Transcript

Lisa

Rebecca, welcome. I'm so glad you are able to take the time to talk to me today and the listeners about building legacy.

Rebecca

Delighted to be here.

Lisa

What does legacy look like for you? I'm so curious. We're going to dig into your story and what compelled you to write a book about this topic, too. So why don't you tell us a little bit about your career journey up to this point and what led you to this point?

Rebecca

Sure. So I started out in college studying psychology, and I thought I would be a therapist. My mom was a therapist. And from the outside, it looked like a great career and opportunity to help folks. And I actually, and I recommend this to everyone who's starting out in a career, I did an internship, a very in depth internship at an adolescent psychiatric hospital, and I decided that I was way too much of an empath to do that level of work with folks. And when I was in college, I was really wrestling with this debate between being a therapist and working in education policy, working on equity. And so when I had that experience at the psychiatric hospital, I decided, well, it looks like education equity should be my focus.

So I ended up teaching. I went to law school to work on education policy. I started working at the US Department of Education, doing that and really encountered the realities of bureaucracy and what that looks like at really big system change levels. And I ended up leaving and having my kids and then doing some consulting at different education nonprofits and social justice organizations, which I loved. But I really wanted to sink my teeth into something. So I landed my dream job. I mean, it was the thing that I had been building up to for so long. I was doing education policy work.

I was working on social emotional learning. I was in the trenches. I was thrilled. And then I burned myself all the way out. And it was a really terrible experience. I mean, if any of your listeners have experienced burnout, it is a whole mind body emotion experience that impacts your entire life in many, many ways. And I really wrestled and grappled with what to do after I had landed my dream job, and that was no longer an option. And I had this vacuum of purpose, and I really floundered there.

And that's where I came to coaching through that experience and navigating that and also came to this really deep appreciation for what legacy looks like and that it doesn't have to be one thing through our whole lives.

Lisa

Yeah, for sure. You know, we talk about career, and career is usually around the vocation that you have the jobs that you have. But really, it's a portfolio of all of that combined. It can be career legacy even.

And then there's legacy beyond our jobs and what we're paid to do. That's why I wrote my book Career Mama, because it's about, I have two careers. One is my portfolio and what it looks like to be a caregiver and raising children, and the other is the work I do that I get paid for and get fulfilled by. And so I think you're talking about that, too, where a job that seems like a dream is still a job and there's still components that can burn us out even if we love what we do.

Rebecca

Yeah. What really emerged from that experience, and I talk about this a lot in my book that's coming out, The Rooted Renegade, is when we haven't done our internal work and haven't really looked at some of the dynamics in our mindset and how we speak to ourselves in our perspective on things, it shows up in very sneaky ways to kind of cut us off at our knees sometimes, but in these really deep burnout experiences, but even in the softer kind of day to day life, it affects the quality of our lives. And I'm really committed to supporting people to look really deeply at what those internal pieces are so that they can feel satisfied in whatever job they do as they go throughout their days.

Lisa

I love that. And people get burnt out in personal life, too.

Rebecca

Absolutely.

Lisa

We say it a lot where it's like “you are not your job” and “your identity shouldn't be your job,” and that's all well and good, but it's not just about the job. Right. It's about how we're approaching those interpersonal relationships. Like you said. What is the mindset going into it? Are we aligned with the right work for our personality type? There are nuance.

Rebecca

Yeah. We can feel it's really challenging when we feel really connected from a values aligned place with our work, but it's still not working for us. That can cause a lot of internal friction. So if it's a toxic work environment, if you're feeling like the actual tasks throughout your day are not things that let you up, even though the bigger picture why of the organization does, or you're feeling like the balance is off with the rest of your life, that can burn us out. So there are so many ways that it can show up really insidiously and that pressure can build over time.

Lisa

Yeah. So tell us a little bit more about your dream job. What did that look like? And why did you think it was your dream? And then how did you realize quickly that your chapter and that that chapter was closing?

Rebecca

Yeah. So this job felt like the culmination of so much work I had done. There was new legislation in elementary and secondary education. I was traveling around the country, talking with different school districts and going to different conferences. I was looking at ways that social emotional learning programs could be implemented. I am deeply committed, I mean, it's no surprise that I'm a coach, but I'm deeply committed to starting very early with children around how we build emotional regulation skills, self management, how we know ourselves. I saw it as a way to affect the downstream consequences of not doing that work with children.

So many of my clients today never learned some of the fundamental skills about how do you recognize your emotions? What do you do with them? How do you know when you've had too much? How do you know when your balance is off? All those things that I really think if we could start with children as a societal level, we would be so much better off. So I was doing that work, and it felt awesome. And I had an eight year old and a five year old. I was running around all over the place trying to do a full time job, part time traveling, and my youngest was really, I didn't notice this at the time, but I, I think I noticed it subconsciously, but in retrospect, really fully appreciated it, she was starting to disconnect from me, I think, in order to protect herself from me being away and not present in the way she needed me to be. And it was feeling, as time went on, like my needs as a mom were not aligned, the work environment was not aligned with, with kind of the, kind of organizational, like, the feeling I wanted to have when I walked into work wasn't there. And I was just feeling the pace was not going to work with the rest of my life. And I ended up having a panic attack in the middle of a presentation.

I'd never had a panic attack before. I didn't even know what was happening. And it kick started a whole anxiety spiral that really, um, took me out for a while and took me a long time to build back physically, emotionally. And it was, I really grappled with this question because I had worked for, I felt like for a long time to get to this, what felt like a peak for me. And I was like, well, what now? I was late thirties, early forties, so I was like, what am I going to do now? Because I really wanted to support people and show up for people and make an impact. But I wasn't sure how. I knew the way I had tried, didn't work and didn't allow me to fully express some of the gifts that I hold.

I'm a very logical person, I could be very persuasive. All those skills were in play. But my deeper empathy, intuition, some of the softer parts of me were not being accessed in ways that I needed.

Lisa

So I also relate to as an empath and found that the more political, the higher up and more of a corporate I became, the less I was able to tap into that and use it in a way that was productive, which very contrary to my personal fit. Right. And so I can relate for sure, where, especially if you're trying to take on the world, it feels like, and it sounds like that was a lot of the work you did. My daughter's eight now, and they bring home things about SEL, we talk about it, Social Emotional Learning. Fantastic. But I keep thinking now, as a coach, of course I appreciate everything that they're doing, those conversations with her, but I think about the parents that didn't get that education, or they're not in the space that we're in. And such a disconnect because the work is also at home, not just at school, right?

Rebecca

Yep.

Lisa

Exactly what you're talking about. This is why we do what we do is because we have generations that were not tapped into looking inwards, which I do believe is why we have such a surge in life coaching and services and therapy services. Because exactly what you're saying. Children didn't get what they needed. So kudos to you. But I could also see where it was such a big lift that if you weren't having that individual impact that empaths typically thrive off of. Yep, it could feel a little daunting. Right?

Rebecca

I really appreciate what you're pointing to too, about how we feel like we need to be within organizations in order to comply with the culture in the organization, or the expectations of leaders at a particular level, or the social pressures around productivity and all of that. And if any of that is misaligned, we experience, especially for, I think for people who identify as women and other marginalized identities feel like we can't. There's this internal friction we can't quite name and it causes a lot of distress and there aren't enough conversations about the toll of that over time.

Lisa

Life's happening, and we're trying to pay our bills going day to day, and then all of a sudden, we're in this job for a few years and we're going, “why am I sick?” “Why am I feeling bad?” “Why are my kids disconnecting? What is going on?” Or “why am I disconnecting?” We have mothers that are listening. We all have those moments of just, oh, I don't have the emotional energy to give right now. I need to go veg out or I need to walk away or do something for myself because my bucket’s not filled to give back. And that, that comes with all that shame as a mom. And so all the layers of, you know, your caregiver and someone who's trying to do passionate work.

Yeah. If we're not monitoring that, and like you said, the alignment, making sure that alignment fits, it can be really hard. And then it induces things that are long term, have long term effects, anxiety attacks. I have other podcast guests. We talk about health because there's such an intersection between that personal life and work that sometimes we try to separate them so much that we don't recognize the symptoms on both sides.

Rebecca

Yes, absolutely. There's a, like, there's a quality of go, go, going that prevents us from really appreciating those, often small, they start as small shifts internally or small points of tension or discomfort that, when we don't attend to them, get louder and louder and then cause all these ripple impacts. And I I feel like the well being conversation we just need to keep having over and over again within organizations, with our clients, as coaches, for leaders, with their teams, as a team member, with your colleagues. I mean, it goes through the whole system, because if we're not taking care of ourselves, we can't possibly do our good work in the world. And so it has to really start there.

Lisa

I agree. And then hopefully, that will trickle down and it'll be, parents at home understand the importance of that education, and they're able to talk about it, and leaders can show up for their teams and make sure they're reciprocating what they received as well. So important. Rebecca, tell me a little bit more about your book and what it includes and the mission of it and anything you want to share.

Rebecca

Yeah. So I started writing this book during the very early stages of the pandemic. And when I was at home, like everybody else or many of us who were privileged to be able to do that, I started recording videos featuring different coaching content that I thought could support people through their day to day lives, encountering something so novel for most of us. And I realized over time that many of the coaching concepts, ideas, strategies, tools that I was sharing through those videos would be really helpful to put together in a book for people to access. One of my, kind of one of my values and tenants as a coach is service. And so I feel like there's a need to democratize some of the concepts within coaching so that other people can access them. The concepts in coaching that are steeped throughout my book are things that I wish I had learned in school, I wish had been reinforced over time. It's the book I needed in my quarter life crisis in my thirties crisis, adjusting to children kind of at every stage.

And I feel like we don't have a lot of resources for how to grapple with these bigger questions. Oftentimes we feel like we're the only person experiencing them. We don't have the tools or nowhere to turn, necessarily. So one of my colleagues called this a nightstand bible. She's like, I'm just going to keep it there because I know if I'm worried about something, I'll turn to it. If I'm not sure what direction to go in, I can look at it. And so the I think about this book as a path to holistic success for ambitious professionals, whether you're starting out at a career turning point or in the brink of burnout. And it walks people through how you create the somatic or internal experience of peace and well being that we, many of us, are craving beyond the quick fixes, that deep sense of contentment, how we create that for ourselves, and then how we look at existential peace, what's our legacy? What's our purpose, our why? What lights us up? And how do we go about taking action toward that? And then the last piece is around relational peace.

So one of the things that has, that causes lots of us tension and stress in our lives is our relationship with ourselves and our relationship with others. And so in that section, I walk people through how to start rewiring your relationship with yourself and how to look at boundaries, what is kind of the constellation of relationships in your life, and what's the effect of those on you, and what do you want to create? And so it's very tangible. There are 50 plus exercises throughout the book. I really wanted this to be like your coach on a bookshelf that people can turn to again and again. And so it is just packed with client stories, my own stories, exercises, all kinds of things that people can really sink their teeth into. I'm a big believer in practicality, so there are lots of practical things to do.

Lisa

Right. We can talk theory all day. My husband loves to. There's a point where I'm like, what are you going to do about it?

Rebecca

Uh huh. Yeah. You sound like a coach, Lisa.

Lisa

Right, exactly. Let's take action. Well, this also sounds like a great resource and tool for coaches, too, so I can't wait to get my hands on it and find some more resources for my clients as well. That's great.

Rebecca

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Coaching. A number of coaching colleagues have said that they're like, this is, there are so many tools in here I can use with people, so I feel really fortunate to have been able to put it together and grateful for the impact that I know it's going to have for folks.

Lisa

Yeah. Thank you for taking the time for all of us, of course, because there's so much, you know, we know it's, most of it's out there some, in some fashion somewhere, but I think people are getting sick and tired of this is why we have chat, GPT and AI now. Right. It's like, just tell me the answer.

Rebecca

Yes.

Lisa

And even there, there's still a long way for it to go, but because the answer isn't always for everyone, that's great. Just having a place where people can go and get all of it at once, it's fantastic.

Rebecca

It's also, I mean, if I don't say so myself, I've heard from others. It's entertaining, too. Always like a friend walking you through these things instead of. Sometimes I find that books especially, we don't have a long attention span right now. There are things coming at us all the time. The sections are very short. It's very approachable language. So I really wanted to meet people where they were at.

Lisa

Yeah. I love that. We are very aligned. Look at us. Very aligned. That's why I have my KISS Program for Job seekers and the job search.

Keep it simple system. Again, all that noise and everything going on, people need it just to be boiled down into like, what do I need to do right now?

Rebecca

Yep.

Lisa

What can help me quickly. That's fantastic. Okay, let's get into some, maybe a couple different tips you have that you can pick out of just 50 plus activities or things you have for our listeners so they can try it today or tomorrow.

Rebecca

Yes. Happy to. So I was thinking, we had talked initially about talking getting into the weeds a little bit on legacy. This question of legacy. So I want to offer you four steps and then a couple of strategies. If that works, great. The first is getting clear on your legacy. Your why, your purpose, your reason for being, your soul's expression.

And the examples I'm going to give you for some exercises will help walk you through that. The second is to focus on using your strengths and your unique gift. So some of us think we need a good enough option, and that's totally fine as a stepping stone. And when we, when we have a life that's good enough, it doesn't actually feel good enough. And so when we start to look at our work and our whole life really oriented toward our strengths and our unique gifts, the quality of it, it almost becomes in technicolor because we're enjoying so many more hours of our day. The third piece is to live in integrity with our values. So I'd like to say about values, that old dirty dancing quote, nobody puts baby in a corner. That's how values are.

If we have a value we are not honoring, it will let itself be known. It will keep us up at night. It will create a nagging feeling in our guts. And so it's really when we start to bring all the aspects of our lives into alignment with our values, it starts to feel like we have the energy and motivation to pursue the things that really matter to us. And then the last step, Lisa, you'll appreciate this, is get going, right? So I like to say no legacy happens from your couch. Though it is nice and comfy, but having a sense, a little bit of a sense of our own mortality in a way that motivates us to take action that might feel a bit uncomfortable, allows us to grow that level of comfort over time, to take on more and more things that are in alignment for us. So a couple tangible ideas for how to get clear on your legacy. Your why, your reason, what you really want to get up to.

The first is an art project. So I feel like when we're stuck in our logical brains, it's very helpful to take on a different, a whole different medium. It could be painting, drawing, singing, anything that is outside the realm of logic. So I want to invite you to take out a piece of paper, start with age four, or whatever your earliest memories are, and just start to draw out. Chart out the moments where you felt completely alive, fulfilled in flow, joyful, lit up, and try to aim for ten-ish. If you have more, great. If you have fewer, that's fine. But as you draw those out, you can start to see the patterns over time about what is uniquely you and what lights you all the way up.

That's the first. The second is a visualization. So oftentimes I find that my clients, and you probably find this too, Lisa, that our clients come to us when they've reached the edge of their logic or the edge of where their own brain can take them. And visualizations are really helpful way for us to access our own intuition. So I'll share my website at the end, but if you go to my website, there's a video visualization you can do and a worksheet that will help walk you through connecting with the more intuitive knowing you have within you that is pretty clear on what you want to do. Usually there's just layers of crud on top of it that we need to clear out of the way. No problem. So that will walk you through visualization.

And then the third, the third strategy I will offer is if you go about your week and start to notice when you're doing something satisfying to you, anything cooking, being with your family, walking in nature, whatever it is, notice the physical sensations of that satisfaction. It might be a settling in your shoulders, an expansion or arising in your chest, or an anchored feeling in your feet. Whatever it is, just notice what it is. As you go throughout your week, that is your signature or your tell that you are on the path of something that lights you up. So if you're looking at job listings, if someone tells you about an opportunity or there's a gig that might be available, it will help you connect with that inner knowing of what is yours to claim without those internal sensations. Sometimes we just get too in our heads, but when we know, oh, this is the feeling of me being really excited about something and wanting it and it being aligned with legacy, then we know we're hot on the trail of it. So those are just a few lots more in the book. And it's just my pleasure to share some of these tangible resources with folks.

Lisa

That's beautiful. Some very similar strategies I use with clients when they're trying to get clear on next direction. And I love again that intersection between personal life and career where you're even that physical, tangible. What does it feel like so important? Especially with women, right? People that are more feminine. Nature of just that intuition, which is not always just women, by the way, some very intuitive men. But being in touch with your intuition. And people question that so often in corporate environments where I firmly believe corporations would be so much better if we would lean into our intuition more often.

Rebecca

Yeah, I sometimes talk to folks about the neuroscience of intuition, because we can think it's really fluffy, but actually, our intuition is born of our experience, our skills, our strengths, all of those things. It's just a quicker path to it than a spreadsheet or pros and cons list or any of that.

Lisa

Yeah, exactly. It's just a different part of our brain activating. And so. And then pulling in. I like to say, too, like, my intuition leads me, but then I stop, and I. Then if I need to analyze it and figure out what the analysis is behind it, you can do that. You can go back and say, okay, I'm feeling this now. Why? And what's the data or the story to back that up? And then you can check it.

But a lot of people just say, oh, I just don't want to push that to the side. Instead of lean in, figure out what is going on there.

Rebecca

The other thing I find, I don't know. I'm curious if you find this, too, that when people are not listening to their intuition, there's often something that is just they're bumping up against. It might be a message they've heard from somebody else or social conditioning or an experience they have had that they haven't processed. So that's what I'm talking about when I say, clear away the crud so he can get at the essence of what we really know internally.

Lisa

Yeah, absolutely. That voice keeps popping up.

Rebecca

Yep.

Lisa

Let's say it out loud. Let's figure out what it is. Yes. Because a lot of times it takes people a couple conversations. It's like, oh, you haven't said that before, actually. Well, really, lisa, if I could do blah, blah, blah, that would be my dream. And I'm like, whoops, there it is. You just let it out, right? You let the cat out of the bag.

Rebecca

Yep.

Lisa

The quicker we can do that, the quicker we'll get unblocked.

Rebecca

Absolutely.

Lisa

Just admit it to ourselves and somebody else, you know, unbiased party is always good to test it out on. We're very fearful when it comes to people in our life that might have a reaction because it might affect them. What our true dreams are, goals.

Rebecca

Yeah. I like to think about those that first blush of, like, recognizing that you're onto something, on to starting to articulate a desire or a dream, it's very tender, so we need to treat it with care initially and not share it with someone who might shut us down and all of that, and just give it a little room to breathe and see what it is and what it's trying to tell us and all of that before we kind of share it with other people who might not be as open to it.

Lisa

Great way to put it. Yeah, let's let it be live in that tender spot. Excuse me. Oh, that's great. Well, thank you, Rebecca, so much for the tips and joining me today to talk through all of this. Love the work you're doing. I think it's going to help so many people. How can people, first of all, find your book and second, get a hold of you?

Rebecca

So The Rooted Renegade is available on bookshop.org, comma, on Amazon, on Barnes and noble, all those usual places. My website is rootcoachingconsulting.com. and you'll find there, you can get an excerpt for the book. You can get the visualization I mentioned. There's some other resources on there and would love to connect with you all and see different ways to support. I think there's so much out there to support us along our way. And so I hope you find exactly what you need so the book is available for you, you know, as you go throughout your path. And I just so appreciate, Lisa, what you're bringing to folks through these conversations and who you are in the world and just providing such a range of resources to people.

Lisa

Thank you. Words of affirmation are part of my love language, so I appreciate it.

Rebecca

Of course.

Lisa

And you had mentioned to a book giveaway.

Rebecca

Yes. So I'm going to put, we'll have in the show notes a link to a form you can fill out. You just enter your email, and we'll enter you into a book giveaway for a signed copy of the book that will be available June 10 and thereafter. So I'm excited to see you there and do reach out if you have any questions on the website.

Lisa

Wonderful. I love a good book giveaway. As I was telling you earlier.

Rebecca

Same, same. I need more bookshelves in my house.

Lisa

Yes.

Rebecca

Oh, gosh.

Lisa

I was talking to someone yesterday about this, how we can't go into bookstores. It's really dangerous. It is.

Rebecca

It's like candy stores.

Lisa

Yeah. Libraries are such a blessing for people like us. Love it. Okay, Rebecca, thank you so much. And keep doing that wonderful, empathic work that you're doing.

Rebecca

Thanks, Lisa. I appreciate it.