Body on the Brink: Recognizing the Need for a Break
In this eye-opening episode, executive coach and author Donna Star joins us to share her powerful journey from corporate burnout to reclaiming her health and peace. As a former Senior Vice President who pushed herself to the point where her body could no longer digest food, Donna knows firsthand the toll that stress can take on both body and mind. Now, she helps others—especially medical professionals—recognize the warning signs of burnout and find ways to restore balance and well-being in their lives.
Join us as Donna reveals:
- The hidden signs your body needs a break
- How to recognize the stress test you're facing before it's too late
- Practical strategies for reclaiming your power and maintaining peace, even in high-pressure environments
This episode is a must-listen for anyone feeling the weight of overwhelming stress and seeking a path back to health and tranquility.
Connect with Donna Star:
- LinkedIn: Donna Star
- Website: dstarconsultants.com
Tune in to learn how to step off the burnout treadmill and start living a life filled with peace and purpose.
---------------
Follow the Host, Kelly Buckley:
Stay connected with Kelly Buckley and join her journey of healing, resilience, and gratitude. Follow her on social media for more inspiring content, updates on future episodes, and insights on living a life full of hope and purpose.
- Website: kellybuckley.com
- Facebook: Kelly Buckley on Facebook
- Instagram: @KellyBuckleyOfficial
- LinkedIn: Kelly Buckley on LinkedIn
- Twitter: @KellyBuckley
- YouTube: Kelly Buckley on YouTube
If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe to the podcast, share it with your friends and family, and leave a review. Your support helps spread the message of hope, resilience, and gratitude to more listeners around the world.
⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe to the podcast, share it with your friends and family, and leave a review. Your support helps spread the message of hope, resilience, and gratitude to more listeners around the world.
00:00:02
Welcome, everybody,
00:00:03
to another episode of Broken Beautiful Me,
00:00:06
and I am so excited today for our guest,
00:00:09
Donna Starr.
00:00:10
So after a successful
00:00:12
thirty-year career in corporate America,
00:00:14
Donna Starr is a highly sought-after,
00:00:16
certified executive coach
00:00:18
and professional speaker.
00:00:20
At the heart of Donna's
00:00:21
success is her ability to
00:00:23
connect with people in a
00:00:24
deep and meaningful way.
00:00:26
She is smart, funny, intuitive,
00:00:28
and says it like it is.
00:00:30
I love that.
00:00:31
Donna has always been intuitive,
00:00:33
but she received formal
00:00:34
training from the forensic
00:00:36
medium and taps into this
00:00:38
skill to help bring her
00:00:39
clients even greater clarity.
00:00:41
Donna is a proud Bostonian
00:00:43
with two amazing adult children.
00:00:45
And yes, she loves Boston sports.
00:00:47
We're going to talk about that.
00:00:49
It's in her DNA.
00:00:51
In her spare time,
00:00:52
you can find Donna reading, traveling,
00:00:54
walking, playing word games of any kind,
00:00:57
except for it all.
00:00:59
And spending time with close
00:01:00
family and friends.
00:01:02
Donna, welcome so much.
00:01:03
Thank you so much for being on the show.
00:01:05
Thank you so much for having me.
00:01:07
When I got the notice from
00:01:08
you that you wanted me to
00:01:09
be on the show and I saw the title,
00:01:11
Broken Beautiful Me, I was like,
00:01:15
it teared me up a little
00:01:16
bit because isn't everybody
00:01:17
broken and beautiful in some way?
00:01:19
Absolutely.
00:01:20
And being broken makes us more beautiful.
00:01:23
It does.
00:01:23
Let's delight in.
00:01:25
Yes, it does.
00:01:26
so to begin with just for
00:01:28
our listeners who don't
00:01:29
maybe don't know too much
00:01:30
about your work and your
00:01:31
background can you just
00:01:32
kind of give us a brief
00:01:34
overview of your life sure
00:01:37
sure you know I worked for
00:01:40
a thirty four years in
00:01:41
corporate america I started
00:01:42
in an ad agency taking ad
00:01:45
copy over the phone on a
00:01:47
little typewriter and
00:01:48
really lived through the
00:01:49
internet age you know faxes
00:01:51
and then the internet and I
00:01:52
remember my first email that I sent
00:01:55
And then I worked for a
00:01:56
company called monster.com,
00:01:57
which really changed the
00:01:59
way companies recruit and
00:02:00
find talent online.
00:02:02
So I really became part of
00:02:03
the digital revolution.
00:02:05
And I'm very fortunate.
00:02:06
I had a great career,
00:02:07
but deep down in my soul,
00:02:10
it's not really what I wanted to do.
00:02:12
I was just good at it.
00:02:14
And I also had a lot of stuff,
00:02:19
broken pieces of me that I
00:02:21
thought were healed.
00:02:22
And I didn't realize that I
00:02:23
needed to be healed.
00:02:25
bring a better person to
00:02:26
work and to believe in myself more.
00:02:28
So in my book,
00:02:29
I talk about not enoughness
00:02:32
and the way it makes it drives us.
00:02:34
So after thirty four years,
00:02:35
when my daughter,
00:02:36
my second graduated college, I was like,
00:02:39
it's my time.
00:02:40
And now I'm an executive
00:02:41
coach and I have a lot of
00:02:43
experience to bring to my
00:02:44
clients because I was in
00:02:45
boardrooms and I was had politics and
00:02:48
promotions and people that
00:02:50
didn't speak to me anymore
00:02:51
and people that I still talk to.
00:02:53
And so I bring all of that plus coaching,
00:02:56
plus just life experience and intuition.
00:02:59
And it's a beautiful
00:03:01
combination to help my clients.
00:03:05
Talk to me about the intuition.
00:03:07
I'm really intrigued by that and your work,
00:03:11
your training with this
00:03:12
forensic medium and how
00:03:14
that really helped your practice.
00:03:17
I always into everybody has
00:03:19
intuition like across the board.
00:03:21
I am not unique, but I could read a room.
00:03:25
So I was in sales.
00:03:26
And so I'd walk in a room and I'm like,
00:03:28
that's the person doesn't
00:03:29
like us or that's the
00:03:31
person we need to turn over.
00:03:33
I could just feel it in my body.
00:03:36
So I always felt and it made me, I think,
00:03:37
a pretty good salesperson
00:03:39
and a pretty good people
00:03:40
leader because I could feel
00:03:41
what was going on, you know.
00:03:43
Um, although I didn't manage during COVID,
00:03:45
I think that would have been challenging,
00:03:46
right?
00:03:46
Cause you,
00:03:47
you don't see people in an office.
00:03:48
Um, and during COVID we,
00:03:52
my family and I go to this
00:03:53
medium in Medfield and she's Medfield,
00:03:56
Massachusetts,
00:03:56
and she's she might be in mid millis, but,
00:03:59
and she had to bring her
00:04:01
business online and she was
00:04:02
teaching classes on intuition.
00:04:06
And I was like, well,
00:04:06
who doesn't want to tap
00:04:07
into their intuition?
00:04:09
And you know, you're cooped up at home.
00:04:10
So I took a class with her for a year.
00:04:13
And it really was about mediumship.
00:04:15
And she was a police officer
00:04:19
and grew up in a very Catholic family.
00:04:21
And seeing things was not
00:04:24
actually very well approved.
00:04:27
And then she just couldn't
00:04:29
ignore it anymore and left
00:04:30
the police force and became
00:04:31
a full-time medium.
00:04:33
And she gets called into cases.
00:04:34
That's why she calls herself
00:04:35
a forensic medium.
00:04:36
So missing persons, that sort of thing.
00:04:42
Over the course of a year, she said,
00:04:44
the biggest thing,
00:04:46
difference between
00:04:46
intuition and logic is do you think,
00:04:49
or you know,
00:04:50
and your logical brain takes over.
00:04:53
So when you say,
00:04:53
I think you're using your
00:04:55
brain and you say,
00:04:56
I know you're likely using
00:04:59
your gut and your intuition,
00:05:00
which uses logic also.
00:05:02
And so it was really intense
00:05:04
training for a year,
00:05:05
like a really intense.
00:05:07
And I use it with my clients.
00:05:08
I don't always lead with that.
00:05:10
But if I feel something profoundly,
00:05:12
I get some hits in my body,
00:05:15
usually my left shoulder.
00:05:16
And I will just say,
00:05:18
I think there's something here.
00:05:19
Do you mind if we stay here
00:05:20
a little bit longer?
00:05:22
And, you know,
00:05:23
it just kind of unfolds
00:05:25
because it's their experience, not mine.
00:05:27
But I know something is here
00:05:29
for us to tap into.
00:05:31
And I do guided meditations
00:05:33
with a lot of my clients,
00:05:34
and I'm in the meditation
00:05:35
with my clients.
00:05:36
So I can see sometimes what
00:05:37
is going on as we, you know,
00:05:40
I know that seems weird, but if I say,
00:05:43
who are you seeing?
00:05:43
Sometimes I will get a hit and I'll,
00:05:45
I'll know if it's an older person,
00:05:46
younger person.
00:05:47
Uh, so that's amazing.
00:05:51
Yeah.
00:05:52
It's, it's, uh, it's pretty cool.
00:05:54
It's also scary because it's,
00:05:58
you want to use that skill wisely.
00:06:01
And, uh, so I, I treat it like a gift,
00:06:06
a gift that I, we all have,
00:06:08
but that I can tap into.
00:06:09
And, um,
00:06:12
I had a close friend
00:06:13
recently who lost her husband suddenly,
00:06:15
and he has been sending me
00:06:18
messages to her.
00:06:19
So I feel pretty privileged
00:06:23
and scared and honored and
00:06:26
all the things to be able
00:06:27
to bring those messages to her.
00:06:29
I'm not asking for them.
00:06:30
They just come, you know.
00:06:32
They just arrive.
00:06:33
They just arrive, you know.
00:06:38
Yeah, I can't.
00:06:39
Yeah.
00:06:39
So that's it's hard to talk
00:06:41
about intuition, right,
00:06:42
because it's sort of a nebulous topic.
00:06:43
But I feel things profoundly.
00:06:46
But I actually, you know,
00:06:48
in thinking of intuition
00:06:50
and I have learned over the years,
00:06:51
especially since my son passed away,
00:06:53
to just trust that gut
00:06:55
feeling and to move in a direction.
00:06:57
You know,
00:06:58
I didn't like I I was about
00:07:00
strategic planning.
00:07:03
And having everything lined
00:07:05
up and then all of a sudden
00:07:06
I'm just kind of wandering
00:07:07
where I think I should go in my life.
00:07:09
I started to listen to that
00:07:11
voice a little bit more.
00:07:13
And I feel like just, you know,
00:07:16
I don't know what your
00:07:17
thoughts are on this,
00:07:18
but in today's world, we're being fed,
00:07:21
force fed in some cases,
00:07:23
so much information that
00:07:25
our intuitive powers are just,
00:07:28
they're very blocked.
00:07:30
they're blocked because
00:07:31
everybody else is telling
00:07:32
us what we should be
00:07:33
thinking and what we should
00:07:34
be doing and what we should be watching.
00:07:36
And so it requires a stillness, right?
00:07:41
It does require, um,
00:07:44
we live and I participate in this,
00:07:47
so I am not above the
00:07:48
comment I'm about to make,
00:07:49
which is we live in a very
00:07:51
quick fix world.
00:07:54
And the,
00:07:56
if you really want to do
00:07:57
deep healing and deep
00:07:58
knowing you have to tap into yourself,
00:08:01
that the answers aren't external,
00:08:03
they're internal, not every, you know,
00:08:05
and I think that's what you touched on.
00:08:07
And we talked about before
00:08:09
we got on the call today, you and I,
00:08:11
when we were doing our
00:08:12
intro with each other,
00:08:13
that whole idea of being hard,
00:08:16
when something is hard and
00:08:17
you're clenching your teeth
00:08:19
and you're stressed out all the time,
00:08:20
you're not really allowing
00:08:22
the light to come in.
00:08:23
Because there's no room.
00:08:24
You're like blocking and
00:08:25
tackling all the time.
00:08:27
And when you're blocking and tackling,
00:08:29
there's no ease in your body and nothing.
00:08:30
You're just blocking everything, feelings,
00:08:32
emotion, and intuition for sure.
00:08:38
And when you are in that
00:08:39
state and in my work and in
00:08:42
my own personal life,
00:08:44
I've experienced it.
00:08:45
When you're in that state
00:08:46
where you're closed off,
00:08:49
you're also blocking love.
00:08:53
So true.
00:08:54
um yeah yes kelly but not
00:08:56
only are you blocking love
00:08:57
you are not there's giving
00:09:01
and receiving so what I
00:09:03
love that you talked about
00:09:04
is receiving you probably
00:09:06
are giving quite a bit
00:09:07
during this yeah but you're
00:09:10
not receiving anything and
00:09:11
really to live a fully
00:09:13
expressed life you have to receive you do
00:09:18
And that was the work,
00:09:19
that question that we
00:09:21
talked about before we pressed record.
00:09:25
What if it didn't have to be so hard?
00:09:27
That is like my mantra.
00:09:31
You know,
00:09:31
I've gone through a lot of
00:09:32
trainings and I have so
00:09:38
much to say on the hard.
00:09:39
Like maybe my next book will
00:09:40
be about why does it have
00:09:41
to be so hard is I was raised that way.
00:09:45
Like study hard.
00:09:48
Compete hard.
00:09:49
Don't quit.
00:09:50
You know,
00:09:51
the messages I got from my parents, which,
00:09:53
of course, they got from their parents.
00:09:56
Was never give up, like dig in,
00:09:58
do your best and don't like, you know,
00:10:02
and I so I went into the
00:10:03
workforce thinking I had to
00:10:05
be work harder than everybody else.
00:10:08
I used to show up earlier or stay later.
00:10:11
Something about it felt like
00:10:13
I had to dig in.
00:10:15
And it got me pretty far, I have to say.
00:10:17
So, you know, a lot of my clients will say,
00:10:19
well,
00:10:20
you got to be an SVP at a global company.
00:10:22
Why wouldn't I do exactly what you did?
00:10:25
Because it came at great
00:10:26
personal cost to me.
00:10:27
Because I know it doesn't
00:10:28
have to be so hard.
00:10:30
That I took a lot of years
00:10:32
out of my life because I worried,
00:10:34
I ruminated, because I beat myself up.
00:10:38
And when I worked with my coach,
00:10:41
my second coach,
00:10:43
She was a mindset coach.
00:10:43
She is a mindset coach, and she's amazing,
00:10:45
Tracy Litt.
00:10:47
She would come to the call and say,
00:10:48
you're doing great, Donna.
00:10:49
Like, you're becoming a coach.
00:10:50
You're getting new clients.
00:10:52
You're building programs.
00:10:53
And I'd be like, uh-huh, uh-huh.
00:10:55
And she'd say, well, you know,
00:10:57
I'm not feeling that from you,
00:10:58
that you understand that
00:10:59
you're doing well.
00:11:01
And I said, well.
00:11:02
And she said,
00:11:02
are you waiting for the other
00:11:03
shoe to drop?
00:11:04
And I'd say, yes.
00:11:07
And she said, what if I told you,
00:11:08
and I won't swear on your broadcast,
00:11:10
that you're the effing shoe?
00:11:13
I'm sorry.
00:11:16
Oh, my God.
00:11:18
That speaks to me so much.
00:11:20
I got it on video.
00:11:21
I was like, wait,
00:11:22
we got hatched in that moment on video.
00:11:24
That's amazing.
00:11:25
And, you know, I wrote about it in my book,
00:11:26
and I can't tell you how
00:11:27
many people have responded to me and say,
00:11:29
I'm the effing shoe.
00:11:30
Who you are?
00:11:33
So the weekends that I lost
00:11:34
because I didn't win in a
00:11:35
pitch or an employee left
00:11:37
or I made a mistake at work, like,
00:11:38
didn't have to be so hard.
00:11:40
I didn't have to beat myself up.
00:11:42
And
00:11:44
Last week,
00:11:45
I had dinner with let me know if
00:11:46
I'm going on too long.
00:11:47
But there are so many examples of this.
00:11:49
No, no.
00:11:50
I had lunch with two of my cousins.
00:11:52
I'm one of sixteen first
00:11:54
cousins and we're all pretty close.
00:11:56
So one of them was in from Florida.
00:11:58
One was in from Texas last week.
00:12:01
I'm a space cadet.
00:12:02
So I'm like, I left the restaurant.
00:12:05
I lost my key.
00:12:07
I had to backtrack my steps.
00:12:09
I was like, where's the key?
00:12:11
While I'm looking back,
00:12:12
I walk on a sidewalk that is newly paved.
00:12:17
I hadn't even paid attention.
00:12:18
I mean, and I see my footsteps.
00:12:20
I'm like,
00:12:21
and the workers are like right in
00:12:22
front of me.
00:12:22
And I was like, oh my God,
00:12:23
I'm such an idiot.
00:12:24
And I just raised my hand.
00:12:25
I'm like, that was me.
00:12:26
I'm so sorry.
00:12:28
And then I go back to my car and I'm like,
00:12:30
I got to find the key though.
00:12:31
I got to walk back despite
00:12:32
the embarrassment.
00:12:33
I got to go back.
00:12:34
And so I walked back and I
00:12:35
find the key and I was like,
00:12:37
thank God I found the key.
00:12:39
So I had lunch with my
00:12:40
cousin and she had left
00:12:41
something someplace.
00:12:42
And her sister had a driver
00:12:44
like a half an hour away to get the key.
00:12:45
She said,
00:12:46
you seem like you're okay about
00:12:47
what happened.
00:12:48
And I'm like, it happened.
00:12:49
Like there's nothing I can do about it.
00:12:50
She was ruminating about the
00:12:52
fact that her sister had a
00:12:53
driver someplace.
00:12:54
She goes, how did you move on so quickly?
00:12:56
And I didn't even realize
00:12:57
how much progress I've made.
00:12:58
I know that seems like a little thing,
00:13:00
but in the past I wouldn't be like,
00:13:01
oh my God, I'm such an idiot.
00:13:03
Like, how could I do that now?
00:13:05
I'm like, it happened.
00:13:07
It's over.
00:13:08
I'm done.
00:13:08
I'm moving on.
00:13:10
I can laugh about it.
00:13:11
But she was so living in the
00:13:12
moment of guilt and shame
00:13:15
about an honest mistake that she made.
00:13:18
And I don't think people
00:13:19
realize how ubiquitous it
00:13:21
is to believe that we have
00:13:24
to be hard on ourselves.
00:13:26
that we're not doing it
00:13:27
right unless we're hard on ourselves.
00:13:29
Yeah, it's, that is so true.
00:13:32
I mean, I can,
00:13:33
I think about the time that
00:13:35
I wasted beating myself up
00:13:37
over things that you couldn't,
00:13:40
like I couldn't change them.
00:13:41
It was done.
00:13:42
It was, it was finished, but we,
00:13:45
I've now moved into such a
00:13:46
different mind space.
00:13:47
My husband's the same way.
00:13:48
And we have this phrase
00:13:49
where when stuff happens
00:13:51
and we are entrepreneurs,
00:13:53
we have a few businesses and,
00:13:55
And so something is bound to
00:13:57
happen any day of the week, you know,
00:13:59
because it is.
00:14:00
It's like... Any given day.
00:14:02
And we say, what would Tony say?
00:14:03
Come soprano.
00:14:05
I love that.
00:14:06
What are you going to do?
00:14:08
What would Tony say?
00:14:09
So we always refer to Tony
00:14:12
when we look at something
00:14:13
that happens in the day
00:14:15
that normally would have
00:14:16
just kind of... I would
00:14:17
have grit at my teeth and
00:14:19
been pissed off for the rest of the day.
00:14:21
And I'm like, what are you going to do?
00:14:23
And I just...
00:14:24
We just kind of move on.
00:14:25
And it, it is such a healing,
00:14:29
healing thing to cut yourself some slack.
00:14:33
It's a big thing.
00:14:34
It's a big thing.
00:14:35
So that moment showed me
00:14:38
that I really have made some progress.
00:14:40
There's other,
00:14:41
there are other things that I, you know,
00:14:43
I'm a pro at beating myself up on,
00:14:45
but you know, progress,
00:14:46
we'll take progress where it comes.
00:14:48
That's right.
00:14:49
It's always like a little step, right?
00:14:51
Yeah.
00:14:51
So,
00:14:52
how does your work translate
00:14:54
from like the people that you work with?
00:14:57
How does it translate from
00:14:58
the office to the home?
00:14:59
So do you see kind of those
00:15:01
beautiful overlaps in your clients?
00:15:03
Yes.
00:15:03
First of all,
00:15:08
there's no way you can coach.
00:15:10
You coach the person, not the situation,
00:15:13
right?
00:15:13
I mean,
00:15:14
I do some situational stuff just
00:15:15
cause I might be working
00:15:17
with people during career transitions.
00:15:19
But if somebody comes to me and they say,
00:15:22
and this is good for the,
00:15:24
I want you to work on my
00:15:24
LinkedIn profile and my resume,
00:15:27
I'm not your coach.
00:15:29
Because that's not where the work starts.
00:15:31
The work starts for me to
00:15:33
see how you show up on an interview,
00:15:35
how you talk about yourself.
00:15:37
You know, I have so many,
00:15:39
I work with a lot of men, honestly.
00:15:42
I also work with a lot of women,
00:15:43
but women talk themselves
00:15:46
out of jobs all the time.
00:15:50
So if I work in their resume,
00:15:52
like I haven't solved the problem.
00:15:55
So one question that I will
00:15:57
ask my clients to get back
00:15:58
to your original question,
00:15:59
I'm working with this
00:16:00
thirty year old woman who's
00:16:02
extraordinarily talented.
00:16:04
And she originally came to me and said,
00:16:08
I want to look for another job.
00:16:11
And my job is any a monkey
00:16:13
could do my job.
00:16:14
And, you know, on further probing,
00:16:16
it was clear that that was
00:16:17
not even close to the case.
00:16:20
And so about halfway through a package,
00:16:22
I'll say,
00:16:24
are people noticing the change in you?
00:16:26
Has anybody else noticed the
00:16:29
change in you?
00:16:30
And she said, yeah, you know,
00:16:31
as a matter of fact,
00:16:32
my dad said something to me
00:16:35
the other day that I am
00:16:36
showing up differently.
00:16:38
So there's no way that work and home,
00:16:41
we coach a person.
00:16:42
We're not compartmentalized just at work.
00:16:44
And if we have a short temper at work,
00:16:46
we likely have a short temper at home.
00:16:48
If we're emotional,
00:16:49
and I'm sorry I used the
00:16:52
word emotional because I
00:16:53
actually believe that we
00:16:57
hide too much of our emotion at work.
00:16:59
And the only acceptable one is anger,
00:17:02
to be honest with you.
00:17:02
Like a guy can scream or a
00:17:05
woman can scream, but they can't cry.
00:17:09
And, you know,
00:17:10
if I could change one thing at work,
00:17:12
not that I want everybody
00:17:13
to cry every day about all things,
00:17:14
just let your emotions go, you know?
00:17:17
Within reason.
00:17:19
So yes.
00:17:20
So for me,
00:17:21
the translation is we are one
00:17:22
human and we don't show up
00:17:25
differently in different places.
00:17:26
We might hide parts of
00:17:27
ourselves to be a better
00:17:29
employee or be a better
00:17:30
husband or a partner or a friend or mom,
00:17:32
but we are one person.
00:17:34
So there's,
00:17:35
there's no way to coach without
00:17:37
it affecting both parts of
00:17:38
your life or all parts of your life.
00:17:40
And that is,
00:17:43
I remember when I started my
00:17:46
nursing career and it was kind of,
00:17:49
you know,
00:17:49
leave your personal life at the
00:17:51
door because you're caring
00:17:53
for other people,
00:17:53
which it makes perfect sense.
00:17:56
But you have situations in
00:18:00
your work that you bring
00:18:03
wisdom from your own personal life too.
00:18:05
There's no way you can do it.
00:18:06
It was such an unrealistic
00:18:08
expectation really to put on anybody.
00:18:10
And then there's things that
00:18:11
you see at work that are genuinely joyful,
00:18:15
genuinely upsetting.
00:18:17
And you're just supposed to
00:18:18
be this kind of flat.
00:18:21
It just doesn't make sense.
00:18:22
Does it?
00:18:22
It's, it does not make sense to me.
00:18:24
It doesn't celebrate the
00:18:27
messiness and beauty of our humanity.
00:18:30
We just, you know, I mean,
00:18:34
we're not robots.
00:18:35
Right.
00:18:36
You know, and that's like,
00:18:38
I am, you know,
00:18:39
I worked in corporate for
00:18:40
thirty four years.
00:18:41
I was in some of the biggest
00:18:42
boardrooms and I am not a buttoned down,
00:18:45
polished person.
00:18:46
I'm a very direct person.
00:18:48
I take my job seriously.
00:18:49
But if you want me to be like, you know,
00:18:51
like this perfect robot of
00:18:54
say the right thing, do the right thing,
00:18:55
speak when spoken to.
00:18:58
I'm not your person because
00:18:59
I don't believe in that.
00:19:00
I mean,
00:19:01
we're we're not here for fake lives.
00:19:05
We're here to live.
00:19:07
authentic and I know the
00:19:08
word authentic is way
00:19:09
overused we're here to be
00:19:11
real humans right and it's
00:19:14
like we have gotten away
00:19:16
and I'm this is kind of
00:19:18
bearing off a little bit
00:19:19
but we've gotten away from
00:19:21
our comfort with having
00:19:24
conversations with people
00:19:25
who don't agree with that
00:19:27
or or being able to speak
00:19:28
our mind um without fear of
00:19:33
repercussions or being canceled or
00:19:36
And I'm not saying that
00:19:38
anybody should be there
00:19:40
being inappropriate.
00:19:41
That's not.
00:19:41
Yeah, no, we're not talking about that.
00:19:43
We're just talking.
00:19:43
We're talking about like our
00:19:45
voices have been stifled in a way.
00:19:48
Yeah, it's true.
00:19:49
There's just so much.
00:19:53
So a lot of people that I work with,
00:19:56
if they're having a conflict at work,
00:19:57
right?
00:19:58
Yeah.
00:19:59
I'm not telling them to go in and, or,
00:20:01
you know,
00:20:01
they're on Zoom to go hit the
00:20:04
person between the eyes.
00:20:05
What would you want to say if you could?
00:20:08
If you wanted to say anything,
00:20:09
what would you say?
00:20:11
And then we work from there, right?
00:20:14
And then maybe we work on language.
00:20:15
Maybe we work on softening.
00:20:17
I hate the person.
00:20:18
I never want to work with them again.
00:20:20
Well,
00:20:20
that's not an option in corporate or
00:20:22
in families, right?
00:20:24
It's not an option.
00:20:25
So, okay, you know,
00:20:27
what's the best possible
00:20:28
outcome for a conversation?
00:20:30
A lot of times in corporate,
00:20:32
just to veer back on,
00:20:35
I prepared for the worst to happen.
00:20:37
That's very common in
00:20:38
corporate risk mitigation.
00:20:41
Let's prepare for the worst
00:20:42
possible scenario.
00:20:43
And actually, to some degree,
00:20:45
I agree that we have to be prepared.
00:20:47
But what's the best possible outcome?
00:20:52
Because the worst possible
00:20:53
outcome very rarely happens, very rarely.
00:20:58
I'm going to be homeless if
00:20:59
I don't get this job,
00:21:01
which is not to suggest
00:21:03
that I don't care about people's finances,
00:21:05
but in the amount of time
00:21:07
you're on the planet,
00:21:08
there's lots of steps in
00:21:09
between losing a job and being homeless.
00:21:12
Right.
00:21:12
I mean, and I, again,
00:21:13
I'm not taking the homeless
00:21:14
situation lightly.
00:21:15
What my point is,
00:21:17
is we go from one to a
00:21:19
thousand when we know that
00:21:20
there's a lot of numbers in between.
00:21:22
So if I can work with my
00:21:25
clients to say like, okay,
00:21:27
and I love your jolt, you know,
00:21:29
I want to talk about that a little bit,
00:21:30
but
00:21:31
One little thing, one little step.
00:21:35
A lot of times in coaching,
00:21:38
we're not swinging for the fences.
00:21:40
We're trying to get on first base.
00:21:42
That's right.
00:21:44
And you're right.
00:21:45
But the one little thing,
00:21:47
the concept of one little
00:21:48
thing for me was I started
00:21:51
it at a time where I didn't
00:21:52
know if I was going to be
00:21:54
able to find one little thing.
00:21:55
I was in one of the darkest
00:21:57
places of my life.
00:21:58
I know.
00:21:59
Well, I don't know, but I feel that.
00:22:02
But I was like, okay,
00:22:04
but we had a younger son.
00:22:06
We deserved a very happy life, right?
00:22:08
And so we had to figure a way in.
00:22:10
And so one little thing was, okay,
00:22:14
I can't fix this,
00:22:16
but I can find one little thing.
00:22:18
I can hold on to that today.
00:22:20
And we tethered ourselves to life,
00:22:24
to the present moment.
00:22:26
And it's interesting.
00:22:27
I love to talk to people
00:22:29
about when they use one little thing,
00:22:32
because when you're in the present moment,
00:22:34
you have no regrets of the
00:22:36
past and you have no
00:22:37
worries of the future, right?
00:22:39
You are right here and right
00:22:40
now where you're okay.
00:22:43
And for me, that was incredibly healing.
00:22:46
So it sounds like with your work,
00:22:49
especially with your
00:22:50
mindfulness training that
00:22:51
you do with your clients,
00:22:52
that you are putting them
00:22:54
in that mental space where
00:22:57
they have time to be still
00:22:59
and to be okay.
00:23:02
So I was probably the worst client, right?
00:23:04
Like I'd come to my sessions,
00:23:06
like one of my coaches used
00:23:07
to make me sweat, seriously.
00:23:09
I was like so nervous,
00:23:10
but I hope I don't do that
00:23:12
to any of my clients.
00:23:13
Although I do love him.
00:23:15
And,
00:23:16
one of my mindset coach used to,
00:23:17
when I'd come in and say, okay,
00:23:18
this happened this week,
00:23:19
this happened this week, I'm doing this,
00:23:20
you know, like,
00:23:21
cause I'm all about productivity.
00:23:22
You know,
00:23:22
I came out of corporate America
00:23:23
and I'm like, you know,
00:23:24
I have goals to meet.
00:23:25
I want to hit the quarter.
00:23:27
I want to be the best coach possible.
00:23:29
You know,
00:23:29
I want all the things all at once.
00:23:31
And she would like,
00:23:33
where are we going to stop
00:23:34
this session right now?
00:23:35
And you're going to breathe.
00:23:38
And I was like, yeah, I probably,
00:23:40
and I do that sometimes.
00:23:40
Somebody will come to a session.
00:23:41
I'm like, okay, stop this.
00:23:43
You know, I'm just going to,
00:23:44
interrupt you for a second
00:23:45
why don't we just take a
00:23:46
minute and just you know
00:23:48
breathing causes you to be
00:23:49
present and follow your own
00:23:52
breath and it's so funny
00:23:54
because if you were told me
00:23:55
in corporate that breathing
00:23:57
would be the magic elixir
00:23:58
of life I would have
00:23:59
laughed at you I would have
00:24:01
been like I would have
00:24:02
rolled my eyes I wouldn't
00:24:03
have laughed at you but I
00:24:03
would have been like oh
00:24:04
really like and you know
00:24:05
sometimes in the coaching
00:24:06
industry like I read some
00:24:07
posts and I I I love all
00:24:10
coaches I think there's
00:24:11
enough room to go around I I'm so
00:24:14
But sometimes I think we use
00:24:16
words that I think people
00:24:17
probably roll their eyes about.
00:24:19
Like, I'm going to hold space for you.
00:24:20
Like, okay, those are beautiful words.
00:24:22
What does that mean to the lay person?
00:24:23
I don't know.
00:24:26
You know?
00:24:26
I don't know.
00:24:27
That's why I love saying it like it is.
00:24:28
Which, by the way,
00:24:29
doesn't mean I think
00:24:30
there's anything wrong with those words.
00:24:32
It's just I want to make
00:24:33
sure that it connects to
00:24:34
the person who actually
00:24:34
needs to hear them.
00:24:37
Yes.
00:24:37
You know?
00:24:39
And that recalls intuition as well, right?
00:24:41
When you are looking at a
00:24:43
person who may be suffering or struggling,
00:24:46
you have to understand the
00:24:48
words that are going to
00:24:48
work with that individual.
00:24:50
You have to pay attention to
00:24:52
the cues that they give you.
00:24:53
And it's just, I mean,
00:24:55
I think that that's another
00:24:57
way that we have maybe
00:24:59
moved away from active
00:25:00
listening because we're
00:25:01
looking down at our phone
00:25:02
or our tablets and we,
00:25:04
so we're not paying as much attention,
00:25:06
but if we, if we do,
00:25:08
give that moment to kind of
00:25:10
read what that person who
00:25:11
is sitting next to you is
00:25:13
saying non-verbally I think
00:25:16
non-verbal clues are you
00:25:18
know powerful which is why
00:25:20
I love that whole idea I
00:25:22
don't know if it exists
00:25:23
anymore because you're not
00:25:24
many people back in office
00:25:25
although amazon came out
00:25:26
this week as you know with
00:25:28
a five-day return to office
00:25:29
which I think is ludicrous
00:25:32
but I do think sometime in
00:25:33
office is beneficial for
00:25:35
what you're talking about
00:25:35
because you can't read a clue as easy
00:25:38
I have to as a coach on Zoom,
00:25:41
but in general,
00:25:42
I think it does help to be
00:25:43
in the office a couple of
00:25:44
days a week to see your
00:25:45
co-workers and feel what's
00:25:46
going on with them in a
00:25:48
different way that you
00:25:49
don't always get on Zoom.
00:25:50
I don't know if you agree with that or not,
00:25:51
but.
00:25:53
Yeah, I mean, to a point, I think, though,
00:25:56
I guess it depends on the
00:25:57
conversation you're having on Zoom,
00:25:59
because I do feel like
00:26:00
there's people that I talk
00:26:01
on Zoom with that, you know,
00:26:03
like we're having a
00:26:04
conversation right now,
00:26:05
kind of feeding off
00:26:07
each other, you know what I mean?
00:26:09
I think it's more a team situation for me,
00:26:11
you know, like how do we work together?
00:26:14
But it could be my age too, right?
00:26:16
Because I do think
00:26:17
collaboration happens at a water cooler.
00:26:20
You know,
00:26:20
those sidebar conversations can
00:26:22
take place in a way that
00:26:23
doesn't happen on Zoom
00:26:24
because it's a time slide.
00:26:26
Yeah, that's true.
00:26:27
That's true.
00:26:29
And I am of that age that I
00:26:31
started with a typewriter.
00:26:36
But we look way too young
00:26:37
for that to be possible.
00:26:38
So I just want to add that in.
00:26:40
Twenty nine forever.
00:26:43
I like, I don't know, twenty.
00:26:44
Oh,
00:26:44
I'm going to go with thirty because
00:26:45
that's when I had my first child.
00:26:47
Oh, yes.
00:26:48
OK.
00:26:48
Actually, you know what I think?
00:26:52
I think I would stop being
00:26:54
more of a dumb ass when I
00:26:55
was a little older.
00:26:56
So maybe I have to go up a
00:26:57
little bit higher than I am now.
00:27:03
I think it gives us wisdom.
00:27:05
And I think that helps
00:27:06
anybody that we're talking to,
00:27:07
which doesn't mean we know.
00:27:08
The other thing that I love
00:27:10
about coaching is it isn't about us.
00:27:14
It's about them, right?
00:27:16
I mean, the focus isn't on what we know.
00:27:17
The focus is on what they know.
00:27:21
And so I feel like my role is,
00:27:24
despite the fact that I'm
00:27:25
trained in intuition,
00:27:26
I have thirty four years in corporate,
00:27:27
but I'm certified in a million things.
00:27:29
I those gifts are only good
00:27:33
if they help the other person.
00:27:34
So the emphasis is never on me.
00:27:37
It's always on the client.
00:27:39
Right.
00:27:40
And do you feel like, you know,
00:27:43
also you're a bit of a
00:27:44
minor or an expediter
00:27:46
because it's it's the.
00:27:51
It's there already.
00:27:52
They just need to rediscover.
00:27:55
Yeah.
00:27:56
And people leave breadcrumbs, right?
00:28:00
So if you ask a question and
00:28:01
there's silence, let there be silence.
00:28:05
I know you talked about the
00:28:06
stillness earlier,
00:28:06
but stillness is also silence.
00:28:09
And I wasn't comfortable
00:28:10
with silence before.
00:28:12
I always thought I had to fill that.
00:28:15
And when I became a coach
00:28:16
and I realized that, wait,
00:28:18
one of our prompts is,
00:28:19
Wait, why am I talking?
00:28:21
Or yeah, something like that.
00:28:25
Yeah.
00:28:25
I was like, wow,
00:28:25
it's so powerful to let
00:28:27
somebody sit in their thoughts.
00:28:29
Somebody sit in their thinking.
00:28:31
And that was new for me.
00:28:33
And then some tells are,
00:28:37
even if you're not intuitive,
00:28:38
or I don't know, or it's fine.
00:28:43
Depending on the way they say it's fine.
00:28:45
You know, there's like eight hundred ways.
00:28:46
So there are some tells.
00:28:48
So you really,
00:28:49
your point about active
00:28:50
listening is so spot on Kelly,
00:28:52
because you really, really,
00:28:54
in order to have better relationship,
00:28:56
which is across the board,
00:28:58
what people want is to have
00:28:59
these closer relationships,
00:29:02
whether it be at work, at home, kids,
00:29:04
you have to listen.
00:29:05
Well, and you know, because you feel,
00:29:10
and everybody has experienced this,
00:29:12
where you have a
00:29:14
relationship with someone and you are,
00:29:18
sharing with them maybe
00:29:19
trying to work through
00:29:20
something and you just know
00:29:22
that they're not hearing
00:29:23
you but they're just not
00:29:25
interested and um or maybe
00:29:28
not not interested is not
00:29:30
the right word maybe they
00:29:31
just they don't have the
00:29:32
capacity to to really take
00:29:34
in what you're saying at
00:29:35
that moment and to be heard
00:29:40
is one of the most healing
00:29:41
things that can happen to a
00:29:42
person to feel heard and seen
00:29:45
In one of my courses,
00:29:47
I think I have a quote that says,
00:29:50
feeling heard is so close
00:29:52
to being loved that many people,
00:29:55
it's the same thing.
00:29:57
Beautiful.
00:30:00
I don't know.
00:30:00
The quote is something like that.
00:30:01
And that is the truth.
00:30:03
You can't feel loved if you
00:30:04
don't feel heard.
00:30:07
Or seen,
00:30:08
whatever the word is you want to use.
00:30:10
So what would you say someone who is,
00:30:14
struggling right now.
00:30:16
So as we discussed earlier,
00:30:20
I work primarily with the bereaved.
00:30:22
But, you know,
00:30:23
you are bereaved at home and
00:30:25
then you go into work and
00:30:26
you're still bereaved.
00:30:28
You're still going through
00:30:29
that grieving process.
00:30:30
So what would you say to
00:30:31
someone who's kind of going through that?
00:30:34
How do we navigate that?
00:30:35
How do we help our coworkers
00:30:40
understand where we are?
00:30:42
Because I think that's a
00:30:43
challenge for people
00:30:44
because people don't
00:30:47
necessarily know what to say.
00:30:48
And it's no fault of their
00:30:49
own if they haven't
00:30:50
experienced something like a loss.
00:30:54
So how do we help the person
00:30:57
who's grieving and the
00:30:58
person who's the co-worker
00:30:59
who wants to help them but
00:31:00
doesn't know what to say?
00:31:01
Yeah.
00:31:03
So you and I have before we
00:31:04
even met and when I read about you,
00:31:06
I'm like,
00:31:06
we're going to have so much to
00:31:07
talk about with grief
00:31:07
because I lost my mom.
00:31:11
on my first full day of corporate work.
00:31:14
Now I was interning at an ad
00:31:15
agency and I came back.
00:31:19
So you have a week of bereavement leave,
00:31:21
which whatever, you know,
00:31:24
some companies have done away with that.
00:31:26
Thank God.
00:31:28
And I remember coming back the following.
00:31:30
So my mom might've done it
00:31:31
on a Monday or Tuesday and
00:31:33
it was Thanksgiving week.
00:31:35
So I come back into the
00:31:36
office the following Monday
00:31:37
or Tuesday and my neighbor
00:31:38
who I was close with,
00:31:39
my next, you know,
00:31:40
whatever the next desk had
00:31:42
come back from Hawaii.
00:31:44
So we both were out for the
00:31:46
week and she's like, how was your week?
00:31:48
And I was like, you know,
00:31:49
we didn't have social media at the time.
00:31:50
There was no Facebook.
00:31:51
So, you know, and I was, I said,
00:31:54
how was your vacation?
00:31:55
Great.
00:31:55
I love Hawaii used to live there.
00:31:57
And she's, how was your week?
00:31:57
I said, well, my mom died.
00:31:59
And she said, what are you doing here?
00:32:02
Like, I don't remember much else,
00:32:05
but I remember her asking
00:32:06
me that question.
00:32:07
Yeah.
00:32:08
So like, you know,
00:32:10
um so I have a huge issue
00:32:12
with bereavement leaves
00:32:14
period but in terms of what
00:32:16
somebody giving them my dad
00:32:17
died recently within the
00:32:18
last couple years uh while
00:32:20
I was writing my book and
00:32:21
so I wrote a lot about
00:32:22
grief because he was
00:32:23
slipping away from me and
00:32:25
my family before he died
00:32:26
you know like so there was
00:32:28
a pre-grieving yeah period
00:32:30
and and um and I think
00:32:32
people didn't know what to
00:32:33
say and I've had two
00:32:34
friends recently who've
00:32:35
lost their spouses suddenly uh
00:32:40
Let them be.
00:32:43
You know, I mean,
00:32:45
I could cry thinking about
00:32:46
this because there are no answers.
00:32:51
We can't say anything that
00:32:52
makes anyone feel better.
00:32:53
I know this is your specialty,
00:32:54
so please tell me if I'm off base.
00:32:57
To just let them be with you,
00:33:00
however they are, is the only thing.
00:33:04
We can't talk them out of grief.
00:33:06
You can't talk somebody out
00:33:07
of their feelings.
00:33:09
No.
00:33:09
Just let them be whoever
00:33:11
they need to be that minute.
00:33:15
So one of my friends lost her husband,
00:33:18
and she's one of my best friends.
00:33:20
And it was her birthday yesterday.
00:33:22
She would not celebrate with us.
00:33:24
She would not do anything.
00:33:29
That's what she needed in the moment.
00:33:32
Just let her be.
00:33:33
And when an individual knows
00:33:37
what they need and what they...
00:33:39
So for, I can't do this this year.
00:33:43
Maybe next year I'm going to
00:33:44
be able to do it.
00:33:44
But this year I'm going to
00:33:45
just be still and quiet in my own space.
00:33:49
That's okay.
00:33:49
I mean,
00:33:50
because there is no right or wrong
00:33:52
way to breathe.
00:33:54
But the thing is, is that, again,
00:33:58
you respect that person's wishes.
00:34:01
But you're there.
00:34:02
And I'm here if you need me.
00:34:05
I'm right here.
00:34:06
So that they're never alone
00:34:07
and they know that.
00:34:09
but that you're not saying
00:34:11
this is the path that you have to go.
00:34:13
It's a very concrete path.
00:34:15
You have to walk down that path.
00:34:16
That's the only option.
00:34:18
That's just not true.
00:34:20
It isn't.
00:34:20
You know, the thing is,
00:34:21
it's like as a friend or as a coworker,
00:34:24
you want to help somebody.
00:34:26
So you think giving advice or, you know,
00:34:31
I'm here for you.
00:34:32
You know what one person did for me?
00:34:35
She's a client of mine and was a coworker,
00:34:37
and she said to me,
00:34:39
tell me something about your
00:34:40
dad that you loved.
00:34:42
And I still think about that
00:34:46
as one of the most
00:34:47
beautiful things anybody
00:34:50
has done for me is ask me
00:34:52
to talk about them.
00:34:55
Yeah, so that felt good.
00:34:57
One of the things that I say
00:35:01
every time I meet a
00:35:03
bereaved parent is they will say,
00:35:07
I lost my father.
00:35:10
This many years ago,
00:35:11
this is what happened.
00:35:12
We kind of go through, you know,
00:35:15
we learn a little bit more
00:35:16
about each other.
00:35:17
And I always have to ask the question,
00:35:19
tell me the meaning.
00:35:22
Tell me the meaning.
00:35:23
And it's just such an
00:35:26
important piece of it
00:35:27
because your dad is still your dad.
00:35:29
Right.
00:35:29
Not here in a physical sense,
00:35:33
but he's all around you.
00:35:35
That's my belief.
00:35:37
My son is not here in a physical sense,
00:35:40
but I'm still his mom.
00:35:42
And he's all around me.
00:35:44
And the work that, you know,
00:35:47
the work that I do,
00:35:48
I call it seed and purple
00:35:50
because I think that when
00:35:53
we have people like your
00:35:54
dad and your mom and your
00:35:57
friends' husbands and
00:36:00
they're great gifts for us,
00:36:02
but we have to find a way
00:36:03
to say thank you.
00:36:04
And you
00:36:05
and how do we do that,
00:36:06
but by taking our journey
00:36:09
and transforming it into
00:36:10
something that could help another person.
00:36:13
And that doesn't happen overnight.
00:36:15
It doesn't.
00:36:16
So I would love your counsel on this one.
00:36:18
So one of my friends who's
00:36:20
grieving is barely present in the world.
00:36:28
And that's a hard thing to watch for me.
00:36:34
But I still am just holding,
00:36:36
good coachy words, holding space.
00:36:38
Just showing up, meeting her where she is.
00:36:40
Some days I get a little frustrated,
00:36:42
because I want more for her than this.
00:36:44
But it's her journey.
00:36:47
The other woman who lost her
00:36:48
husband suddenly,
00:36:49
like they were on the deck, he died.
00:36:52
And he was young then.
00:36:56
So I've been going, she's my mentor,
00:36:58
I write about her quite a bit.
00:36:59
And she wrote to me this week,
00:37:01
I check in with her all the time.
00:37:03
And I said, do you want to go to lunch?
00:37:04
And she said, you know,
00:37:04
I'm just not ready to do that.
00:37:05
I said, okay, whatever you need.
00:37:08
And she said this past Thursday,
00:37:11
she was supposed to go to
00:37:12
France with five other couples,
00:37:14
her closest friends, four other couples.
00:37:17
And she said,
00:37:17
I just don't know whether to go.
00:37:20
I don't want to be a drag on them.
00:37:24
And I don't have the answer, right?
00:37:25
All I said to her was, if you go,
00:37:28
there'll be some moments
00:37:30
and there'll be other moments.
00:37:32
And so whatever you decide,
00:37:34
because it's not all going to,
00:37:36
I guess my point behind that comment was,
00:37:38
it's not all going to be bad.
00:37:40
But I didn't want to use the words bad,
00:37:42
good, sad, happy.
00:37:44
I just went,
00:37:44
you'll have some moments and
00:37:45
you'll have other moments.
00:37:46
I didn't know what to say to
00:37:47
her because I can't be the
00:37:49
deciding factor.
00:37:50
Not that she was asking me,
00:37:52
but she was asking for
00:37:53
advice and I'm not qualified for that.
00:37:56
So that's what I said.
00:37:57
So I don't know if I did the right thing.
00:37:58
It's very true what you said,
00:37:59
building confidence.
00:38:01
some moments and there'll be
00:38:02
other moments.
00:38:02
There'll be some moments where, you know,
00:38:05
his absence is profound and she, you know,
00:38:10
and then there'll be other
00:38:13
moments where she'll be
00:38:13
able to experience it in a, you know,
00:38:16
maybe a peaceful, joyful way.
00:38:20
You don't know.
00:38:21
You just don't know.
00:38:23
Yeah, I just didn't know.
00:38:24
So I don't know what she
00:38:25
decided because I didn't
00:38:26
also want to be on top of her, you know,
00:38:28
and say, did you go?
00:38:30
Did you not go?
00:38:30
Like,
00:38:31
I just want to give her, I mean,
00:38:32
that's raw.
00:38:33
That's within the last month.
00:38:35
The other one's within the last year.
00:38:37
So it's quite a thing.
00:38:43
And you lost your son and I
00:38:44
lost my nephew right around the same age.
00:38:49
The grief just never leaves you.
00:38:52
It gets better.
00:38:54
But five years later,
00:38:55
I could have an episode about my nephew.
00:38:58
it just happens.
00:39:00
I don't know what to say to
00:39:01
people other than it's just,
00:39:03
there's the trajectory for grief is,
00:39:06
I know for you, this is obvious,
00:39:08
but it's so not linear, but you know,
00:39:11
our society wants it to be linear.
00:39:13
You know, like you have your bereavement,
00:39:15
you come back to work,
00:39:16
you pretend like it didn't happen.
00:39:18
We're going to deal with you
00:39:19
like nothing happened
00:39:21
because we don't know how
00:39:22
to treat you any other way.
00:39:23
And it's just like, it's,
00:39:24
it's sort of mind boggling to me.
00:39:27
Well,
00:39:27
and it's just such an antiquated view
00:39:30
on emotions.
00:39:31
We're working so much these days,
00:39:33
and I'm so happy to see it
00:39:34
on wellness and self-care
00:39:36
and the whole thing.
00:39:36
But then you have three days breathing,
00:39:38
you'd be back in, you know,
00:39:40
three days ready to go.
00:39:42
No, but it just,
00:39:43
life doesn't work that way.
00:39:46
My journey,
00:39:47
it's funny because I was
00:39:48
talking to someone recently about this,
00:39:50
about the journey not being linear.
00:39:52
And I described it as that
00:39:54
set of Christmas lights at
00:39:55
the bottom of the bin when
00:39:56
you pull it out and it's just in knots.
00:40:00
Like that's how I felt.
00:40:01
I was trying to navigate it.
00:40:04
And you have to give yourself the time.
00:40:08
And the grace.
00:40:09
You have to show yourself some grace.
00:40:11
And we're not good at that.
00:40:12
Because especially as women.
00:40:14
In fact we talked about that earlier.
00:40:15
We beat ourselves up.
00:40:18
So we think that we should
00:40:19
be further along.
00:40:21
No.
00:40:22
You are where you are.
00:40:24
You are where you are.
00:40:25
And it's a hard one right.
00:40:27
Because people want you to move on.
00:40:29
Because it's easier for them.
00:40:32
It is.
00:40:34
And it's not that they don't love you.
00:40:36
It's just they don't know how.
00:40:39
to navigate this with you.
00:40:41
And the interesting thing
00:40:43
that I've learned over the years, because,
00:40:48
you know,
00:40:48
I went in my healthcare studies
00:40:51
in university and whatever,
00:40:52
I did the five stages of
00:40:53
grief and Elizabeth
00:40:54
Kubler-Ross and all of those things.
00:40:56
I took my class in college.
00:40:59
Yeah.
00:40:59
So, I mean, I studied all of that.
00:41:01
And then when I found myself
00:41:03
in the depths of despair, I was like,
00:41:05
okay, wait, like, where am I?
00:41:09
I wasn't anywhere on there.
00:41:11
I wasn't, I didn't feel like I fit.
00:41:14
And then as you go further out with grief,
00:41:17
and I've talked to a lot of
00:41:19
people about this,
00:41:21
people think you're over grief.
00:41:22
But then, like for me,
00:41:25
when my son's friends
00:41:27
started to get married and have children,
00:41:29
that was a different chapter of grief.
00:41:33
It was a really different
00:41:35
chapter and I love all of
00:41:37
them they are beautiful
00:41:38
human beings but it was
00:41:40
hard it was really hard for
00:41:42
me so funny that you
00:41:44
brought that up not funny
00:41:46
but my nephew died
00:41:50
seventeen years ago I want
00:41:52
to say sixteen seventeen
00:41:54
and my middle brother there
00:41:56
are three of us his oldest
00:41:58
daughter got married and
00:42:00
that must have been I don't
00:42:01
know maybe five or six
00:42:02
years ago maybe seven not really sure
00:42:06
And my older brother,
00:42:07
who's pretty much like,
00:42:08
I don't need therapy.
00:42:09
I had a great relationship with my son,
00:42:11
Jason.
00:42:11
I'm going to say his name
00:42:13
and I did everything I could.
00:42:14
And let's not try to get
00:42:15
into the minds of somebody
00:42:16
that would take their own
00:42:17
life because we don't know
00:42:18
what's going on there.
00:42:19
And it's a dangerous place to be.
00:42:21
So he's lived his life and he joyfully.
00:42:25
And I'll tell you though, at my,
00:42:28
my niece's wedding, he had a meltdown.
00:42:31
It was at least ten years
00:42:32
later for the exact reason you said,
00:42:35
because
00:42:36
And that was Jason's age.
00:42:38
And Jason was never going to
00:42:40
reach that age.
00:42:41
And you know what?
00:42:42
He, he,
00:42:43
I've never seen my brother had a
00:42:44
reaction like that in my life.
00:42:48
And he had to leave the
00:42:48
wedding and go into his room.
00:42:51
And he didn't plan that.
00:42:56
It just, it crept up on him.
00:42:57
And just like you said, with your front,
00:42:59
you, the, the kids,
00:43:00
they're getting married,
00:43:01
having kids when they have
00:43:02
those life transitions and
00:43:03
you realize that your own
00:43:04
child isn't there.
00:43:06
It must have hit my brother
00:43:07
like a tsunami because I've
00:43:09
never seen that before.
00:43:11
Yeah, it's in the early days of grief.
00:43:15
And I know that you will
00:43:16
know when I'm talking about it.
00:43:18
I always described it as
00:43:19
having kind of a lead
00:43:21
jacket on and then I would
00:43:22
put all the rocks in my
00:43:23
pocket and I'd be walking
00:43:26
around with this heaviness.
00:43:28
And that's the kind of
00:43:29
feeling that I had at those
00:43:33
different stages.
00:43:34
So I'm sure if your brother
00:43:37
it's yeah, it, you just have life moments,
00:43:42
these chapters and things bubble up,
00:43:45
things bubble up,
00:43:46
whether it's your child or your parents,
00:43:49
or, you know, it doesn't, it's just,
00:43:51
you remember that person
00:43:52
and then you acknowledge, okay,
00:43:56
they're not here for this.
00:43:57
And that really sucks.
00:44:00
Yeah.
00:44:01
So thank you for bringing
00:44:03
that up because I,
00:44:04
honestly in the moment did
00:44:05
not really know what to do
00:44:07
for my brother because I
00:44:08
was at this joyous event and I saw him.
00:44:11
I mean,
00:44:11
there were some other mitigating factors,
00:44:12
but really I think that was
00:44:14
the base of it.
00:44:16
Anyway, it was just an interest.
00:44:17
So brief is just an interesting journey.
00:44:20
And with my dad, my dad was ninety.
00:44:22
That was supposed to happen.
00:44:24
You know, maybe not the way it did,
00:44:25
but no one knows how
00:44:26
they're going out of this world.
00:44:28
You know, I didn't realize
00:44:34
how profound it would be to
00:44:37
lose somebody who'd been on
00:44:38
this earth with me my
00:44:39
entire life and loved me
00:44:41
just the way I am.
00:44:42
And I thought, you know, nine years old,
00:44:45
he's going to die.
00:44:46
He's supposed to die.
00:44:46
It's life.
00:44:47
It's the circle of life,
00:44:48
but it's not true.
00:44:50
So there's, I,
00:44:51
at least it wasn't true for me.
00:44:53
Yeah.
00:44:55
So it's, you know,
00:44:57
I think that we all have
00:44:58
conditioned ourselves to
00:44:59
say those things that, you know,
00:45:02
someone was an extended life, but,
00:45:07
Yeah.
00:45:07
So I didn't expect that
00:45:09
level of grief from him.
00:45:12
I did not expect it.
00:45:13
I had physical pain in my
00:45:15
body and I was like,
00:45:17
where is this coming from?
00:45:18
I don't remember this when my mom died,
00:45:20
you know, but so I am such an,
00:45:23
I honor grief in any way
00:45:27
that it takes shape or form
00:45:29
because it is so amorphous to me.
00:45:33
Um,
00:45:35
And also recognizing that
00:45:38
with tremendous grief also
00:45:40
was tremendous love.
00:45:42
And so that's a gift that I
00:45:43
know that you talked about.
00:45:44
But that is how I feel about grief,
00:45:47
is what a joy it is to feel
00:45:50
this level of grief,
00:45:51
to know that the love that
00:45:52
accompanied it enabled that grief.
00:45:56
It's a weird way to look at grief,
00:45:57
but that is the truth of
00:45:58
the matter for me.
00:46:00
It really is.
00:46:03
When you break it down and
00:46:05
you look at your
00:46:06
relationship with the
00:46:07
person that is no longer
00:46:09
here with you physically and you say,
00:46:13
you know,
00:46:14
my tears are related to my love
00:46:17
and you stop paying against it.
00:46:21
You just let it,
00:46:22
because that's where I
00:46:24
think we all need to
00:46:25
not be afraid that we need
00:46:27
to be able to sit with that and say,
00:46:29
this is all about how much I love you,
00:46:33
how much I still love you,
00:46:35
how much I will always love you.
00:46:37
And when I started out in coaching,
00:46:41
I didn't know what to write about.
00:46:43
So I had a coach that said,
00:46:44
you should write because that's how you,
00:46:48
and email, right?
00:46:49
Because on social, you don't know,
00:46:50
you know, this is logistics, right?
00:46:52
You don't own your base on social.
00:46:55
So you should write.
00:46:56
So I started to write.
00:46:57
And then I started to write about my dad.
00:46:59
And then I had people coming
00:47:00
to me and saying,
00:47:01
I love the way you write about your dad.
00:47:03
And then I had somebody hire
00:47:04
me because I was like,
00:47:06
I hope that my kids feel
00:47:07
the same way about me as
00:47:09
you feel about your dad.
00:47:11
And so I'm not writing about
00:47:13
my dad to get clients.
00:47:15
I'm writing about how I feel
00:47:17
and how I deal with my
00:47:18
feelings in the hopes that
00:47:20
it helps somebody else.
00:47:23
At one point, my son said,
00:47:24
I think you're writing
00:47:25
about your dad too much.
00:47:27
And I'm like,
00:47:28
I need to write about
00:47:28
whatever I want to write about.
00:47:30
But I take your feedback.
00:47:33
Maybe, you know,
00:47:34
somebody else came to me
00:47:35
who was going to do brand
00:47:36
work for me and said,
00:47:38
after I read some of your columns,
00:47:39
I feel like I need to give you a hug.
00:47:41
And I was like, all right,
00:47:42
maybe I've taken it too far.
00:47:44
But I'm just writing about how I feel.
00:47:47
And I think that's a way
00:47:50
that I work through my grief.
00:47:53
That is another way that you
00:47:55
say it like it is, right?
00:47:56
You have to be honest with
00:47:58
your own journey.
00:47:59
And some people will be able
00:48:02
to accept it at that moment
00:48:04
and others just will not.
00:48:06
And that's okay.
00:48:07
Well,
00:48:07
I think it also shows that people are
00:48:09
uncomfortable with emotion.
00:48:10
I'm not writing.
00:48:13
I'm curious how you feel about it.
00:48:14
But if I'm writing about my
00:48:15
dad because I miss him,
00:48:17
but I'm talking about the
00:48:18
gifts that he's bestowed on
00:48:19
me and that makes you feel
00:48:21
like I need a hug,
00:48:21
maybe you need a hug.
00:48:25
Yeah.
00:48:25
Yeah.
00:48:25
I mean, sometimes people's discomfort with,
00:48:28
cause I, like I, you know, I mean,
00:48:30
I talk about it a lot.
00:48:35
Some people's discomfort
00:48:37
with that is related to
00:48:39
maybe how they are
00:48:42
processing something in their own life.
00:48:44
And that's a cue for them.
00:48:46
If this is, if this is,
00:48:49
If I'm hitting the nail on
00:48:50
the head for you, ask yourself, why?
00:48:54
Why is this bubbling up in this way?
00:48:56
Sometimes just asking
00:48:58
yourself an internal
00:48:59
question and just saying, okay,
00:49:00
what's bubbling up and why?
00:49:03
Yeah.
00:49:04
And then maybe sit down with, like,
00:49:06
I have a journal I write in every day.
00:49:10
And, you know, sometimes what bubbles up,
00:49:13
I'll write it.
00:49:13
But then I'll go back a week later and say,
00:49:15
huh, yeah, okay, gotcha.
00:49:17
Now I know what you were thinking there,
00:49:19
Kelly, right?
00:49:20
Sometimes it takes you a bit
00:49:22
to figure out why am I bothered?
00:49:25
It doesn't all,
00:49:25
the solutions in your mind
00:49:27
don't happen that way.
00:49:29
Well, that is a huge part of coaching.
00:49:31
You had asked me how I deal
00:49:32
with someone who's struggling.
00:49:33
And I know we've talked
00:49:34
about grief because that's
00:49:35
obviously a huge struggle.
00:49:36
But when somebody is struggling,
00:49:41
sitting with the struggle
00:49:43
is the hardest part.
00:49:44
Yeah.
00:49:45
Because you're trying to find
00:49:47
a way out of the struggle
00:49:50
and actually the best way
00:49:52
or one way I won't use the word.
00:49:54
I don't like to use
00:49:54
superlatives because
00:49:55
everybody's different is to
00:49:57
be in the struggle,
00:49:59
live in the struggle a little bit.
00:50:00
It's so uncomfortable to do that.
00:50:03
And we're really taught to
00:50:05
like wall that off.
00:50:06
And part of my work with my
00:50:08
clients is to be in the struggle.
00:50:11
What is it teaching you in the moment?
00:50:14
You know, what,
00:50:15
what are you learning from the struggle?
00:50:17
How do you want to be in the struggle?
00:50:20
Are you comfortable in the struggle?
00:50:22
More comfortable than coming
00:50:23
out of the struggle?
00:50:24
Because a lot of people are
00:50:25
comfortable living in
00:50:28
discomfort because that's
00:50:29
what they're used to.
00:50:30
They don't know another way.
00:50:33
So there's a lot of ways
00:50:35
that I deal with people in struggle.
00:50:36
I don't have a pat answer,
00:50:39
but I will say that I think
00:50:40
we have to figure out what
00:50:42
the struggle represents for the person.
00:50:46
I think too,
00:50:47
like at points in my own journey,
00:50:52
I had to make decisions
00:50:53
where I felt like I did sit
00:50:55
with the struggle and that
00:50:56
was one of the gifts of desperation,
00:51:03
we'll say,
00:51:04
is that sitting with it gave me
00:51:08
perspective on life that I
00:51:10
otherwise would never have been.
00:51:13
But I also had to be mindful that
00:51:15
the struggle piece of this,
00:51:18
the struggle part was a chapter,
00:51:20
not the book.
00:51:22
And that I could, once I,
00:51:26
once I process this,
00:51:28
that I would be able to
00:51:29
turn the page and not move
00:51:32
away from the feelings,
00:51:33
not forget what happened,
00:51:35
but to turn the page and say, well,
00:51:37
now what am I going to do?
00:51:40
Where will I take this?
00:51:42
All this wisdom that I've learned.
00:51:44
How am I going to apply this to my life?
00:51:46
So you're not denying it,
00:51:48
but you do have to make a
00:51:50
decision at some point.
00:51:52
Where do I go from here?
00:51:54
Right.
00:51:55
So how do you help people
00:51:57
when they come to that spot?
00:51:58
Where do I go from here?
00:52:00
What do you say to them?
00:52:01
Where do you want to go from here?
00:52:03
Yeah.
00:52:09
Hmm.
00:52:11
I mean, that's just off the cuff,
00:52:12
but that's really would
00:52:14
naturally be my first question.
00:52:16
Because where do I go from here?
00:52:18
Asking to a coach means
00:52:19
please help me decide.
00:52:21
Tell me where to go.
00:52:22
Tell me where I should go.
00:52:25
And that's not the spot that a coach,
00:52:27
maybe a therapist, but not a coach is in.
00:52:30
The coach is,
00:52:32
let's work backwards where
00:52:34
you want to be.
00:52:37
And then let's work on a
00:52:38
plan to get you there.
00:52:40
one ounce at a time.
00:52:43
You know, so a lot,
00:52:44
oftentimes I'll use that
00:52:45
you want to be in better shape,
00:52:47
but you need to lose, you know, let's say,
00:52:49
and no weight shaming here at all,
00:52:50
but let's say you want to
00:52:51
lose twenty five pounds.
00:52:52
Well,
00:52:53
you don't lose twenty five pounds
00:52:54
overnight,
00:52:54
despite all the drugs out there
00:52:56
right now.
00:52:57
You use one pound at a time,
00:52:59
an ounce at a time,
00:53:00
half a pound at a time.
00:53:02
So I think a lot of people
00:53:04
think that they have to
00:53:05
swing to the fences.
00:53:06
When in reality, we're just
00:53:09
We're taking baby steps.
00:53:11
So that would be my natural answer,
00:53:14
I think, response.
00:53:16
One of the books that I
00:53:19
purchased shortly after she even died,
00:53:22
and I put it in my purse,
00:53:23
and all these years later,
00:53:25
it's still in my purse.
00:53:27
It's called The Pocket Pema Chodron.
00:53:29
The Pocket what?
00:53:31
Pema Chodron.
00:53:32
Oh, I follow Pema Chodron, yeah.
00:53:34
Yeah, I love her.
00:53:35
So it's so interesting to
00:53:37
listen to her teachings
00:53:39
about suffering and about it.
00:53:42
And she really, um, in this pocket,
00:53:45
no children, it's like,
00:53:46
it's literally this big it's.
00:53:49
But I,
00:53:49
when I'm in a waiting room or if I'm
00:53:51
at a place like an airport
00:53:53
where there's a lot of
00:53:54
people who are trying to
00:53:55
get their plates rearranged or whatever,
00:53:57
I just pull it out and I
00:53:58
just open up one chapter
00:54:00
and just read it.
00:54:01
And it talks about being uncomfortable.
00:54:04
but making peace with the discomfort.
00:54:07
And I was never taught that.
00:54:09
That was not something that
00:54:10
I had ever learned before.
00:54:13
And it's been a great gift
00:54:14
for me to not run away from
00:54:18
pain and to understand that
00:54:20
pain can turn into purpose.
00:54:25
It's the truth, right?
00:54:26
I mean,
00:54:27
I never thought I would end up
00:54:27
writing about my dad,
00:54:28
and that's not all I write about.
00:54:30
But, you know, people hear executive coach,
00:54:32
they think I'm going to
00:54:33
teach him how to be a better leader.
00:54:34
And yes, I will do that.
00:54:36
But it's not the way you think.
00:54:40
I have to get you to
00:54:40
reconnect to who you are inside.
00:54:42
What I say to anybody listening is,
00:54:45
I want to make sure your
00:54:46
inside matches your outside.
00:54:47
What I know for sure in my
00:54:49
corporate career is that my
00:54:50
face belied what was going
00:54:53
on below the surface.
00:54:54
Very often, they were at odds.
00:54:56
And I don't want that.
00:54:58
I want, sorry for the word alignment,
00:55:00
but I want them to mirror each other.
00:55:04
absolutely so let's let's
00:55:07
talk about that for a
00:55:08
second so what does it mean
00:55:11
you tell us about your book
00:55:13
unsuccessfully successful
00:55:14
lessons from a workaholic
00:55:16
corporate exec single
00:55:17
mother journey to a life of
00:55:19
balance I love this type so
00:55:21
I want you to tell me about
00:55:23
that because I think that's
00:55:23
a good segue about being
00:55:27
you know on the inside and
00:55:28
the outside is a lot so my
00:55:33
Thank you for asking.
00:55:34
My book was going to be called silly,
00:55:35
say it like it is,
00:55:36
because I felt like a
00:55:38
people withhold a lot of
00:55:39
information and there's not enough fun.
00:55:42
People think levity means when, you know,
00:55:44
this whole idea of
00:55:45
everything needs to be hard.
00:55:46
Well, you know, people that are,
00:55:48
they find that companies
00:55:49
that are more joyful
00:55:50
actually have more productive employees,
00:55:52
but you know, so anyway,
00:55:54
I thought it was a nice meeting,
00:55:57
double meaning.
00:55:58
And then,
00:55:59
my editor asked me to write
00:56:01
my bio and I wrote Donna
00:56:02
star was unsuccessfully
00:56:03
successful for three years.
00:56:04
And I was like, wait a second.
00:56:07
And my editor said, I like that.
00:56:08
And I just changed the name
00:56:09
of the title because I
00:56:11
think most of us have this
00:56:12
idea of success, you know, money, title,
00:56:17
fame, things,
00:56:18
nothing wrong with any of that stuff.
00:56:21
There's no judgment on that.
00:56:22
Nope.
00:56:23
But what does it mean to you viscerally?
00:56:27
And for me,
00:56:28
like at the end of my corporate career,
00:56:29
I wasn't able to digest food.
00:56:31
My body was rejecting every
00:56:33
ounce of the stress that I
00:56:33
was putting it under.
00:56:34
It was just time to go.
00:56:36
And I wasn't listening to sleeplessness,
00:56:40
anger,
00:56:41
all those things that were causing
00:56:42
me all these problems.
00:56:44
So unsuccessfully successful means to me,
00:56:47
you don't have to live like that.
00:56:48
The reason I'm so passionate
00:56:50
about coaching is I don't
00:56:52
want you to live with the
00:56:53
paradigm that you think
00:56:55
You have to live in,
00:56:56
I want you to live in your truth.
00:56:58
What feels good to you?
00:57:02
And what feels right to you?
00:57:05
If you don't want that
00:57:05
promotion and you're happy in your job,
00:57:09
great.
00:57:10
You know,
00:57:11
like stop living by everybody
00:57:13
else's rules.
00:57:13
Start living by whatever those are.
00:57:16
So my work as a coach,
00:57:18
when I started working with
00:57:20
my mindset coach is
00:57:21
rewriting my belief system.
00:57:24
And I didn't like,
00:57:26
I don't even know what my
00:57:26
belief system is,
00:57:27
but it was workaholic equals success.
00:57:30
So now I rewrite the rules
00:57:32
to say intention equals success.
00:57:36
Not I'm hitting a goal,
00:57:37
but hitting an intention.
00:57:39
I intend to be the best coach I can be.
00:57:42
That's an easy one for me, right?
00:57:43
Meaning I get to decide what that is.
00:57:46
So I don't know.
00:57:47
I just don't want it to be
00:57:48
so hard for other people.
00:57:49
I don't want people to go
00:57:50
through what I went through,
00:57:52
which is I lost a lot of years, a lot of,
00:57:56
I lost a lot of quality time
00:57:57
with my kids because I was distracted.
00:58:00
And I see the effects on them today.
00:58:02
And I'm not proud of that.
00:58:07
You know, when you said just that,
00:58:11
what is the definition of success?
00:58:15
And mine has shifted so much
00:58:16
over so many years.
00:58:17
But I mean, I feel that same way,
00:58:19
that when I was in that
00:58:22
corporate environment,
00:58:26
I had different priorities.
00:58:29
I had different belief systems.
00:58:30
And when I tried to change,
00:58:32
and this must be something that you see,
00:58:37
I was like, what do I even stand for?
00:58:41
Who am I?
00:58:42
What do I believe in?
00:58:43
You have to dig deeper and say, okay,
00:58:47
I know this is not working.
00:58:49
So what will work?
00:58:51
For me.
00:58:54
I teach corporate men and women and
00:58:56
I remember I was teaching
00:58:57
some yoga instructors and they were like,
00:59:01
yeah, we do breathing all the time.
00:59:03
And I was like, well,
00:59:04
do you do it at work when
00:59:04
you're stressed out?
00:59:05
You take thirty seconds to
00:59:07
just breathe when you're, oh, no,
00:59:09
we do it before and after work.
00:59:10
I'm like, OK, well, good for you.
00:59:11
But and I'm happy you do that.
00:59:13
But in your when you're activated,
00:59:16
you know,
00:59:16
you get an email or an angry
00:59:19
call that's actually also
00:59:21
helpful to do your breathing then.
00:59:23
you know,
00:59:24
like just to respond versus react,
00:59:26
which is a common thing.
00:59:27
You know,
00:59:28
a lot of times we're just firing away.
00:59:29
So yeah, we just, we,
00:59:31
we get to define and why our lives,
00:59:36
how we want to live our lives.
00:59:37
But a lot of people don't believe that,
00:59:42
you know, so I can talk forever.
00:59:43
So hopefully this was like,
00:59:44
this is such a fun time
00:59:46
talking to you today.
00:59:47
Oh my gosh.
00:59:48
I've enjoyed this so much,
00:59:49
but I have two more questions.
00:59:51
Okay, go ahead.
00:59:51
uh what's been the most
00:59:53
surprising thing you've
00:59:54
learned about yourself from
00:59:55
that how much work I had to
00:59:57
do on myself it's honestly
01:00:02
all the all the work that
01:00:04
I've done shows me how much
01:00:06
more work I still have to
01:00:07
do I I we are all works in
01:00:09
progress I'm very proud of
01:00:10
who I am I'm very proud of
01:00:13
how calm I am now how much
01:00:15
I let my feelings show
01:00:17
you've seen it on the but I
01:00:19
also realize I still have more
01:00:21
a lot more room to grow.
01:00:22
And I'm, you know,
01:00:23
I try different things all the time.
01:00:24
I had Reiki done last week.
01:00:26
I'm working with a somatic
01:00:27
healer because a lot of
01:00:29
that trauma is still living in my body.
01:00:31
And that's the most
01:00:34
surprising thing is that I
01:00:36
have more work to do.
01:00:38
And I mean,
01:00:38
we're really discovering now
01:00:39
that trauma sits at a
01:00:41
cellular level and that we have to,
01:00:43
we have to do the work to
01:00:45
be able to release some of that pain.
01:00:48
And that has been,
01:00:51
shockingly like I thought I
01:00:54
was done you know
01:00:56
relatively speaking but I'm
01:00:57
so not and and I'm honest
01:00:59
about it because I want my
01:01:01
clients to know that I'm
01:01:02
not I'm just I'm a work in
01:01:05
progress just like they are
01:01:07
you know I mean and that's
01:01:09
that's the beauty of it I
01:01:10
think when you stop being
01:01:11
curious and you stop when
01:01:14
you think you have it figured out that's
01:01:16
That's when you need to
01:01:17
start another chapter in
01:01:18
your book and say, okay,
01:01:20
I don't have it figured out.
01:01:22
I think it's perfectly fine for us to say,
01:01:28
you know, some days I'm a hot mess.
01:01:30
Some days I've got it together.
01:01:32
And that's just who I am.
01:01:34
I always feel like I need a
01:01:35
shirt that says under
01:01:36
construction because I am
01:01:38
in a constant state of evolution.
01:01:41
So that's my honest answer about that.
01:01:43
And I think it's the truth
01:01:44
for most people.
01:01:46
I love it.
01:01:48
So in my group, Just One Little Thing,
01:01:50
that we talked about earlier,
01:01:52
I always kind of pose to my followers.
01:01:56
You know, I say what I'm grateful for,
01:01:57
and it's just little things,
01:01:58
never anything material.
01:02:02
And then I ask them what
01:02:03
they're grateful for,
01:02:04
because I want them to tell
01:02:05
themselves to their present
01:02:06
moment as well.
01:02:07
So today,
01:02:09
I am thankful for this amazing
01:02:11
conversation.
01:02:12
I am so glad that I...
01:02:14
like not only that we had this chat,
01:02:16
but I get to meet you.
01:02:17
Like I just feel like you're
01:02:18
my soul sister.
01:02:19
I feel the same way.
01:02:20
I like love you.
01:02:21
I want to meet you in person.
01:02:23
I know.
01:02:25
So,
01:02:25
but I won't go to a Bruins game with you.
01:02:27
I will,
01:02:28
I will support you if you're a Bruins fan,
01:02:31
but just as a Montreal Canadiens fan,
01:02:34
I need to take a stand there and say,
01:02:38
I'm sorry about that.
01:02:39
Well,
01:02:40
imagine working for a New York based
01:02:41
company when you're a Red Sox fan, like,
01:02:44
It was contentious during.
01:02:45
Oh, I bet.
01:02:47
And I say that in jest
01:02:48
because my son actually,
01:02:52
his girlfriend is from your area,
01:02:55
your neck of the woods.
01:02:56
And so she's a Bruins fan
01:02:57
and he's a Canadiens fan.
01:02:59
They're making it work.
01:03:00
So it's all good.
01:03:02
I'll make it work.
01:03:03
I love some of my closest
01:03:04
friends are New Yorkers.
01:03:06
Quite the fact it's in our
01:03:06
DNA to not like each other.
01:03:08
I love New Yorkers.
01:03:09
I know, right?
01:03:09
Thank you so much.
01:03:12
So before we finish out,
01:03:14
I just want you to tell everybody,
01:03:15
how can they find you?
01:03:17
How can they find your book?
01:03:18
Yeah, thank you.
01:03:21
My book is on Amazon,
01:03:22
Unsuccessfully Successful.
01:03:24
I also have a journal, say it like it is,
01:03:26
that accompanies it because, you know,
01:03:28
that's our little baby steps.
01:03:30
But I'm very active on LinkedIn,
01:03:32
Donna Starr and D Starr
01:03:34
Consultants on Instagram
01:03:36
and Donna Starr on Facebook.
01:03:38
So I'm pretty active.
01:03:40
And also my email list,
01:03:41
which is where you learn
01:03:42
probably the most about me.
01:03:44
And you can go to my website,
01:03:45
dstarconsultants,
01:03:47
to sign up for my bi-weekly newsletter.
01:03:50
Perfect.
01:03:51
Well, thank you so much, Donna,
01:03:53
for being on the show.
01:03:54
I think so many people are
01:03:55
going to just take so much
01:03:57
from your wisdom today.
01:03:59
I really appreciate you
01:04:00
being so generous with your time.
01:04:03
And I loved meeting you.
01:04:04
And I think the work that
01:04:05
you do is just amazing.
01:04:08
and we need more of that.
01:04:09
So thank you for what you do
01:04:10
and thank you for having me on.