Coffee on the Porch

[00:00:00] Hey there and welcome to Coffee on the Porch with my dog Olaf. I'm Shannon Post. And something happened this morning that made me think of you and I wanted to share it with you in case it helps you find a career and work that's fulfilling and that sustains you and that works with you and with your life.

[00:00:21] So that event that I was talking about really happens every single morning or has happened every single morning since maybe last... Fall, last fall, late fall, early winter. I was at a ski meeting here with a local cross-country ski club, talking to a friend who...

[00:00:43] Yep, that's loud. If you're new to this series, I live in Alaska at a rural airport and with a lot of very small planes, so don't think JFK or Dulles. Think like a tiny airstrip with teeny little planes, but it's a pretty active [00:01:00] airport.

[00:01:00] But, back to the story. So I'm at a s ha ha ha ha! There's the train. Everybody's going to join in. Everybody's going to join in for this lesson. And actually, all of these sounds do fold into this message that I want to share with you. So I don't think I'm going to cut them out. I think I'm going to leave them all in. We can hear airplanes, we can hear trains. Lord knows what else we'll hear. So I'm at the ski meeting. Talking to a friend. They're fostering a cat. Long story short. I adopted this cat. And he is very different than any other cat I've ever known. He is more dog like. It's very funny. My dog is basically a cat in a dog's body, and my cat is a dog in a cat's body. He wants to be with me all the time wants to touch me all the time, wants to cuddle all the time, wants to, you know, he's basically kind of a Labrador Retriever, but in a cat.

[00:01:57] And what happens every morning when I [00:02:00] wake up, we have this sort of soft wake up. He's learned that it doesn't serve him well to, um, scream at me awake. That's not going to work. But as soon as I'm up and I start the coffee grinder, he starts the meowing. And I, he wants, he meows. He wants to go outside. He wants food. He wants attention. He wants, I don't know if he just like sings the morning awake, maybe. And what I was thinking this morning when he started this, his incessant meowing, and it's possible you can actually hear him in the background, I don't know, but it made me think of what it's like to go to a job.

[00:02:44] That you don't like (to be clear I adore Riva) every day, but you also don't have full capacity to change the situation either. So in the mornings, I know that Riva is gonna meow his head off. He's gonna be unhappy for unknown [00:03:00] reasons or known reasons that I'm not going to address right in the moment. And sometimes that's true in our career as well. Like sometimes we know we're in a job that isn't all that, and sometimes it's actually really annoying to hear. Day in and day out, but it also can fade to the background, but every once in a while it jumps to the foreground and becomes annoying enough that we deal with it for a while. We just hope it will go away on its own. But if your career journey is anything like my cat, that meowing is not going to stop. 

[00:03:32] So, what do you do if you're in a job? You've got that annoying background noise that you can ignore on the most part, but on a level it's, it's also draining because it's that background noise and occasionally it rises to a fever pitch, similar to living at the airport. Most of the time I can tune out the noise of the airport. It's not usually that noisy that often, only when the weather is nice. But occasionally it gets so [00:04:00] loud I have to stop, what I'm doing and it takes over. So sometimes our careers are like that.

[00:04:07] Sometimes it's a, a fight with our boss or a fight with a co worker or there's some, something unjust in the workplace that comes right smack center. And you want to walk away, but it also doesn't, it's not reasonable to walk away. Maybe you have family to take care of, or people to feed, or you have financial goals that you're working on, or you haven't found the right next job yet, or you don't know what the right next job is, so it doesn't make any sense to walk away.

[00:04:38] And here's what I found is useful is getting yourself centered in a goal and having it, actually having it written down. And not in the kind of bro-podcaster optimize your whole life way, but in a way that is grounding and keeps you centered. So that when you [00:05:00] are in those moments that are really loud and really uncomfortable, you have a view of why you're putting up with it. And I just want to be very clear I'm not talking about physical violence. I'm not talking about that in any way. This is more like, that's annoying. I want to leave, but I, I shouldn't leave right now. It's not strategic. 

[00:05:24] Having those long-term goals doesn't make it any better. It doesn't make whatever happened at work go away. It doesn't necessarily solve the problem, but it does help you self-regulate. And self-regulation is the key to almost all career change because that's what allows you to make rational, heart-centered, whole bodied decisions instead of flying off the handle letting your instincts override, letting the situation take over, having somebody else force your hand. 

[00:05:57] So having that [00:06:00] plan of what is the point of staying in this job. So maybe it's a financial goal. Maybe you wanna get your emergency fund set up. Maybe you want to pay off your house. I talk about this in a free guide. You can sign up, get it, it's free. And it's seven steps that can keep you grounded, and so you feel more self-regulated. And one of those is penciling out what it's going to cost to leave. And what are the things, not even like the bare minimum that you need to survive to leave this job, but what would be really nice if you got done? 

[00:06:35] Because when you switch jobs there, you lose a little bit of stability in your finances, even if you're in a better job. Like, if you're trying to buy a house, they want stability. They want you at the same job. If you buy a car. If you are opening a new credit card. If you are opening anything like that where your credit score needs to be stable. Your job needs to be stable. They want that longevity in your [00:07:00] finances. So you can actually use the job that you're in to address some of those things. So do you want to pay off some debt? Do you want to pay down some student loans? Do you want to pay off your car? Do you want to pay off your mortgage? What are your financial goals? Making sure that you have a good emergency fund. Maybe it's that you want to take care of some other people. Maybe you have a parent that is sick or something like that, that you want to get through before you move careers.

[00:07:28] Because as much as finding a new career is a great thing. It also brings change.  In my course, we talk a lot about change saturation. You can just really only handle so much change at one time. And that's why oftentimes we don't make the move into seeking a new job because our life is too chaotic and we can't handle one more thing. Especially having gone through several turbulent years. If you've a kid or a baby, or you've gotten married or heck, even if you just got a new pet. That brings a level of [00:08:00] chaos and change into your life.

[00:08:01] In those times when it doesn't make sense to leave, ground yourself in the practical things that you want to do before you add more chaos into your life. Because even though it's good chaos and it can absolutely transform your life into making it such a better thing, it's still change and it's still going to be some disruption.

[00:08:21] Go get the guide. Get yourself grounded into why you're in the job. So that it doesn't feel like you're just tucking your head and accepting misery forever. Because "that's how it is and jobs suck." I don't believe that. I don't want you to believe that. This might just be a time of temporary discomfort and figuring out ways to self-regulate and keep yourself grounded in why you're there may help you.

[00:08:47] So, I'm gonna go spend some time with my dog, Olaf, now. So that is the reason that I ignore my cat in the morning, because I have coffee on the porch with my dog. He also needs attention. 

[00:08:59] So, I'll [00:09:00] talk to you soon, and I hope that was helpful. Bye. 

[00:00:00] Hey there, this is Shannon Post, and we are back on the porch having coffee with my dog Olaf, and I wanted to talk to you today about something I just said in my therapy session. So stick around and you'll get to hear all the dirty details. 

[00:00:18] One of the concepts that I talk a lot about inside my teaching is discomfort. And one of the reasons we don't achieve the dreams that we want to achieve, we don't make those job changes that we want to make, is because of discomfort. And change is full of discomfort. 

[00:00:44] It's why you hear some people say that they hate change. A lot of times what they're really saying is they hate discomfort. Because even if you're making a tiny change, like you rearrange your pantry at home, there will be a few days, a period of [00:01:00] time, where you can't remember where you put things, where you go back to the old place that something was, and you won't go to the new place and it, it's uncomfortable for, it's frustrating for a little bit because things that aren't really where they're supposed to be, or where they were your brain is having to make adjustments.

[00:01:17] And scientifically, your brain is actually making adjustments. It is forging new neural pathways, it's laying down protein, if you've been with me for a long time you know that that myelin sheath is being maybe added to it, so proteins, connections are being made, the roads are being paved, and just like in road construction there is a period of time where it's annoying.

[00:01:41] Because, you've got the flagger, you've got to wait. There are traffic delays, and the same thing happens in your brain when you make changes. Even small changes. And in that period of time, um, it's uncomfortable. The more,[00:02:00]  the larger the change is, the more discomfort there is. 

[00:02:04] So, if you've ever had a breakup with somebody, like a significant other, it's really uncomfortable. It is deeply unsettling especially if you've had to move out or, change your habits. All of that's very uncomfortable and it takes a long time for life to sort of right itself again. 

[00:02:24] The same is going to be true with your career. Even if you're changing into something good, into something that you want, into something that you've been wanting for a long time, that change process is going to be uncomfortable for a while. Even after the change is made.

[00:02:40] One of the most surprising things for people is that, you know, we do the work together, they figure out what they want, they're excited, they find a new opportunity, they start that opportunity. They either start that new job or they open that new business and it's not the rainbow-and-unicorn [00:03:00] celebration they thought it would be. There might, it might be initially, but then it becomes uncomfortable. And sometimes people take that discomfort as a sign that they've done something wrong. And it's not. It's just a sign of change. 

[00:03:14] And the thing that I said in therapy, I was talking about some changes in my own life because I definitely walk the talk. I practice what I preach and really dive deeply into the ever evolving work of figuring out and discovering who you are and discovering what you were born to do. It's not, I know it's a cliche kind of, but it is lifelong work. It's not something you figure out and then have a diploma on the wall. This is something that you do over time. So I'm also engaged in that work even still. 

[00:03:52] And I was describing some fundamental shifts in my ideas about something. And some practical changes that I was [00:04:00] making and how different it was from all of the generations of women who've come before me in my family and how that it was not lost on me that the change is difficult. And I was trying to describe that internal struggle that is a feeling that's unique to change. And what I said, I was like, " I'm feeling that very necessary discomfort of change in this process." 

[00:04:28] And that's the phrase I want you to take with you. There is necessary discomfort in change. You can, make it more uncomfortable and less uncomfortable. Some of that is thought work. Slowing the pace of change down can make it less uncomfortable. Sometimes speeding the pace of change up makes the discomfort more intense, but shorter. A lot of that just depends on your personality and what you want. 

[00:04:54] But in a career change, especially if you are shifting your whole life, there is a [00:05:00] period of time where you're going to experience the necessary discomfort of change. And it's important to not take that as a sign that you've done something wrong. It's actually a sign that you're doing something right. 

[00:05:14] So I hope that helps, and I will talk to you soon. Bye. 

[00:00:00] Good morning, we are back on the porch with my dog Olaf and today I wanted to talk to you about the one skill, and I know that sounds like the one big skill you need for this thing, but it really is like the most essential skill that you need for career transitions, for choosing your career, for making big career decisions. Decisions like, whether you want to accept a promotion or is this position right for you? It'll even help you in interviews and tough situations in the job place. And this one important skill is self-regulation. 

[00:00:42] A lot of people don't think about that as a career development skill. But it is one of the most essential career development skills that there is, because jobs can be challenging. 

[00:00:54] There can be challenging points in time decisions can be you [00:01:00] know, hard decisions to make because they impact a lot of your life. And many people get into trouble, myself included. I've definitely done this in the past when I didn't realize what was going on. But a lot of people will get into a stressful situation and make a snap judgment or react or make a decision based out of fear. Things like that.

[00:01:30] And so self-regulation, however you do that, I don't think that there's one right way. But self-regulation is important because if you are at work, and your co-workers are... Oh, there's the train. If you're new to this series, I live in a little tiny town in Alaska, and I live right at the airport, which is actually also pretty near the railroad as well. (the wind picked up!)

[00:01:56] So self-regulation can help you navigate [00:02:00] through those difficult times, like when your co-workers are making life difficult. When your boss is saying something that you know, maybe you're in a review, and you're hearing some things that you're not, in agreement with, or that might be true, but are hard to hear.

[00:02:20] And you... it can help you make a better decision, not ruin your chances at things that you actually want. Because sometimes in the moment, our biology can take over. And I'm not going to say our emotions take over because your emotions are really important in the mix of making decisions. They are a piece of the puzzle. And I'm going to say your biology because it's not, the fact that I'm happy, sad, mad, glad, that is the problem. It's that I get upset and I get defensive, or I will, you know, go into fight/flight. My biology, my natural [00:03:00] instincts start taking over and that is true for everyone. That is not a gendered experience. 

[00:03:06] Wow, it's train day. I should have, maybe I should have looked at the time. I don't really keep track of when that train goes. But that ability to keep, you know, our fight, flight, freeze, flock, fawn, flop response in, I don't know, in check, but just be, being aware of it.

[00:03:26] So, this can look like things like, if you're going into a review at work. Knowing that there will very likely be some feedback and there might be feedback that's hard to hear. And so knowing that a natural response for a human is to be defensive. We want to deflect things that don't feel good because we like to go towards pleasure and away from pain.

[00:03:48] And knowing that and having a response ready. One of my favorite responses to things that are hard to hear when I need a moment, or I need to sleep on it, or I don't want to react right in the moment[00:04:00] is, "Thank you for telling me." And sometimes I get some pushback on the phrase 'thank you for telling me' because they're like, I'm not thankful for hearing that. I didn't want to hear that, or that was mean and cruel.

[00:04:13] And the way I think of it sometimes I'm like, that's good to know. I didn't realize I was doing that. Or yep, I can see where that feedback's coming from. It's not exactly where you think it's coming from, but I know how to solve that. So I appreciate knowing. Kind of the spinach in your teeth. You're like I don't like somebody telling me I've got food in my teeth, but also, thank you for telling me because I don't want to walk around with food in my teeth either. 

[00:04:39] But sometimes when people are really far off. I've had some things said to me in the workplace that were so wild and so off base or so offensive or inappropriate that I'm kind of glad they said the quiet part out loud. I'm glad to know that that's [00:05:00] who I'm dealing with, because I thought I was dealing with a colleague or a friend, somebody that was on my side, and they say something, and I'm like oh, we're not. You are not on my side. You do not want me to succeed for whatever reason that I don't know that I care about, but it's good to know what I'm dealing with. 

[00:05:21] This can work with friends, it can work with people in your family, it can work especially if you have this idea or this dream that's in the infancy stage and you tell your family members and they're like, that's not gonna work. If you just say, thank you for telling me. Thank you for sharing that with me. It's really good to know that that person isn't a person you should be sharing your future dreams with at this point. They're not in a space to support you or they're not capable of supporting you in the way that you need. And I'm not saying we can't have feedback. Feedback is fantastic. It just needs to be kind, loving, constructive, all [00:06:00] of those good things. So, thank you for telling me, can be a tool in the workplace to help you stay regulated. 

[00:06:08] Another one is a really, I think a well known one, but I'm going to say it anyway because it is one of the most effective, cheapest tools you can do, and that is slowing down your breathing. In tough situations that make you want to, you know, turn in your resume and walk out the door and never look back. Slowing down your breathing, just going outside for a walk, going to the bathroom, excusing yourself and getting your breath slowed down any amount will help because it's the opposite of what we do in flight/flight.

[00:06:41] And you can do that, you know, you can slow your breathing down in a meeting, in the event, on the phone with somebody and they won't necessarily know. You don't have to go to a quiet place to get it done and for the effects to start working. 

[00:06:55] There are lots of things like that, opening up your stance, putting your [00:07:00] legs up the wall, basically anything that is opposite of what you would do if somebody was attacking you, if a bear was chasing you. Whatever you do in fight/flight do the opposite of it and it will signal to your body that you are actually safe and it doesn't need to armor up for a fight or to run or to flee or faint or anything like that. 

[00:07:25] Other tools can be, you know, talking to a friend, going out for a run. If you have had several months of just really tough situations at work and it's infuriating. But you're in a really good job and you are primed for the next promotion and you don't want to blow it. And it makes sense in the rest of your life to stay and manage through this sticky season, find support. You could find you know, a therapist, a coach. If you have a good friend group. You could find a networking group. 

[00:07:59] I [00:08:00] remember when I was in IT, I was... Not that there are a lot of women in STEM and IT now, but there were way fewer when I was in it. And it was really helpful to meet every so often with a group of women in tech so that we could share, oh yeah, that's really hard. Or this is a strategy I've used for this, or this is how we navigate around this block. And it was really helpful as a way to self-regulate in a situation that I wanted to stay in for the moment. It was just, it was just difficult in that moment. 

[00:08:35] So think of all the ways that you keep yourself calm and regulated. And if you don't have any, this is a really good time to start assembling your toolkit of ways that you can regulate your reactions to things. Not regulating your emotions like pushing them down. I want to be really clear. We're not talking the stoic, have [00:09:00] no feelings. That's not at all what I'm talking about. I'm talking about processing through that emotion Sometimes quick in the moment, so slow breathing is quick in the moment, so you can stay in a regulated place.

[00:09:14] And I would offer to you that when people say, you know, I want to be calm and rational, I even use those words because I was raised in this culture too. And I'm still working through it, but instead of calm and rational, use the word regulated. I'm regulated. I feel safe.

[00:09:29] So how do you get to a place where you feel safe so you can continue down the path of your career, or even just a better job, or just the next right step for you? Because the closer you get to the things that you want, and the career that you want, and the roles that you want, life that you want. The scarier it's going to be and the more you're going to need these tools. So it's definitely worth practicing them now. 

[00:09:58] I hope that's helpful. 

[00:09:59]

[00:00:00] Hey there, we're back on the porch with my dog Olaf. Um, today, I wanted to talk to you about the problem that you can encounter if you're just sucking it up at work and eking through and not leaning into your strengths. And at the end, we'll talk about what to do about it. And as usual, I will tell you a story to illustrate this point.

[00:00:29] So, for the last few years, I've had a lot of health issues and really slowed the business down and so when I finally was able to go back to work full time, I had a ton of backlog.

[00:00:44] Just a lot of details, daily work to be done. Very, I won't say mundane, but it's the daily work of life. And my nature is more of an innovator of new [00:01:00] things and ideas. And I know that because I took an assessment called the Kolbe A™ Index that revealed some strengths that I had no idea I had and that I didn't realize were strengths. 

[00:01:15] And ever since then, I have been on a journey to recalibrate my life to lean into my strengths as much as possible. And I do this with clients as well. Usually, when you work with me, one of the very first things we do is take the Kolbe A™ assessment.

[00:01:33] And with personality assessments and any type of assessment that says something about you. I like it if it's validated in research, but it's not so necessary to me because the way I use assessments is as a mirroring tool. 

[00:01:49] So a lot of us did not get properly mirrored as a child. Especially in the older generations, that wasn't really a thing. Being who you [00:02:00] were wasn't really part of the mix of parenting. Some people ended up that way because they naturally fit into the culture, but a lot of parenting was very prescriptive. Whether that was religious or academic or cultural sometimes it's gender-based, but a lot of people, myself included, were told what to think, what to do, what to wear, how to feel, what was right, what was wrong, and what we thought about and what we felt about the matter was absolutely irrelevant and in many cases was actively pushed down. 

[00:02:36] Things were said like, "your feelings don't matter," "your feelings will lead you astray." "Don't listen to what other people say,", listen to like, for instance, what the church says, or what this one religious leader or this one group leader says, things like that. So that's what I'm, when I say a prescriptive childhood. That's what I'm talking about. 

[00:02:57] And sometimes it's just a very strict background. It could be a [00:03:00] military background, somebody that had a caregiver, they just had a lot of rules about how things should be. And they thought there was one right way to live and everything else was trash. So that's what we're talking about. 

[00:03:13] If you come from a background like that. It's possible that you weren't mirrored very well. And if you want to learn more about that, I would go seek out therapists, psychologists and neuroscientists that can talk about mirroring and the importance of that in developing as a human being.

[00:03:32] But if you weren't mirrored, what do you do? Sometimes we will go through relationships or we're trying on jobs because we're trying to figure out who we are. 

[00:03:41] So the Kolbe A™ and any other personality tests, your Myers Briggs, your DISC, your Enneagram, astrology, anything like that, that can mirror back to you, hey, the test says that you're this, is that correct? And that last question is the one I'm most interested in.

[00:03:59] For me, the Kolbe [00:04:00] was very useful. I was actually really mad about my results because it revealed that my strengths were almost in opposition to what I thought I should be as a person. Who I thought I should be. What I thought I should be doing. What a good person does. And when it revealed nearly the opposite of that, I really struggled to come to terms with it. And I think sometimes I still struggle with that because the way I was raised was just absolutely the opposite. 

[00:04:31] My largest strength is in ideas and innovation and generating new things and testing things out and trying to change the paradigm. I do that even in careers. I'm definitely not your blue suit and tie and, go to school to get your MBA and then go into business and then work for McKinsey. 

[00:04:50] I'm more, let's find the career for you that suits you regardless of what that looks like. We need to make sure it's sustainable, both energetically and financially, all [00:05:00] that. But I'm not interested in you stuffing yourself into a box and trying to live there for the next 50 years.

[00:05:07] I want you to be who you are and express who you are. So I also try to live that way. I don't try to, I live that myself. And it helps me remember how difficult it is, how challenging it is, and how counter intuitive it is in our culture. Where we're told what to do, what to think, what to be. 

[00:05:25] Recently, I hired an assistant, and we were going through things and she started to take over some of the work that's not really in my wheelhouse. I can do it, but it takes me so much effort. It is so difficult.

[00:05:38] It drains my energy  and the way she's wired, it's actually absolutely in her wheelhouse. It's easy for her. She likes doing it. It gives her energy, that kind of stuff. 

[00:05:56] And as I'm able to start [00:06:00] delegating things over to somebody strong in those areas. It's actually freeing up a ton of energy. And I've had, especially in the mornings, like these bursts of inspiration and ideas. And I feel like I'm myself again. I'm like, Oh, I'm back. Like, oh, it's so nice. 

[00:06:16] Because I've very much been trying to hold things together. Trying to make things work, trying to get all the details done. Even things like I love creating content, but getting it posted out is totally a struggle for me. That's definitely not in my wheelhouse. 

[00:06:32] And I would say 90 percent of my work was work that needed to be done. It had to be done. There wasn't really another choice at the time. But it was everything that was outside of my strengths. 

[00:06:43] And it's super common. We all do this. Because sometimes we have to do this. We have to pay the bills. We have to put food on the table. We have to pay the mortgage. We've got to make the car payment. All of those really practical things of life. 

[00:06:56] But what I've noticed is as [00:07:00] I am able to delegate or stop doing the things that aren't in my nature, it frees up an exponential amount of energy for me to lean into what I am good at. Into content creation and working with people and doing things on the fly. Especially working with people one-on-one. It gives me so much energy. I get so much joy out of it. 

[00:07:24] And I had almost forgotten what it was like to be in that state. Because, as they say, adulting is hard, it's full of a lot of boring details. Life is full of logistics, and it's difficult.

[00:07:42] And it's really easy to let that take center stage, and for everything to become mundane, doing the laundry, and making meals, and doing the things that make a life work. And to forget who we are, to forget what it feels like when we're leaning [00:08:00] into our strengths. 

[00:08:01] And if you're feeling that kind of stuck. Often that's what people say , I feel stuck, but I don't know what else to do. I feel like I don't have any energy. I can't get myself motivated. Sometimes those are underlying health issues. Totally valid. I identify with that. So I know that that's very real. 

[00:08:19] It can also be situational. If the work that you're doing is almost exclusively outside of your strengths, it will suck you dry. It will drain your energy and it takes the fun out of things. It takes the life out of things and it just becomes drudgery. 

[00:08:38] And there's this quote that I heard recently that I hadn't heard in a long time and I forgot. You know, there's this thought of like "Ideas without logistics are just dreams." And the counter to that is, yeah, but "logistics without dreams is just drudgery." 

[00:08:54] And, for me, life had become like that, a little bit, a lot of bit drudgery, [00:09:00] um, and as I'm able, so it's... I'm not saying like you're doing it wrong cause you're not leaning into your strengths. Sometimes we're in seasons of life where that's just not that easy. 

[00:09:11] But when you hit seasons of life or when you are able. When you can make the choice to step into a job or transfer to another department or move into a role that absolutely celebrates your strengths, where your strengths are what the job needs.

[00:09:31] You will feel this lift of energy. Going to work actually gives you energy instead of draining your energy. You can also be tired at the end of the day, but it's not the same as like that miserable drudgery . So, when you're looking at your next career shift, when you're looking at signing up for a degree, signing up for a career path, make sure it sits in your wheelhouse. It fits in with your strengths. It's not too [00:10:00] far outside of that. Even if the culture says it doesn't agree, even if your parents don't agree. Even if your spouse or your friends, like you could have friends that are just absolutely opposite of you. So what works for them is a hundred percent not going to work for you.

[00:10:15] I've had business strategists come work with me and they're like, Oh, well, if you just do step by step and do one thing at a time, you just this really normal thing. And I know that that's not going to work for me, even though it works for a lot of people. It just won't work for me because of how I'm hard-wired. And that's okay. And that's the message I want to give to you. The way you're hard-wired, what your strengths are, it's okay.

[00:10:36] It's okay for you to lean into them. It's okay for you to step in to that, to do a little bit more of that every day. Sometimes you have to build up a tolerance for doing it cause it feels really scary, especially if it's against everything you know, or everything you've always done. 

[00:10:52] And if you want one way to do that is to take the Kolbe A™ Index. You can Google it. You can go to my website and go to [00:11:00] Work with Me, into the links there and you'll find a link to take the Kolbe A™. You can take a Kolbe A™ Deep Dive with me where I will go in depth into your specific assessment and what it means. And how you can apply it to real life. I'm really interested about like, how do we practically do this? 

[00:11:18] It can be a really great tool for delegation if you're in management to sit down and help you know what you need to delegate. Cause sometimes the standard advice is like, you need to delegate certain things. Like in my industry, they're like outsource your social media and your content creation. And I'm like, yeah, but that's so easy for me. That's silly. Like that doesn't make any sense. I'm going to outsource accounting. That's what I'm going to outsource. 

[00:11:42] So it can be a really practical tool to help you figure out what to delegate, what type of career that you're going to thrive in. Like it explained to me why I struggled so much with jobs that were Monday through Friday, nine to five. And I'm just, I'm not hard-wired for that. I can't. Entrepreneurship, [00:12:00] as much of a roller coaster as it is, I'm much more suited to it. I'm much more relaxed when I'm in it, and it's much easier. 

[00:12:08] So, I'll offer that up as a tool. Many assessments can tell you this. The Kolbe A™ specifically looks at how you take action. So it's directly related to careers and work, which is why I use it and I like it. But mostly that there's a message of hope.

[00:12:24] If you are in a season of like heavy caregiving, maybe you've got kids, maybe you've got your parents, maybe you've got to take a job that you can do it, but man, it sucks the life right out of you. Know that there is hope and there is absolutely a way out of that. 

[00:12:42] I'd love to hear from you and I hope that helps.

[00:12:46] Talk to you later. 

[00:12:47] [00:13:00] 

[00:00:00] Hey there, we are back on the porch having coffee with my dog Olaf. And I wanted to talk to you today about a mindset that can happen when you are thinking about a career. It's beautiful today. So you're going to hear a lot of planes. That mindset is that your career is a very static thing.

[00:00:20] It's an old mindset from back when careers were more stable. For some people. It's a very small subset of people that had a job for 30 years and then just retired. A lot of people had different jobs. It's just not that talked about. So the mindset of your career being one static thing and you having to choose one forever amen thing I find to be a really um, a mindset that's not very helpful.

[00:00:51] Instead, consider thinking of your career as something that's fluid. Something that maybe there's an [00:01:00] overarching theme. Maybe there are several overarching themes. And all of the things that you've ever wanted to do can fit under that umbrella, and sometimes they work together, sometimes they work in concert. Sometimes they're unrelated, but they support each other.

[00:01:17] And I'll give you an example. So, I love this job. I love helping people find work that is at least neutral and hopefully that they love going to because it really changes your life. Going to a job you hate is destructive for your health, your mental well-being, your relationships, and everything. And I've experienced it personally. I have family members who have experienced it, friends. Frankly, most people experience it. And so it's one of the things I care about in life. 

[00:01:49] I also really care about having adventures myself. Sometimes I just want to go have the adventure, but sometimes I want to do that for a job. [00:02:00] And one of the mindsets I caught myself in was, oh, now I have this job. I have to say no to all of those things I wanted. 

[00:02:09] And I had thought that for a while until I realized one day there's nothing that says I can't have this job and those other jobs that I want to do because a lot of them are just short-term jobs. I just want to do it for a season or I just want to do it for the experience for a little bit. I don't think I want it to be my whole career, but I really want the experience. 

[00:02:30] For example, I would love to work on a commercial fishing boat. I would love the experience, and the education, and the knowledge of what it's like to work on a fishing boat. I don't think I want to own a boat. I don't think I want to be a boat captain. I don't think I want it to be my lifelong career, but I've wanted that experience for a really long time. There are lots of jobs like that. They're sort of adventure jobs. I'd love to work in Antarctica. I would love to work in Greenland. I would love to work on Svalbard and all the [00:03:00] Nordic places, and I don't just want to go there and visit as a tourist. I really want to work there and be there for a while and really dig into that experience, but again, I don't think I want that for my whole life, and I'm not willing to give up this job because I love it so much. 

[00:03:17] So then the question becomes, how do I do both? How do I set up this business so that it allows me to do that? What jobs that are in fishing or in Antarctica or in polar caps can I do that fits into this model? And that's a much more interesting mindset. It's a much more interesting problem to solve. Because it becomes a problem to solve. Not a dream that I can't have that I need to grieve, and that's the switch I want you to consider. 

[00:03:54] Consider switching from I have to have this one career forever and ever amen. And [00:04:00] that means I can't do the other things I like to do or I can't, you know, have other jobs that I want to have. Some people really want to have a big variety of jobs because it's fun and interesting. I'm one of those people. And you might be too. And I just want you to start thinking about how could you do both? 

[00:04:18] Is there a way that you could do both? How would you solve that problem? Because that'll start your mind thinking. And you actually might end up thinking of new opportunities. More things might lay out in front of you, and it might jiggle that old mindset of a 30-year job and then we retire. Because that's really something that is an old, archaic way of thinking. And the more fluid, dynamic, interesting career is kind of what we're going for. 

[00:04:50] So I hope that helps. I hope that gives you something to think about.

[00:04:53] Talk to you soon.

[00:00:00] Hey there, so we are back on the porch having coffee with Olaf, and I wanted to talk today about what happens sometimes when you don't know what career path you want to take. And I would say about 50 percent of my clients are in that boat and the other are in the boat of they know what they want to do, but they don't quite know how to get from here to there. The logistics of it. 

[00:00:32] I want to talk to this first group. The ones who don't have any idea what they want to do. They, they really don't know. And if this is you, I want you to consider or to investigate in your mind, is it that you don't know what you want to do, or is it that you know what you [00:01:00] want to do, but you don't think you can. You don't think it's possible. You don't think it's morally right. You don't think good people do that. You don't think people of your age can do it. Your family doesn't do that. All the people in your family are in one industry and so nobody has ever strayed. So who are you to think you can do something different? 

[00:01:26] Very often I find that both myself and my clients, cause this is, this was true for me and sometimes this is still true for me when I come up against something I really want, but I'm not doing it or I can't really put words to it or voice it. Sometimes it's because there's a barrier like that, that I don't think for some reason I can or should do that. And I find it in clients very, very often [00:02:00] when they don't know what they want. Sometimes that's a cover. Not a, not a conscious cover like you're lying to yourself. Just like that's an unconscious thing our brain does. That it will create logical, quote-unquote reasonable solutions about why you can't have the things you want because the brain needs that kind of certainty and safety. But what the brain doesn't always do when it's making up these safe and certain messages is validate if they're true. 

[00:02:30] So I want you to take a little bit of time and think about, did you have childhood dreams? Or in high school did you have some fantastical dream? Did you want to be a lead guitarist? Did you want to travel the world? Did you want to be a major soccer player? Sometimes there are these fantastical dreams that we think these days, oh man, I can't do that. I'm too old. I've got bills to pay. I have kids to take care of, [00:03:00] and even if part of that is true; it is worth uncovering and excavating those dreams. Because there is a grain of truth in there that may lead you to the thing that you want today. 

[00:03:17] Because a lot of times childhood dreams morph and change, but as soon as you put the stopper on. Your brain kind of does it all over the place. So I just want you to check if you don't actually know what you want or do you think the things you want aren't possible?

[00:03:34] Because those are two very different states, different scenarios. 

[00:03:38] And sometimes it's one or the other. And if you don't know, I'm not saying that's not true, but just kick over that rock to make sure there's not something hiding under there that you have told yourself you can't have.

[00:03:51] So I hope that helps and I hope that gives you something to think about. Talk to you soon.

[00:00:00] Hey there. So we're having Coffee on the Porch with Olaf and I wanted to talk to you today about making sure that you're not making assumptions about what is wrong in your career. And I'm going to illustrate it through a story.

[00:00:21] The point of the story that I want you to focus on is sometimes we get the diagnosis of what's going wrong in our life wrong. And it's really important that you keep an open mind and check all of the options before you decide work just sucks, or this is how it is, or there's no other path for me, or this is all I can do.

[00:00:47] So... I have always loved to run, but I've always had a hard time running. I love the feeling of running. I love the freedom of running. I like that it's simple and [00:01:00] easy and you can take it with you and you can do it together or alone. There's just so many aspects of it that I really, really enjoy.

[00:01:07] But I have always struggled with it as well. It's very hard for me, even as a child. I'm of the era of the presidential fitness runs where you had to run a mile in so many minutes or something. So even as a child, I remember this. Even as a professional singer, I remember wanting to run and running, but I really had to figure out where I was going to run in my singing schedule because I couldn't run within about a week of when I was going to perform or have a big rehearsal or something like that.

[00:01:43] Every time I tried to figure out why I had a hard time running coaches and partners and other people and doctors would say something in the list of you're in the wrong running program. You're [00:02:00] doing it too quickly. You're not ramping up slowly enough. You're not pushing hard enough. You're not getting enough sleep. You're in the wrong shoes. You're lazy. You're just not pushing yourself hard enough. You're just not an athlete. And I wasn't really trying to be an athlete. I just liked to run, that's all. I liked the feeling of it. I wasn't actually doing it for fitness. I was doing it because it's fun. 

[00:02:25] But I got all of these reasons of why I couldn't keep up with everybody else. I would always hit a wall when I was running that I just, I couldn't push past, and I felt hot and flushed and sick and like I was going to pass out. And it was just so excruciating. It was really frustrating because it's something I really wanted to do. And I just, I couldn't figure it out.

[00:02:52] Um, and so I really just stopped. I would start up again every now and again and try it and it would be the same thing. And I was like, well, that's just, you [00:03:00] know, maybe my body just isn't designed to run. I don't know. 

[00:03:03] And I know sometimes this is how starting a career feels or changing careers or work at all feels. Like you want to change your career, but it's just you have all of these messages from people like that's the way it is. Our family doesn't do that. Who do you think you are? You don't have enough money to do that. What about your family and the kids? You don't have what it takes. 

[00:03:28] You have all of these negative messages. Explaining why you haven't found the career you want yet. Why the transition to the career you want is difficult. And so I know this parallel, like, to me, it felt very similar of just like really wanting something and not being able to crack the code at all. And sometimes giving up and being like, all right, fine. It is the way it is. But always questioning, should I give this up? Like, is this a pipe dream? Or Should I keep [00:04:00] going? Like, is there something else? 

[00:04:02] So in my running, I had just sort of given up. I was like, that's just not for me. And I was able to do lots of other outdoor activities, skiing and biking, but I always had a wall that I would hit even with other outdoor activities where I couldn't exactly keep up with everybody else after a certain point. I really struggled and I could never get past that. 

[00:04:26] And so in the last couple of years I've had a lot of medical testing going on, and it's very interesting, they found out some, you know, while they test you in all of these machines, they find things that you weren't actually looking for. And I was doing a stress test, and at the end of it, she was like, no, your heart's great. Everything's great. Everything looks beautiful. Except you lost oxygen at the end. You know, and I was so excited to do the stress test. I was like, oh my God, to be able to run. And like, it's super fun. I was excited. Which the [00:05:00] techs were like, that's very rare in their office, but she stopped me early and I was mad cause I was having a good time. And she was like, your oxygen is really low and we're going to send you to a pulmonologist. So they, do all of these tests, didn't find anything significant.

[00:05:18] Sent me to an allergist who did, um, you know, ran a course of tests. And it came out that I actually have exercise-induced asthma. Which, I had a couple of friends who were like, "Oh, I'm sorry", and I'm like, oh, no. No, this is great news. Like, this explains so much, and a) it lets me off the hook of judgment and shame and beating myself up and trying to work harder, harder, harder, harder. It wasn't anything I was doing wrong. There's something technical going on that is solvable with a chemical, like just a medication that you take. 

[00:05:59] [00:06:00] And it was interesting because the very first run I did with the medication they gave me, I was halfway through the run until I realized my lungs don't hurt. My chest doesn't hurt. I'm not red. I don't feel like I'm gonna pass out. I don't feel anything. Like, this is just fun. I feel my muscles are fatigued, but not the other feeling that I was feeling. And I finished the run, still felt great. The day after still felt great. And I just... I had a moment where I was really mad that all of these years I had thought I was doing something wrong, and I wasn't.

[00:06:43] There was a technical change that needed to be made that no amount of effort or trying or pursuit or beating myself up or discipline or any of that would have ever solved, none of that would have ever [00:07:00] solved the problem I had. It had to be solved by a medication and it was a very simple solution. It was a very easy solution. It wasn't an expensive solution. It was just a very normal, practical every day, but nobody, everybody had, including myself, and I will put myself in this. Everybody, including myself, had assumed I was doing it wrong. And I really want you to hear that in your career journey.

[00:07:31] Very often, I come into contact with clients that feel like they are doing something wrong. They are not working hard enough. They are not disciplined enough. They are not... the list is really endless about how they're doing it wrong or how they are somehow the problem. And in my experience, that is very rarely the case.

[00:07:54] They're usually missing a piece of information often about who they are as people and how they're hard wired.[00:08:00] That is very, very often the case. Sometimes they're just missing a piece of information that no amount of effort would have ever solved. 

[00:08:10] And I really want you to take that to heart if you are at a low point in your career and you've tried and you've tried and you've tried and you've tried and nothing's working.

[00:08:18] I really want you to consider that it might not be you. 

[00:08:22] That it might be the system that you're in. It might be the city that you're in, it might be that you are missing information about yourself and that is something that you can solve. 

[00:08:33] And I provide resources to help you figure that out. Lots of people provide resources to figure that out. There's so many people that are so helpful and so wonderful. But I encourage you to keep an open mind that you might not be doing anything wrong. You might be missing a piece of key information. 

[00:08:53] I want you to take that to heart today and I hope that helps. 

[00:00:00] Hey there! We are back with Coffee on the Porch with my dog, Olaf. 

[00:00:06] And today I want to talk to you about something I really wish I had known in the beginning when I was probably 18, maybe before that. And that is that the first step you need to take when you're trying to figure out a career that not only provides for you financially but also is going to keep your interest. It's going to spark your curiosity long term. It's going to use and celebrate your talents and provides a way for you to make a positive change in your world. Is to know what you're looking for. 

[00:00:47] And it seems really obvious, but, I think, it's one of the hardest and most time-consuming steps for many of us. The work that I do with careers is specifically helping people find [00:01:00] exactly what it is they want to be doing as their occupation, especially long term. Not that you're going to have one job. For the rest of your life. That's not what I mean. 

[00:01:09] But once you figure out WHAT it is, the what part of the equation, then after that, the execution part is something I often refer out to somebody else who has expertise, unless it's an area that I have expertise in. Because the careers that people end up choosing with me vary so widely and are usually atypical or non-traditional that there's no way that I can be good at all of those things. 

[00:01:38] And a lot of times those jobs aren't things you can Google, like how do I become an attorney? You need industry advice. And so I will often refer them out or help them find mentorship for the execution part. And, some people will need help with resume writing. Some people will need to take courses or go to networking events, that sort of [00:02:00] thing. 

[00:02:01] But I find where people really get stuck isn't in the logistics of HOW to make a career happen. It's in knowing WHAT they want to do. 

[00:02:13] And I hear it oftentimes because people will often come to me. They're in a job that they don't like, or it's not satisfying, or it's okay, but they don't want to do it forever, but they don't know what else to do. They don't know what else they're going to do next. So they just stay stuck where they are. 

[00:02:30] And here's an example of why knowing what you want to do, in the beginning, makes a difference. And I'm going to use a story about a yard sale. It's a very exciting story about a yard sale. Um, so it's an actual yard sale where they sell things that you don't need anymore. And I think it will make the point of what I'm talking about. We'll see if we get there at the end. 

[00:02:55] So I was looking on our local post board here in Alaska, and we do a [00:03:00] lot of swapping and trading of things because we don't have a lot of stores up here. So we tend to rely heavily on that sort of local yard sale, sell, swap, trade marketplace, that sort of thing. And you can buy a backhoe. You can buy a D9. You can buy a snow machine. You can buy lace doilies. You can buy kids clothes. The Alaskan sell, swap, and trade is a pretty remarkable place. If you want it, somebody has it to sell to you. 

[00:03:30] But the day that I was looking, somebody was selling a pair of boots. And there were really special kind of boot for Alaska. They are an overboot and it's really useful up here for all kinds of reasons. I know them from my mushing background. They are fantastic in the really deep cold. If you put them over another boot, you can get down to like 40 below Fahrenheit and still stay warm. And they're also really expensive. [00:04:00] I don't know what the going rate is these days. They're definitely more than a hundred dollars. Um, I think the last pair I got was maybe 10 or 15 years ago, and they were more than a hundred dollars then. So, I'm just scrolling through scrolls, scroll, scroll, scrolling through Facebook, over lunch, looking at what people have and there was this yard sale. And I'm just flipping through the pictures, and these boots were marked free. 

[00:04:27] And, I messaged the person, and I said, "Are those black boots free? And they said, "Yeah." And they told me the size. I honestly didn't care what size they were, but they told me the size, and I said I would be there right away. And I just got up and threw on a hat and a coat and left. And drove out there. Yep. That's exactly what they were. And they were in great condition. Somebody bought them and never really used them. So I grabbed them and he was happy that they went to somebody who could use them. And I was ecstatic to have them. 

[00:04:58] And here's how this [00:05:00] small, little story of a little small thing in daily life applies to knowing what you want in your career. 

[00:05:10] It doesn't always work out, that once you have figured out what career path you want to take or what you want to do with your life that immediately you just march out and go get that because that's not how life always works. Sometimes, the market isn't right. Sometimes you need some extra training. Sometimes global events happen. Lots of things occur. 

[00:05:33] But knowing the WHAT. What it is you want to be doing? What change do you want to make? What legacy do you want to leave? All of those types of questions help you in the future. So that when those opportunities pass right in front of you, which they will, you can see it and you're ready for it. You know what you're looking for. And you can go and grab it. 

[00:05:58] So sometimes people [00:06:00] make a mistake and think that people who know what they want and who can hop right on ideas are impulsive and don't plan. And often what's actually happening is that they've done the planning work behind the scenes and that planning work can take some time. It can take some thought. It can take some doing. It isn't normally just something you do overnight. 

[00:06:25] But when you put in the time and the work and the self-inquiry. It's not really difficult work. It's just work. You need to get done to figure out what you want to do. And once you know that, as you're at a networking event, as you're looking through the paper, as you're scrolling online, as you're talking with friends, and an opportunity arises, you can say, Ooh, that is something I'm interested in. 

[00:06:51] And you've already done the background research to know if it's the right lifestyle for you. If it's the kind of money you want? Is it the type of [00:07:00] work you want? Are you working inside? Are you working outside? All of those little bitty factors that make a huge difference in whether you're going to love or hate your job. You've already thought through all of that. 

[00:07:13] So once you do the work, you have an automatic filter. So that when your colleague or friend says, "Hey, I have an opportunity for you. Would you like that? You aren't just shooting in the dark. You know with more certainty. If that's going to work for you or not. 

[00:07:29] Now nobody knows anything for certain, always a hundred percent of the time. That's not how life works, either. But you will have a better idea of what you want versus just guessing or just winging it. So I highly encourage you to do the work that it takes to figure out what you want to be doing first. BEFORE you do anything else in your career. Before you sign up for a college degree, before you talk to a resume person, before [00:08:00] you buy a suit. Any of that, because you might not even go in a direction where a resume or a suit is necessary. 

[00:08:08] Now, if you're just getting a money job, that's totally different, and that's totally fine. You've got to pay their rent somehow. And I totally get that. I'm in that same boat. I don't have personal funders, either. So I understand getting just a money job for the meantime. But what I'm talking about is your long-term career goals. Don't guess at the long term. Do the work that it takes to figure out. What it is that you want to be doing? So that when that opportunity arises, you are ready. 

[00:08:41] I hope that helps. 

[00:00:00] So we're back with Coffee on the Porch with my dog Olaf. Except I'm not on the porch and I don't have Olaf with me. I'm sitting in my car. 

[00:00:12] And I'm on the way to a trip that I have been planning for the last couple of weeks and it was an idea that I've had for a long time. It's the one that I've been talking about that I really didn't think I could pull off. And I'm about to head out for round two. Actually, I had left the house a couple of days ago and ran into a lot of obstacles. And that's what I want to talk to you about today. 

[00:00:38] When you are planning a goal, a career change, a life change, anything like that obstacles are to be expected. And it's important how you deal with them and what you make them mean. So, as usual, I'm going to give you an example in the form of a story.

[00:00:57] So I was ready to leave the house with the [00:01:00] car packed. I had a couple of errands to do before I left Anchorage and then I was going to head out and I was going to hit things exactly right. My timing was going to be perfect. And then I left a little later than I had planned, but my timing was still really good.

[00:01:17] Things were going on swimmingly until I ran over something on the road and I got a flat tire. In fact, it is the first flat tire I've ever had in my whole life. And I have been practicing changing tires since I was 13, 14, 15, and I've just never gotten one. I've never even been in a car that had one, I don't think. Somebody can correct me if I'm wrong and they were in a car with me with a flat tire, but it's not one that I remember. 

[00:01:47] And this wasn't just a hole in the tire or a slow leak. This was totally destroyed. I hit whatever it was, and it exploded the tire. And I was in a place where I was too far from town [00:02:00] to change it to a donut and ride the donut where I needed to go. So I had to call a tow truck. And I'm sitting there waiting and the thought crossed my head. Is this a sign? 

[00:02:13] And I was startled. I thought I'd gotten rid of that kind of thinking. But, you know, we've all been so programmed not to trust ourselves, not to trust the plans that we've put in place and to have a lot of fear about achieving the things that we want, that those old thought patterns can sneak in. 

[00:02:32] It's not uncommon for our brains to throw up all kinds of self doubt and make obstacles mean something they don't. And in that moment, I had to remind myself that obstacles don't mean no. Obstacles are not a sign from the universe that you should not be doing what you're doing. They're not a sign that you're doing it wrong, or that you've made a mistake, or that you're heading in the wrong direction.

[00:02:56] If it's something you honestly don't want to do anymore [00:03:00] because you have new information and you changed your mind, obstacles can provide an easy out. It's something that can help you make the decision, but it's important that it remains your decision. And it can be scary to own our decisions, but that is where all of your power is.

[00:03:20] I really want you to consider and trust yourself that this career plan that you're making, this career shift that you're thinking of, is the right plan for you. I want you to make sure that you're not interpreting events that are happening, obstacles that are happening, delays that occur, as if they have more power over your future than they do.

[00:03:43] With this particular trip, I cannot tell you the number of obstacles and snags and delays that I ran into. Things beyond my control. Things that I couldn't have anticipated that took much longer to solve that started as one [00:04:00] problem and turned into five problems. 

[00:04:02] And through the entire thing, it would be really easy to quit each and every day. But I knew in the big picture, this plan is what I wanted to do. I wanted to do it for myself and I needed to do it for myself, but it didn't mean it was easy all the time. It didn't mean that I wasn't frustrated, and it didn't mean I didn't want to quit–a lot. But those moments usually meant I was tired. I was hungry. I was frustrated. I couldn't see a way out and I needed to take a break. I needed to ask for help, but it didn't mean I should quit. 

[00:04:40] And that is the thing I really want you to hang on to during your career change process.

[00:04:45] The dreaming stage is one of the most beautiful parts of a plan, the most fun, the most exciting. And the realizing the dreams that you had envisioned is also pretty exquisite. Looking back to see what you've [00:05:00] accomplished.

[00:05:01] But the middle is really where things get hard because you are facing your fears. You're rewiring your brain and your perception of yourself and the world around you. It's not difficult because the universe is against you. It's hard because you are literally growing new neural pathways in your brain.

[00:05:22] I really want you to pay attention to this. I want you to hang on to the fact that obstacles in the middle of a change process don't mean stop. 

[00:05:31] It may mean you need to learn some new skills. You might even need to expand your tolerance for discomfort when you face a difficulty, but the events themselves don't mean anything about you. It doesn't mean anything about your planning or your logistics or your scheme or anything like that. That's just a really normal part of executing a plan and it happens to all of us no matter how practiced you are.

[00:05:58] Obstacles [00:06:00] will come. You should expect them. You should plan for them. And your task is finding creative ways to self regulate, to stay in your body, to stay in the present and to figure out ways to help yourself to keep going.

[00:06:17] So that's my final thought. Obstacles don't mean no. 

[00:06:22] I hope that helps. I'll talk to you next time. 

[00:00:00] Hey there, and welcome back to Coffee on the Porch with my dog, Olaf. And today, I wanted to talk about a quality that I highly suggest you look for in your career transition and in the career you're looking for and that quality is satisfaction. The reason I encourage you to look at satisfaction is because a lot of times the work involved to get to a career change, sometimes the work you want to do itself is challenging work and I want to offer you this reframe because sometimes I find people are looking for work that is easy or is effortless.

[00:00:52] And I use those words and yes, that's true on a level. It doesn't mean it takes no effort, but [00:01:00] there are things that come more naturally to you than others so that is when I'll say the work is effortless or easy, but it doesn't necessarily mean that the process of changing your career or, again, sometimes the work itself isn't labor intensive.

[00:01:16] And I'm going to give you an example pinning on to the story that I've been telling about this trip that I've been planning. 

[00:01:23] So I went on the trip. It's a fishing trip. Up here in Alaska, we have the ability to use a personal use fishery. Which means we can go dipnet down in a certain area and catch our year's worth of fish all at once. It's really lovely. I love to fish. I love all kinds of sport fishing, but dipnetting is a little more like grocery shopping and it makes putting away your fish for the year a lot easier cause it's just all at once. You're not having to process one or two fish at a time. 

[00:01:54] And, typically I have gone with other people. [00:02:00] And like I had said before, this year it just didn't pan out that I had other people to go with. And so I was trying to figure out if I could go alone. This work is very, very physically taxing, physically labor intensive. There's a lot of logistics involved. Processing has a lot of logistics in it. There's just a lot of moving parts and usually you split up the work between a few people. 

[00:02:23] And since I had decided, "Hey, let's see if I can do it". I thought that'd be a fun puzzle. I went down and in other videos, I've talked about all of the obstacles that came in front of it. Most were out of my control, factors that I just didn't have any control over. And how I got around those. 

[00:02:41] But the end result is I got there and although things weren't perfect. And this is what I want to talk to you about today. Like the process wasn't perfect. My timing wasn't perfect. The situation wasn't perfect. But it was good enough. It was good enough to go. It was good enough, especially for a [00:03:00] first run to answer the question , can I do this? Can a person do this alone? And it was so satisfying, but also so physically difficult. That many fish are very heavy. Working with nets across currents is very heavy. There's just a lot, you're, you never really stop moving. The place I was camped was pretty far away from the fishing hole. So there was even a little more involved in it. And by the second or third day, I was just absolutely exhausted. My muscles hurt. I was tired. I hadn't had enough sleep, and I didn't really have time to eat full meals. There's no showers or anything like that. Although, funny note, they had a coffee stand, a barista stand, and she was like the magic of the day every day. It was fantastic.

[00:03:52] But the actual work of it, there were just these moments. There was this moment where I was standing out between all these [00:04:00] people. And it's great because you stand out in the water with this huge net waiting for the fish to come in and there are lots of other people there with you. You are in no way alone. So things like bears are definitely not a problem because there's so many people. And it's just this very communal time when you sit and talk to other Alaskans, because this is a resident only permit, about what they're doing and where they're from. People come from all over the state to go to this fishery. You get a lot of information. You meet new people. You learn new techniques. It's just this very cool communal way of learning new skills and you know being in community with other people doing what you're doing. And doing what you love to do and it's really one of my favorite parts of it. 

[00:04:51] And there was this moment where we're standing there. The fishing was a little slow and there are seals out in this bay. There are [00:05:00] eagles. There's all of this wildlife around us. The sky is stunning. It was just beautiful. The tides coming in and out. It's just the most outstanding moments that you could have. And you can't Google that. You can't buy these moments. You can't manufacture it. You have to really be there and put yourself out there to experience these great moments. 

[00:05:29] You'll hear a few planes going by. As you probably know by now, I live by a little tiny airport. Oh, they're flying. They must be flying to the mountain. It's, it's raining today, which is great. We haven't had rain in a long time. Looks like they're flying up to the mountain. 

[00:05:48] And the last round of tides came in. I was done fishing, and I was hauling everything up to the car and it was not a beautiful moment. It was very [00:06:00] difficult. I was exhausted. It was heavy. It's awkward. I just wanted to go to bed, and I still had to put fish away and make camp. And in that moment, all I wanted to do was go home. I almost got in the car in my wet waders and drove five hours home. But, obviously I didn't. I knew I was just tired. And the next day I was tired. I was moving really slow but the drive home was stunning. It was, again, these beautiful moments, moose and bears and foxes and beautiful views and just some of the most grand and glorious driving I've done in a really long time. 

[00:06:42] And when I got home, I did what I needed to do to care for the fish and I just crashed and went to bed. And when I woke up this morning, and this is what made me think to talk to you about this is this overwhelming sense of satisfaction. Just this [00:07:00] deep-seated, it's different than happiness, it's different than joy. It's different than elation. It's different than relief. It's this very calm, confident, quiet satisfaction that I had set out to do what I said I was going to do. I had accomplished the idea and the dream that I had for this trip. And I wasn't dwelling on all of the imperfect things that happened cause there were a ton. I wasn't even dwelling on the things that were more than perfect, things that I, that were better than I anticipated, which were a ton. I was just very satisfied that I had accomplished the goal and heading into the next step after that. 

[00:07:47] I want to leave you with that thought that the actual aim you're working towards at the end of the day, in your career change and in any dream or idea or goal you're [00:08:00] trying to accomplish is that feeling of satisfaction that is long lasting, that doesn't go away with time, that isn't really externally affected at all.

[00:08:13] And things like happiness and joy and elation and ease may be mixed in, but that feeling of satisfaction is really one of the markers I find of a successful career because it comes from inside you. Knowing that you have pulled off a very difficult and challenging thing and, succeeded and completed the goal or the dream that you were looking for. And to me, that feeling of satisfaction is the best feeling of success. 

[00:08:49] So, I hope that helps you on your journey. I know things can be challenging, especially if you're in the middle and it feels like it sucks and it feels like you want to stop. Remember, [00:09:00] you're heading for that feeling of satisfaction, and I want you to keep going. 

[00:09:05] All right, I'll talk to you later.

[00:00:00] Hey there, we're back with Coffee on the Porch with my dog, Olaf. And today I want to talk to you about a very common saying that I hear a lot of times when people are trying to do big things or make big career shifts. And they're trying to talk to the people in their life about the things that they're planning to do or the things that they want to do. 

[00:00:23] And the saying is, "That's impossible. It's impossible. You can't do that." 

[00:00:30] Often, when we share our big dreams, our big hopes, and our big ideas with those around us, especially those who love and care for us, and in my experience, it happens, most commonly, with the people who are closest to us. 

[00:00:46] And you know, sometimes it's conscious and sometimes it's unconscious that they're doing it. It just may be how they navigate the world themselves. It may be how they view the world for [00:01:00] themselves, that lots of things are impossible for them. And it may be, you know, that they're worried about your safety, or the fact that it might disrupt the status quo of your shared life, or their life. There are a lot of reasons why people will say it's impossible or we'll deem things impossible. 

[00:01:22] And, at least in my life, it's something I have heard over and over and over. And there is definitely a theme of people, um, not believing in my dreams or ideas. 

[00:01:36] And for a very long time, I took that personally. And there was a point in my life where I thought other people's opinions about what was possible and what wasn't, was more accurate than what I saw. What I've learned over the last 50 years is that I just have a different view [00:02:00] of life and the same is true for you. You have a different lens that you're looking at life through than the people around you, than the people close to you. 

[00:02:12] So when you hear, " That's impossible," just think about the fact that we heard for years that women couldn't run marathons, that people couldn't break the four-minute mile, that we couldn't land on the moon. There've been all of these things that were deemed impossible, that some years later, it turns out it's totally possible. That are now very standard practice for us. 

[00:02:43] So the first thing I want you to do is to be very careful about who you share your dreams with, especially your baby dreams. And a baby dream is one that isn't really fully sussed out yet. It doesn't have a tactical [00:03:00] plan. It doesn't have any logistics figured out. You're just in the dreaming phase. 

[00:03:05] Martha Beck calls this the dreaming and scheming stage and I think it's a really good term for it. It's the stage where you think what if this could happen? What if this was possible? What would that look like? I wonder what my life would be like. I wonder. I wonder. That is a dreaming and scheming stage. And even when you get to a full idea of like, Ooh, this would be cool. That's still in that dreaming and scheming stage. 

[00:03:36] And the dreaming stage is very much a part of the planning process. You have to have the idea, whether you're ever going to realize it or not. Those ideas are the beginning of a planning process. You're not going to just wake up one day with a fully penciled-out plan that you'd just start executing. That's [00:04:00] not how that works. It takes some time. And in the beginning, those dreams are a really fun stage. So I want you to enjoy that stage, but be careful who you share it with. 

[00:04:15] Now it's true that some people get stuck there. Some people get stuck in the idea phase or the dreaming stage. And sometimes when people get stuck there too many times, that's when they get it reinforced that it's not possible. So maybe the people that you're talking to that say it's impossible have tried things and had it not work out or they had some cool ideas that they didn't know how to make happen. So they've come to the conclusion that dreams aren't possible. But what's really happening is they're not taking the next step into the logistics. 

[00:04:57] Because dreams plus logistics, equal [00:05:00] reality in my world. That's how we bring things to life. Dreams without logistics are just dreams. And it's totally fine to just have dreams that never come to life. I certainly have dreams that are just dreams. Because even though I think the end goal would be great, I don't want to do the work to make it happen. 

[00:05:20] For example, wouldn't it be cool for me to be in the NBA? Yeah, but I'm 5'4". So I'm not a very tall person. So it would be a one-in-a-million chance for it to happen. And that would be really cool. But I don't want to work on it. I'm not that interested in basketball. It would be awesome to say that I pulled it off, but I have no interest in doing the work or taking that big of a risk. And at the end of my life, if I don't accomplish that goal, I will not care one way or another. It will be immaterial. 

[00:05:56] But there are lots of other things that I do care about [00:06:00] that feel equally impossible at the moment but are actually realistic. And I bet you do too. It's the dreams that we think are great and it would be fun AND we want to work on. Those are the things that you can actually bring to life. And in our context, specifically with your career. I know that you have career dreams and career goals that other people think are impossible but are absolutely realistic. 

[00:06:32] So here's the response to the people in your life. Who say, "It's impossible". And if one of those people in your life, who's saying it's impossible, is you, this counter is something you can use with yourself as well. 

[00:06:45] Ask the question, is it impossible or is it hard? I'm going to say that again. Ask the question, is it impossible or is it hard? 

[00:06:57] And I mean, is it technically [00:07:00] possible? Or is it just difficult? Or improbable? Or unlikely?

[00:07:06] Many times, in my experience, when people say our dream is impossible. They mean, it's going to be very difficult. It's logistically challenging or it's very expensive. Maybe it's unlikely, but that's a very different case than it's impossible. 

[00:07:26] I can't move to Pluto tomorrow. That's impossible, but I can move across the country. Is it difficult? Yes. But can I pull it off? Also, yes. If I put in enough time and effort into figuring out the logistics, I could absolutely pull that off. That's completely realistic. And so could you. 

[00:07:49] So even if your career plans involve moving or changing industries, realize those things aren't impossible. They can be challenging. [00:08:00] They can be difficult. They can upset a family dynamic. 

[00:08:05] But the difference between unlikely and impossible is HUGE. As long as it's not technically impossible. It's something that you can potentially pull off. And if you're passionate about it, if you love it, if you're really interested in it, it may be worth pursuing, even if you don't finish it. Because it will likely lead you to the next step of where you want to be going in your life. 

[00:08:33] So that's my tip for when people say, "It's impossible". Don't get upset if you can. Maybe practice taking a breath and not getting mad at those people. It's a really common state of mind. 

[00:08:48] So if you can, have some compassion and start asking them more questions. Things like, why do you say that? Ask them, [00:09:00] is it really impossible or is it expensive, or challenging, or unlikely? Or is it something they wouldn't want to do with their time? Those sorts of questions. And you can actually have a much deeper conversation about their concerns and their fears. Or you can learn about their perspective on life, and that might actually help you bring your plan to life. 

[00:09:25] So I hope that helps.

[00:00:00] Hey there, it's Coffee on the Porch with me and my dog, Olaf. And you might hear some background noise, but I think we're going to make it through it anyway. 

[00:00:11] I wanted to share something that I've been working on personally that relates to things that I hear clients say about the impossibility of changing careers, or of having the life they want, or having the career they want, or having work that they enjoy, or at least work that's at least neutral or doesn't suck the soul out of them every time they go there. 

[00:00:35] So I live in Alaska and it's fishing season and I have been a fisher most of my adult life. I love fishing and I think it's really important to do it well and to handle and to care for it and be respectful, use the whole fish, take only what you need. I'm very much of that philosophy. 

[00:00:55] And this year, my dipnetting partner, couldn't go. And dipnetting here [00:01:00] is a personal use fishery license that Alaska residents are allowed to have where we can go down with a big hoop and stand in the water in the ocean and catch fish. And we have a household limit for the year, and that's one way you can get your salmon allotment for the year as an Alaskan. The thing that was really giving me problems was the fact that I've never gone dipnetting alone. And I really had it in my head where I was like, "Oh, I can't go". How am I going to get fish? Should I just buy fish? It's really expensive and I love fishing. I'm going to miss out on the experience. And, the sort of community feeling that is there when you're on the beach with everybody else doing the same thing. And I was like, I guess it's not going to happen. I guess I just won't have any fish, but that's not really practical in my life. 

[00:01:56] I eat a lot of fish. It's really good for all sorts of [00:02:00] things. Um, I use all of the pieces and parts and I make it into dog food, plus it's delicious. 

[00:02:07] Then one day, I thought, you know, I should take my own medicine, and do the thing that I tell people to do and just imagine, "What if I could go alone?" What if I'm wrong? Just what if I'm wrong about this? 

[00:02:25] This is one of the phrases I want you to think about. What if I'm wrong about this? What if I'm wrong that I can't go and do the thing I want to do? For me, what if I'm wrong about going to dipnet alone? Maybe it is possible for a person to go alone and dipnet. So I just started playing around with it, and all of a sudden. On YouTube, I saw this guy, in a very difficult dipnetting spot. He was out in Chitina hanging off a cliff. They tie themselves off to this cliff. It's super dangerous, and [00:03:00] I thought that is much more rigorous and adventurous than where I dipnet and this guy was dipnetting alone or at least it looked like he was alone. 

[00:03:11] And. You know, he, got a really good catch. Granted, he is taller, and stronger, and younger, and all of those things, but it did dispel the myth that a person cannot go dipnet alone. I was like, okay, so it's possible for a person to go alone. And frankly, you are not really alone. These are very crowded places. Everybody is dipnetting at the same time, because it's a limited window of time when you can do this. And here in Alaska, we call it combat fishing. Although dipnetting, isn't quite to the level of combat fishing than say king fishing is, but it's still really crowded. Fishing here can be a solitary, serene sport, but it's often just more like grocery shopping. 

[00:03:59] [00:04:00] So there, I had one example of where I was wrong. I was like, okay. I've seen one person dipnet alone. I'm just going to hang on to that thought. I'm gonna hang on to the thought, what if I'm wrong about this? What if I'm wrong about the fact that I can't do this? . What if it is possible? I wonder what that would look like? 

[00:04:21] And I didn't start to go research or anything like that. I was just thinking, what if I could? I wonder what that would look like?

[00:04:29] And my brain starts tootling around of like, well, I need the right vehicle. Do I have the right vehicle? I've got to get all the gear. Do I have all the gear myself? Do I have all the pieces and parts I need to make this happen? Because everything in Alaska is logistics. And a lot of the big things that we do, like dipnetting and hunting, and, you know, the big projects, it's often in a group. It's in a community setting so everybody brings their part or their piece of [00:05:00] the logistics. So you don't have to have the whole thing yourself. 

[00:05:03] But this would require that I have all of the logistics figured out myself. And I looked around, and I was like, yeah. You know, after almost 20 years up here, I do have almost everything I need. I have nets. I have a cooler. My vehicle will work. Really, the only part I had never handled myself was picking the location. So I started looking at that and it turns out it is not that difficult. I know how to read a map. I know how to read a tide table and things like that. And as I got into it, I was starting to let go of the disappointment of not being able to go. 

[00:05:44] And starting to see it more as a puzzle. 

[00:05:48] And my brain thought, you know, "why not?" Something good is going to come out of this either way. I'm either going to figure out parts of this, even if I don't get to [00:06:00] go this year, the process is going to make me a better fisher in the future. And if I do go, even if I have to go slowly, cause that's one thing I was worried about. How fast could I get all the fish in? You know, get my, my limit in and then get them cleaned and on ice and things like that, cause they start to degrade really quickly. 

[00:06:24] And I came across different techniques. People who have done this alone, who show you shortcuts. And I really started seeking out people like me who were going alone and processing a lot of fish alone because they had a very different process and very different suggestions. So I was looking at what techniques were they using? What hacks were they using? What tricks did they learn to both conserve physical energy because this is a really intensive activity and also how they learn to be more efficient.[00:07:00] 

[00:07:00] So I started looking around it turns out you can totally go by yourself. It might be a little bit slower. It also is a little less chaotic because you've got your own system, your own way of doing things. You're on your own schedule. You don't have to negotiate with anybody. 

[00:07:17] You're not going to fight with your partner at the car. There will be no meltdowns, anything like that. Granted, you're the only one doing the work. But, you know, that is one of the benefits that you're also the only one really doing the planning. 

[00:07:32] So then I started thinking, what are other things that are kind of like this, that I've done alone, that people typically do in big groups or do together because it's a lot of work, but I have done them alone? Is there anything like that in my history? And you know, I thought about it and I have processed most of a moose by myself. Moose are huge. Not the quartering, and the bringing it back to the house, [00:08:00] but all, almost all of the cleaning. And that turned out really well. And that was the first time I'd ever done that. And I started thinking, what are other things that I do that most people don't do alone. I've done many huge road trips by myself. I moved to Alaska by myself. 

[00:08:17] And I started thinking, you know, I can probably figure this out. This is probably not as complicated as my brain is making it out to be. And you'll notice a turn in my brain. And it's a phrase that you can start using, but not right in the beginning. In the beginning, I think, it's easier just to go softly into, hmm, what if I'm wrong about this? And what if there is something I don't know. Maybe it is possible. Hey, look, that person, it's possible for that person. Maybe it's possible for me. Oh, look, it's possible for all of these people. There's a totally different method in doing it. If you're doing it this way, different things to think about. But in the beginning you kind of got to sneak up on it [00:09:00] like that. 

[00:09:00] So, my brain did the turn. From what if I'm wrong about this? To you know I can probably figure this out. Into like, oh, yeah, this is probably possible. There's lots of bits and pieces I need to figure out, but... I'm good at logistics. I've run an IT department. I have run the Return Dog Program in Iditarod. I've done big, huge projects that require a lot of teeny, tiny little logistics. I can probably figure out dipnetting. I can think through this. I can probably figure this out. And you know what? This year can be the dry run, where I work things out, sort of a shakeout year. I've been fishing for many years and this isn't the first time I've ever seen a fish or cleaned a fish or, dealt with, clean, stored, smoked, canned. All of the 

[00:09:53] things you can do with fish. So really I'm just adding this one [00:10:00] element. and it kind of makes it adventurous. And it started. It started very softly turning into this. Turning from this thing that I thought wasn't possible for me. Into something that was becoming a possibility, and became something that started to seem fun. 

[00:10:19] So now I'm in the logistical phase where I'm like, yeah, I love this part of the puzzle, getting all the pieces and parts you need to make it happen. Knowing where the maps are and where to go. I got to get my net, do I need to repair my net? Is it cheaper to repair it or buy it? And once you get there the planning stops and the winging it stage starts. And that's really my favorite part because that's what I'm really best at. And now it becomes this fun puzzle, adventure that I'm trying to solve. So it's got my attention. It's interesting to talk about with friends. Friends are super helpful. They're willing to pitch in. They're happy to give coolers and things that I don't have three of yet, [00:11:00] because while I might have one of each of these things, I don't have enough for an entire limit. Like three huge coolers and people are super happy to help.

[00:11:09] So I want you to take this story. And let it marinate in the back of your head. Just put it back in the hopper, let it roll around. And see if it applies to you. See if it applies to where you are in your career or in your career shift are there dreams that you have put away that you think aren't possible because of X, Y, Z. Because you had kids, because you got married, because your parents are getting older and you have to support them. 

[00:11:40] Anything that you had planned that you were dreaming of that got sidelined by life. And I just want to say, your plans and dreams getting sidelined by life is super normal. There's nothing wrong with you. That happens to everybody. 

[00:11:58] I want you to start with the [00:12:00] question. What if you're wrong about fill in the blank? So not having your let's say not having your dream career. And see if you can loosen up that knot that is formed around it. It's just something that we're going to start wiggling loose. And see if you can ease into a thought that maybe it's possible that this might be a problem that can be solved. 

[00:12:29] Maybe you can still have the dreams. Maybe you can still go for that career shift that you really want. Maybe you can still have the job you love. It's just, that you're going to have to figure it out under these new circumstances and that's okay. 

[00:12:46] See, if you can coax your brain. Into figuring out this new puzzle, this new adventure and see if it can be a little more easy in your mind and 

[00:12:57] if it's something that you can't figure [00:13:00] out. 

[00:13:00] I hope that helps.

[00:00:00] Hey there! We are back with Coffee on the Porch with my dog, Olaf. And I wanted to talk about fear today because it is a very prominent player if you are getting into the details and getting into the logistics and the actual doing of a career change, of accomplishing a goal, of accomplishing a career that you've had. The boats are going in the water. And I want to talk about some things that it means and some things that it does not mean. And it's really important to listen through to the end so that you get the full story. Because fear is a useful tool for us. It also stops us from doing things that are perfectly safe. 

[00:00:58] And I'm, it's coming to [00:01:00] mind because I'm currently in the middle of the logistics of leaving today or tomorrow to do something I've wanted to do for a long time but it's definitely on my edge. So, I think it's apt to talk about today, maybe for both of us, maybe for you and for me. 

[00:01:17] So, the good part of fear is that it keeps us safe. One of its jobs is to keep us alive and breathing. As humans, it's really important that our heart keeps beating and our lungs keep breathing so that we can go on to live another day. 

[00:01:35] And a lot of our natural system internally, our physical, biological system is programmed to keep us alive. And it's why fear is such a great motivator. You see it all over the place, you see it in sales, you see it in politics, you see it in parenting. Fear is a motivator because we're naturally hardwired for it.

[00:01:57] They call it the negativity bias.[00:02:00] We're always looking for threats and there is part of our system that is doing that, but it's not the entire system. So, I want you to consider if you really struggle with fear, which everybody does from time to time. There is an area in everybody's life that makes them afraid.

[00:02:18] So don't feel like you're alone. Don't feel like you're, you are definitely unique. You're just not unique in this particular area. So, that part of you that is trying to keep you safe, I want you to see if you can start reframing and renegotiating your relationship with fear into something that is good, something that is trying to keep you safe and alive.

[00:02:44] What fear isn't good at is leading. It's a terrible leader. They say that the, that part of our nervous system is an excellent military. They're excellent security officers. [00:03:00] They're always looking for threats. They're on the ready. If something starts running down to attack you, your system is going to kick in and you won't use a mathematical, logic-and-reasoning negotiation tactic, your fight/flight/freeze system is going to kick in and take over and do its best to keep you alive. 

[00:03:20] And that's why you see people do weird things. Oh, it is really pretty today. And the planes are flying. So, for those of you that are new, I live in a really small little town in Alaska, right at the airport because I love planes. So you're going to hear, you definitely hear air traffic in my recordings. Because if I didn't, I would never be able to record. So I just decided to go with it. 

[00:03:50] So, fear is a great military. It's a terrible leader. Because it leads based on what will keep you [00:04:00] safe and what will keep you perfectly safe and a lot of times there are things that are scary, that are actually safe, but they're unknown. So, the first thing to remember is that fear is here to keep you safe. It's sort of like the military.

[00:04:15] It's doing its job to keep you safe and protected and alive, and the more that you can see it as that and appreciate the fact that it keeps you alive, the less stress it will bring you when it shows up. So the second thing to know about our system and fear is that the brain likes certainty. I'm not saying that everybody loves the exact same routine for 50 years of their life. But to an extent the brain likes enough certainty in its experience to feel safe. Again, we're going right back to that safety aspect.

[00:04:54] So especially if you're upending where you live and how you make money and where your food is going to come [00:05:00] from, where your community is going to come from, those things can be really unsettling to that part of the brain that really wants certainty. Because uncertainty feels unsafe, whether it is or not in reality, it feels unsafe. And usually, in my experience, it's the amount of uncertainty that you're dealing with that induces the fear. 

[00:05:23] A little bit of uncertainty, like will the store have grape juice? that doesn't really set off all of my alarms. Will the store have food ever? That does for sure. That makes me uneasy and I think it makes most people uneasy because it's our food system. 

[00:05:39] So, when you start feeling those feelings of fear, the more that you can look around and actually say out loud things that are the same, things that are certain. I am certain the sun will rise. I am certain there's enough air. I am... [00:06:00] certain that I can figure my way out of this. Things like that. I am certain that humans will never all get along, all the time, ever, in my lifetime. I am certain that the sky in the daytime will be blue. Somewhere above the clouds, it's blue. I am certain that there will be good weather and bad weather for the rest of my life. 

[00:06:21] And it seems silly and a little Pollyanna, but creating a feeling and a sense of what is safe and what isn't changing. And actually, Kathy Kolbe is the one that taught me that because I personally like a lot of change and I need a lot of change. But people I was working with and partnering with tended more towards the stability side of life. And in her theory, people are hardwired with different risk profiles. And it's really interesting. If you'd like to know more about it, you can go look at my website and look for the Kolbe A.[00:07:00] 

[00:07:02] But people have different risk profiles, and I was working with a lot of people who tended to need a lot more certainty and stability. And one of the tricks she taught me was to tell them what wasn't changing. I wish I had known this working in technology, because it. is just nothing but change. All the time, all day, every day. And it would have helped people both adopt technology and my staff deal with the amount of change in technology. So she taught me to start to introduce the change, but then take a lot of time talking about what isn't changing. 

[00:07:40] You know, so we're changing this new piece of software. But what's not changing is your schedule. You're not changing your location. You're not changing your job title. We're going to work in parallel with both software systems for a while. What's not changing is our training. Of course, we're going to train you. Things like that. And even as I say stuff [00:08:00] like that, I can feel my body relax and like, okay, there's enough things that are the same that I have a stable enough platform to adapt and take this change in. 

[00:08:15] So you really need to create that foundation, just like a foundation in the house. That foundation of stability. So when you're feeling fear around your career change, start thinking about what's not going to change in a good way. You know, maybe you're not moving. Maybe you're staying in the same industry. Maybe you're staying with the same partner. Maybe you're not going to change your clothes. Maybe you're not going to change the coffee you drink in the morning. It can be very small and trivial. And I really challenge you, if you're like, I can't find anything, really consider the very small things like you know, the sun will rise the next morning. There's enough air to breathe, things like that.

[00:08:56] So the first thing is fear is your friend trying to keep you [00:09:00] safe. It's a great military, a great protector. Two, uncertainty can provoke our fear. So creating a sense of stability and safety in your mind is one of the second tactics. And the third is to realize that fear happens, especially in a big shift like this, in a big career change when you are on the edge of change.

[00:09:29] And this is the point where people often quit. Because, when you're right at the edge of the change that you want, it gets very uncertain. There's a lot of moving parts. It can feel overwhelming. And this is the point where a lot of people quit.

[00:09:49] And, [airplane noise] you know, and even for myself, again, I like a lot of change, but I can tell you last [00:10:00] night when I was tired and hungry, I was thinking of just not doing this trip. 

[00:10:04] I was like, what's the point anyway? Like, why am I putting myself through all of this stress? This is ridiculous. And all of us have ingrained thought patterns around things.

[00:10:15] And one of mine is just like, why bother? Like why am I putting myself through all this stress? Why do I do this to myself? And if I get some sleep and I eat and I rest enough, usually I wake up the next morning and I'm like because it's fun because it's a cool adventure because it stretches me, it makes me grow, it makes me... more confident. I just want to. 

[00:10:37] So one - Oh!. I love the sounds of it. These are little tiny planes. There's always plane commentary. These are little, little tiny planes. So these aren't big jets. Although sometimes we have some military come up and practice and it's wild how big and different the military, big old airplanes are from our little [00:11:00] teeny-tiny, mosquito airplanes. 

[00:11:03] So when you're right on that edge and you're feeling like you want to quit first, make sure you're not tired, sleepy, hungry any of those things. I think HALT is the hungry... you can look up the acronym and you get my point of making sure you're just not tired or hungry. That your basic biological needs are met.

[00:11:28] In the course that I built, there's a whole week on the decision framework of when not to decide things because it's really, really important to build your own internal filter. So what you're hearing in the background there are a couple of ravens. They're babies just hatched and they are chat-ty, they've been chatty for days. I thought they would be quiet this morning, but no. 

[00:11:52] So back to making sure you're not tired or hungry. So make sure you're in a good place to make the decision of whether to [00:12:00] go on or quit. Realize you're right on that edge, you're right on the cusp, you're right before the peak on the mountain, and so it is when things are hardest, and in general, I encourage people if they've gone this far, to not give up, to see it through, and then make a decision.

[00:12:18] It depends on your circumstance you know, this is generalized advice. This is not specific advice. It's busy today at the airport! We'll see if this recording makes it out into the world, my goodness. 

[00:12:32] But realizing that you're on the edge and it is by nature, it's hard because you are shifting a pattern. You are forging brand new neural pathways in your brain. The neurons are reaching out and finding new connections and it takes a lot of energy, so you need more sleep, you need more food; you need more rest all of those things. But it is hard work mentally and emotionally, and sometimes physically.[00:13:00] 

[00:13:00] Sometimes you'll feel physically exhausted and what I really encourage people to do is when you're feeling that way, take a rest, but don't quit. You might need to take a nap, you might need to take a couple of days off, and then hit it again when you have more energy. 

[00:13:17] Last night I was definitely like, ugh, I'm not doing this. Why do I do this to myself this morning? I'm like, ah! this is going to be fabulous. I'm so excited. And all it took was dinner and a good night's sleep. And the third is to realize that as you face this fear. You are rewiring how your whole body and system and brain navigate you through change. So as best you can talk very kindly to yourself, don't beat yourself up.

[00:13:50] Actually finishing your dream, actually pushing through the fear. And sometimes that means getting more support. Sometimes that means talking to [00:14:00] people. sometimes it means breaking it down into smaller steps or doing it more slowly. Or just jumping in and winging it. It looks a little different for every person.

[00:14:10] But the more that you can... achieve the things that you set out to achieve. You teach your system that that is normal for you. And you start rewriting all those stories of, I'm just a dreamer, or I never get what I want, or other people can have what they want and I can't have what I want, or I don't know how to do it. And all the negative stories that we tell ourselves. 

[00:14:37] The last takeaway is that this feeling of fear right at the edge is not a sign to stop. It is not a sign from the universe for you to stop. This feeling of discomfort is one that you likely need to tolerate and learn to work through. It's not a sign from [00:15:00] god. It's not a sign from any spiritual being. It's not a sign from the universe or anything else for you to stop. It doesn't mean anything except that you are right on the edge of success, and you need to keep going.

[00:15:16] So I hope that's encouraging. I want you to keep at it so that you see the product of your dreams in your real life.

[00:15:27] All right, I hope that helps.

[00:00:00] Hey there. We're back with Coffee on the Porch with my dog (Olaf). And you can hear the birds outside, but I wanted to talk about something that has been on my mind for a while now that was a nice revelation for me, and I hope maybe it will help you as well. 

[00:00:22] And that is, how to frame your mindset when you can't do anything about your career change, or your dreams, or the things you want to do. Maybe it's moving across country, any of those sorts of things. If the circumstances of your life aren't conducive to you making the shift and the change that you want to make right now, what do you do? A lot of times we think, well, I can't do that. So that's just a fact. I can't have what I want. I can't have my dreams. I can't do it[00:01:00] ever. And I want to give you a reframe and I'm going to give it in a story about my gardens.

[00:01:10] So my yard is basically one big garden. Some flowers, some vegetables, a lot of perennials. I'm not a fastidious gardener. I just like to garden. Actually, I like to weed. I like to see things grow. I like to grow things from seed, from scratch. And I'm kind of a, I don't know, random, sort of chaotic gardener. Definitely not a super organized one. 

[00:01:33] And for a lot of reasons outside of my control, and some inside of my control, choices that I had made that didn't really turn out the way I thought they would, which happens to all of us. If that's happening to you, there's nothing wrong with you. Everybody has plans that they think are going to turn out and then they don't or you make some choices that you think are going to say, give you more time and they give you less time.[00:02:00] 

[00:02:00] But for a lot of reasons, I was not able to tend to my yard slash garden for the last, I'd say eight -ish years. Like it had some care. It had minimal "keeping it alive" care. And then in the last couple of years, it just basically went wild. I didn't have the capacity to deal with it. I didn't have the physical strength to deal with it. And I just had to make the decision that, you know, it's nature and it will do what it does. And hopefully, one day, we'll either start over or something.

[00:02:38] And I didn't have a lot of high hopes. I was just like, well maybe this will work, but a lot of my thoughts were around all of this work that I had put into this place that I love to be, this beautiful garden, all wasted. All of that effort for nothing and there was a pretty negative thought loop going on. I was really [00:03:00] not at peace with it at all.

[00:03:02] I also really like to be out in the yard and the garden and I just couldn't make it happen for two years. Which seemed like a really long time for me. And I wasn't sure what would happen, but I didn't really have a choice. 

[00:03:17] And the piece of hope that I want to give you is that this year, as I'm able to start rehabbing the yard, garden, it was actually there.

[00:03:29] It was definitely overgrown with weeds. It needed some love, but less work, less than I thought it would need. And all of my big perennials were still there. The lupin was still there. The rhubarb is still there because you can't kill that stuff. Strawberries were still there. Raspberries are still there. All the flowers, all the delphiniums, everything was still there. It needed some care, um, but it didn't need as much [00:04:00] care and overhaul as I thought it would [so many planes started taking off!]. 

[00:04:03] In fact, it was so much less work and the work was so enjoyable because I hadn't been doing it for so long. I was so happy to be out, weeding out the strawberries and uncovering the peonies and things like that. That it was really easy and enjoyable work to bring it back to life, basically.

[00:04:25] And it made me think about sometimes there are dreams that we can't execute on right away. Maybe you want to change careers, but it's going to be a few years out, or you've just had kids and it's not really practical, or it would make life really hard. I want to encourage you to not abandon those dreams or those desires of changes and shifts that you want to make. You can put them in a pause mode. You can put them in storage [00:05:00] and keep them alive, sort of keep them on life support, either mentally or by doing it a little bit or by taking baby steps.

[00:05:08] But just because you can't have your dream today, you can't do it right now, even if it's going to be 10 years from now. It doesn't mean it cannot happen. And time passes a lot faster than we think it does. And before you know it, the right time for all the cards to fall into place will happen. So I just want to encourage you.

[00:05:34] I know that there's a lot going on in the world right now, and sometimes big shifts aren't possible. So I just want to encourage you. Don't abandon yourself. Don't give up on your dreams. Keep going. Just keep them alive and know that you can put them down and pick them back up and they will be there for you.

[00:05:54] So I hope that helps. I'll talk to you soon.

[00:00:00] Good morning. We're back here having Coffee on the Porch with my dog Olaf, who has just finished his breakfast. And it is beautiful today. So... I've already seen several planes take off. So you might hear some more of that. But what I really want to talk about today, is what I've been thinking about sitting here on the porch in the Alaskan springtime, which means there is still two to four feet of snow on the ground. It's a very long spring this spring, late, late winter, sixth winter. I'm not sure what we're in right now, but it's still beautiful. And really where I intended to live. 

[00:00:42] And I wanted to talk about filtering advice. And I know I've talked about it before, but it's really so important. And I have had a couple of interactions this week that really made me think about how glad I am that I had people help me figure out which advice is [00:01:00] right for me and which isn't. And specifically, I wanted to talk about it in light of a career. 

[00:01:06] If you're talking to people who the standard cultural norm fits them, versus if you're doing something different or if your brain works differently, or if you want something different outside of the cultural norm. And the cultural norm is really often localized to where you are, maybe where you are in the world, maybe your country, maybe even to what neighborhood you live in. For instance, when I was moving from New York City I knew that I needed more grass and trees. I had looked at some other options and Alaska was really where I wanted to live.

[00:01:44] A lot of people thought I was off my rocker. They didn't understand what I wanted. There were lots of theories about why I wanted what I wanted. And in the end, what I knew was I, I had wanted to live in Alaska for a long [00:02:00] time, since, maybe since I was a child. And it made a lot of sense to me and growing up in Montana, Alaska wasn't that far of a leap. It seemed more similar to what I was familiar with than New York City was. But it was so far out of the cultural norm there that a lot of the advice I got was really bad advice. Mostly just don't do it. 

[00:02:21] Because it meant I was changing a career, a full life, a full career, absolutely everything, where I lived. And a lot of people were just like, oh, "but your career". Like you have a stable career, you're making money, you're good at it, people like you, blah-blah-blah. 

[00:02:38] And that was all true. I was good at it. I didn't really like it. It was fine. I didn't like the industry at all. The work itself was okay. I had learned to love where I lived. It was fine. Like I could have survived there, but I was also not really happy there. And the [00:03:00] leap for some people was too big. And for me, it made the most sense. And so I really had to start learning to listen to myself and to people who could help me make that shift.

[00:03:13] People who knew the landscape in Alaska, who knew what I needed to know, who knew what was going to work and what wasn't going to work. And that's really one of the main points I want to make. When you are looking for guidance, mentors, random people to talk to, when you're googling on the internet, when you're in an internet forum, when you're on Reddit, anything like that, make sure that you're taking into account who you're talking to.

[00:03:43] There's an old saying that says consider the source. And it's really apt advice. For example, I got some advice this week that was just like, well, why don't you just make a list, and schedule it out, and on Mondays do this, and on Tuesdays do that, on Wednesdays do [00:04:00] this, and just make a schedule for yourself and just follow that. And then everything will magically happen. 

[00:04:05] And that's not how I work. I tend to work in batches like three or four days. I'll do all of one thing and get a whole bunch of stuff done. I will do my taxes all at once. I will do a deep dive and get them all done. Because I'm focused. That's how my brain works. And I need a lot of variety in my life so that "every day you're going to be doing this scheduled thing," sort of makes my skin crawl. And absolutely makes me panic inside to think that I'm going to have to do the same thing over and over for the rest of my life.

[00:04:37] But that method really worked for this person and it wasn't categorically bad advice. For people who can stomach it and who really thrive on that sort of fixed schedule, it's really good advice. For people who need more variety and who do better with a deep dive uh, kind of [00:05:00] hyper-focus um, style of working, actually not only is it bad advice, it's counterproductive. 

[00:05:06] Trying to do that is the way for me not to get anything done. All of a sudden I will start procrastinating and doing all these things I don't really need to be doing. But when I follow what I know that works for me. I get an amazing amount of stuff done in a very short amount of time. 

[00:05:24] So both, if you are trying to make a career leap that is outside the norm of what people around you think is possible or think is prudent or think you can pull off or they just can't connect the dots. Find people who have connected the dots who are either in that industry, who have done it before, or who are close. And really look at starting to take guidance and advice from them.

[00:05:55] And also, if you, if how you functionally [00:06:00] work is different from the cultural norm... I think here's the [De Havilland] turbine Otter taking off. Yep, it is beautiful today. People are flying up to the mountain. It is... It's a TAT [Talkeetna Air Taxi] plane. Yay! Um, if you're new, and you haven't listened before, I live right on a very small airport, teeny tiny little airport here in Alaska. I live at the base of um, sort of the base camp for Denali. So climbers, sightseers, all sorts of people are always flying up to the mountain, especially on a bluebird day like today. 

[00:06:35] But to come back to the point. Find people who trust you about what you want. And trust how you work, how your mind works, and how you operate best. Look for people who can support you in those things. People who can connect the dots to your goals and people who understand how you function and can [00:07:00] help support you. Sometimes it's just that they can encourage you that way. Maybe they can help you set up systems that work for the way that you work so that you can get to those much bigger goals. And even if it's a really small goal but it's big for you. To me, that's really the same thing. 

[00:07:18] So I hope that's helpful. I just want to encourage you to trust yourself in the things that you want and in the way that you operate. Talk to you later.

[00:00:00] So we're back on the porch, having coffee with my dog, Olaf. And I want to talk to you this morning about advice and filtering advice and why there is no perfect advice. And why really, it can be a matter of timing. I mean, some advice is just terrible and you throw it out. But I think in this age where information and advice and recommendations and suggestions are just a flood - it's an absolute flood.

[00:00:40] I was talking to a friend of how different it is from when I was in college and information was actually really hard to get. You had to know somebody, you had to buy a book or go be in a library or something like that. And that had its own challenges, but too much information, too much advice, is the same [00:01:00] problem. Just the opposite side of the stick. 

[00:01:04] But this morning, I was thinking about advice. I was scrolling through Instagram and saw advice that I have given as well, and I have taken as well, that essentially says, "nobody's going to save you." And I think this particular post said something about, you're not responsible for what happened to you, but if you're an adult you're responsible for seeking help and creating a life that... where you thrive.

[00:01:29] And a lot of me agrees with that, but it made me think of times when that advice would just make me sink farther into hopelessness because I can't do this myself. I'm too tired. I'm too, too far under. It, it just wasn't the right advice for that time. And it doesn't mean it's terrible advice. It just means the timing was off.

[00:01:52] And that's what I really want you to pay attention to. Because there were other times in my life and one I can think of specifically, [00:02:00] where the advice, "no one's going to save you" was incredibly empowering and gave me the lift and the little boost that I needed. Where I was like, "Oh! Well, if nobody's going to come help, then I'm going to do this by myself!" And, sort of sort of marched off. Not like it was easy to do what I had to do, but it just gave me that little boost. And it's the exact same advice at different times. 

[00:02:24] And I want you to pay attention to how you're filtering advice. And if the advice makes you feel worse, it's probably not good advice for you right then.

[00:02:36] It's not a good suggestion. It doesn't mean the person giving it is mean- hearted or short-sighted. They may not have all the information they need. Sometimes we're trying to help and we don't really hit the mark doing that. But really, you being aware of how you filter advice and not just taking all advice at face [00:03:00] value because all advice is not appropriate for everybody.

[00:03:04] You're hearing an [De Havilland] Otter takeoff right there. The mountain must be out. So lots of flights are taking off this morning of sightseers going to see the mountain. It's a Turbine Otter actually.

[00:03:15] But I really want you to start paying attention to what advice and suggestions are appropriate for you when? What do you need right now? Sometimes we're in a position of life where suggestions and guidance is really helpful. And sometimes we don't want anything. We just want support. 

[00:03:37] And starting to be aware of what you need allows you to find words, to ask for that. Or to, switch to a different Instagram feed or something like that. 

[00:03:48] that is more helpful. Instead of just saying that, all of these people are wrong or terrible. Start to pay attention to what you need when and how it's [00:04:00] making you feel. 

[00:04:03] On a level, advice that is appropriate for you right there will land with you. It will resonate with you. And it will help you move forward. And that's one of my big um, "tells" if something is right for you. Is it working? Does it move you forward or does it...

[00:04:25] There's a little, [Cessna] 180- 5 going up to the mountain as well. Looks like K2 is busy this morning. 

[00:04:31] But one of the key indicators I look for, if something is appropriate for a client or myself or a colleague or somebody who's asking for my insight on something is not, "Am I right?" or "Is this suggestion right?" But is it working for me? Is it working for them? Is it moving you forward? Is it making you more confident? Is it giving you [00:05:00] more clarity? Is it giving you more insight or more information and does it help you get closer to your dreams? 

[00:05:09] So I hope that's a helpful perspective to think about as you head into this week. Talk to you later. 

[00:00:00] So today I want to talk to you about how we make decisions. And first I want to say that. There are a lot of different ways that people make good decisions. There is not one right way to make a decision. What's really important is that you find the way that you make the best decisions. And I'm going to give you a story from my own life to illustrate what I'm talking about. 

[00:00:28] So during the pandemic, I decided not to get a pet. I didn't, I was trying to stay focused and be very logical. 'No partners, no pets,' that was sort of my mantra through the whole thing, because I didn't want to make a wrong decision and I wanted to stay focused on my work and things like that. And today is September, 2021. So the pandemic has been going a long time and no pets, no partners, no plants [00:01:00] -I have some plants) is, was a really good way for me to focus for a while. But what I noticed is it also had a feeling of constriction. I was trying to do the right thing. I was trying to be logical. I was trying to have a lot of self restraint and it was good, but there was always this nagging feeling that I really wanted a dog, frankly.

[00:01:28] And I thought, a lot, I researched dogs. I looked up dogs. I've had dogs my whole life. I've owned a dog team here in Alaska. And I just kept thinking it, it's not logical. It's not the right time. I need to be practical. Dogs, a lot of work. There's a lot of dog hair. They are sort of a lot of trouble. I decided I still wanted huskies, sled dogs and they take a lot of focus and energy. They're a very particular breed [00:02:00] and I was just like, ah, I just don't want to deal with it. I'm going to focus on my work. I'm going to be very logical, very practical. 

[00:02:06] But what I didn't realize was missing in that decision was what I wanted. Joy. Sort of the richness of life, which is kind of messy sometimes. Like it's not always perfect. And recently a friend of mine. We had just released the course. It's going smoothly. I've got more free time. And I had thought hmmm, you know, maybe is now the time. I'm like, no, no, I want to travel. Like, I don't want to be tied down and like I'm going to be logical and practical.

[00:02:40] And I want you to pay attention to the tone of my voice. When I talk the way when I was thinking the way that I was. I'm going to be very logical, very practical. It's not smart. Financially, I can save money if I don't have a dog. Dogs are a lot of work. You know, they're, they can be expensive. What if the dog has health [00:03:00] issues? Do I have time to train the dog? So, it just doesn't really make sense. And so I had talked myself out of it time and time and time and time again. 

[00:03:10] And recently a friend of mine called and she has this wonderful operation up in Fairbanks where she gives sled dog tours, and she had a dog that needed to be retired. He's got a chronic injury. So he can still run. He's still, you know, an active sled dog. He's young, he's only eight. And, but he can't run in a professional sense, anymore he can't race. And so he needed to be retired and find an adoptive home. And so she reached out to me and this is a dog that I had run in team a couple of years ago on a tour of hers. And you know, I got her email. She was like, are you interested? You know, he has an injury. He needs to, you know, I need to find a home for him. And I was like, I got the email and my heart sort of leaped. And I [00:04:00] was like, no, no, I need to be logical. I'm just kinda gonna ignore the email all day.

[00:04:05] And then that night I wrote her back because I didn't want her to wait. And I was like, I need to think about it. I asked her a few questions, all these very logical things. And I texted a friend of mine and I was like, what do you think about this? And as soon as I sent a text, asking what somebody thought about it, I burst into tears and I was like, oh, that's a really unexpected reaction. I didn't realize. Like I'm getting teary now. Like I didn't realize how much I wanted it. It's funny, it's an interesting reaction, I think. And I was like, well, that's a really important factor. 

[00:04:50] And I wanna, I, I wanna talk about it as an illustration because our emotions do matter in our decisions. What we want [00:05:00] is so important in our decisions. Because a lot of the reasons I was giving myself. And the questions I was asking was like, is this responsible? I asked one of my friends, I'm like, do you think this is irresponsible if I adopt a dog? She's like, you've owned sled dog teams. You've been a dog handler. Like, you know, how to have sled dogs .That doesn't even make sense as a question.

[00:05:25] And, you know, I was like, well, you know, I can, I do this? Which is a really funny thing because owned lots and lots and lots of dogs in my life. And especially lots of sled dogs, lots of huskies. So I know their temperament. I know exactly what I'm getting into. But that feeling of, of what I really wanted, that I was trying to suppress all of a sudden, I couldn't ignore it anymore.

[00:05:53] And every time I thought about this dog, I was just like, oh my god. And things were logically lined up. [00:06:00] Like he was close by. He's actually from the kennel that I started handling in, I started my dog handling career with this family. It's an amazing line of. Siberian Huskies. It's like just everything about it made sense.

[00:06:17] I was like, there could be no easier process. All of the all of the justifications that I had were sort of falling by the wayside. And I kept thinking like, I'm not ready. Like I got rid of all my dog. I got out of dogs. I got rid of all my dog stuff. I know that's ridiculous. You just buy it again?

[00:06:40] That's not really a valid reason, but I heard myself giving a lot of justifications for why I couldn't have what I wanted. And it reminded me of what I hear a lot from clients. When they start giving me a rapid fire justification of why they can't have what they want. [00:07:00] And I want you to start noticing when you do that in yourself, like you can start hearing yourself, give lots of justifications for why you can't have the things you want, especially careers that you want, because there's also this cultural layer.

[00:07:16] And sometimes there's family messaging that says, you know, work sucks. You can't have. Can't have what? You can't have it all. You can't have your cake and eat it too. All that sort of nonsense. But I just wanted to share this story with you, because even though I know this, even though I teach this, I still fall prey to it sometimes because of how we were taught to not have the things that we want.

[00:07:43] And it keeps us from a bigger life. It keeps us from having a joyful life. And especially when you're restricting yourself from the career that you want or a career that's enjoyable. It has such a big impact on your life, [00:08:00] bigger than, you know, just adopting a dog. I shouldn't say just adopting a dog cause it changes your whole life as well, but What I noticed once I realized I was doing this.

[00:08:11] Cause I, I hadn't even really noticed it sounded logical. It, it added up on paper. Like none of my friends could really argue with me or I'm like, there's all these reasons. I can't have a dog. Like, what are you going to say? Be irrational and just go get a dog. There, like, I think it was hard for. I mean, I did have friends who were like, you know, you should probably get a dog.

[00:08:34] And then I would just rebut them. But once I noticed that what I was really doing, that I was really holding myself back from things I really wanted. And once I realized where the messaging was coming from, it wasn't actually from me, it was somebody that had been in my life a long time ago that thought having dogs just irresponsible and tied you down and all of that sort of, and they do tell you, download.

[00:08:58] But they also bring a lot of joy [00:09:00] and I love them. Oh my gosh. I've loved Husky since I was a child. And what I noticed on the other side of making the decision to adopt him is how much relief I felt. Like just utter relief, like, oh, thank God. Like I could finally breathe deeply again. And I didn't really notice, I didn't really realize how much stress was sort of below the surface that I wasn't Paying attention to and how that was adding into the just general stress of my daily life of this.

[00:09:35] Like this thing that I really wanted, that I was restricting myself from. And we know that restriction always has a rubber band effect. Like you can restrict for awhile, but it will eventually backfire. And today, so that decision was last night today. I am so excited. I can, I can hardly sit still. I can hardly focus enough to work [00:10:00] and get anything done.

[00:10:01] I have texted everybody. I know with his picture, like, like, hi, I'm adopting a dog, which is not really how I've been. I've been a little more measured and like tight and to be logical and practical, and there is a place for it. Do I have enough money to have a dog? Yes. Do I have the facilities to have a dog?

[00:10:23] Yes. Do I have educate? Yes. All of those boxes were checked are, are checked, but when you cross the line over into letting yourself have the thing that you want most. And looking at the logic and looking at, are you prepared for it? Do you have the education that you need? It's a really good parallel into how it feels once you let yourself, or once you decide that it's okay for you to [00:11:00] have a career you really want and go after it.

[00:11:03] You can actually have that feeling of joy and relief even before you get the career, just making the decision that it's okay to have it and starting the process toward it really gives you a lot of that. Relief, but also excitement. And it gives you energy. It's. One of the things that I talk about in the course is a question that I asked, ask the students is, does your job give you energy or drain your energy?

[00:11:31] And when I think about the decision I had made about not getting adult. It was actually draining my energy. Like every time I'm like, it's logical smart thing to do, but there was part of me that died inside where it's drained. My energy was not an energizing thought. And once I made the decision to finally adopt a dog and a dog that I wanted, everybody, like, you know, get a normal pet.

[00:11:55] Ah, don't get a sled dog. They're like be reasonable and logical.[00:12:00] And what I realized is I'm like that's reasonable and logical for them. It's not logical for me. Sled dogs is what I know. It's what I love. It's what I'm most familiar with. They're the easiest for me. I mean, they're kind of a, they're high maintenance for sure.

[00:12:15] But it's also what. What I know best. So for me, getting a Husky is getting a Siberian, makes a lot of sense. And when I thought about it and really let myself one, what would I want? I got a lot of energy and the amount of energy that I've had all day. Is something that I haven't tapped into in a couple of years I made a decision to not have any more dogs, several when my last dog died back in, I guess, 2017.

[00:12:45] So it's been a long time and I thought it was the right thing to do. It sort of made sense. But in hindsight, I don't think that it was like there's, there is an energy you get from the things from letting yourself. [00:13:00] Have the things that you really want in life. And that's the message I want to give to you today.

[00:13:06] Like when you're looking at your career, I just want you to imagine what would it be like if you let yourself. Have the career that you want, that one that nobody thinks is logical, that even you don't think it's practical that maybe your parents don't approve of the, your partner. Doesn't see how it's going to make money.

[00:13:29] That's the one I want you to imagine because there's always a way to make things work, but you have to make the decision to cross that line first in and to allow help and to allow. To let yourself have the career that you want most.

Hey there! This is Shannon Post and we are back on the porch with my dog, Olaf, having a cup of coffee, and the little nut hatches just showed up. So we've got birds with us as well. 

And today I wanted to talk to you about one of the best ways I have found to focus your mind in a long career transition. And often by definition, people working with me are in a career transition that's taking more than, you know, a few weeks, or even a few months. Often it is a, um, it can be a long process depending on, you know, how well you know yourself, how well you know what you want, all of those things take time. And how long it takes for things to show up. And so, it's really easy, I find, to get discouraged when you can't see the whole path out in front of you immediately. 

Um... If you did... one of the, um, very first questions I will get working with somebody, we'll, you know, do an exercise that has something to do... there's lots of them that we work with, something to do with, you know, what do you… if you had everything you wanted, what would you see in the future? Blah, blah, blah. And they'll find this thing where they're like, "Oh! THAT! That is the thing I want. They can feel it sort of wash through their whole body and immediately the question is, "But I don't know how that's going to happen. How? But that's not like... How? How is it going to work out? How am I going to do that?" Their brain goes from the WHAT into the HOW almost immediately. 

And there's lots of theories on why this happens, some more technical, some more um esoteric. You know, is it your brain just trying to keep you safe, and so it's not going to let you do anything out of your comfort bubble because it wants to stay in homeostasis so everything's working and it's fine you stay alive? Or is it you know sort of the universe um you know adding resist... are you resisting the universe? There's all sorts of answers. And I think there's probably validity in most of them. I really take the tack of if it resonates for you and it helps you move forward, great. 

I'm really not as concerned about the details of, you know, which practice, which belief, which pattern of thought is correct. I'm really concerned about what pattern of thought and what belief system works with you to help you get the life that you want. That's what I'm really concerned about. 

But in any case, the brain goes from the "WHAT I want" into the "HOW is that going to happen?" And it's far more, usually anxious, um defensive. You can... there's a very different energy. From "Oh my god, wouldn't it be great if I could do X!" into "Oh my god, how am I going to make that happen? How logistically? And the brain starts spinning. My own brain does this, so I'm really familiar with it. And it really cuts short the ability for us to dream and... and not in an airy fairy dream way, but just in that ability to let go of the logistics for a minute... oh, they're starting to plow the roads, so hopefully that doesn't last too long...into putting the logistics aside, so that we can spend a little more time in the WHAT. So that can start, um, coming into focus. 

The way I see it a lot of times, when we get into the WHAT, we see this, you know, it's like a movie screen that's kind of pixelated and we can see this blurry image. And, you know, maybe we get scared. We jump over into the logistics. And we can't really tell HOW we're gonna do that, because the, the image is still really blurry and still really pixelated. We need to spend enough time over in the WHAT you want to be doing for it to come into focus. 

And one of the ways that um I have found to be very useful for myself and for others, is to have a really gentle focus. To have a really gentle, um sort of high-level focus on what it is that we want. To not get too specific ‘on purpose’. And one of the practices that I use and lots of my clients find helpful is a very common practice. You'll... I didn't make it up. I don't actually know where it came from. Whose idea it was. If anybody knows, absolutely let me know and I will credit them. I always want to credit the people whose idea it was first. But it's called "word-of-the-year" and it's... I like it because it's not, you know, as um, tight as you know a resolution for the beginning of the year. "I'm going to do this" that sort of willpower which absolutely works. If you have enough willpower, if you have enough energy to have willpower, and [helicopter noise].

I talk a lot about the ins and outs, the good and the bad, about when to use willpower and when not to use willpower in my course. So if you want, if you're really interested in that, that's where you go for that. But the... wow it just got really busy [loud helicopter noise] that's really funny. We've got helicopters and planes and all sorts of things. I may have to put this on pause. Yeah, it's gonna be loud. 

Okay we're back with Coffee on the Porch without helicopters. We have a plane taking off, but I don't think that's going to be too bad. So "word-of-the-year" is a different approach from the willpower, "I will do this thing" that a lot of um people do for the new year. And this is just a different approach that's a little lighter focus. it's a little more gen... it's a lot more general and you're just picking a word-of-the-year. Or a word-of-the-year occurs to you, or however you come to the things that are really true for you. 

For me, they just kind of show up. I start thinking about, you know, word-of-the-year. I often start thinking about it in kind of September-ish. Like, "yeah let's have a new word-of-the-year." And I really think about what's the next phase? What is the next thing that I want to grow in my life? What is the next focus that I want to work on or I have the capacity to work on now? Um, and I just let that BE. I don't try to figure it out. I don't journal. I don't go on a walk. I don't do anything about it other than, hmm, yep, it's about time for that and I put that aside. 

And this is kind of the process of, um... that can help bring focus in, when your brain really goes into the, "Oh my god! How are we going to do that?!?" So it's just a very light, hmm, yep, that used to happen. The word will occur to me. I don't really have a lot of thoughts on how, who, or why that comes to me. It just does. It's sort of the next right thing for me. And I'm like, "Hmm, yeah, that's the word. That's interesting."

Um, like let's say the word... there have been years where my word was stability. There were actually a few years where the word was stability. And I would think, "stability." And I'll sort of marinate on that for the last quarter of the year and be like, "Is that the right word? Is that what I want to be doing?" Sometimes it shifts, sometimes it doesn't, and I'm not thinking hard about it. I am not journaling. I am not um, working it out like a math problem. I'm not harsh about it. It's just like, "Hmm, fascinating. Could be... maybe the word is stability. I don't know." And I'll go about my life. And, at some point, in the fall, you know, when it feels right, I decide. Like, "Yep, let's, let's try that out." 

And I always have the perspective that, if I hate it, I can pick something else. Um, but it's a very light focus. And, so for the next year, I just stick it in my calendar. It shows up once a month around the beginning of the month sometime. And it says "word-of-the-year," you know, whatever the word is, and, "Am I still on track? Does it still resonate? Is this still true? Am I still... is it still working for me?" And what I find with this method is, that without a lot of effort, without a lot of willpower, um a lot of those things start coming into my life. I think because I'm not working so hard at it. 

It just lets my brain... and there's a lot of neuroscience that says why that happens. It's not a magical it's not a magical occurrence. We're just re-patterning, you know that's the neural pathway that we're using a lot, so that's what gets used. But um... it's an easy way to start gently herding your brain and your mind into the things that you want. And keeping it out of the, "HOW's this going to work?" Which is really, in my mind, a translation could be: "This isn't going to work. There's no way for this to work. People like me don't get to have this. I don't have enough time. I'm too old for this. You know, there... there's not enough resources for me to do this. I don't have enough money for this." Blah, blah, blah. The… the list of reasons why we can't have what we want is ENDLESS! 

Um, and so, this is just one tool to quiet that part of our brain that is anxious and wants to keep us safe. Its heart's in a good place. Um, but it's not a really a... it's an effective tool to keep us alive, but it's not an effective tool [chickadee chirping "chick-a-dee-dee-dee"] to have us really experience the fullness of life that we want. "Hi, little one," little chickadee. Um, and so, I encourage you to try it. It's just "word-of-the- year." See if there's a very general word, that's not very specific. It's not, "get a new career." It's not, "land this job." It's not, "slay this..." It's NOT anything like "slay this year" or "be the boss" or... It's much more gentle than that. It's much more kind and compassionate than that. 

Examples of my… things that I've had, and things that friends have had, been like more peace, more stability, um my one right now is "wholeness not perfection." Which is a really... it's been in a really interesting evolution in the last year of how my life has... I've always struggled with perfectionism. Maybe I always will. But how I can loosen that up and make my life more whole instead of perfect? And it's been a really fascinating evolution of how that little bit of encouragement, um kind, of once a month. It's very light. compassionate, loving, little encouragement to focus more on wholeness and less on perfection, has really remarkably changed my life and how I think about life. How I experience life. What I'm doing day-to-day. So it's gentle words like that. 

Like right now, I'm thinking... I think my word-of-the-year for next year is probably going to be "enough." I think that's the next place I'm gonna grow into or maybe I want to grow into. But I'm not really sure. I'm in that, like, "hmm, we'll see about that" phase that the word might be 'enough.' Um, so I just encourage you to start, to maybe consider, practicing having a gentle high-level focus for where you want to go next. [Super Cub airplane noise]. 

To start combating that voice that says, "You can't have the career that you want. You can't have the life that you want. You can't have the things that you want." 

And just gently start herding your mind into a place that allows you to have those things. Alright. I hope that helps.

[Super Cub airplane noise fading away] [Chickadee chirping].

[00:00:00] Hey, there we are, back with coffee on the porch with my dog, Olaf. Um, and today I wanted to talk about, um, coming back. And the reason I wanna talk about this is, um, both inspired from my personal experience, but also kind of in the global look of things of how a lot of things got put on. In the last few years for a lot of people.

[00:00:33] Um, and I just, um, it's really been on my mind, um, for myself and my own journey into self-compassion and also, and I wanted to share it with you as well. And so the concept. Of we, especially in the Western American culture, we have a lot of rhetoric around, uh, falling off the wagon, getting off [00:01:00] course, um, and this failure mentality, this failure model of you're not trying hard enough, you're not doing hard enough, you need to do it alone.

[00:01:10] You need to do better. It's this. Um, both unending striving but also unending. Um, s I wanna use the word self abuse, and I'm not sure if that's too, um, harsh of a word there, but that's what I'm gonna use. Where we really beat ourselves up on a daily basis. The self-criticism is maybe more, um, appropriate.

[00:01:38] Word of us not doing enough. And, um, I wanna offer to you a different model or a different mindset of it being okay for you to put things down, um, for projects to [00:02:00] be put down for things you meant to get to for self-improvement, things you meant to get to for. Yeah, cleaning out your house projects you meant to get to anything that you started and didn't finish.

[00:02:14] And on a lot of my clients, I hear a lot of, um, self-criticism around. I start things, but I don't finish them. I have a lot of interests. I start a lot of things, but I don't have any follow through. And it's not said in a neutral. It's usually said in a, This is a faulty part of my. , um, personality or, um, I've been told that, you know, this is a faulty part of me.

[00:02:46] Um, and we can internalize that. We can internalize voices. We heard as in our younger years of if you start things and don't finish them right away, that you're fo [00:03:00] flaky, that you, I won't succeed in the world. That, um, you know, you don't have any stick to. Like you are, you're not a good person and you're not going to be a good person, and you're not gonna have any success in life.

[00:03:15] And I just wanna do a big record scratch on that whole mental model because the truth of the matter is that that is a social construct. That is something that has been made up, especially in the west, especially in America, where the. Whole drive is to produce more, to do more, to improve the economy, um, to strive for this idea of perfection and purity that does not exist and is really damaging when we do try to, um, measure up to that and.

[00:03:57] I just want you to start noticing [00:04:00] when that those thoughts, those ideas start popping up in your life. Um, if they do, if you have that mentality of like, Oh, I've started all these things that I meant to get to and I have negative feelings about it and I wanna offer to you a different way of viewing it, and it is that life, it is normal.

[00:04:24] It is very common. It is usual. It is the way of life to start things, to get interrupted and to come back around to it. You can even start, things get interrupted and leave it where it is. And one of the models I really like to use for myself and with my clients is if we u look at nature, And we ask ourselves, does this concept exist in nature?

[00:04:51] It's for myself. It's kind of how I prove. Is it real? Like is this a social construct that we made up or is this actually a real thing that [00:05:00] we see outside of, um, you know, school or how, what we were taught or our society or things like that. And when I look outside, um, So I live in Alaska, so there's a lot of wilderness around me.

[00:05:14] Even though I live in a little, little subdivision, there's still quite a bit of nature and quite a bit of wilderness right around the corner. Um, when I look out into nature, even into my yard, into my garden, nature will start things. There will be an interruption, like a season or a storm, and it will come back around.

[00:05:38] Sometimes if there's a big storm, it changes the landscape and that wipes things. D you know, out and it starts things over. But, um, when I just look at my yard, Like things get started. You know, a birch seed falls from a tree in the fall. Um, it lays there, it does its thing that it's supposed to be [00:06:00] doing to become a birch tree.

[00:06:03] And then winter comes and it is cold and frozen and absolutely nothing is going on. No growth is happening. There might be, you know, things that we can't see under the surface, but, and it might be part of the process. And I want you to think about that, that the rest period of winter might be part of the process of this tree coming into being and.

[00:06:30] But in the spring when things start thawing out, when the weather starts warming up, nature picks back up on that birch seed project and it starts doing it. Things in that little, you know, birch tree starts growing again and it maybe it puts a roots down, maybe it grows up a little bit, and then there is another pause and.

[00:06:55] Birch tree project that nature has going on gets interrupted for [00:07:00] quite a long in Alaska, it's for quite a long time. It is for six, at least six months that absolutely nothing is going on. And she just comes back around in spring, picks up back where she left off and keeps on going. And so to me that tells me that this model of continuous growth and finishing things to the end, Probably a social construct, um, may not be very useful for a lot of us.

[00:07:28] But what is true is that we start things. Life interrupts us. And we, and we have the opportunity if we want to, to come back around and pick it up. And I think that model of just normalizing like, yeah, I started this course. I hear it a lot in people who start courses who are in my course where I cannot tell you the number of emails that I get where I'm like, Ugh, I started the course, but like in week three.

[00:07:58] You know, uh, something happened and I [00:08:00] never picked it back up, and I always need to remind them that is why I have a lifetime access to it, because I realize life doesn't happen like in a nice, tidy, emailed, you know, 12 week schedule and that they can just start back. They can, you can start over. You can start back at week one.

[00:08:16] You can start at week three and do whatever you want with it, you know, once. Once the, um, content is out there, like the, you know, it is yours and you can pick back up whenever and wherever you want. And I think lots of life is like that. Um, I have a podcast project that I've been working on that I swear I have started and stopped.

[00:08:41] Maybe for four years, maybe five years. I dunno how long I've been working on it. It seems like forever, and it's really easy for me to get in the mindset of like, Ugh, I suck as a person. I don't have any follow through. Maybe I really don't wanna do this. Maybe I'm not committed to. There is this. Barrage of negative thoughts [00:09:00] around why I haven't, you know, finished it, why it is not produced.

[00:09:04] And the truth of the matter is a lot of life has happened. Um, major life transitions, a global pandemic, lots of other personal issues, like there have been a lot of very legitimate things going on that took my attention away. When I can unhook from beating myself up for what I believe is a personal failure on some part of my brain, thinks that, that that's a personal failure.

[00:09:32] Especially when I listen to a lot of the Uber guru. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. If you wanted to. You would do it kind of, um, you know, make your bed in the morning sort of motivational. Um, striving part of the personal development world, which is if that works for you, great. Then we're not talking to you probably.

[00:09:56] Um, but it can come with a lot of [00:10:00] self-criticism and trying to motivate from a negative place instead of just noticing like, Oh, things have calmed down a little bit. I think things are back in order. I'm feeling better. I could start on that podcast again. I could start this project again. I could go back to that course.

[00:10:21] I could, you know, maybe you're thinking about going back to school. Maybe you're thinking about a career change. Maybe you're thinking about, um, cleaning out a drawer and you meant to get to that three years ago. And then we had a, you know, major global event. And today might be the day where you're like, you know, I, I might be able to get back to that and to.

[00:10:45] The more that we can have compassion and um, really lean into the reality that nobody is starting and finishing projects in this linear, nonstop, perfectionistic way [00:11:00] and. Really sink into the reality that life starts and stops. And that's just how it happens. It is totally fine. Um, it begins things that you get interrupted and you just start again.

[00:11:13] So I wanna offer you that model of a way to just relax and know that you're fine, however long it has been, 20 years, 30 years, five minutes. You know, three years. It doesn't really matter how long it's been. It doesn't mean anything. There's no meaning behind why about you and your character as a person about why you put that down as best you can.

[00:11:42] And when you can quiet those thoughts and. Start again. You might be like, Do I wanna do this anymore? Hmm. Maybe not. It's like, Oh yeah, no, I still want that. That's a good confirmation that I wanted it in the beginning and I still want it now even with [00:12:00] interruptions, and that's okay. So I just want to get let you give that framework to you so you can let yourself off the hook and get back to the things that you want to do, and that will make your life better and that will help you thrive.

[00:12:16] I hope that.

[00:00:00] Good morning. We're having coffee on the porch with my dog, Olaf and it is another gorgeous day. The birds are. Really chatty today. So hopefully you will hear a lot of that. Some, I can already hear some nut hatches and some woodpeckers and some, uh, black capped chickadees, I think, um, earlier this morning there were some Ravens, um, and last night there was an owl.

[00:00:25] So it's been like very bird heavy, um, lately we'll see if there's natural birds and some man-made birds as well. But what I wanted to talk to you today about is. Starting. A lot of times career shifts and, um, even making the tiniest move can feel really overwhelming. Um, lots of big projects are like this and career shifts are basically just a huge project.

[00:00:57] Um, and. [00:01:00] They can feel like you need to get it right. Especially if you listen to a lot of what's said in the culture, what's said on social media, all of that, that you have to pick these right jobs and get the right internships and your resume has to be perfect. And if you say this one wrong thing your whole life is over.

[00:01:20] And sometimes there's grains of truth to those things that are said, but what it can really cause is paralysis. It can cause you to stay in the job that you're in, in a role that's not right for you, and we can talk about it later, the massive impacts that being in a job that you don't like. Um, even if you just mildly don't like it, but especially if you really go to work dreading going to work every day and what impact that has on your life. But this overwhelm and paralysis of needing to get it perfect can cause you to stay stuck where [00:02:00] you are, um, which has really, um, bad implications later.

[00:02:05] And so. I really want to encourage you that there is just no perfect time to start. And this is not brand new advice. I am not the first person to stay to say this often you hear it with having children. Um, let it, you know, if you waited for all the stars to align and you know, all your ducks to be in a row, and if you had enough money and all of the things that um, we would never, nobody would ever have any kids that you just kind of have to do it and, um, start taking steps. 

[00:02:37] And the same is true in your career. There is no perfect time. There is no perfect career. There is no perfect setup. You will, you will never have, um, all of your ducks in a row. That is not to say, I think you should leap and the net will appear, um, there is uh, a grain of truth to that. There's a grain of truth to a lot of advice, [00:03:00] but it's not always appropriate for you where you are right now. 

[00:03:05] What I would encourage you to do if you're in that stuck and if you're in that stuck state, trying to get everything perfect. And I am absolutely this person. So I'm talking to both of us, um, is to just start taking very small steps forward. Any little stuff that you can take that will move you forward, um, and get you out of that state of, um, trying to get it perfect all the time, because really there is no the, the best time to start shifting your career is right now.

[00:03:44] Um. And the consequence of you waiting and you waiting for it to be perfect, is not just that you can miss opportunities, but more that you will end up being so frustrated and [00:04:00] the cumulative effect of you going to work and going to a job and working with people that you don't like, doing work, that you don't like doing work, that isn't in your natural wheelhouse in your strengths, will great on you. And we'll add up over and over and over until one day, somebody will say something, your boss will call you in and give you some feedback. And that will be it. You go back to your office. You pack everything up. You walk out slam the door and ruin everything that you've built. Um, and I know because I've, I've been there. I've felt these things there. I think we all have, I don't, I think this is a pretty universal experience of waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, and waiting too long until something happens. And it's the straw that broke the camel's back. I think we have that saying because it's a [00:05:00] pretty universal truth for all of us.

[00:05:01] And since that's likely the case, starting to plan now, even if you're mildly unhappy and you just need to make some tweaks in your career um, but now is really the time to start making those shifts. Um, if you need support, I would love to help you. I have resources and links from wherever you're listening to this. Um, if you go and find the links, you'll get to my webpage and see the resources I have that can help you. But I really want to encourage you that there is no perfect time. Spring, better summer is not a bad time to change jobs. The winter is a fun time to start looking for a better career. Any time of year is a good time to open a business. There is no perfect time. There are pros and cons and advantages and disadvantages to absolutely every moment in time [00:06:00] when you want to make a shift. Um, but I really just want you to encourage you to make start making that shift now, even if it's just the decision that you're going to start moving in that direction.

[00:06:12] All right. I hope that helps.

[00:00:00] So, we're back having coffee on the porch with my dog, Olaf who is chasing bugs. That's what you hear. And you'll also hear a lot of air traffic today. Because it's beautiful. There's not a cloud in the sky, sun's up. Um, and it made me, it reminded me of something I wanted to talk about, um, of how, you know, uh, or what to do with some emotions that you might feel watching people do things they love.

[00:00:31] So, I live at a very small airport here in Alaska and, um, in my recordings there are often air traffic, um, noise. Um, sometimes helicopters sometimes Otters, one eighties, Super Cubs, things like that. Um, and I usually try to put it in the transcript of what it is if I remember, um, uh, if you're really interested in that, um, if you love aircraft, um, and here's one taking off right now.

[00:00:58] So because [00:01:00] it's gorgeous today, everybody is hopping in their planes and going somewhere exploring in this beautiful, still very snowy landscape of Alaska. And, um, one of the cool things about being here is watching people do things that they just love, there is something really joyful and amazing. Um, and these are very small planes. These are not often very expensive planes. We're not talking Learjets by billionaires. Um, planes in Alaska are a very different situation. Um, and a lot of these are owned by air taxis. So it's people getting to go out flying. There's a very loud one. Um, and it's like one-eighty- five. So much noise today.

[00:01:52] Um, but watching people do things they love can be really inspiring of [00:02:00] the, "Oh, I would love to do that. I know the feeling, the joy, the freedom of getting to do things you love. It can also be really confronting if you're trying really hard to either find something you love, because you don't know what it is yet or you're on your way of working towards something you love and you're not there yet. It can be really frustrating. It can feel, make you feel really jealous, really envious. Um mad at the world. It's unfair because a lot of times it IS unfair. You're not wrong there, but sitting in and feeling those feelings is really important. It's just really important to acknowledge where you are. It's the facts of the situation. It is what it is. 

[00:02:49] Also at some point when you're ready, another way to handle, um, watching other people do the things they love when you are not quite [00:03:00] there yet is taking those emotions as a sign of the things that you want to be doing.

[00:03:08] So maybe in this particular case, maybe you don't want to fly small airplanes in Alaska, but maybe, maybe you're looking for that sense of freedom for that sense of getting to your goal. And the fact that they're there and you're not is confronting and confronting is the word I'm going to use because it doesn't make you a bad person. It doesn't mean you're all of the things that we hear. Um, it's, it can be hard because sometimes it shows a spotlight to you on where you aren't. 

[00:03:44] Um, and sometimes having that rubbed in your face, um, can be, ah, that one's got tricycle gear that's fascinating. Um, but, um, it can be really [00:04:00] hard to have a spotlight shown to you about where you aren't, uh, when you're trying really, really hard to get there. If you are a person who beats yourself up for feeling bad about other's success, I want you to consider this frame that was taught to me. I didn't come up with this. Um, I don't know where I learned it. In the last 10 years, and I'm not sure whose original idea it was, um, if you do, uh, let me know. I'll go credit them, but instead of beating yourself up for "I'm a bad person, I should, why am I not happy for their success?"

[00:04:37] Um, just take it as a signal that you are trying really, really hard to find and create your own success. You are working really hard to, um, create the career you want, to find a work that you love, to find, um, [00:05:00] a life that you love and not that you're a bad person. It's just that you're working really, really hard.

[00:05:08] So I just want you to consider that, um, sometimes jealousy and envy is framed in a really bad light. Um, and sometimes it can actually tell us exactly what. Um, it's worth looking at, and if you're really like, if I'm sitting here and I'm looking at somebody taking off on the runway and I'm really, really mad about it, it's worth me asking, why. Why am I really mad about that?

[00:05:33] Is it because that's what I want to be doing? Or is there something about that that I want to be doing? Um, that's the investa... that's the curiosity. That's the investigation to take instead of self-flagellation or making yourself wrong. Um, be really, instead of judging, be really curious about why you're feeling the way you're feeling.

[00:05:55] It will probably give you more information to help [00:06:00] you on your journey, to help you on your way to that career, that you and life that you are absolutely going to create, um, a life that you absolutely love. All right. Hope that helps. I'll talk to you later.

[00:00:00] So we're out having coffee on the porch this morning with my dog, Olaf. And um, it's been a rough morning, frankly. It was a rough night. It was a rough yesterday. And I want to tell you why. And one of the most frustrating parts of it is because it relates to your career. So, um, just take a minute and listen to this story. It's not just a medical pity party. It actually has a point in the end. 

[00:00:35] So, um, I've been going through, uh, sort of catching up on a lot of medical procedures and tests and establishing care with doctors, which is exhausting when you do it all at once. So, um, but Friday I went to the dermatologist, a new dermatologist, um, because my face was, it's getting redder as I get older. And I wasn't really sure [00:01:00] is this just like part of aging, which is sort of what, um, led me to go, to get caught back up on, um, medical things, because a lot of what I was experiencing over the past, maybe five to eight years, I thought it was just because I was getting older. 

[00:01:20] So right now I'm 49. I was born in 73. So, you know, I'm not old, you know, I'm not, I don't think I don't feel old. Um, I'm not particularly old, but you know, I'm also not 18 and I can recognize that and I just kinda thought "this is how it is". And I want you to really pinpoint that moment. Like, I just kind of thought this is how it is. There's nothing you can do about it. So I just suffered basically over the years. 

[00:01:52] Um, I try kind of things on my own, DIY, you know, at home remedies. Those didn't work. So I was like, mm, this is just getting [00:02:00] old. I need to just learn to suck it up and deal with it. Um, People have it worse off than me. Um, I should be happy for what I have. All of that narrative, which on one level is true and on one level is, um, premature.

[00:02:18] Um, it's too early to think that, so I go to the dermatologist, um, I pulled on my mask and she's like, "Oh! You have uh rosacea, like no two ways about it". Um, and I was like, oh yeah, that kind of makes sense. I, I feel like I remember hearing about this in my family maybe. 

[00:02:37] And, um, you know, she prescribed some medication. I picked up my medications up from the, the creams up from the pharmacy. And, you know, she's like, you need a facial, wash and a sunscreen with moisturizer or moisturizer with sunscreen. I don't really use much of a facial wash, but I was like, okay, I can do that. 

[00:02:59] [00:03:00] And I was like, oh, but by the way, I'm, ah, sunscreen makes my face feel like it's burning off, like before I even step out the door and, um to her credit? She was like, I think it's the rosacea and not the sunscreen. Um, so, you know, use this cream, get a moisturizer with a sunscreen. Off you go. She was way more generous in that. I'm telling this in brevity. She was actually amazing. I highly recommend her. If you're in Alaska, you need a dermatologist hit me up.

[00:03:29] Um, so she's fabulous. I'm super hopeful. We have a new plan of action. I'm excited because without a sunscreen. It's hard to go out into the sun, uh, which is such a short period in Alaska. You definitely want to be able to enjoy it. Um, and I don't want to damage my skin, blah, blah, blah. 

[00:03:50] So I come home and, you know, uses the cream I'm supposed to use at night. All as well. Things are actually better maybe. I am really excited. Wake up the [00:04:00] next morning. Wash my face with the new cleanser. Fantastic. Love it. Don't hate it. Doesn't smell terrible. I can live with that. I put on the moisture, I put on the second cream that I'm supposed to put on. That seemed fine. Doesn't stink. I can handle that. I put on the moisturizer and I was like, ah, this, it stinks. And it smells like sunscreen. 

[00:04:23] And I had this moment and this is really why I'm telling you the story. I had this moment. Where I thought I should just see how the rest of this reacts first. Like I know through experience, I've bought thousands of dollars worth of sunscreen that did not work. Like if you'll want one, call me, I'll send you one. Everything from the cheapest to the fanciest versions. Um, like it's such a wasted time and money. And for living in Alaska, where 90% of the time it's dark. 

[00:04:59] [00:05:00] But so I, I was like, nope, nope, like she's the expert. She knows best. Um, I put it on my face and I could immediately, like, my eyes were burning. I was like, ah, like it, it should be fine. It should be fine. I just need to, I just need to, you know, settle down and kind of buck it up, buck up and deal with it. And I, you know, chat on the phone with a friend and it was getting worse and I was like, well, I just need to like, maybe it'll go away. Maybe this will go away. Um, you know, I should really trust, um, you know, everybody uses sunscreen. I need to figure this out. 

[00:05:39] And two hours later, um, I was just like, I have to get this stuff off. My face. My face is on fire. I can't think. I can't function. All I can think about is my face is burning off. It's like the worst, it's worse than any sunburn I can think about. And I get it off my face that works for a little bit. [00:06:00] I spend the rest of the day trying to get this stuff off my face. It's clearly a chemical burn. Um, it's super painful and my face is super red and I'm really frustrated because it takes up my whole day. I had other things planned, um, to do with my day, other than sit around and, um, focus on the fact that my face was burning off and using cold compresses and every other remedy you can think of.

[00:06:26] And, you know, I went to bed, it was very hard to sleep. I did not sleep well. I think my body was all amped up. Um, it you know, triggered every other allergic response that I have. Um, because my body's trying to fight this allergy. It's clearly working hard, you know, don't sleep till 4:00 AM and I got up this morning. I just feel defeated. Um, I was so like nearly to tears where I was just like, this is such a waste of time. Like I know, caring for myself is really important. I know, you know, [00:07:00] it takes time. It's some trial and error and, and when I really sat down and thought about it, I was like, why am I really so frustrated about this?

[00:07:10] And it came down to it. I wasn't mad that a suggestion didn't work. I was mad that I discounted my own experience of myself. I know for a fact, that nine times out of nine, 10 times out of 10, all the time, um, there are only a couple of very, there's very few sunscreens that I can use. Um, they're usually a zinc compound. Like the kind of don't make, that are not really aesthetically pleasing. Um, like, I know that for a fact I've lived with the skin, my whole life. I've always had sensitive skin. Like I know me best. And I discounted that sinking feeling of like, hm, I should pause. I should wait. I should [00:08:00] you know, see how the rest of this works. And maybe get a moisturizer and see how that works and then use a sunscreen that I know to see how all of that works. And then maybe try one of these other sunscreens to see if, you know, or maybe wait till the rosacea, um, calms down and then see if one of these, um, works. 

[00:08:24] But I discounted my own experience and I think we do this a lot. I see it a lot in, um, myself. I see it a lot in my clients. I see it in my friends and just acquaintances. Where a lot of times we will discount our own experience. And that's not to say that experts aren't useful. Um, and they are really, um, a good part of the mix because frankly, with this dermatologist, 90% of what she said and prescribed was spot on, fantastic. There's just this little tweak, um, [00:09:00] that maybe we needed more data on. Um, I mean she knew, she's known me for 20 minutes. I've known me for 49 years. 

[00:09:09] Um, and so I just wanted to share, um, I know it's not a career related story, but sometimes those stories from other parts of our lives, um, click-in and show us what we're doing in our career as well. 

[00:09:25] You know, are you, is there a place where you're discounting? A) do you think this is just the way it is? "This is the way that careers are and you just have to suck it up". That's not true. There's always a little tweak. There's always a, even if you're not totally leaving your job.

[00:09:42] There can be changes in job descriptions. There can be changes in title, in pay, in mindset, in perspective, in where you sit. There's a lot of little tweaks that can be made, um, up and to including moving jobs, um, that can improve your [00:10:00] situation. It does take time. It is not an overnight thing. Um, but secondly, where you discounting your own lived experience and your own knowledge? For example, do you know that working in a job nine to five, Monday through Friday in an office makes you feel like you're, you know, that you're like wasting your talents? Or there, it just, you hate it. Or that office culture in general is just not for you. It's not, like inherently wrong. It's just not for you. Do you know that you need to be working outside? Do you know that you need a lot of variety? Do you know that you do really well in emergencies? Do you know that when things get, um, kind of too tidy and all cleaned up that you get bored and start looking for something else to do. You know yourself really well. And I invite you to trust that. Trust those little niggling feelings, um. And if like me, you override it, um, [00:11:00] and sort of things fall apart for a little bit. Just take it as a lesson of like, oh yeah. Like this is a reminder to trust myself. Um, because you really do know yourself best. Um, experts, um, therapists, coaches like myself, like we can help, um, guide you. We can help be a sounding board. We can give our expertise, but at the end of the day, um, you really, the, the learning curve is learning to trust yourself.

[00:11:28] So I hope that helps you and I'll talk to you later.