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Coaching is a process of not just finding balance right now, it’s about figuring out how to create it from here on out. On today’s podcast I am interviewing a past client, Ali Gorsuch, who stopped coaching with me over a year and half ago, but the impact of coaching has had a lasting effect. In this interview Ali speaks about how the coaching we did back in 2019 helped her to get a recent promotion, move across the country with ease and feel present and connected with her kids. She shares some of the tools that had a profound effect and that she continues to use on a daily basis.
Topics in this episode:
The importance of choosing your thoughts
Why knowing your values creates clarity
What you need to believe in order to get promoted and reach big goals
How to unwind the thought “this is the best I can get”
How to choose to not feel guilty
Show Notes & References:
Want to learn how to create a balanced life both now and 3 years from now? Schedule a time to chat and I will walk you through the process: www.rebeccaolsoncoaching.com/book
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Transcript
Intro
Working Moms, I have such a treat for you on this podcast today. I have brought in an old client of mine, her name is Ali. She and I started working together about three years ago, and we stopped working together a year and a half ago. And I wanted to bring her on this podcast to talk about the longevity of coaching, the things that have really stayed with her over, not just the changes that happen immediately in coaching, but the things that have really stuck with her and the changes that have happened in the long term and so I brought her in to talk about not just some of the big things that happened, though there have been some big things like promotions and such that she attributes to coaching that have just recently happened, but just the everyday experience that she has as a working mom and how different it is a year and a half later from the time that we started working together, like three years ago. So she has so many amazing gems for you, I hope that you listen multiple times.
We're kind of coming into it a little bit mid conversation, so you won't actually hear me introduce her until at least like ten or 15 minutes in. But I felt like the stuff we were talking about was so good, I just hit the record button and we just chatted away. And then eventually I said, let's introduce you. So we're kind of coming in mid conversation as we talk about some of these things and everything that she got out of coaching. And I love that she talks about her life and she talks about her life to her friends and her family in this, what she says is like pre coaching or before coaching and after coaching. And she attributes so much of where she's at to her experience in coaching. I think that you're going to get a lot out of it as you hear her talk about experience. So let's get to it.
Welcome to the ambitious and balanced Working Mom podcast, the place for women who want to balance their ambitious career goals with their life as a mom. If you're looking to feel more confident, decisive and productive at both work and home, then this is the place for you. I'm your host, Rebecca Olson, let's get to it.
Ali: I was trying to think, how long has it been since we worked together, like a year and a half?
Rebecca: Uh, so we started working together before the pandemic.
Ali: Yeah. Okay.
Rebecca: And then work together through the beginnings of the pandemic. How's the new job?
Ali: It's going well. I mean, On like a weekend so very busy, like, transitioning in with the accounts and trying to meet everybody, meet the team. So, yeah, I think it's going well.
Rebecca: Love it. You feel 100% about the decision or where you at?
Ali: I feel good about the decision. I'm really glad that I did it. I think it was the right choice. I am feeling a little like I have to really talk myself - like the confidence workshop that you did, I have to talk myself up every day. It's a hard job. There's big expectations. I'm working on having more of like an abundance mindset in sales. I'm working more on having just a fun, free thinking mindset. Right? Versus being so fearful that I'm not going to make it. But I have to work on that every day. And sometimes you're like, I don't want to have to work on that. When am I just going to master that?
Rebecca: Yeah, I have to be pretty on to my brain. Well, I probably have this idea about everything, but it's been very constant in business since I've had a business that I keep thinking it's going to get easier. I keep pushing myself because I have this mindset. Like eventually I won't have to work this hard. And I realized how much of a disservice that is. Of course I'm going to have to work hard when I make a million dollars, Ali, of course I'm going to work hard to make that million dollars. I'm going to have to push my brain in order to do that. And it's going to feel uncomfortable and it's going to be difficult and I'm going to be thinking about and problemsolving, the things I've never problem solved before. This idea that one day I'm going to get to the point where I hit the button and it just is a smooth ride. I don't have to think about it. That isn't a reality. And even though, like my coach, she makes millions of dollars, I think she works three days a week. I think she works a total of 20 hours a week.
Ali: Oh, my gosh.
Rebecca: Yeah. And she makes millions of dollars doing it. But she would tell you those 20 hours is like hard work. It's not coasting work. It's deep thinking, deep problem solving. A lot of energy goes into it. And the reason why she even takes the two days off is because it helps her gear up for the three days that she's on and she makes millions of dollars doing that. So it's interesting. I myself have to keep going, why is this so hard? Oh, wait, it's supposed to be hard. This is what it's always going to be like. I would rather get used to this idea that making a lot of money and having a business is hard.
Ali: Yeah, I think that's a really fair point. It's a good point. I think it's interesting that our brains, though, are like searching for the exit. It's like, where is that soft landing? Where is that couch? We can just relax back into figuratively in your brain. I feel that all the time. I'm like, when am I going to just be able to relax? I don't know. Maybe it's like never and you just have to get better at managing the bumps. I don't know. But it's true. I think every time you level up right, you level up and you're like, oh, wow, I got here, but then it's just still tons of work to stay there or to get to the next level.
Rebecca: Yeah, of course it is. And we think about passive income, people that have passive income, that seemingly the whole idea of passive income is that you put in very little effort and you get a big return on it. And I know that exists out there on some level, and I don't want it, I love the idea that in my business, I'm solving problems for people's lives that is life changing. Like, I'm coming up with ideas and concepts and ways of saying things to literally help individuals better their lives. And that isn't going to come with something passive, like a course or something like that. I think that it could happen on some level, but something where I just said it and I forget, it like a crock pot. It's not going to happen there. And I get so much out of that. I'm an ambitious person. I want to be in there solving the problems and up leveling myself and the people that I work with and doing better. So the idea that I would even ever want a life that I like, set it and forget it. I can't even imagine that.
Ali: Yeah. Is your coach who makes millions of dollars? Is she setting it and forgetting it?
Rebecca: No. Yeah, not at all.
Ali: So she does one-on-one coaching?
Rebecca: She has two programs. One has thousands of people in it, and one is the mastermind that I'm a part of.
Ali: Okay.
Rebecca: And that's 100 people in it every six months, 100 people in it. But like I said, those three days are like intense work for her. She's really thinking about how she can further us as her clients and what she can do to serve us and the greater world of coaching out there and making her mark on that. And so as high achieving women, it's not actually the life that we want - but what it always tells me when we're in that place, when I'm in that place, when my clients are in that place, is that where we're thinking about when am I going to get to the rest portion of this? When am I going to get to set it and forget it? It means a couple of things. It means that we're not resting enough in the everyday. Like we're not finding the respite in just the work that we're doing. We're too wound up in it. We're holding onto it too forcefully where there's too much pressure being put on it, right?
Ali: Yes, that's true.
Rebecca: So it tells us there's that and it tells us that there isn't enough. Like, we're not thinking about how we could make this fun and how could there be joy involved in it? That's not an active part of our life where we're actually saying how could I do this task? How could I make sales a more fun experience for me? What would that look like? So it points us when we're in that place of always thinking like when is this going to end, we say this a lot during the holidays or during breaks or whatever. It's like, oh my gosh, when is this going to be over? I can't wait for January when I get to start my rhythms all over again. It's like, okay, this is just an insight that we need to be shifting what we're doing right now. So we're never thinking that that's going to be the solution to us.
“I put a lot of pressure on myself.”
Ali: Yeah. So this is why I love talking to you because I always get these little insights. I think that's really true. I put a lot of pressure on myself. I think that I just naturally think that there's a lot of pressure for sales. Like you have a number on your head and I get really wound up in that I have to really work at it. And then sometimes I come down off that and I'm like, okay, it's not so bad. And then I wind myself up, back up. And so yeah, it's true. I think that is why I am searching for rest a lot and then also just having really young kids, there's not a lot of breaks, there's really not a break from the second you wake up in the morning even like when you think you're putting them to bed and shutting the door at 8:30 and they're still whining and crying for you until 930 and then you're like, please just sleep through the night, right? So there's that part of it too.
Rebecca: Yes, there is a lot of time and energy at our kids' ages right now. Young kids that is, just almost circumstantial but different because they need you in a different way than older kids need you, though they need you too. But it's not for everything related from toilet to shoes to milk to reminders about absolutely every hygiene element. There's just a difference.
Ali: Or they're like jumping off tables or they're like pulling things down that they shouldn't be. Yeah.
Rebecca: Exactly. Unrolling the toilet paper until the very end.
Ali: Right.
Rebecca: And we could put some time in there for ourselves. It's not useful. It is true, circumstantially, that the ages of our kids are very exhausting, there's a lot to be on for constantly and we can choose to have a lot more moments where we remove ourselves from the situation and are not on.
“I’m not going to feel guilty for doing things for me.”
Ali: Yeah, it's funny. I think one thing that came from coaching too and I'm not exactly sure which part of it it was, but maybe it was also just around the mantras and things like that. But after we moved down here. We got down here and finally sold our house and everything and like a month or two went by and I finally decided I was like, you know what? I've not exercised in like a year and I miss it. And I feel it, uh, and I'm really going to do it. I just decided I'm not going to feel guilty that it's like it's 20 minutes. I watch a little video on TV and I do my little weights in the living room. And it's definitely not sophisticated, but it was something and it was just a way to start. And I just decided I'm not going to feel guilty for doing that now, even within the two and a half, 3 hours I have with my kids at night, or if I'm going to do that over lunch during my day, I'm just going to let go of that guilt. Because for me, that's just like I have to do that for myself now. It's just been too long of waiting for other people's needs to kind of like go away because they're not going away. Right. And work is not going away. All those things. And it's been great, once you just kind of start and then it's easier the next day to do it again. I think that's been really huge for me too. It's just like that personal balance. And then if I miss a day, which I do all the time - happens all the time. I miss a day. I don't beat myself up as much and be like, wow, Ali, you suck. You didn't work out today. It's just like, okay, I'll do it tomorrow. I'll do it tomorrow.
Rebecca: Yes. I love that. The choice that you're talking about.
Ali: Yes.
I can decide not to feel a certain way.
Rebecca: My guess is a big part of what has come from coaching and has lasted with coaching is that our emotions, our feelings of guilt, our pressure, the overwhelm, the worry, these feelings that we think we have no control over, we realize that a lot of ways we not only control them through our thoughts, but sometimes you get to a point where you just realize like, oh, I just don't have to feel that way. I can literally just decide today that that's not a thing and I can move on. And that obviously is going to come from the way you think about it. But like, our emotions and our thoughts, these are choices that we have to make. And it can take a while to get there to see that there are other choices to be had and to even see how it is a choice. But that is a game changer and being able to feel that sense of control over life.
“As a result of coaching, I would question my inner thoughts and whether they are true or not.”
Ali: Yes. And I think what I realized in working out and about a lot of other things about taking care of myself, you talked about this during your workshop, which is that a lot of times your thought comes from a feeling, and my feeling was I really didn't feel like I was getting enough time with my kids. I just was so afraid. Like, okay, because I'm a working mom, I don't have enough time with them. I feel really bad about that. And so then I'd have thoughts like, okay, well, I can't work out or I can't do this, or I won't do this. And then when I started to really identify that feeling and say to myself, well, is that really true as a result of coaching? Or is there a way I could deal with that differently? Like, if I really don't feel like I have enough time with my kids, could I do something else? Could I do a little one-on-one with my son on a Friday afternoon at 4:30 or 3:00 and make up for that workout? And you start to kind of problem solve. And once you're able to identify that feeling and change your thoughts around that feeling, and then all of a sudden you're thinking to yourself, like, I've had so many 20 minutes sections in my day for weeks now where I could have been working out. I'm just now choosing to feel a lot differently about that. And it's so freeing. And then you just kind of release all that guilt, and you're like, okay, great. Yes. And now it's actually like you kind of become more creative. You're like, wow, I have different ways to engage with my kids now. Maybe I will have a little Friday lunch date with my son if I have time once a month.
Rebecca: Or you put it in your calendar ahead of time and say, I'm going to protect it, right? Because it's what I want.
Ali: Exactly.
Working moms feel obligated to do so many things.
Rebecca: As working moms, we feel obligated to so many things. Becoming a mom before work, you have work, and for a lot of high achievers, there's a dedication to that, an obligation to that on some level. And then our kids come along, and then there's a whole other level of obligation to them, and there's still the obligation to our partnership that we want to make something in our marriage. And things begin to feel like I have to throughout all of life. Even though we choose to have the career we have and we chose to have kids and we chose to be married and we chose to do these things, everything begins to feel like an obligation like we have no choice. Such a big part of what we did in coaching is piecing apart the choices that you made and are currently making and saying, do you still want to make that choice? Is that still the way you want to spend your time? Is this still the job that you want? Is this still the relationship you want to be in? And sometimes you ask those questions and it's like, well, of course it is. I'm not going to leave my husband. I'm not going to leave this job. But just the fact that you get to ask it and answer it brings back control where things stopped feeling like I actually could do something else or I can make a different choice. I'm actively choosing this. Why am I choosing this? Is it serving me? Do I still want it? Why do I want it? And bringing back that sense of control so that life doesn't constantly feel like I have to.
Ali: I was a master of ‘shoulding’ myself. I should feel this way. I should want this. I should be doing this. I do this because I should. And when you start really taking that apart and you start really thinking about, well, you don't have to like you said, I could do something else. And you start to realize, like, wow, those were all just things I had made up in my brain to sort of, like, protect myself or because I was just panicked or because maybe I was just really tired and I didn't want to think about something else. And then how easily you can make new choices and create better habits if you want. And you don't have to feel guilty that maybe you hadn't done that in a year. It's okay. Tomorrow is a new day. You can just do it tomorrow and make a new choice tomorrow. And then you can start telling yourself things like, wow, I'm so proud of myself for making that choice today. So proud of myself that I took 20 minutes instead of thinking, wow, I'm so shitty because I haven't worked out in a year. Wow. It's like, no, wow, you've worked out today.
Rebecca: Yeah. I love this. And I'm going to take a moment here because I definitely want to include some of what we're talking about in the podcast. So I'm going to stop and I'm going to say, hey, welcome Ali to my podcast. I'm so glad that you're here, and I love this conversation that we're having, I want to keep going. I have some questions that I want to ask you, but I want to pause for a second and just say, Hi I'm so glad that you're here.
Ali is a client of mine. We were just going back through our calendar to try to get the dates right. Ali started working with me in October of 2019. So that was before the pandemic started. Then the pandemic happened, and we continued to work together all the way through October of 2020. At the time of this recording of this podcast, it's been over a year and a half since we've been coaching together, but obviously we've stayed in touch. I love staying in touch with clients and hearing from them and hearing their successes over time. And I wanted to invite Ali into this podcast because I really want to talk about the longevity of the results of coaching, because I think a lot of times when we think about investing in coaching when we think about going to therapy, when we think about hiring a fitness coach, a trainer or something like that, it's always at this place of desperation. I can't figure this out on my own. I have to do something. It's the only possible way that I can figure out how to move forward. And it comes from this place of desperation. And yes, we do get you to a better place in the moment, for sure. We change the everyday experience. And it's not just about that. It's about the results that are going to happen for you a year and a half later, two years later, five years later, ten years later.
Coaching is an investment not to just dig yourself out of a hole, but to get somewhere down the line. And it's so important to see it that way because investing - to just dig yourself out of a hole can feel awful. But the idea that I'm making an investment that is going to change something for me in five years, it's going to change something for me for the rest of my life, like I'm going to be a new person, our brain gets so much more on board when we think about the longevity of our investment in coaching. And obviously a year and a half is in five years or ten years from now. But still, there are some big things that have happened since we coached together that you have said has been a real direct result of our coaching. And I'd love to be able to talk about some of that.
So far, what we've been talking about is just some of the day to day stuff, right? I want to come back to that, and then we'll talk about some of the other things, too, because what you were just talking about was making new choices and learning to see your thoughts go through your brain and recognize that you have some opportunity to change those words going through your brain. Whereas before, when we started, your brain was like wandering sheep constantly, like you had no idea that they were wandering around and that you actually got to be a shepherd of them and that you could say, no, back over here, no, come back into the pen. This is the better place, right? You can actually shepherd your thoughts. You can start to point them in a certain direction. You can choose them. That was a really powerful exercise for you. I'm curious how you go about that process today, because obviously that took a lot of us honing some of those thoughts to being able to recognize them as thoughts, and even seen. And to your point, I would say, are you sure that that's really true? You said that you don't have time for that. Is that true, or is that just a thought about your time and you'd have to sit there and go, well, I kind of thought it was true, but it's not. I guess I'm just choosing that we walked through that a lot together. But how does it look like today? Tell me about it.
“My family really noticed my changes after coaching.”
Ali: To your point about changing your life. I'm a huge Rebecca Super fan. As you know, I would definitely say there is a very clear line in my adult life, especially my postpartum life of before coaching and after coaching. My family really even noticed, I'm serious. Even my mom, after working with you for a while, said ‘you're much calmer.’ And so how does that show in my life today? I mean, we did a lot of the deep work in coaching, right? Where I would bring you these thoughts that were really deeply ingrained in my brain. A lot of them were around. Had I lost my ambition, had I peaked, is this the best that I can be? I'm so stuck. Am I just going to be unhappy for a while - bringing all these things and we work together on really unpacking a lot of those really challenging thoughts and disproving them to my brain. And we worked really hard with me on that. I would say it takes practice over time for us. You have to get some of those big thoughts out of the way. But then today, what that has allowed me to do is really train my brain to understand that you're going to have a lot of thoughts and lot of them are going to potentially be negative, but you can choose what you really believe and what you want to believe about yourself. But you have to train your brain because your brain is really a machine and it wants to be led. And so for me today, by changing my thoughts, I've changed my life.
Your brain wants to be led.
Rebecca: Hold on, because I love that. Your brain wants to be led. It's like a sheep wandering around saying, Where's my shepherd? Like, I am running amok. I don't know what's safe. I don't know what's out here. Help me find me. I love that image. I just wanted to pause there, but keep going.
“You can change your thoughts and you can change your life.”
Ali: And for me, coming out of when I came into coaching, I had just had my second child. She had a ton of feeding issues. I was so sleep deprived. I mean, I was a hot mess. I was going back to work. Things were very challenging. And you're kind of in panic mode. And your brain is saying to you, like, what's the plan? Every day you wake up, what's the plan, Ally? Is this going to get any better? Because I'm really miserable. I'm really unhappy. A lot of things change with motherhood, and I really needed to deal with a lot of that. And so today I would say that what that looks like for me on a daily basis is more around just being more intentional with my thoughts and choosing the thoughts that I want to believe. And I would say that the most fundamental thing that's come out of coaching for me is that you can change your thoughts and you can change your life. And there were a few things I started telling myself, remember, this is the end of coaching, which was, I'm going to change jobs and we're going to move to Florida. Both things happened, and I literally just started telling myself things like, you can do it. You will figure this out. You are going to move to Florida, you are going to find a new job. It all happened.
Rebecca: Ample opportunities out there for you. Lots of companies want me. Because part of it was you had been at your company…How long have you been there?
Ali: Like twelve years. Very long time.
Rebecca: Most of your career has been basically there. And this happens for a lot of people that have either been at the same company or have been doing the same job for a really long period of time. They're not happy, and yet they don't have an arsenal of thoughts that's telling them there's other things out there that their skill set could be used otherwise that another company would value them more. There is an arsenal of thoughts telling them that their thoughts are like, this is it. This is all I have. This is where I am. This is who I am. And I don't know what else is out there. And we had to stop there. You brought up the peak conversation, and I totally laughed because it was one of my favorites. And I come back to that. I laugh about that on occasion because it does come up with other clients, too. But it was one of my favorite conversations where you were talking about your career trajectory and well, you didn't tell me that you had peaked. I was the one that reframed that back to you. But you were like, I don't think I can go any more than this or something like that. And I said, oh, so you've peaked in your career and you were like, what? And I was like, you're like, what? 35 or something like that? And you're like, yeah. And I'm like, okay, and this is it. You're telling me this is the top. And you were like, oh, my gosh, that's ridiculous. I'm like, I know. I just wanted to make sure you hear your brain telling you that you think you've peaked, that you can't get any better than what you have right now. And it was a big moment, a big shift for you were like, I've totally believed that on some subtle level. And it's not true. I just can't even believe that that's possible.
“I started to believe other things instead of believing this is it for me, and I'm just going to be unhappy forever.”
Ali: I mean, I'm laughing now because it sounds so ridiculous, but I had really convinced myself of this stuff, right? And I think that's what coaching was, it was like an objective third party person telling me, I hear you and I see you, but that's just not true. And here's why and then my brain could settle on the fact that, okay, I guess that's not true. And I can move on from that. And I can believe other things, which other things are like, hey, you're going to go get a kick ass job, and you can do big things if you want, and you can still be a great mom. I mean, all those things, right, that you have to pump yourself up and tell yourself. But then I started to believe those things instead of believing this is it for me, and I'm just going to be unhappy forever. I'm not hireable and all those things that I was telling myself.
Rebecca: And you said this earlier how you currently change your thoughts now on your own without me as a coach and how you've developed that tool over the last year and a half without me. And you were saying earlier because you just started a new job a week ago, and it's a job that's a stretch. You and I had a conversation around how it felt like a stretch to you, but you were going to take it anyway. And so you were telling me you have to actively spend some time shifting your thoughts about it. What does that look like today? Do you enter every day?
I will figure this out, and I can do this.
Ali: It is a stretch role for me. I've totally changed industries, so I'm very uncomfortable for a lot of the day. I'll just be vulnerable for anyone else who's thinking of doing this. Like, you're not alone. I'm very uncomfortable a lot of the day. I have actual visual reminders on my monitor. So I hang up little dorky post it notes like I'm a teenager again. But I have my mantras up there, like, I can do this, abundance. I have other mantras that I kind of change out weekly, like, let's have fun, enjoy the process, whatever it is that I kind of am feeling. But I think my two ones that I really come back to all the time is I will figure this out and I can do this. It sounds really simple and probably too simple to some folks, but when you really believe that every single time I question my ability and I say to myself, I will figure this out. It's sort of like this little opening happens in my brain where I'm like, okay, I can do this. What am I going to figure out today? I can figure out this puzzle, and I start thinking about my job more as a puzzle and something to explore. And I kind of bring that curiosity back in instead of being like, oh, God, what do I do now? And I think bringing that curiosity to something, to me makes it more fun. And fun is one of the values we've identified in coaching as well, It's really important for me. Like, fun is a really big part of my life in general. And so once I'm able to kind of find that little opening in my thoughts and bring in that curiosity instantly. It just reframes it and I'm like, okay now I can have fun with this versus feeling that weight of those negative thoughts that just sort of like entrap you.
Rebecca: You use the image of a puzzle and you didn't necessarily even mean it to be like a jigsaw puzzle but it made me think about what you do in that little opening in your brain that happens. It's like you recognize that you've been looking at this 1000 piece puzzle that's not put together and being like how am I going to do this? And you're just trying to find matches here and there and then the opening happens and it's like how about I just tackle that red truck right there on the puzzle, right? Let me find all of the red pieces and then I'm going to find how those go together. Like you give yourself a smaller piece of the puzzle to look at and say how can I tackle that specifically and make some progress in that right? And so you're refocusing the perspective that you have to everything feels new and hard and overwhelming and I don't know what I'm doing too well. I know how to do that one thing. Let me focus on that one thing and I'm sure that will get me to the next step and then I'll go from there.
Focus on those small accomplishments.
Ali: Yes. And I think then kind of telling your brain too that wow, I did this today. I accomplished this today focusing on those small accomplishments for a lot of people I think who are high achievers or even being a mom. You want to celebrate the big win like when you get that project on at work or that big sale in my world but that comes around like maybe once a year. So you got to start telling your brain all the good things you're doing on a daily basis because if you wait for that year mark when you close the deal you're going to be waiting a really long time. So I have to train myself - that does not come naturally to me. I came from a household where you got to perform, you got to go get those grades. You're only as good as what’s on that paper. And again that only happens what, once a semester? You get that grade but you have to retrain yourself. Those small actions you take day to day are important and they matter and they can also be kind of celebrated for sure.
Rebecca: And the celebration part is just such a huge piece of it. It's what makes the mundane of life worth it on some level. The fun it's seeing every day that you do useful things, that you matter, that you make a difference, that you make an impact, that your skills are being used, that you are meeting higher goals. Those are the things that matter to us and we want to be measuring that impact in a regular way and celebrating it. I love that. I'm curious, do you think that if we hadn't coached together that you would have taken this job?
Ali: No. You mean the one I just took or the one coming from a different industry?
Rebecca: Well, we can go with both. Tell me about it.
Ali: I don't think I probably would have changed industries. I just don't. I don't think I would have left what I was doing and taking this stretch role. No, I don't. I'm not sure that I would have done that.
Rebecca: To be clear, when we started together, I remember a piece of it was figuring out next steps in your career. That was a goal for us to figure out career direction. You didn't take that step in coaching together. We didn't do that together. It was after the fact you were in the middle of applying and so forth while we were coaching together. But the job hadn't landed yet. And where that led you to eventually was a change of industry entirely. And then that was only like a year ago, right?
Ali: Right.
Rebecca: Yeah. And then a year later you decide to take another role. I think it's in the same company though, right?
Ali: Yeah. It's actually a small promotion, so it's a step up to step up.
Rebecca: But also selling something different as well. Twelve years of your life you spent over here in the company doing this one thing and we got very clear on what it is you wanted, why you wanted it, how it fit into some of the bigger picture that gave you the confidence it gave you. What do you think it was that led you to say, I can do this new job, I can leave the comfort of my old life and my old career and move into this?
“I was afraid of making mistakes.”
Ali: You probably have a word for this, but I was so focused before coaching on, like, everything felt like this huge decision. Like if I was so afraid of making a mistake, you know, you had to be right. I was so focused on everything just being right. Oh, I have to make the perfect right decision on my next job. I have to make this perfect decision on what I want from my career. If I do this and I'm not successful, it means I'm a failure. Like, you know, I had attached all these kind of crazy thoughts of things that just made everything so much more intense than they needed to be. And I think during coaching what we really focused on was there is really no right decision necessarily. There's a lot of decisions and sort of like, what's the worst thing that's going to happen through a lot of them? There's a lot of different reasons for making decisions. You could probably make any of them. They could probably all turn out great. So you don't have to attach such importance to every single one of these decisions. They're not hopefully going to be life altering right? In terms of what job I take at a corporation, I think we also focused on a lot of like, well, I was so afraid of failure, and you were like, well, what if you fail? Okay, so what? Do you think you can go to another job? Yes. Whereas before, I was so worried about like, oh, if I take this job and I fail, then I'm going to just be in this hole forever. And I mean, really toxic thoughts. And for whatever reason, I wasn't able to get out of there myself. And I think that's what coaching allowed me to do. It really opened up the world to me to say that, no, these are, like, opportunities. And, hey, even if I take this job and I hate it, I don't have to stay in it. And that doesn't mean I failed. It means, like, okay, great, I tried it. It wasn't for me or I really liked it, but I want to do something else and I move on to the next thing. And you just take away all that heaviness from things and allow yourself the freedom to try new things and do new things and really to be so much more positive about it and that there is no right thing. There's just a lot of things. And in general, if you believe in yourself, it will be the right thing because you can make it work.
Your brain is designed to poke holes in your decisions.
Rebecca: I don't have a specific word to what we're talking about, but some of the concepts I talk about is there is no right, which is what you said. There's only the decision you make. Right. Because what your brain did and what pretty much every human brain is designed to do is to think about a decision and poke holes in why it's the wrong decision. Your brain is designed to take you to the place of failure and to show you this is what would happen if you failed at this. This is why you really shouldn't do this. Here's how it might hurt your family. Here's how it might hurt the rest of your career. Here's how it might do. X, Y, and Z. So your brain is designed to poke holes in your decisions. And if those holes are big enough, which for a lot of us, they are, they debilitate us from being able to move forward towards something else. And what we did in coaching is we would hear, uh, those thoughts and we'd say, okay, and how might this be the right decision for you? Why might this be the best thing for you? How does it actually benefit, assuming that it works out, how is this going to be the best thing for your career, for your family, for your bigger goals? We would start to if you will fill the holes on some level by creating a whole nother story which was also true and possible. And then your brain started to get comfortable with these ideas of like changing industries entirely. This is why this is really the best reason for me to do this. Here's how I know it resonates with me as being the right decision for me. And yes, it is possible that it won't work out. It is, in fact still very scary. But I have all of these reasons why it's also right.
“What coaching taught me was you can move negative thoughts aside and you can believe other thoughts.”
Ali: And I think one thing that, back to the thoughts and the feelings point. Looking back now, I'm kind of almost like embarrassed listening to myself talk and think like, oh, how do I have all these bad thoughts? But I think the difference is now I realize it's not really embarrassing. I was just believing all of those really negative thoughts. What coaching taught me was you can kind of move those thoughts aside and you can believe other thoughts. And then you gave me sort of a decisionmaking framework, the ability to make better decisions and to kind of go through that in a creative way and to buy into the new thoughts. It just all really ties together is that you're going to do what you're believing from your brain. If your brain is telling you all these things of like, oh, I can't do this, I'm never going to get out of this job. Well, that's what's going to happen. And I just had to learn that you can just totally change that, flip that on its head and tomorrow do something else. If you just choose to believe something else.
Confident decision makers still have some fear, they are just willing to keep moving forward despite the fear.
Rebecca: That self fulfilling prophecy is the way I like to teach my clients. Like your thoughts become a self fulfilling prophecy. That's not just my own thoughts. There's lots of philosophical beliefs around that. The idea that our thoughts become something. This is how ‘manifesting’ works. I don't teach much about manifesting, but it's the same idea. You put thoughts towards something and then magically something happens on the other side. Well, the magic part of that is that you shift the way your energy is towards that and you become more receptive to opportunities and moments that you wouldn't have otherwise because you've shifted the way you're thinking about it. And so all of a sudden opportunities arise for you and your willingness to go through them because you've become comfortable with the idea of moving through them, moving through the doors and the opportunities that come to you, you're more willing to do that even when there's fear around. And that's a really important part of all of this. Like, I'm sure you are still scared to change out of a job that you've had for twelve years and we haven't even talked about you moving to Florida, moving cross country on some level, and then to take another job that feels has some stretch element to it. I'm sure there's still fear involved in all of these things. We're not trying to get rid of the fear. That isn't where confident decision making comes from. Just because confident decision makers for sure still have some fear, they are just willing to keep moving forward despite the fear. They keep tracking along, even though they have a little voice in their brain that kind of goes, oh, my gosh, this is really scary. What if this doesn't work out? And they go, yeah, it might not.
Ali: I was so afraid. I took a new job. At the same time, my husband and I decided that we were going to take kind of a big risk and we were going to move to Florida. He was going to have to change jobs. We're pulling both our kids out of daycare uprooting everybody. For us, it was a big move in a way. It felt a little bit risky and I was definitely afraid. And I think that after coaching, I just embraced it. I was more like, just because I'm afraid, that's not a good enough reason to not do it. That's not a good enough reason to not move. That's not a good enough reason to not take a job. I'm afraid to stay where I'm at. So it's like you start to look at things a little bit differently. And despite being afraid, that's only part of the equation. The rest of it means we got to go, we got to go do this.
Rebecca: And the reasons are really important. And we spent time really sifting through the reasons behind things, the things that are most important to you and why they are most important to you. Your values as a human being, your values as a mom, your values in your family, the bigger goals, the things that you want to say you achieved in your life and have done in your life. Our brain can get on board with decisions that feel fearful and feel scary when it's rounded and a reason for doing it when we can say, yeah, here's where I want to be in the next five years. If I don't take some risks here and do some things, I'm not going to get there. I'm not going to be there. You have to know the why. You have to know the reasons behind what you're doing. I'm curious how some of the why’s that we came up with and some of your reasoning play into your everyday life.
Ali: One thing I wanted to mention during this because it was really eye opening for me is you graduate college or whatever you do. And I came out into the workforce and I graduated during the Great Recession. I think, Rebecca, we talked about this too, right where it's so hard to find a job, so you have your little job and you're like 23 or whatever, however old you are. And work really became my life, like achievement and work and money. I really felt wrapped up in that. That's my identity. How good of a job I can get, how much money I can make. That was life. And I just thought that's sort of the way it was going to be. I was always striving for that next thing and trying to figure that out fast forward, you can become a mom. And for me, I really felt like my entire world just shifted, right? You have these babies and you're like, oh, my gosh, I might not be that person anymore where money is the most important thing and where my job and my title is the most important thing in my life. And I felt a lot of insecurity about that coming into coaching, it was really like, I needed you to validate, hey, it's okay to make a family first decision. It's okay. I was really concerned about moving to Florida and job prospects and saying, like, I'm taking myself out of a major Metro market. Right? Is that okay?
Rebecca: You really did believe you were, like, holding yourself back in your career. You really 100% believed that.
Ali: And now this is precovid and pre remote work.
Rebecca: But it wasn't actually because we started in 2019. So six months in and we worked together for almost a year. And so six months of it was free, but six months of it wasn't. The tone took a while to change. We spent a lot of time thinking about what if there was a job for you in a company that you started where you live right now and they let you move to Florida and you still have the same job? What if that was possible? That's what happened. It's exactly what happened.
Ali: It was. I know it was amazing. But yes, back to your question about values. I would say what I really learned is that family is really important. I know that sounds generic, but it's okay to be a mom. It's okay to want to be a mom first. It's okay to prioritize that. It's okay to want to have fun and have fun in your day. It's okay to not want to be the CEO anymore. I don't want to be the CEO of a publicly traded company. Sorry. Maybe I want to be the CEO of my own business, but I don't want to do that anymore. And it's okay. It doesn't mean that I'm like a worthless human being.
Speaker A: We're less ambitious in some way, right? It doesn't mean that.
Speaker B: It just means that what I want and my values today have changed and that it's okay to honor those new values. And once I really got that through my head again, I think it's about freedom. I keep coming back to that word with coaching. It's like, but the next phase of your life can kind of open up because you can start saying to yourself, like, I'm going to live and align to these values. And so our move was a lot about that. It was about being closer to family, supporting family members who need a little bit of more help right now, and it's okay to do that. It's the best decision for our family, and I'm proud of it. I'm really proud that we did it.
Rebecca: 100%. And seemingly it's all worked out.
Ali: It has, yeah. Happy ending.
Rebecca: Amazing. Because you continue to tell yourself, you'll figure it out. Guess what? Seems like you figured it out.
Ali: We're figuring it out. Yeah.
It's okay for our priorities to change.
Rebecca: I love that. I just love the idea that it's okay for our priorities to change. It's okay for our values to change on some level, even for so many women, they become moms, and they don't take a moment to reassess what is most important to them. They've had an idea that is either culturally, it's what is expected of you or what we see in our culture. You go to a good school, you work hard in high school, you go to a good school, you graduate, you get a good job, you work in that job for a while. Eventually you find somebody that you want to marry. Hopefully you don't have kids first, but then you hopefully have kids after that. And then you keep moving forward or you keep moving up. We're kind of indoctrinated to believe this. And then you have kids and you go, well, wait a second. I've just spent the last 30, however many years of my life in this one zone thinking, here's what my life is all about, and here's where I'm going, and here's what's most important. As much as people could tell you that it changes when you become a mom, it changes when you become a mom. And until you get there and, like, stop and reset yourself and say, okay, here I am, what is now most important to me? Do I want to make sure that I get through the next 18 years when I send them off to college? What do I want to make sure that I'm instilling in my kids? What do I want their childhood experience to be? What do I want my own motherhood experience to be? What's most important in that? And then how does the career fit into all of that? These are really important questions to ask after a really big life change, like being a mom. And so many women don't give themselves the space to make the shift, and a whole identity has just shifted within you, you've become somebody that you were not before. We need to give special attention to that and be okay with the fact that you could have completely different set of goals once, uh, you become a mom, and that's okay.
Ali: I could not have said it better. And I think the other thing that I would say is that I think we really focus on telling women, oh, things really change after you become a mom instead of helping women with the skills that they need to cope with that.
Rebecca: Yeah. It's not easy. It's not easy.
Ali: Right? And I think that's what I really got from coaching. I mean, I got so many things from coaching, as you can tell, but it was like I needed skills to cope with a new reality and to thrive in a new reality and to make it mine and own it. And I needed that skill set. And I think that without it, for some, it can be hard to move through this next level of after having children.
Rebecca: I would say for most people, even if they're the ‘motherly type’, I mean, I hate even saying that. And I say it in air quote, the type that completely embraces motherhood and has no problem with it. And it's everything they've ever wanted in their life. I love that. But even in that place, there are changes that happen, and you have to give space to it. And we have to continue to give space as we go along. And to some of our points earlier, as you talk about carving out time for yourself and carving out time to work out and carving out time to rest, carving out time to have fun, that doesn't necessarily include either work or your kids, but it's just about you. Like that is important. There's space that's needed to be giving yourself that doesn't need to come with any guilt.
Once you identify your values, you can be much more intentional with the way that you spend your time.
Ali: Right. And I think one thing back to the values comment you made coaching also did is it taught me my values. And once you identify your values, you can be much more intentional with the way that you spend your time. And I think what happened to me and maybe happens to a lot of other women. Right. If you have a baby, you go back to work very short maternity leave. And it's just sort of like survival mode. You know, it's like that for a couple of years, maybe you have a second child, maybe not. If you have a second child, then it's survival mode all over again. Right. And you sort of forget sometimes how to be intentional with your time because you are just surviving. You're just in that day to day, you're exhausted. But once you have enough energy to kind of like come out of that for a second or put your head above water or even if you're in the middle of that, if you have the right tools and the right skills, you actually can kind of like be a lot more intentional some of your time a little bit. Like you said, how I'm going to parent my kids, how I'm going to spend those 2 hours at night with them. And I can actually feel really good about that time. And you know what else I can learn is that if I don't for a day, like if Thursday was just a really bad night, it's okay there's tomorrow I'm going to wake up tomorrow and I'm going to be much more intentional and very much value that time on Friday afternoon, even though Thursday didn't go well and I don't have to feel bad about it. Before coaching, I didn't have those skills after coaching. It's like you've realized how to put a little bit more structure around your thoughts and your intentions that are more value based.
Rebecca: I love that and just really want to highlight the idea that our brain often thinks that we need more time with our kids in order to be better parents, you know, and that's something I coach on a lot with people is the idea that we need more time to be successful as moms. We need more time to be successful in our jobs. If we just had an infinite amount of time, all of a sudden we could be more successful. Obviously, we know that that's not true. But what you've just said is, like, as you become more intentional based on the things that matter most to you with the time that you have more time becomes irrelevant at that point. Because the time that you're spending feels good, it feels like enough. It feels like it was exactly what it was supposed to be instead of constantly feeling like it's not. And you probably didn't gain any more time with your kids at the end of the day, but because you put intentionality behind it and because you decided what was most important in that time and the things that you are going to do or think or feel or say or interact or how you are going to handle that time, you became more present, you became infinitely more impactful to you, and your brain stopped saying to you, well, you just don't have enough time. You don't have enough time with them.
Ali: And I think you can just have a much richer experience in that time that you do have versus worrying about it and feeling guilty like, oh, I only have 2 hours now. You can say, yeah, I get to have these 2 hours, and I'm going to try my best to make them the best 2 hours today. Or you know what? Hey, I don't have a lot of energy today. I'm going to downshift these 2 hours, and it's just going to be like Legos in the bathtub, and that's all I got today.
Rebecca: Oh, I should try that Legos in the bathtub. I've never done that.
Ali: Legos in the bathtub. Thank you, toddler Page on Instagram.
Rebecca: I saw one of those that had, like, um, the pompoms. Like the craft pompoms. You throw those in the bathtub and fill them, and then you just stick them in the dryer afterwards, they just dry right back up.
Ali: I, um, did that, and my two and a half year old put it up her nose. So no more pompoms in the bathtub.
Rebecca: Well, she's two, right?
Ali: Yeah.
Rebecca: So mine are a little older. I'm going to assume that they're not going to probably put it in their nose, but it is a word to the warning out there. To the mom who keep this on the podcast, you should not do it unobserved, not unsupervised pompom time in the bathroom.
Ali: One of those horrible mom moments. Yeah.
Rebecca: Downshifting for me, I do have a lot of thoughts about how much screen time I give my kids. I'm very intentional about that. On some level, this constant push and pull within me, don't get me wrong, they ask for it incessantly and they only get it a little bit. But the times that I want to downshift, I have found things like we started One Planet together and that's like ten episodes focused on the planet. I'm super intrigued. I love the show. It's so good. And the kids have learned all sorts of things and we have very interesting conversations after some of them, and they're very focused on like, environmental awareness too. So at the end they're like, oh, here it comes again. They're going to tell us about saving the planet, but we get to have some conversations about that. I really do think about that time. And it doesn't feel like screen time. It feels like family time and it feels like an important time. And we come back to some of those conversations. You remember when we watched about the zebras doing the whatever, and they're like, oh, yeah, so we can connect it back. And so downshifting doesn't have to be numbing out or avoiding. It could also be an engaging time that is cozy in your pajamas and under a blanket with popcorn, Preferably
Ali: But also that you're choosing that.
Rebecca: Yeah, it's very conscious in the decision and that you're okay with that.
Ali: And like, hey, I don't have to have expertly planned activities for my kids every night. And just because we're going to chill out and watch TV together doesn't mean I'm a bad mom. It just means like that's what we chose to do today.
Rebecca: 100%. I can't believe an hour has gone by already. Essentially enough talking. This has been so good. There's been so many gems here. I love it. Anything we haven't touched on that you want to bring up in terms of things that you've really taken away from coaching in the long term that has stuck with you or practices that you use or ways that you see the world that is forever changed in your after coaching.
“My biggest takeaway is that I am less judgemental of myself.”
Ali: I think that the biggest thing for me has been to be a lot less judgemental of myself and like that it's okay to want the things that I want. They might not be what a Fortune 500 CEO wants. I mean, I work in corporate America. You can probably figure that out. And that doesn't make me a bad employee or like a less ambitious person or anything like that. And in fact, I think it's allowed me to be a more interesting person because it's just kind of allowed me to be more who I want to be instead of just feeling like I have to be on this track all the time of what I thought things should look like for me. And I think that really, uh, what it comes back to. And I know I've said this a bunch of times, but it's all about choice. And I was always so judgmental about my own choices in my head, you're constantly making these decisions, right? I'm always like, judging if this is the right thing to do? And I still have a lot of those thoughts, but now I would say I have much better counters to those thoughts. It's just the right thing to do. And when I say I'm doing this because this is the fun thing to do, I'm like, yeah, because this is what I want to do today. I want to have fun today, right? Or I want to just go 80 miles an hour today, and that's what I want to do. And so I think just having that freedom to make those choices and feel very, like, confident in those choices is really good.
And then I would say, the last thing that I've done consistently from coaching is just journaling and just noticing those feelings that keep coming up. I think that was really good training from when we did. It was like, we would capture these feelings that would come up every once in a while, and there were repetitive feelings. And now I am so much better at identifying them faster to say to myself, like, where is this coming from? I obviously need to deal with this. I've got to figure out something to do with this, right? And sometimes, like you said in the very beginning, it's a warning. Like you said, I feel like I want to rest because things are too intense now. I sort of recognize that of like, you know, I'm feeling this way because I haven't had a day off in a while. I'm feeling this way. I'm getting these thoughts because maybe my husband and I haven't had a date in, like, a month and a half. Whereas before, I would be like, oh, maybe this means we're not doing well in our relationship. Or maybe this means I'm not as productive as I should be, whereas now I kind of see them more as warning signs to be like, no, Ali. It probably actually means that you need to do something different than what you're doing. It's not so serious.
Rebecca: We like to label our feelings like…we have a feeling - guilt, disconnection, frustration, anger. We have these kind of ickyish feelings, and we like to use them as evidence that something is wrong. Oh, my gosh. Something is wrong in my marriage. I must be a bad parent. Something is wrong in the way I'm doing X, Y, or Z versus sometimes it could be a sign that you need to change some things, but in this case, it's not a sign that your marriage is falling apart. It's a sign that you just haven't connected in a while yet. It makes sense you're missing connection when you haven't actually spent time together in the last month and a half. Yeah, it makes sense that you're feeling pretty exhausted. If you've worked for the last seven days and didn't give yourself a day off, that doesn't mean something's wrong to this extreme sense that our brain likes to make it mean we don't want to take our emotions ever and then use them as evidence kind of against us in some way that's detrimental. And I love that you have been able to bring so much perspective to your feelings and your emotions and thoughts and recognize them for what they are, which are just thoughts and feelings. Like you're a human being that has thoughts and feelings, and there's nothing wrong with that. We all have them. It's okay. They're not always supposed to be good or positive, and that's okay.
Ali: And then this is the last thing I would say. It was really, really powerful. I have a spiritual side, you know, I have a belief in God, and I'm so much more trusting now that it's going to work out. It's going to work out. It might not be the way I thought I was going to be. It might look a lot different. It's going to work out. You know, I was always so worried, like, oh, I got to make this jump now or I got to take this chance. If I miss this opportunity, I'm not going to get it back again. And I've gotten a lot better and calmer at saying to myself, yeah, you missed that one. And something else is going to come down the path because something else will present itself to you and maybe the timing is for a reason and to let go a little bit of some of that control and that fear that I've missed something. I'm so afraid, but I missed my chance and I don't really have that anymore.
Rebecca: This is the one thing. It's the one job. It's the one thing I can't. What if I don't? I mean, I have to go. I have to take this opportunity right now. This frantic desperation that our brains like to get to, that's a coping mechanism in our brain, right. It doesn't want you to miss out. It's a very survival instinct in us, totally normal. And you don't have to listen to it.
Trust the timing of things.
Ali: Right. And that you have to trust the timing of things, and you have to just trust that something is going to come down your path if your heart is open to it and that it's okay. And I think once I relaxed into that a little bit more, it was amazing how much my life changed. Like I said, it goes back to it's like my job changed. We moved. Like, all of these goals that were hanging out there, doors just started opening for us. I mean, we came down here, we found a house right away. It was like, weird timing things started to happen. And then the more you kind of lean into that and trust that you're like, oh, wow. Okay. I really am in the right place. I'm going to continue to try to open my heart up to these things. And the more you do that and you try to just say to yourself, like, it's going to come along, it did. It did come along.
Speaker A: This is a good word for me as we are going through some big changes for us personally, moving, trying to figure out a whole bunch of other logistical stuff. And I've had to come back to this just in the last 24 hours and be like, oh, I forgot that I believe this all works out. I kind of forgot that I'm really feeling, like, the emotion and the franticness of this. I can just lean into the remembering. Things just seem to work out if I let them. Okay, let it go. Hold it with open palms, not tight fist.
Rebecca: It's so true. It's hard to do.
Ali: Ally, this has been so much fun. I just love hearing where you, uh, are at a couple of years after coaching together and all of the big changes that have happened. There's so much to celebrate in, the big things that have happened and the goals that have been met. But in just the way you've changed your day to day life and the way you feel in control and the way that you feel like you're exactly where you should be and the way that you are able to handle your emotions, the everyday experience that you want to have as a working mom, you are living that you're creating that it's such a beautiful thing. Thank you.
Coaching definitely changed my life.
Speaker B: Well, thank you. I could not have done it without you. Coaching definitely changed my life. I'm so appreciative. And for anyone who is thinking about it or who is in the process now, I wish you the best because you're going to get whatever you put into it. You're going to get out of it.
Speaker A: Awesome. Alright working moms, I shall see you next week. Let's get to it.
