For the first 20 years of my life, I could not imagine having anything like a career. I didn’t have enough clarity, confidence or self awareness to know where to begin and thought that the despair I felt around work and the nostalgia for childhood (it wasn’t super but I didn’t have to figure out the least miserable way to make ends meet) would just be part of adulting. I couldn’t fully accept the next 50 years being barely worth living while having to work so hard emotionally to get through; true to my nature, I rebelled against that story… which, temporarily made things worse.

Vocational flailing is absurdly painful. This is what I was avoiding by attempting to accept 8-to-5 misery. I would think I’d found The Thing—my passion, as the buzzword goes—and promptly lose all interest as soon as I learned how much effort it would take to become proficient in The Thing. Nothing seemed to work: I had no idea how to find my passion; the things people asked for me weren’t things I liked giving; I didn’t enjoy what people told me I was good at. But, most importantly, I had disavowed the dreams of being a writer I’d had since that childhood I longed so much for: I didn’t think what I wanted was possible, that I could be good enough to do it as well as I wanted (which was, of course, perfectly) or that I was allowed to want to be a writer while the world burns. After all, poetry is not Penicillin.

So, when I was referred to Shannon by a dear friend who had totally transformed in her approach to her own “why should I be allowed to do this?” dream, I signed up for a free call. It became clear on that call pretty quickly that I had found the weirdest career coach ever, and in that moment, I learned what true hope felt like. Much as I want it to, traditional, beaten-path stuff just does not work for me; weird has always been how I roll. And this time was no exception.

I mean, except the transformation in me: that was exceptional. I actually was one of those people who knew what she wanted to do since she was four years old. I simply had taken it as a given that I was not allowed to do it. By the end of my work with Shannon, I had stopped looking for permission from the world to be a writer and started giving huge, heaping helpings of it to myself every day. I stopped apologizing for who and how I am and what I want out of my work life—which is satisfaction, fulfillment and the ability to make a huge impact for good in the world. I got clear about my “ideal slash” (Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection, pg. 116). And I finally got—like in my body—what it feels like to be truly listened to, validated and seen for who I am and what I want while at the same time being challenged to grow out of the comfort nest I’d ensnared myself in. The ability to do both of those things, which requires creating and holding a truly safe (which is not synonymous with “swaddled” or “coddled”) space is but one of Shannon’s superpowers. 

I am now a writer slash social worker slash business creator slash investor because of my work with Shannon. And I know how to add or swap what comes after each slash—a huge feat for someone who does not enjoy flexibility or change once A Plan is in place—when the times come to do so. Not even therapy or the other career coach I worked with got me there.