafshi** (0:51)
They find their strength to be able to say, this is what I want. I will do things scared with tears in my eyes, but I'll do them. Feed your brain, just like you feed your body, with positive messages that support what you're doing. I want to be sitting with my grandkids at 90, and if they ask me, Grandma, what do you regret not doing? My answer will be nothing.

**Dr. Vonda Wright** (1:13)
So listen, my friends, I am really excited to be back with you on The Dr Vonda Show with a guest that is going to talk to us today about things that we haven't talked about here before. Mom guilt, role in identity. We're going to talk about family support and what it means. But Dr Iris Nafshi is her own avatar here.
She is in the right age demographic. She has four boys. She completed a triathlon at 50 and is a scholar doing research on women who are actually doing what we all aspire to do. So I am excited to have you here today.

**Dr. Iris Nafshi** (1:56)
Thank you. So glad and honored that you invited me here.

**Dr. Vonda Wright** (2:00)
Absolutely. And I left a thing out. In addition to everything I just said about you, you're also a leadership and management developing expert, having been the head of leadership at Microsoft and organizational development. So part of what we're going to talk about today is that aspect of leadership. But if we just jump right in, some of the latest research you've done is not on women who desire to do the right thing in terms of doing hard things, challenging themselves, what exercise to do. But in one of your latest studies of more than 350 triathletes, you're studying women who actually do it and asking questions about mom guilt, role and identity, how that changes us. So as we start out, we're going to do a lot of questions here on this. But as we started out, why did you study women who were actually doing hard things?
Did you learn anything surprising? Because you are a woman who does hard things. Did you learn surprising things about us?

**Dr. Iris Nafshi** (3:13)
Yes, yes, and yes, all the way. So I'll take a step back into my 40th birthday, which was 16 years ago. At my 40th birthday, I developed a bucket list of things. I don't know, I felt like, wow, half of my life is pretty much passed. There's other things I want to have other than a big career and family. And I had this list. I can go on and read it, but I will say that two big things were on that list. And as I was checking off things on the bucket list, there were two that remained at the bottom because they required a lot of grit, which is passion and perseverance for long term. And these were to do a triathlon and to do a PhD.
And so already you see the connection, but I didn't see the connection. So at age 48, I decided to leave corporate America and to align some of my personal values around time with family and being present and also being an entrepreneur. I wanted to see what I can do on my own. And I opened my own business and I started a PhD. And I said, oh, I'm just gonna do a little triathlon sprint. Sprint is the shortest distance. You usually complete it within an hour, 15 minutes, something like that.
And I did the sprint and the next-

**Dr. Vonda Wright** (4:34)
Were you already an athlete? Did you already run bike swim at 46 when you started this? No, you did not.