Ep 31 | Embracing a Multipassionate Path with Elizabeth Burke

What does it look like to stop squeezing yourself into one identity and finally let all of your passions work together? In this episode of In Her Words, I sit down with Elizabeth Burke, founder of Collective Expansion, who has worn more hats than most. Her colorful history includes work as a corporate event planner, a high school art teacher, a UX researcher, and currently, as a consultant and coach to purpose-driven entrepreneurs.

Elizabeth shares with us what being multi-passionate really means, how her father's passing led her to teaching, what it felt like to outgrow a system she once loved, and why she believes career transitions are going to happen whether you're ready or not.

Topics Discussed in the Episode

• Embracing being multi-passionate instead of dimming it down
• Leaving teaching after nearly a decade 
• The emotional labor no one warns you about in UX research
• Building Collective Expansion to help purpose-driven practitioners scale their impact
• Why entrepreneurship keeps asking you to look at yourself more deeply
• How to move through career transition with compassion instead of fear

About Elizabeth Burke

Elizabeth weaves together her background in strategic event planning, education, and UX Research to design impactful experiences that activate learning, understanding, and transformation. She supports purpose driven practitioners in expanding the reach of their message and methods to create a positive impact in the world. Taking work from one to one, to one to many is a big step. Elizabeth is here as a trusted guide and thought partner to provide insight, inspiration, and support along the journey. Collective Expansion was created to deepen the experience of sharing bodies of work that make a difference in the world, and to support the growth and expansion of the practitioners who share their knowledge in service of others. She loves finding the small details that make your work unique, memorable, and meaningful and creating systems that support scaling these for your work to have an even wider impact on the world in ways that light you up.  As a lover of nature and great food, you can often find her hiking on the trails and in the kitchen exploring a new recipe. She loves continuing to get to know herself on a deeper level through exploring practices in art & creativity, mindfulness, emotional intelligence, and forever challenging herself to grow as a learner. A believer that joy is important, she moves through the world finding ways to create moments of delight for herself and those around her.

Connect with Elizabeth Burke:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabeth-anne-burke/ 

Season 2 reflection exercises https://www.learnmindfully.co/store

Grab Consciously Crafting Your Career Path: https://www.learnmindfully.co/store

Connect with Roberta on LinkedIn 

If this episode sparked new insight, please consider rating, following, or reviewing the show. It’s the best way to help more people find and benefit from these vital conversations. Thanks for listening!

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

People often look at me and they're like, oh, she's got it. She's got it. And I do. And I'm also a human being who needs and values support, encouragement, you know, validation, like additional feedback. And so learning how to create that for myself and find great community where I can still ask for that has been something that I'm working on and that I think has been really helpful of just like not doing it all alone, even though you might be working for yourself.

SPEAKER_00 0:27

Welcome to In Her Words. This podcast is for women navigating through change, career, identity, motherhood, and just figuring out what's next. I'm Roberta Dembrowski, host of In Her Words and founder of Learn Mindfully. Each episode, I sit down with women who are asking big questions, navigating transitions, and trying to make sense of life as it shifts. You don't have to have it all figured out. You just need space to be real. Let's get into it. With me today, I have Elizabeth Burke. Welcome, Elizabeth. Thank you. I'm excited to be here, Berta. Same. It's been a while. I'm so excited to catch up with you.

SPEAKER_01 1:09

It's gonna be fun. I know.

SPEAKER_00 1:11

So you are someone who, by definition, is multi-passionate. You have worn a lot of hats, a lot of different roles. And I'm curious, was this something that you always recognized about yourself?

SPEAKER_01 1:24

I think it's something I may have always recognized, but I didn't always fully embrace. I think I noticed that I had lots of interests and oftentimes they were overlapping, like one interest would lead to the next. But I think it took me a while to fully embrace that I'm someone who loves to learn something, master it, and that mastery might be a long period of time, it might be a short period of time. But just that I'm someone who's always collecting tools for my tool belt and not someone who prefers to work with the same tool all the time. But once I realized that, I think it was really exciting and freeing. And I think meeting other people who also identify as multi-passionate and just hearing about how their skill set developed, how they utilize their skill set, and just really how excited they were to have such a wide variety of tools to contribute into the world. That was, I think, what really allowed me to fully embrace that within myself. So I may have recognized it, but I didn't always embrace it. And I think sometimes I tried to lean into one tool maybe longer than was necessary, maybe one interest, one passion, rather than trusting that the passion could come and go and I could follow that.

SPEAKER_00 2:30

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you it sounds like you've you learned to embrace it through community and seeing other people embracing it? I'm curious if you can tell us a little more about what that journey was like.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

Yeah, I think as with everything, finding people who are on similar journeys to you just makes your journey feel so much more fun, more comfortable. And even when it's uncomfortable, you're recognizing, like, oh, this is natural discomfort. So I think at different points in time there have been some of those transitions. So I think when I was first transitioning into teaching, finding other people who were really interested in purpose-driven work, who were really interested in cultivating a community of care and what that could look like in a school, that was really powerful. And then I think as I was transitioning out of teaching into UX research, it was also similarly finding people who were willing to question the way things were done, to look at new systems, not constantly applying old systems to the way things were done. That came through informational interviews. Sometimes I've just been really fortunate that I've gotten randomly introduced to folks by friends who are like, I just think you should meet this person. You two have a lot in common. So I think showing up as my full self in all areas allows other people to help connect me with folks who they think I might just be a fun match for.

SPEAKER_00 3:50

Yeah, I love that because I've spoken to people who are multi-passionate in the past, and sometimes they feel like they have to dim their light in certain situations because it's like, oh, I need to show this part of myself when I'm in this environment and this part in the other environment. And it sounds like for you, it's been more expansive to show up holistically as yourself, no matter what the environment.

SPEAKER_01 4:13

Yes. And I definitely have dimmed myself. And I think I've learned the lesson of like, you can't just turn yourself off and on. The example I kind of use is like feeling like a light switch where someone else is like, shine brightly, go away, shine brightly, go away. And just realizing that I was allowing that to happen. I was making the conscious choice to participate in that dynamic and that I don't really want to participate in that dynamic anymore, but needing to be able to name it and acknowledge my own participation in it.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

Yeah, yeah. It's so funny for classes this week for school, because I I think I told you I went back to grand school. We're reading about relational psychology, and it's talking about how like positive relationships have these different qualities, and essentially they teach you more about yourself. They leave you with like a feeling of zest too, and like our life giving and like all these different qualities. And I was like, oh, it's never been spelled out for me. Like these are what healthy relationships are like. Like, oh, quality list.

SPEAKER_01 5:17

How great our lives would be if we got let handout earlier.

SPEAKER_00 5:19

Literally, I was just like, no, okay, this is great. But that's what has me coming back to is what you're talking about is it sounds like the communities that you've been involved with very much are have been like reciprocal relationships where you're learning about yourself, you're able to show up authentically as well. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:39

And I think like just continuing to stay curious about myself and not assuming that I'm going to be the same person the rest of my life and letting it like letting myself grow and change and letting my interests grow and change, and where I focus my time and energy change, and not making it right or wrong, but just like, oh, this season is calling for this, and how can I lean into that? And when that season eventually shifts, how can I lean into what comes next?

SPEAKER_00 6:02

Yeah, yeah. So speaking of seasons and transitions, when we met, you had just transitioned out of teaching into UX research. And so I'm curious if you can tell the listeners a little bit about your journey in teaching. How did you get started in teaching? What type of teacher were you? Was there a subject that you were in?

SPEAKER_01 6:24

So I taught high school art for almost a decade. And I had transitioned into teaching, like stepping into it shortly out of college. Like I'd had a previous career in corporate event planning and was so fortunate to learn a lot from those folks there. But I actually transitioned into teaching honestly because my dad had passed away. And it really shifted my lens of like, what am I doing with my life? And I come from a family of educators. So I had always been exposed to teaching and what that work was like. And he kind of leaned away from it in all honesty, probably because I came from a family of educators. But yeah, I just realized that I was looking for something purpose-driven. I was looking for something where I could contribute. I have a lot of, a lot of patience and it it suits itself well to teaching. So teaching was really great. And then one of the things I realized was as I kind of started to grow and change as a person, that system no longer held me in the way that I wanted to be held anymore. Teaching through COVID was a big challenge for so many people. And just, you know, I think that was a time when many people opened their eyes to what was working and what was not working. I'd already been aware I was maybe outgrowing teaching, but wasn't sure yet. And I had really focused on leaning into my curiosity. And I have always loved human psychology, which is what naturally drew me to the UX research side of things. And I love that deep listening and being able to pull out really meaningful insights and honestly, like making someone feel heard. When you you do an interview well, you make someone feel heard and listened to and like you understood what they were saying. So being able to kind of pull those insights out was what really kind of inspired me. But that transition took almost a whole year of like figuring out what it was I was interested in, learning, dabbling, fully committing to learning that skill, and then actually like going into a boot camp, completing the skill set, learning. It was it was an adventure. It was a lot, but it was worth it.

SPEAKER_00 8:16

Yeah, I can imagine on top of right after COVID and everything too. It was a lot.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

Yeah. Like I don't want to make it sound overly graceful. I want to acknowledge that there were some bumps. It can sound nice because I'm on the other side of it. And again, there was a lot of community involved in that. Like really telling people what I was doing, asking for their support, asking if they knew anyone that they thought I should talk to. And I had really generous friends who were like, oh, you should talk to this person. I think they might be able to tell you about their role and what they like about it. Yeah. So it's really helpful. Was it ever scary for you going through that? Terrifying. Absolutely terrifying. Yeah, truly terrifying. It was interesting because as I was beginning to question, like, this system doesn't work for me anymore. When you're around a lot of folks who are still in a system and the system is working for them, or they're maybe not willing to look at how it doesn't work for them, that can be challenging. It can feel a bit lonely. You have to be mindful of honoring where people are at and that they might not be able to support you in certain things because that's just not where they're authentically at right now. So needing to seek community outside of folks who I was already participating in that system with, because some of them just didn't understand why I would want to leave. Some of them maybe weren't ready to evaluate some of the reasons why they wanted to leave. And I think it's honestly like whenever you make a big change, like you're leaving a career, you're going through a divorce, it can often reflect back to other people whatever is happening in their life that they might not want to turn towards or investigate. So I think some of that definitely occurred. So it felt a little lonely at times, but I was fortunate that I was able to kind of just continue to reach out and find the right people to connect with during that time. But it was for sure scary.

SPEAKER_00 10:00

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cause if I think about like schools, right? It's a very communal environment. You're around not only the students all day long, but the other staff all day long. And there can be a part of your identity that is like, no, I'm a teacher. I'm a teacher. This is what I do. And when you begin to step outside and find a different identity outside of that, I imagine the people around you are like, wait, what's happening? Like, what is she doing? I don't get it. Like, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:32

And I think it really did shift my sense of identity. Like in leaving teaching, I really looked at what are the habits and decisions that made me choose this profession where I was overworking, I was overhelping, like I was just over functioning. So really looking at like what choices did I make that led me to function in this system for as long as I did. Because if I don't evaluate those things, no matter what I do, I'm bringing this same habit set with me wherever I'm going. So in some of that, it was also unlearning, over functioning. And so when you're used to being the person who always says yes and you start saying no, that can ruffle people's feathers and they're kind of confused by it and they're like, Well, she said no. Can I say no? I don't know if I can say no. So it was interesting to kind of see how that shift and the behavior changes that I made landed or didn't land with people.

SPEAKER_00 11:23

Yeah, and relationship shifting too. I imagine the ending of some relationships as well.

SPEAKER_01 11:29

Yeah, which is always sad. But I think that's just honestly like a natural part of things. And I think I've gotten slightly better at understanding and accepting that. And that just because something ends doesn't mean it wasn't purposeful, doesn't mean it wasn't valuable and something to celebrate. But when we hang on too long, sometimes that's actually when it becomes problematic because we're not honoring what it was and letting that be. We're trying to force it into something it can't be.

SPEAKER_00 11:53

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So you landed in user research. What was you did like the boot camp? What was the biggest surprise? Like I imagine the boot camp gave you a taste, but what was the biggest surprise when you got to UX research corporate life? Right.

SPEAKER_01 12:12

I think one of the biggest surprises was just around companies can have such different habits, just even within different departments, and they can have such different views on the same topic and the same subject within different departments. Like it can mean this to the team who's actually doing it, and it can mean that to the team who's receiving it, and it can mean this to the team who's requesting it. So just really needing to create a shared understanding and agreement about what is user research. How does it support design? How does it support like sales? How does this support product? Like and and making sure that we were using the same language and really trying to create space for shared buy-in on how this really supports and benefits everyone. And making sure that I was listening to people and what their needs were. And yeah, sometimes folks haven't been listened to, and it's a a new experience for them to have someone who wants to listen to them. Sometimes people don't want to talk. And so just really kind of maybe needing to navigate the institutional history that leads to someone's understanding of what they think you and your role are or are not.

SPEAKER_00 13:20

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a lot of bias and yeah, bias and baggage that comes from being in there. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:31

Were you the solo researcher on the I was. I was the solo researcher and I was bringing it to the institution as a whole. So yeah, there was a lot of learning, a lot of building, a lot of creating, also a lot of like trial and error of that worked, that didn't work, let's let it go and try something new.

SPEAKER_00 13:48

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. I'm having a lot of flashbacks to myself. Like I'm just feels like another world to go, honestly. It feels like so long. Cause if I think about my last research role, it was at least four years ago. So I'm just like, wow. Yep. How do you feel on the other side of that with that distance? It feels good. It feels good. I feel like there was a lot of coddling almost in corporate. It's funny as you were saying that it's like just it's not stroking ego, but it's like coddling. It's it's holding space for people, what they're feeling, listening. Yeah, because there, I think also like, because I've built teams from scratch like three times. There is sometimes defensiveness around research, like people have beliefs around the product, and then they're like, oh my God, what is this? Who is this person? What are they doing? Because there's just change. Whenever there's change, there's defensiveness. And so it's like you have to like slowly inch your way and show wins and stuff like that. I think about like the idea of doing it now, and it just seems exhausting to me. So I'm just like, no.

SPEAKER_01 14:58

There is a lot of like emotional labor around convincing people and holding space for their defensiveness of like, I'm not actually saying that you have done anything wrong in your role. Like, I'm just looking at the product and how we can think about that. Here's some things people are saying. Yeah, there is a lot of emotional labor in that role.

SPEAKER_00 15:20

Better than coddling. Yeah. No, there's coddling too. Like I have to deliver some hard news about what someone said, and I'm gonna try and make it as kind as possible. For sure. For sure. Yeah, yeah. There's a lot, it's a lot, which it's really funny because I I don't want to jump too ahead of your journey, but as a coach, yeah, we're both doing similar things now. So yeah, it's great. Yeah. So you were in research. What are you doing now? Did you hit like an inflection point? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:56

Yeah. So I am currently building my own business, so called collective expansion. And essentially I'm building all my skill sets and bringing them together. And I think that was part of fully embracing this multi-passionate side of myself. I like to flex in and out of my different skill sets because they all are really complementary and I like bringing them together. So currently I'm working with really purpose-driven entrepreneurs and folks who are practitioners in the coaching and therapy world, specifically where they've guided folks on journeys. They know what they bring their clients through in their one-to-one work and really helping them to expand the impact of their work. Purpose-driven work is really important to me. And I love helping others, you know, widen their purpose and the reach that they can have through their work. So, really helping them take that one-to-one journey and turn it into a one-to-many journey. How do you help support groups of people? How do you create programs? So, really bringing in that learning and education background, that strategic event design background, and that user research background of really deeply understanding people and designing for them. And that honestly feels amazing. It feels like I'm not hiding or like squashing down any parts of myself. Similarly terrifying, but just it feels good and it feels right.

SPEAKER_00 17:10

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I imagine it feels like an integration of yourself. Yeah, that's a great word for it. Yeah. What's been the biggest kind of surprise as you're starting to build your own business?

SPEAKER_01 17:22

I think how much it just asks you to really continue to look at yourself. Like I'm someone who definitely values introspection and I definitely value reflection and thoughtful learning. And I've always been looking at myself, but I think this journey is showing me any places that still need some light to come in and shine on them. And that is not always easy. I think it's it can be challenging. And I think one of the things I've really identified is people often look at me and they're like, oh, she's got it. She's got it. And I do. And I'm also a human being who needs and values support, encouragement, you know, validation, like additional feedback. And so learning how to create that for myself and find great community where I can still ask for that has been something that I'm working on and that I think has been really helpful of just like not doing it all alone, even though you might be working for yourself.

SPEAKER_00 18:16

Yeah, absolutely. I can so relate to that. As an overfunctioner, somebody who has struggled with burnout from childhood and all of that, it's something that is a constant lesson. Is like, how do you how do you kind of go against the learned behavior, even though you can go and do it solo? You don't have to, and you shouldn't have to, especially when building a business.

SPEAKER_01 18:43

So yeah. Yeah. And I think just like when I had left research and when I had like done a whole talk about like who we are is not what we do, work working. And at the very end of that talk, I literally had said, and I'm sure as soon as I have this figured out, I'm gonna learn it all over again. And that has proven to be exceptionally true. Like exceptionally true. Like I'm learning the same lessons, but on deeper levels, like, oh, that changed, but this didn't. I thought I had figured that out. Apparently, I've got to go deeper on that. And so I think I'm just starting to accept that this is probably gonna just be an ongoing journey of discovery. Yeah. Which is most like really freeing and also like, oh God. Like it's not gonna end.

SPEAKER_00 19:25

It's never gonna end. Yes. Yeah. I remember I was talking to someone a few weeks ago about their birth chart, like astrological birth chart, because it can show you a lot of like your patterns that you're gonna work on in your lifetime. And for me, a lot of it is like relational patterns. And so when things come up, I'm like, freaking like birth chart again. Like that's what's coming for you. It's coming up again. Like it's it's just it comes up.

SPEAKER_01 19:55

So yeah. And I think it's like, but once we just accept it, it's a little bit more freeing. And I think like having a name for it of like, oh, that's this pattern coming up again. Like we can just kind of relax a little bit into like, okay, okay, this is something I'm working with, and I'm gonna be working with it for a while, and that's okay. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. I love natal charts and that kind of stuff too.

unknown 20:15

I love that.

SPEAKER_01 20:17

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 20:18

Yeah. Are you primarily working with people in Colorado or are you working with people remotely?

SPEAKER_01 20:25

Yeah. So I'm collaborating with people remotely and also super interested in really serving my local community here in Colorado as well. I think there's value in both. So super enjoying a collaborative experience online and also excited to do some stuff in person working with folks and just kind of, I think one of the things I realized is folks who are often in that work of like coaching and therapeutic interventions that can sometimes be isolating because they're just working with clients all day. And so really being able to have someone who is coming in who cares about your business, who cares about what you're doing and wants to partner with you and wants to strategically think about things in your business really feels good for me because I get to learn all the things about their business and just kind of help. And also hopefully really provides them with, you know, some thought collaboration and some support and feeling like they have someone who's coming in as a partner to really think about what they're doing.

SPEAKER_00 21:19

Yeah, absolutely. Are you do you consider yourself a consultant, a coach? I think it's a little bit of both, is what I'm realizing.

SPEAKER_01 21:27

I think there's the consultancy side of things around helping people to really think about how are we strategically developing what it is you want to build. And then there's the coaching side of what we are building should serve your life vision. And so, what is the vision for your life? And how do we make your programs and the way that we're designing what you do in service of your life vision, not like a byproduct or just something random that's kind of happening, but really thoughtfully thinking about how you want your life to be and then designing around that.

SPEAKER_00 21:59

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I love this. I feel like I'm having a full circle moment with you because I know right. Tell me more. Yeah. I mean, when we first started talking so many years ago, just so much wisdom and thoughtfulness that you had for your own path. And then now it's you're being able to bring that to other people and seeing that is really beautiful. Yeah. That's really thoughtful. I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_01 22:28

Well, and I think it feels good because I think when I was working with you, one of the things I was struggling with was like feeling like there was more and there was something else I was supposed to be contributing through, but not really clear on what it was or how it was supposed to take shape or form. And knowing that, like, yes, UX research is a part of my path. Like, no part of me thinks I was not supposed to do that or that it was not a valuable use of my time. It really validated that deep listening and being able to make the connections and the product thinking of like this piece of information can lead to this type of design. But it feels good to know that I'm not pigeonholing myself or just limiting my contribution by thinking I just need to do one thing.

SPEAKER_00 23:09

Yeah, yeah. I can I resonate with that as well. I think that when you get past like the stop on the career journey and you have the like perspective shift and you can see, then you can see how it all is integrated and a part of the ride and all put together. But yeah, and I'm sure like as you're working with clients every single day, you're holding space for them as a US researcher. You're asking them questions and even doing research for your business and offerings and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01 23:41

Absolutely. Yeah, and that's where I think it's great. Like I get to put on lots of different hats, and sometimes there are a lot of hats, but like, you know, I think I'm realizing I like that. And there are going to be challenges in different ways no matter which path we pick. So which challenges are exciting to us, which are the ones that feel energizing to engage with versus depleting and being honest with yourself about those challenges and how you feel about them.

SPEAKER_00 24:04

Yeah, I love it. Yeah, because there is choice every single day. There is choice.

SPEAKER_01 24:08

Yeah. As I'm thinking about where I was when I started working with you, I'm like, man, whole different human. Literally, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:15

Your energy is very different now. Yeah. Beautiful to see.

SPEAKER_01 24:19

How would you describe the difference in my energy? Because I feel that too. And I'm curious from someone who saw me at such a different point.

SPEAKER_00 24:27

I would say you were, it's funny because I feel like when we were working together, I would always say, like, I would use like the metaphor of like a ball and you would be like squeezing. Now you feel very at ease. Because when we were together, a theme that would really come up is you would talk about wanting to make to the next level, to the next level. I want to manage a team and stuff, and or you want to make it to like a product director level. And I was like, Well, you'll get there. And like, why, why so fast? Let's slow down, let's relax. And so now you seem not in a hurry, just like you you seem like there's an inner wisdom of you know where you're you're meant to be here right now.

SPEAKER_01 25:09

Yeah, I think that's true. And I appreciate you saying that. Cause yeah, I do always remember, I think I was always trying to like set up systems and structures so that the next thing could happen rather than actually trying to enjoy the present and just accepting that, like, especially in a corporate environment, you have very minimal control over what you're actually able to put in place to help a business be successful. That requires so much more than just your desire to integrate a successful system and just making peace with the fact that I could try to make things as best I could, but ultimately like it wasn't completely up to me. And that's okay. Whereas now I'm just like, oh, I do think there's a awareness of really just focusing on myself and trusting that what is meant to happen will happen rather than needing to try to create something that maybe doesn't even need to be created.

SPEAKER_00 26:00

Yeah, absolutely. I was reading something earlier today and it said control is like a delusion of the mind. And it's so it is very true. But and I feel like in corporate environments, that's really what a lot, it's like we have these systems and structures that give us the illusion of control and this grasping and tightening because we're trying to seek control of things. But when we build our own businesses, we can be more present and create the system and structure that we hope to.

SPEAKER_01 26:35

Absolutely. Well, and I feel like in corporate environments, you're often creating systems from that place of control, trying to combat forces rather than like when you're building them for yourself, you're trying to harness force and harness energy and like move things in a direction. And there's a bit more space for play and creating systems for yourself. You can, you know, obviously try to have a playful and fun approach in other systems, but that might be more or less positively received depending upon your environment and then who you're working with. But yeah, I think that it feels nice to release that a bit and just be a bit more fluid versus trying to always have to have it mapped out because something would change inevitably and you don't even get to implement half of what you created. No.

SPEAKER_00 27:23

And that's very true even now with business too. It's like we have our like magic wand, here's the plan for the quarter, and then yeah, gone. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 27:35

No, but I think that's also like the the willingness to let go of that, I think, is both about, you know, the environment and also the the learning of just letting go in general and that it applies to everything.

SPEAKER_00 27:46

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So I'm curious. So a lot of listeners are people who are going through transitions themselves. What would you say to someone who is worried about going through a career transition or wants to embark on a career transition?

SPEAKER_01 28:03

I think it's going to happen whether you allow it to or not. So you can go through it kicking and screaming, or you can kind of like peacefully surrender to yourself in the process. Like, and I think one is infinitely more fun, but it's also really challenging. And so if you know that if you sense that a transition is happening, it's probably happening. And so, like once you know that, like in first inkling, don't try to shove it down. Just try to listen to it. It doesn't mean you need to make every choice at once, but it does mean there's something happening. And the longer you avoid it, the more frustrating you're gonna potentially make the experience. And that's like an unnecessary frustrating. So maybe just be willing to acknowledge that it's happening. Let it be okay that it takes time. When I think about, you know, some of my transitions, it's like they've taken from the moment of really realizing it to being on like the other side in the other like life a year and a half, sometimes two years. So anywhere from like a year to two years. And so you're in that transition period for a while. And so I think I sometimes made it more painful for myself than it needed to be. And so literally, yeah, you're like, okay. So just to, and I'm even now I'm like, I'm still in a transition. So it's like I'm I went back and I mapped out some of my transitions. And when I look back, they seemed so quick. But when I was when I really mapped out times, I was like, oh, that took a lot longer. And so I think it allowed me to have more patience with myself and compassion for myself right now of like, okay, I'm in a transition. It's it's gonna take a while. I'm not done yet. How can I still enjoy and be present in the now when I'm not at X, Y, and Z yet? And I don't even actually 100% know what X, Y, and Z is going to be. So I think just having compassion for yourself while you're in transition, doing things that bring you joy, because I think sometimes we can get so hyper-focused on trying to figure it out. And that really doesn't help us. You're not gonna like just come up with it because you sat down and were like beating yourself up about not knowing. Like go out and have some fun, do the things that bring you joy, spend time with people who you care about, because that will fill you up in a way that gives you kind of the fuel to keep going. And sometimes you really do have a moment where you're just like reading a book or out doing something and a thought comes. So you got to leave the space for that, for the inspiration to come through too. Absolutely. I love that. Yeah, and I would honestly say like work with a coach, work with someone, work with a therapist, like work with someone who is there to hold space for you and ask you the kinds of questions that you maybe hadn't thought to ask yourself.

SPEAKER_00 30:52

Yeah, I think that's so true because so many people I speak to try to go through it alone and you don't have to. You can probably get to where you want to go faster if you like and make the investment in yourself.

SPEAKER_01 31:08

Totally.

SPEAKER_00 31:09

For a coach, for a therapist to talk through. Cause if you haven't gotten to the answer yourself, it's because you're spinning your wheels and sitting with yourself is not going to get there. You need an outside perspective to help you.

SPEAKER_01 31:22

And I think a lot of people think, well, oh, I shouldn't invest in that until I know what I want to do. And I actually disagree with that because I think you might take longer to figure it out by not receiving support and you might make a choice from the wrong mindset. Like you might like feel desperate and then you're like, I have to pick something versus feeling like someone else is holding space for you to not know. And I think sometimes there can also be shame around feeling like you're letting go of something and why can't I be happy with this? Everyone else is happy with this. Why can't I be happy with it? So having someone who can hold space for your discovery and to even like process like the grief around letting go of something, because even though you might want to let go of something, it doesn't mean you're not gonna feel grief. And and kind of holding space for just the potential of what could be.

SPEAKER_00 32:07

Yeah. Yeah. That I think is the scariest part of transition. Usually, like when you're in transition, you know what you're letting go of. And there is a grief there, absolutely. But there's a big unknown, there's a big question mark, a big open space that can be utterly terrifying for many people.

SPEAKER_01 32:27

It is. And I think, yeah, but I think when we get more practiced with holding space for it, and I say this as someone who is still working on getting practice with holding space for it, like it allows us to be more trusting of what can actually come for us. And we make decisions from a place of optimism and expansion rather than fear. And I think fear definitely puts a lens of just kind of extremism on our decisions. And so when we can remove that, we can have a bit more spaciousness, we can have a bit more fun on how we make decisions and kind of like not take ourselves so seriously because we're not that serious.

SPEAKER_00 33:09

Life's not that serious.

SPEAKER_01 33:11

Yeah, like we can be serious. I remember there was someone who I used to teach with, and he he just had the best presence. And he was like someone who's for sure meant to be a lifelong teacher. And he was like, I take like how I build my life seriously, but I don't take like myself seriously. And I think that was a nice way to be like, you know, how how do you put the serious lens on in appropriate ways, but not like too?

SPEAKER_00 33:35

Yeah, yeah, I love that. I love that. Yeah. How can folks keep in touch with you if they'd like to?

SPEAKER_01 33:43

So you can find me on LinkedIn, and I will be having my website launching soon. So that will be available, expandhecollective.com. And yeah, I'm sure there'll be more fun ways that I haven't even created yet.

SPEAKER_00 33:56

Amazing.

unknown 33:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:59

We will make sure to put those links in the show notes. Thank you so much for joining me today.

SPEAKER_01 34:04

Thank you, Roberta.

SPEAKER_00 34:09

Thanks for being here. If something in this episode landed with you, feel free to pass it along to someone who might need it too. You can leave a review, subscribe, or just keep tuning in. We're figuring it out together. And remember, your story, your voice, your becoming. It all matters.