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Join Christine Spratley in the inaugural episode of 'Fuck Fear,' a podcast dedicated to empowering women to live fulfilling lives. In this episode, Christine introduces herself and her mission, shares her personal journey from a farm kid to a corporate professional, and explains the core principles behind her advocacy. Get ready to challenge your beliefs, embrace your power, and learn how to build a fulfilling life on your terms. Tune in for life hacks, personal stories, and a pantry full of ingredients to help you live like the Head Bitch In Charge.
00:00 Introduction: Mission and Purpose
00:59 Welcome to the Podcast
01:23 Understanding Reactions and Beliefs
03:19 Personal Journey and Background
10:34 Living Fearlessly and Taking Action
17:19 Logistics and Call to Action
19:38 A Funny Anecdote and Final Thoughts
Creators and Guests
What is F*ck Fear with Christine Spratley: Living Like a Head Bitch In Charge ?
This podcast is for anyone who wants to live like an HBIC—or lives with, works with, marries, dates, or is raising one. Let’s be real: being a Head Bitch in Charge is messy, bold, and unapologetically badass. This is not a guidebook—it’s a pantry.
My guests and I will share the ingredients that we use—what’s worked and what’s failed—as we say “fuck fear” and take action to live a fulfilled life. We cover real-life hacks and deep philosophical pillars to navigate the chaos of everyday life—where some days, my only accomplishment is having a bra on and my teeth brushed.
We’re tackling the daily shit women navigate, from workplace politics to relationships, raising kids, and building careers, all with humor, audacity, and zero filters.
So, tune in—tell your friends, and even your enemies. This isn’t about aging with grace—it’s about aging with mischief, audacity, and a damn good story to tell.
Christine: [00:00:00] my mission, literally, ladies and gentlemen, is about being a fierce advocate for women living fulfilling lives. I don't know what that looks like for you. I know what it's looked like for me, and I've been blessed to coach and be with other women.[00:00:15]
Find out what it looks like for them. So that's what this is about. That is the purpose of this podcast. [00:00:30] [00:00:45] Hey [00:01:00] ladies, and a few courageous gentlemen out there. I hope you're listening. Um, welcome to Fuck Fear with Christine Spratley. That's me, and living like an HBIC. And we're gonna start doing it out loud and in public starting today. So, [00:01:15] welcome to this podcast, and this first episode is kind of to show you what you're gonna get into, um, or at least what I think you're gonna get into.
Who knows where we'll go with this, but, first of all, I wanna start by saying, I wanna [00:01:30] notice that you'll probably have a reaction. You'll probably have a reaction to what I say. Hopefully you'll have a reaction. Um, and it may be something good, it may be something positive, it may be something negative.
It may just be a pause, something that makes you pause. But I'm gonna [00:01:45] ask you when you have that reaction, just to kind of be like, Hmm, what's that about? Lot of our reactions are based on our beliefs. Something is in conflict with our belief, and this is as heavy as I'll get for this first episode, but it's important to [00:02:00] kind of realize that when you go into what you think with something, you literally believe a perspective.
So when I say HBIC, head bitch in charge. [00:02:15] How does that hit you? Does it hit you a funny way? Does it not hit you a funny way? So those sorts of things will tell you that you have a belief. So when that happens, just take note of what the belief is.
Then ask yourself, is that my belief? Or is that a borrowed belief? Did I adopt that belief [00:02:30] from somebody else, from a family, from culture, from society, from religion? Where did I get that belief? And is that belief, fact or fiction? Have I checked it out? Then go ahead and say, how's that belief working for me?
Is it working towards fulfillment [00:02:45] or is it keeping me stuck? Basically those doing those things are based on a couple principles. One is sto, which I practice, and we'll go into that in further episodes. Not heavy here. I. Um, and then the other is a great [00:03:00] book I called or I read last year called The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck Yes, come for the title, stay for the Substance.
It's, it really is about examining your beliefs and about examining what you care about and why you care about 'em. [00:03:15] So onto the fun stuff. I think we're done with that, that part. So now we can look at the fun stuff. The fun stuff is, who the hell am I? Why should you listen? What's this about? I dated a, a New York Schenectady, New York Italian one time, and [00:03:30] we we were sitting there at breakfast and his dad said, I, I took a breakfast roll and I cut it with a knife and papa looked over at my, my boyfriend at the time, Brett, and goes, Hey Brett, what's wrong with your broad Brett?
So Brett had to get [00:03:45] into it and tell Papa all about what's wrong with his broad. So I'm just gonna give you what's wrong with me and all that fun stuff right up above. , grew up in Iowa Farm kid, youngest of 16. So that's a whole bunch of podcast episodes down the road. Sober at 17, [00:04:00] ran away at 18. A lot of people are probably didn't know that about me.
Um, and so basically I have been saying, fuck, fear my whole life now. I don't think I realize that. And that's kind of the beauty of when you look [00:04:15] back and you see you've overcome things. It's really about saying fuck the fear. And how you've changed is that you realize you really are stronger and more courageous than you think you are.
So little bit more about me, 29 and a half years in corporate. [00:04:30] Um, I, before I got to corporate, I was a professional boxer. Nanny, um, that both of those happened by accident. If you can say that. Can you fall into boxing by accident? I don't know. I think you have to be conscious about stepping in the ring.
Um, but it was a [00:04:45] lot of fun. So I've had an amazing journey. Like I said, of the 29 years, I spent 13 and a half in Big four. So shout out to all you Big four survivors and, um, my brothers and sisters in Big four. I. Suffer [00:05:00] with you. You've, I know you've got a, a season coming up, so hang in there. And then my personal perspective, like how did I get here I am 54 and I am beginning to, like I said earlier, live out loud in [00:05:15] public.
Um, and I am unapologetically trying to figure out what fulfills me and I'm helping others do the same. I mean, my mission is I started. Honestly, I started last year, [00:05:30] January 1st, 2024. I put a business plan together about starting a company July of 2026. And good thing I had the plan because the opportunity happened July two, July, [00:05:45] 2024, so I shortened that puppy up.
I tend to do that, so I jump into things and so that's what I'm doing now and my mission, literally, ladies and gentlemen, is about being a fierce advocate for women living fulfilling lives. [00:06:00] I don't know what that looks like for you. I know what it's looked like for me, and I've been blessed to coach and be with other women.
Find out what it looks like for them. So that's what this is about. That is the purpose of this podcast. I wanna give you [00:06:15] life hacks. I wanna give you real lessons. I wanna bring some clarity around things that I've gone through and that others have gone through. My guests will bring that as well, so it'll be, it'll be a lot of fun.
And I love humor. I love [00:06:30] all sorts of humor. So be prepared. So what is the podcast? Let's tell you what it's not. If you're looking for the five things you've gotta do to make a fulfilling life, you're not gonna find it here. Keep, keep [00:06:45] scrolling. This is about creating a pantry. Um, if you feel you need to be empowered, I'm gonna tell you right now, you're not gonna have that here either.
You have the power. I have the power. I don't always feel like I do, but I have it. I [00:07:00] have it. There is a song by Rachel Patin called The Fight Song, and you know that song? Um, Joe, do you know it? Oh
Joe: yeah, I know it.
Christine: Oh yeah. And, and it's really wonderful 'cause it has this, this has this long, this line in there.
Um, you might only have one [00:07:15] match, but you can make an explosion and so don't ever estimate as long as you are breathing, girl, you've got that one match and that explosion may be little. You may be setting big waves [00:07:30] into motion, and that's the beauty of it. I don't need to be around to see the wave, the tidal wave.
I just put that into motion and that's what I love and that's what I wanna do about this. So, all right, I'm flipping the script. So what is it? It [00:07:45] is a pantry. I mentioned that before. Um, I love to cook and I think anybody can cook as long as they're willing to throw it out and order pizza if it goes bad.
So just bring it on and that's what I do here. The pantry is, it's full of ingredients of how to [00:08:00] live like an HBIC, and that's what my guests are gonna bring. And these ingredients are for you to try for you to figure out, do I want a cup? Do I want three cups? Do I want a tablespoon or a teaspoon? And you make your own mixture and you [00:08:15] bake your own cake.
And that is what this is. That is all what this is about. This covers four aspects of an of your life, your personal, your professional. Spiritual and your physical [00:08:30] areas. Okay. Those areas all co-mingle, and so we get to add all of these ingredients in different amounts to different areas at different times.
So again, if you're looking for a checklist of do A, B, [00:08:45] C, and D and I'm done, now you get to create your own checklist, and that's the beauty of living is we get to create it. We get to test this puppy out. I always like to say I would take old and ache over young and dumb any day. [00:09:00] And the reason is because I've earned these, I've earned the scars, I've earned the mistakes, and I'm okay with that.
People ask me, how do, how did I find what I did? And I like to tell 'em, 'cause I'm, I'm recovering [00:09:15] and I like to tell 'em. It was like when I was drinking, I, I found the road because I was on, I'd hit one side of the ditch and then I'd cross the road to the next overside, and then I'd cross back. Pretty soon you find the middle of the road because you cross it so many times it wasn't like I always set out [00:09:30] to do it, but that's where it is.
And that's the beauty is I found my path. So hopefully you'll find yours. This podcast is gonna be about myth busting and I am gonna bust the myths that I believed. Um, there's a great book out out there [00:09:45] called Break Your Own Rules and I would. Ask every woman to read it. Um, there were a lot of things in there that kind of shook me awake and really I didn't, I didn't think, I thought I was very progressive in [00:10:00] how I thought and how I presented myself in business, but I didn't realize the box that I had put myself in.
Unfortunately women, we not only put ourselves in a box, we put other women in a box. And I hadn't realized that. And, um, we're gonna talk about some of [00:10:15] that and how we help the patriarchy in a lot of ways, um, perpetrate on other women. And I'm gonna share my experience about doing that to other women and also having it done to me and what that's like.
And we're gonna explore that [00:10:30] later on. But again, I'm gonna bust some myths. So. What I wanna, the first one that I want you to do, where the fuck fear came from was this idea that I have to be fearless. I'm not sure [00:10:45] I'm nervous right now. I'm not sure if I've ever really been fearless. I've been dumb and done things and you know, or excited, but I've, I've had fear.
I've got energy going right now, and you don't have to be [00:11:00] fearless to do. You don't have to have it figured out to change. You just say, say fuck, fear, and take the action. Take the best next course of action. That's what's awesome. So because. You get credit? I know [00:11:15] nobody likes participation trophies. I'm a big sports net, so I don't like them.
I don't wanna see them in my, in, in, in my games when my kids were little or anything like that. But in life I get a participation trophy and the one who wins is the one who gets the [00:11:30] most at the end of the, at the end of the journey. So I want to intentionally participate as much as I can. So I take the action, and that's what I want to do.
That's what I want you to do. I wanna encourage you to do that. Now, you may be saying, [00:11:45] well, Christine, you know, what are we gonna do? Quit our job tomorrow, and all that fun stuff. No, I'm not saying any of that. That's not what I'm saying. Don't do that unless you have another job lined up. Don't ever quit a job without having a job.
Come on, be smart. [00:12:00] But what I am saying is take the best course of action for the common good in yourself. As long as your motives aren't to hurt anyone and your true motives, we know the bullshit. We know when we're screwing somebody over. Okay? But as long as you're doing that, [00:12:15] that person, 'cause you're gonna mess up that person, place, or thing, can do one of three things to get over your action.
And I, this is the honest God truth. You're Joe, you're gonna think this is kind of, I don't know what you're gonna [00:12:30] think, but. They have three options. Okay? You have three choices. There's about a $76 billion industry out there called the mental health industry, so maybe you'll become someone's therapy session.
I don't know. I. Maybe they need to go to [00:12:45] therapy for other things and they can just work through you and your issue along the way. Religion, they can, you can get on somebody's prayer wall. I mean, if you mess somebody over, they've got, they can go, and I grew up Catholic. They can go talk to their priests.
They can put you on a prayer [00:13:00] wall. We're down in the south. There's a lot of things you'd be having prayer groups about you down here. But again, there's a lot of worse things that could happen than being prayed for. So my favorite. Third [00:13:15] alcohol. Of course I'm recovering so I don't get to partake anymore, but there's a whole industry out there, so they're gonna have a drink or two on you tonight at the bar.
Okay? Make sure to tell 'em to tip their bartender. Again, I say this lighthearted bee, but really [00:13:30] ladies, there are mechanisms out there. You are not so big that you're gonna screw up well. You're gonna screw up somebody's life. Let's just hope that one of these three areas could unscrew it up. So I [00:13:45] encourage you to take the action.
That's what this is about. [00:14:00] [00:14:15] [00:14:30] [00:14:45] So who's the podcast for? Who's it not for really? I mean, who would not want to be a head bitch in charge? [00:15:00] Love a head bitch in charge. Raise a head bitch in charge. Work with a head bitch in charge. Seriously, this is about women in general and what we are. It's really for anyone who is [00:15:15] tired of waiting for permission, permission from yourself or others to become self-supporting through my own contributions.
For my own fulfillment, I had Bitch in charge is really [00:15:30] about, as I would say. It's about self-accountability and self-responsibility. I'm gonna tell you a little story about kind of what happened. 'cause I wasn't [00:15:45] always, I think I always had this in me, but I wasn't always this vocal about it and I wasn't always this clear about it.
I was probably 52 and I had a great career [00:16:00] and I. My kids, my step kids were in college, my husband and I, we have a nice house. All of these things, great career, had run some good accounts and I was fucking [00:16:15] unhappy, literally. And I remember pulling into the garage one night and my husband pulling in the garage and we're sitting there and he looked at me and he said, I don't know what's gonna make you happy.
I know I can't. I know that you've gotta figure that out by [00:16:30] yourself, for yourself. Not by myself, but for myself. And I had done enough therapy, I had done enough, you know, recovery work. I had done enough work to know that it's an inside job. It's [00:16:45] always an inside job. That's why I don't have your answers.
I've got ingredients, but I don't have your recipe. And so that began a journey for me. I. The way I look at it, and I was told this when I was first in the [00:17:00] program, and if someone else has a headache or if I have a headache and I blame someone for it, if they're responsible for taking care of it, then I have to wait for them to take the damn ass burn.
Think about it. [00:17:15] If all of your happiness or your fulfillment is based on other people, then you have to wait for them to change and make the change. But if it's my headache and I own it and I do the work, then I can take it whenever I want [00:17:30] to. And so what I found through that process that I began at that night and started looking in the mirror, is that I had climbed the corporate social ladder.
I had done what I'd done. I'd gotten to a point where I would go sit at the table, [00:17:45] but I didn't want that seat that not at that table. And that was really scary. But it also opened up a new world to ask myself, what is that? What do I want? What if we [00:18:00] started over? What if I went in a different direction?
So I said, fuck it, and I did it. So I built my own table. I'm sitting at the chair at the head and we're gonna see where it goes. And you get to be along for the journey. So, [00:18:15] ladies, gentlemen, listeners, welcome aboard. This is for you. So let me tell you some logistics. We're gonna slip into logistics. Can we do that?
Joe: Yeah.
Christine: All right. We are gonna do this podcast twice a week. Tuesdays [00:18:30] and Fridays one. We're gonna start off the week, woo-hoo. We're going to probably go a little bit deeper, and then Fridays we're gonna kick it off into the weekend. So again, that's when you can do it and we'll tell you where you can find it.
You can always check me out at my website, um, [00:18:45] christine spratley.com, www. I think I need to add that in there. Christine Spratley, S-P-R-A-T-L-E y.com. And um, you can find me on Instagram and LinkedIn as well. So my call to action for you, [00:19:00] first of all, um, go ahead and subscribe, um, to, to this, but also what I really want is I want your feedback.
I wanna know what you want to listen to and what things that I can bring and guess I [00:19:15] can bring that speak to you. This is about providing a pantry of ingredients for your life. So, you know, I'm probably not gonna listen to all of you, but I'll listen to some. And so I love getting, I love getting that information back.
The next [00:19:30] thing I'm gonna do, just to kind of introduce a, a unique thought. I couldn't do this without having the coaching part of me step in. Um, I'm going to have homework on Tuesdays. It's optional. Um, but it's kind of fun and, [00:19:45] um, basically it's gonna give you something to kind of practice ba it's based off of what we talk about in this episode, and you just practice it.
Pressure, test it, see if it works, see how much of the ingredient you wanna add or don't, or talk about it with your [00:20:00] friends. Talk about it with your spouse, significant other, whatever. Talk about it with your kids, especially if you have daughters. Talk about it, get it out there and just test it out. See what it's like to have these conversations.
So again, what I [00:20:15] wanna do is I wanna welcome you and I wanna thank you and I wanna tell you how amazingly excited I am. I'm so stoked. I know that's an old line using stoked, but I guess they'd say like, fire bro. Right?
Joe: I don't know, like, bro, [00:20:30] I'm not, I'm not cool. I dunno.
Christine: Oh, I, I lost the cool, cool thing long time ago.
I will tell you. This is just to, to make sure you understand. Um, I'm gonna tell on myself here. I, I don't do things perfectly. Um, I do them [00:20:45] perfectly messy. Um, to give you an example, as I went to the beach, um, over the, the new year to kind of recenter and kind of get my strategic plan for the year in place, and I, I have what's called a mugshot crew.
They're, [00:21:00] and, and they're people that have come to my talks and, and speaking engagements, and I text them and send 'em a co a, a shot of a mug, a coffee mug. It's not a mugshot. It's not like my mugshot. I don't think I have a mugshot. I know the, the fake ai, [00:21:15] AI will produce one, I'm sure as soon as I say that.
Um, but again, I send out coffee mugs and sometimes they're sarcastic, sometimes they're not. Sometimes, you know, they're all over the place. And so I'm literally walking back from, it's a seven [00:21:30] mile walk that I did on along the beach most mornings, and I'm doing the mugshot and I'm too lazy to learn new technology.
So I could do it as a group, which most people do. And so I am literally texting people from my phone, [00:21:45] a copy of this mugshot, and then I had a bright idea and was gonna co text them again. Something else, a follow up, like a follow up thought, Hey, something you wanna follow up. So I'm doing it. And all of a sudden, as [00:22:00] many women know, when you're in your fifties, and for me in my forties, um, my incontinence kicked in.
I needed to find a restroom and I was about a mile and a half away from any [00:22:15] restroom. So I start little Trot here and there, and I'm kind of trotting and I'm trying to do this, and of course, because I can multitask, I'm doing five different things at once, and I probably got about 200 people that I text.
Some in groups, some [00:22:30] aren't. And basically what I ended up doing was I was doing it and it wasn't going through and. I, I ended up hitting return, return, return. And we all know what that means. You're sending out hundreds of texts to the [00:22:45] same people. And so finally it got so bad that I had, you know, my, my urge to go to the restroom that I put my phone in my bra and my sports bra, and I'm starting to jog, [00:23:00] and all of a sudden my phone starts going off and I can't open it because.
I literally am now mad dashing and I'm 54. I don't mad dash anything. Like you could be chasing me. I'd rather fight you than run. And I'm mad [00:23:15] dashing back to the condo. And so I get back and I'm, you know, whipped on my pants, sit in the sit down and I just, I look at my phone and I realized that I have boob text.
Joe: Oh no.
Christine: So, [00:23:30] and everybody's like, what the hell? Um, I had people that know that I'm sober calling me going, are you, so are you okay? Are you sober? And I had other people, like, you know, giving me emojis of, you know, beating their head on the table. But I tell you that, [00:23:45] so you can boob text at 54, didn't know you could do that.
But I tell you this, to just say this is about living. And some people were like, get me off this list. Fine. Others were, I never thought [00:24:00] this could happen. Fine. Some people, I made them laugh, some people I made them cry. But we all moved on. And that's what it's about. That's what this podcast is gonna be about.
So I encourage you to listen. I wanna, I want you to listen. I want it to be fun. I wanna make you laugh and I [00:24:15] want you to know that you are enough. You are absolutely enough. Um, and we're gonna have some fun. So Tubs, ladies and gentlemen, thanks y'all. [00:24:30] [00:24:45]