321. Confidently Designing Your Path: Expressing Your Worth in Act Two - Kate Gigax

Welcome to episode 321 of the Brainy Business Understanding the Psychology of why People Buy in today's episode, I'm excited to introduce you to Kate Gigax. Ready?

Let's get started.

You are listening to the Brainy Business Podcast where we dig into the psychology of why people buy and help you incorporate behavioral economics into your business, making it more brain friendly. Now here's your host, Melina Palmer.

Hello.

Hello everyone.

My name is Melina Palmer and I want to welcome you to the Brainy Business Podcast. In today's conversation I am joined by Kate Gigax. Kate is a leadership coach and facilitator with experience supporting people in technology design and game development. She works with clients who seek to produce next level results by focusing on how they relate to the influence and lead others. She supports her clients to set a clear vision for the future and to design beliefs and behaviors aligned with that vision. Her approach draws on her background in organizational psychology and neuroscience with a firm stance that no one wants advice, believing that 99% of the work to be done occurs with a shift in mindset. She supports clients to rewire old thinking habits in order to realize never before achieved success and and fulfillment. Kate facilitates an annual year long women's leadership development program for a large technology organization in Silicon Valley and she designed and facilitated an annual year long mentoring program pairing mid level high potential leaders with executives in a financial institution. She has partnered with PlayStation Studios to design and deliver the Leadership Dev Lab, an inclusive six month leadership development experience giving geared toward underrepresented populations in game development. She has designed and facilitated workshops, team off sites and training sessions on a range of topics including presence and presentation skills, trust, accountability, effective teams, conflict coaching skills, and dealing with different personalities. Her clients include Santa Monica Studio, Insomniac, Gorilla, Bad Robot Games, Microsoft, Adobe, Accenture, Salesforce, Virgin, Orbit, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Miller Coors and the.

Make a Wish Foundation.

She has a Master's in Industrial Organizational Psychology from George Mason University and a Bachelor's in Psychology from Arizona State University. She holds a certificate in Leadership Coaching from Georgetown and is certified in the Neuro Leadership Institute's Brain Based Coaching Conversations. And I'm so excited for you to meet her today. I'm going to let her tell a.

Little bit about how we got connected.

When we jump into the episode and it involves some past guests with at least one name I'm pretty sure you'll recognize really quickly. Before we get into the conversation, I want to be sure you know there are links in the show notes for everything, including related past episodes, links to articles, books, and so much more. It's all within the app you're listening to and@the brainybusiness.com 321. Now let's jump right in. Kate Gigax, welcome to the Brainy Business podcast.

Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here.

Absolutely. I know that we've become fast friends as we've been chatting just a couple of times here, prepping for the call and I'm so excited for everyone to be able to meet you and I will have talked at least a little bit about how we now know each other in the intro. But for everyone who doesn't know you yet, can you share a little bit about your work and you know how you got into this field?

Sure. So I'm an executive coach. I work with high achieving people in the middle of their career. So usually that's Gen X, it's millennial. And I work with a lot of creatives, so people who have not maybe taken the standard fare approach to corporate America. But I also work with a lot of people who are in big organizations, a lot of tech organizations and creative type tech. I'm helping people navigate their careers from a point of what's next and how I am defining success. My background is organizational psychology. So I'm super curious about all things how people work in organizations, the interaction of people in organizations and what makes organizations most effective.

Yeah. And so you, we got connected because of a connection that you have with Arizona State University, both from attending school there. But you do some work with them now too as well, do you what you know, who all do you know there at ASU that we might be familiar with?

Sure. Yes. It is a, it is a small world. Networks, networks are crossing over here. There's no, no Kevin Bacon, but we do have a few 6 degrees, 6 degrees of separation here. Fewer.

Right.

So when I to ASU decades ago, Bob Cialdini was there and of course I was in the department of psychology and I worked with, I received a tremendous amount of support from Steve Newberg. He supervised my undergrad honors thesis. And so he really, he single handedly, I believe, got me into graduate school at the time. Across from him was Doug Kenrick. And so when I was hanging out in Steve's office, Doug was often there. And now Fast forward, gosh, 25 years and I through a connection still with Steve, we've maintained contact. He's been just a constant supporter in my career and I love what he's doing. He reached out to me to tell me about their new initiative called Psych for Life, which has a mission around bringing good quality peer reviewed psychological research and making it a little bit more mainstream. So instead of getting our updates from social media and Instagram, that's really not peer reviewed, not high quality, really making good quality psychological research more palatable. So that's been a nice collaboration. I'm the host of Psych4Life, so that's allowed me to link up again with Steve and then also Doug's son, who must have been of my same cohort, who I know has been on your podcast as well. So he and I work together very closely in producing Psych 4 like, which has been great. It's one of those full circle moments of I went to undergrad there and then, you know, as a, as a professional came back to, to support the endeavor, which I really wholeheartedly believe in. It's, it's very exciting.

Oh yeah, and love that, that you know, like we say, the chain of connection brought us all, you know, together. That able to speak with you now today. So I told you I like to often ask people about whether it's their dissertation or other research that they did in school because for one, so sometimes I ask it if, you know, not sure if someone's going to be comfortable, help them open up a little bit. I also just like to know what people are passionate about and something that you choose to invest a bunch of time into researching, especially in a dissertation, is something that you probably were really interested in. Not always, but often that's the case and it ends up being, you know, it just unlocks something when you have that conversation. So you said you, you did some interesting research in, in graduate school. Love to hear about the work that you did.

Yeah, my work in graduate school. And it was that I was super interested in it and then went through a period of being sick to death of it. And then now I've come full circle and now I'm back, back to being super interested in it. So my research in grad school was all about the psychological contract, which to me is this super interesting concept of when we take a job, we sign an actual contract, right? It entails our salary, our benefits, everything. That is the, the exchange, the transaction, the reciprocal relationship we have with our organizations. But at the same time that we accept the job, sign our contract, we make a psychological contract which is in, in our mind's eye, it's the view of the relationship that what we're signing up for with our, our Organizations. And that relationship lives on a spectrum of relational to transactional, which. All good things happen with relational psychological contracts. Right. That we view it like a. A real human relationship characterized by things like loyalty and commitment and discretionary effort. And when we have a more relational psychological contract, we, we see all of those things. We see increased commitment, we see willingness to go above and beyond, and we see this expectation that what we have is real. And I'm going to, I'm going to give you my effort for many people, a lot of my clients that I work with, I'm giving you my life, I'm giving you most of my time and most of my energy. And what I become, I've become now in practice beyond the research, super interested in is what happens when that contract is breached. And sometimes that can happen. I've seen it happen in real life in a million different ways. Organizational changes, layoffs, you know, reduction in force, where it feels like, wait, wait, wait, this isn't what I signed up for. I thought we had an understanding of, I give you all this work and I give you my life. And I thought there was a path here for me, and now I'm just treated like a cog in the wheel. And what happens generally when we have a psychological contract breach is we slide all the way down the spectrum. And I've been there myself, where I've been like, you know what? Now I work, you pay me. And it becomes more of that transactional relationship where we take back our discretionary effort, where we say, you know what? I'm going to do exactly what I'm asked to do and nothing more. And that's when the commitment goes away. And people describe, in the research, people describe the feeling of a breach. The most common sentiment people express is betrayal. You know, we use still these very relational terms. And I don't know about you, but I feel like I've been betrayed by an organization before and there can be real trauma that comes with that. And I've worked with so many clients that have described trauma and breach. And what we're doing is rebuilding the ability to trust again, trying to get back to the place that we want to be in of having this, you know, high functioning, reciprocal relationship after being burned. It's a lot like a breakup.

Right? Right. Yeah, it's really. We definitely have that reaction. Right. Where. And it's one of those things where, you know, trust takes a long time to build and it's really easy to lose it. We hear that all the time. Right. But definitely have had where there's that moment of like, well, if you've done that, then I'm out. Right. Like, and like you said, you just make that clear shift. It can be really hard to come back from that place. And so let's say in your research, do you look at all into. And of course with the work I do in change management and how we present information, of course I try to be on the front end of that. Right. To say like how we present the information makes it so people won't feel this way because as you know, you're pointing out, it's really hard to come back from. You know, the one thing that kind of went, went wrong.

Yes.

But it doesn't mean that you shouldn't go through a merger or whatever. Right. Like things, these things still need to happen in a business, but you don't want to. It doesn't mean everything has to be this terrible situation. So I guess I kind of rambled. But what thoughts do you have to build on that?

Well, what's super, super interesting and exactly what you're saying it is how we manage the change. It doesn't mean that life doesn't happen, that things need to happen in organizations that are hard, that it happens all the time and more so now where we need to be doing more with less. And do we just accept, oh, there are going to be all these things breaches? It's absolutely in how we're communicating it and how we're approaching people. And what's interesting in the research is that a very, very powerful moderator of how people feel and experience their psychological contract. The owner of the contract is the manager. It's, it's the supervisor. It is the person who we speak with the most. That, that is the embodiment, you know, to, to the employee. That is the organization. That's who I have my one on ones with. That's who I talk to. That's who is most likely giving me this information. Hard as it may be that when I work with my clients, when we have hard messages to deliver, even sometimes laying people off, letting people go, that's part of the gig. Right? When we can do it in a way that preserves dignity and acknowledges, hey, this is really hard and I know what's happening. I can see what's happening. I see how difficult, difficult this is, then we are holding space for the relationship to remain intact, even if it's hard. You know, I think of it so much as being like a partnership, like a marriage, if you will, where we can, we can weather hard things in partnerships and in relationships and come out stronger for having weathered them. And at the same time, if we just focus on this is hard and pointing fingers then we're going to likely see the demise of that relationship. Whereas when we can keep the lines of communication open and acknowledge the hard things that the owner of that relationship is the supervisor. And when I work with particularly new supervisors, that is something that I really am evangelical about is to your employees, you are the organization and you can't, you can't take that lightly. That is, that is the burden of responsibility that comes with moving into leadership.

Hmm.

I'm thinking about so not quite a pivot but this the. So there are a lot of small and mid sized business owners that listen to the show and I always like to, you know, we look at the intrapreneurs and the entrepreneurs kind of both angles here. And then like you said, for the, you know, any type of manager you have this. But for someone who is looking to build a culture within a company and you have these like really blurred lines especially when you started a business and people are friends or family and then you're having to tease this out as you get larger and you want to be close but not too close and it's like relational but not too, too close. What sort of advice do you have for people as you're wanting to have the benefits of a more relational aspect with employees and also not being, you know, in a completely dysfunctional. Yes, there's too much of that too.

Well, one of the things people say all the time is oh, you know, we're just like, we're a big family, you know, especially in smaller business. And I actually think that's really unhealthy because. No, we're not. We're not. You have a family and there are dynamics that come with family. You know, that whole quote around if you feel like a high functioning human, spend a week with family. You know, I think we kind of know family is, is, is just ripe with dysfunction and poor boundaries and just things that that are really, really shouldn't be brought to work with us. So whereas the distinction lines between lies between having a relational psychological contract and really fostering what are the, what are the tenants of it. It's trust.

Right.

You mentioned building that functional trust of and reciprocity. So we have clear agreements of here's your career path and I'm going to be honest with you about that. Of like you are reaching a terminal world where breadth will look like expanding outward. But we don't. There, there's not really room for you at this juncture to move up. You know, we are only so big. We'll have to. We'll have to grow in size before you can move up. Those feel like, quote, unquote, standard difficult conversations. I also have a lot to say about difficult conversations because I think we don't tend to have them enough. We shy away from them and just like we do in family. So it can't be so relational that we're not talking about hard things. Really. I see the greatest opportunity to have a high relational psychological contract is leaning into those hard conversations, being really transparent and in doing so, building trust that it's not like this. No boundaries and sacrifice and everybody, you know, in startup mode, right. Everybody wears all the hats and we're kind of all doing all this, all, all the things. When in reality good practices include swim lanes and clear agreements and talking through difficult things instead of just going on, you know, all firing on all cylinders at all times. So I think the big distinction there is communication and clarity, clarity of communication and transparency, particularly about the hard things.

Right. Yeah. Well, I'm. So I'm definitely going to link to Kwame Christian, one of his episodes. He's been here multiple times. Great friend of the show and myself, but he has done a TED talk about difficult conversations. His podcast is called Negotiate Anything and he says, you know, the best things in life are on the other side of difficult conversations. That's like his. So you, you both would get along for sure. So for everyone who's interested in that. And then I'm going to link also to when Stephen M r. Covey was on the show talking about speed of trust, very closely aligned with what we're talking about here. And related is. So Scott Miller was just here a few weeks ago and he was talking about his new book, the Ultimate Guide to Great Mentorship. And while this is a little bit different than mentorship because we're talking about kind of actual boss relationships, he talks a lot about setting boundaries and has some good language and prompts for people. So anyone that's interested in that, I'm going to link to all those in the show notes to kind of just, you know, help you dig deeper on.

Your learning, because that's all good stuff.

Oh, that's great. That's great. You're right. Each of these topics has like just such a vertical of information beneath it, but conflict, leaning into conflict, boundaries, those are all big things that we don't learn that anywhere in a business school doesn't cover it. We kind of have to learn it the hard way through how we're setting up our culture. And there are the parts of culture that are explicit and there are parts of culture that are implicit that we just learn by being there and noticing what other people do. And these tend to be the implicit parts of culture that we just. Okay, I guess we're not talking about this and we, and then we just, we collude, right? We, we join in, like, okay, I, I guess conflict. This is how conflict works here. Or this is how boundaries work here. Because you're Texting me at 9pm so I guess I'll respond right. Where these are these kind of beneath the surface cultural components that we sometimes forget to be intentional about when we say, wow, how did we get here? And often that's the answer.

Right? Just by not being intentional. That's how you got there.

Yeah, not being intentional. Accidental culture.

And I think, you know, it's really people not realizing the impact that they have. The other book that was coming to mind for me, which I recommend and bring up on the show and in my books a lot, is Fierce Conversations by Susan Scott.

Yes.

Such a good book.

So powerful.

Yep.

Yes, it should be a must read, for sure.

I was very fortunate to have this book given to me very early on in my career. And so I was able to listen and get some really good insight. I listened to it, which I do highly recommend, even if you're not an audiobook person, because the way that she, because it's author read and the way she says some of the phrasings is not how I would have read it. The way she needs the tone. Yes, for sure. But one of the things I love that she says in that book is that you need, as you move up in an organization, you have more impact than you realize. And like the little thing that you might have done when you were, you know, an underling, that didn't impact anything. Like you looked away when someone was talking or you weren't really paying attention, doesn't really matter. But as you move up, all those little things have huge, way bigger ripples than you would realize. So everything you do is under scrutiny and can be impacting somebody else in a huge way. And that you should be looking at every interaction to see if you are leaving an aftertaste, an after glow, or an aftermath because something is happening at every one of these interactions. And so, yeah, I really think that that ties in with, you know, what you're talking about, that if, if you're not intentional and you think like, oh, that doesn't matter. They should not care about that. They should know I'm well intentioned. Like they don't. And all that stuff matters. And if you're like you said, texting at 9 o' clock at night or whatever else, any of these boundaries, and this goes with, you know, for the solopreneurs out there and everybody too, what you do with your clients. Because if you.

Yes, yeah.

Well, what thoughts do you have on that?

Well, well, as a, as a solopreneur who works with a lot of different clients, you end up falling into the cultures of your clients. Right. And those boundaries become so important because they are operating as their culture operates, as they do. And part of being successful is that assimilation and meet, you know, meeting requests, meeting demands, but that is. Will also be the death of a solopreneur is to be a complete chameleon. So it becomes really critical to have those boundaries. And because you are not part of the culture. And if, if there, if the culture is to, you know, text at all hours or work on weekends, it's really important to establish that you are separate, you are not part of the culture.

Yeah, totally. Well, thank you for taking some time to talk through all of that. I agree. It's really, really interesting.

Before we fully move on to the.

Next topic, I guess. So for, for anyone who I'm going to start on the company side. So if you know that you have had a moment in your business that has sort of created that breach in contract for a lot of members on your team or a specific person, what sort of advice do you have for them to help regain from transactional to relational?

Yeah, yeah, that's a great question. And so much of it comes back to having the difficult conversation of bringing it back to. There's a client I have that is very introverted and their preference is definitely to put on their headset and like jam on their computer. Yet they're a people manager, so that's not an option. And the joke we always have is more words, more words, just add words. And that's the real counsel. There is the only way this is going to be repaired because that's what this is, right? It's a repair conversation. Just like in any other relationship, after we have a fight, after someone's feelings have been hurt, that there's a real need to repair. And it's not going to be done in one conversation. It's going to be done through consistency in action. So really developing comfort with those repair conversations. And I was listening to something that was Talking about repair conversations where they said, you know, is there a point at which it's too late to have a repair conversation? And that's a great question. And the response was, think of something that happened to you in childhood that your caregivers did. Would it be too late now for them to acknowledge it? And I thought, oh, wow, yeah, that's so true. And that's decades ago, and it would still be incredibly meaningful to have that acknowledgement. So, no, it's never too late. And the power of I was wrong. That didn't come out as I intended. I wasn't intentional. Is so, so, so powerful. And sometimes we're not gratuitous enough with admitting when we were wrong or we could have done better, and that that matters so much. There's one thing that I work with my clients a lot in. I have a lot of. Of leaders saying, you know what? They're just never happy. I'm trying so hard. I'm trying to do all these things, and I just. I. I can't make them happy. And I always want to pivot that conversation to, what if it's not about happiness? What if it's about helping them feel valued? Because if they can feel valued, they know they have a place that, you know what, there's a lot going on in the world right now. You don't know why they're unhappy. You don't know if this job is really the source of their unhappiness. How can you help them feel valued? What would that look like? How would that shift the conversation? So, particularly if there's been a breach, I think the question really becomes, how do you admit fault, if there is fault? And how do you get back to helping people feel valued? Because that's what we really want, is to feel like there's a place for us, and I am valued. And that's usually why the breach happened, is because it was this eyes wide open to, oh, wow, I'm not valued in the commensurate way with the value I think I'm delivering. And that's nine out of 10 times the source of the breach. So really delving into what does recognition look like? Because here's the general truth, right? When something goes wrong, we have details, we have bullet points, we have examples of how it went wrong and what needs to be done to fix it. And when something goes right, what do we reduce it to? Two words, usually, good job. And that is so disappointing. As an employee, it's like, oh, good job. I don't even know what Was good. So one of the things that a very tactical tool I like to give people is to give compliments in the same level of depth and degree of specificity that you do, your constructive criticism. So a model that I love that is primarily used by the center for Creative Leadership is the SBI model. Situation, behavior, impact. So I'm going to name the situation so it puts it in context. Right. Hey, in the meeting last week. Okay, now I know what you're talking about. You know, maybe it needs to be more specific. In the sales meeting last week. Okay, got it. The behavior. What did they do? You know, you, you presented. You were super crisp and thorough. You hit all the bullet points. I was looking around the room. Everybody was listening. Everybody was completely tracking what you were saying. And then the impact. And here's why it matters. Here's why it matters. And that links to people feeling valued. What we, I believe what we really want to know is that our work matters, that we matter. And the more we can convey that to people, you matter. Your work matters. This is all for something, the more intact we keep that psychological contract. So I, I use that for every thank you note I ever write. I make it an sbi. Here's the situation. Here's what you did. You know, maybe it's like, hey, it was my birthday last month. You sent, you sent me a note. And here's the impact it had on me because I've never known ever since I was a kid and my mom would make me write thank you notes. I never knew what to put other than thank you and. Which is the equivalent of like, good job. They felt really inauthentic. And I work with a lot of leaders who are trying to show up as a bit more authentic because it turns out we need to connect people. And the only way we connect to people is through some layer of vulnerability or authenticity. And being really gracious in thanking people endears them to us. And so that's something that I think we can all be better as leaders. And, you know, it works with clients as well.

Definitely. Well, and I was writing, as you were saying that I was writing vulnerability loops to link to my episode on it. As you said, we only get there with vulnerability. Like, oh, good. Exactly the note I was making.

Making.

So we'll link to that for everyone in the show notes. I was thinking about the research that was done where you had. You know, I think it's. At least some of it's on the IKEA effect, but it's having people assemble something and then they Were told, like, you can keep making them and you'll get paid for it or whatever. But in. In one case, they made the. And they were those, like, bionicles. So it's like you're making the bionicle Lego thing and then you can give it over to the person. They either, like, put it up on the shelf and, like, acknowledge you, or they just start taking it apart and putting it in another box. And you can. And you're like, watching the thing you just built be disassembled and deciding if you want to make another one and that people built less even when they were still being paid for them, when it was being taken apart. And then also, you know, having the recognition. There was another one where they did the task if you had to find and circle or highlight words or something, and you write your name on the top. And in one case, the person said, thank you so much for this, and, like, looked like they were looking at the work. Another one, they just, like, set it aside and didn't care. And then the other one, they said thank you and put it in the shredder immediately. I did. I don't think they even said that. You just took it, put it in the shredder, and you could keep doing pages. And people don't want to do the work when it's not being acknowledged. And it's funny because in the shredded example, you could phone it into and just be getting paid. But people don't want to do that.

People don't want to do that. I think sometimes we think we want to do that. It's like, you know what? I wish I had this chill job. I don't know how many times a client has told me, you know what, maybe I'm just going to quit and become a barista. It's like a barista is everybody's daydream job. And of like, kicking back. Although, I don't know, I've gotten my coffee in the morning and I don't.

Want to do that at all. I have a different, different daydream job. But we'll go from.

I think we all daydream about having these, like, simple. And not to. Again, not to suggest a barista is a simple job, but having. Having a simpler job where maybe it's not as stressful or we could kick back a little bit more. And in reality, that isn't what we want. Particularly my high achievers, that is like 99 of who I work with. And. And I am one. And I know you are one. That no, you would Go crazy. And in the barista example, you know what would happen? You would become, you would find efficiencies and then you would become like the fastest barista and then they would promote you and then you would be like a store manager and then you'd become a regional manager and then you would be back to exactly where you are. So we wish for this simpler thing when in reality maybe we need to look at our practices and how we're showing up and it's not the environment. It's not the environment, it's us. And how do we show up differently to get different results?

Yeah, well, I think that's maybe not the perfect, but darn near close to the best sort of transition to the different acts that people are at in their careers and, you know, with the work they're doing. So how about you share a little bit about that work that you are doing now and helping people in Act 2?

Yes. So Act 2 is what I call being in middle career. Right. So act one is early career. And. And I would argue act one even starts before we start our career. So as we're finishing up whatever kind of schooling we've, we've gone through, the task is striving, right? It is striving for the next thing. It is climbing the ladder. And what most of us learn is that in Act 1 there's a bit of a formula, right? It is all about discretionary effort. It's all about trying really, really hard, doing the work, studying. I know Vanessa Patrick talks about non promotable tasks in her episode. So it's all about non promotable tasks. It's like, sure, I'll be the one. It's volunteering. It's in the meeting when the quote unquote special project comes up that is really just work that nobody else wants to do. It's being quick to raise the hand, it's seeking the extra credit and the extra care. It's about being liked and it's about giving it all, you know, of leaving nothing left. So for many people, act one leaves them, this was certainly true of myself, leaves them feeling unidimensional that I have a career and a pretty successful one, but I have nothing else. I have nothing else. That's where all my time goes. It's where all my energy goes. And suddenly I don't have the hobbies I used to have or, you know, all of my free time goes to this one, like, cool vacation that I take a year. But otherwise I'm in work mode. So that's really Act One where we're unidimensional, we're giving so much to work. And here's the thing. I'm not saying act one is bad. For most people. It works. There are promotions, there are expanded remits, there are bigger scopes of work, maybe new businesses or successful businesses. So whatever it was, whatever it is, for most people, Act 1 has a net positive effect. And there's a transition period where something happens, right? And often that something that happens is bad. Sometimes it's sickness, sometimes it's losing a relationship, you know, sometimes it's like a divorce or it's that wake up call that, you know, somebody shaking your shoulders. Sometimes it's something good, you know, sometimes it's moving in with a partner who says, like, do you want to have dinner with me? You know, are you gonna stop working and hang out with me ever? Sometimes a big part of my actu transition was having children.

That's what I was just gonna say. Like, oh, yeah, them, them that it is.

I have to. I have to be done at a certain time because that is when the help leaves or that's when I need to pick them up. Or it is a firm boundary. And never in my life had I ever had a firm boundary. Actually, I kind of prided myself on having no boundaries. That was my act one. So act two, then. That. That is the cue. Cue act two. We are ready for an act two transition. And often when we are wrapping up, when we are called to transition, just like many other things, there's kind of a breakdown that happens where I work with so many people who, you know, talk a lot about burnout right now, who end up calling me because they're so burned out they're sick. I'm working with four people who are in remission from cancer, and they have some level of gratitude toward the cancer for, like, you know what? It. It made me change. It was the wake up call. But now I don't know what to do help, because I don't want to go back to that. I don't want to go back to who I was before. So often there's a. There's kind of a breakdown that occurs in the transition to Act 2. So Act 2 becomes. Usually happens mid career. And the task here is really about designing. So instead of striving, instead of just trying to reach for the next rung on the ladder, it is. There is no letter, there's no formula. And that's really scary for those of us who crack the code of I know what to do. I know what to do when I get a new job. I'm going to work really hard, I'm going to prove myself, I'm going to be liked, I'm going to be the go to person. That is a badge of honor of being a go to person, of supporting somebody else, being a strong number two, when what we're really doing is propping up, propping up someone else who's the main character. You know, being a really stellar supporting character in Act 2, it's about stepping forward as. As the main character in the story. So in here, it becomes inherently creative that there is no formula. You have to figure it out. And it's based almost singularly on the question, what do you want? And that. I think that question is so fundamental in life. And for a lot of people it's really scary because if you've been in act one for a while, that has not been even. That's. That's never. That question is never considered because it's not about you. It's about success, it's about the job, it's about what needs to be done, it's about what's being asked of you. There is a bit of chameleon in act one of, like, it depends, what do you need? I can be what you need. I can mold myself into that. And act two is really grounding down into what do you want and how do you build a life around that? Moving out of this, being a stellar supporting cast member into being the main character and developing the boundaries and the confidence and the vision and the values to dictate where the story goes from here.

Well, for everyone who's resonating super hard with that. Yeah, that is hard. And I'm there. Those people that are having this or I've been there and can't get out of that. Yes. What then? You know, what do they do? Right. So it's like, how do they then start to think about what they want? Are there some key questions to ask? Is there a place to start? You know, what. What advice do you give?

It's a great question because I was actually meeting with somebody a couple weeks ago who that question of what do I want? She said, I'm actually embarrassed. I don't know. I have no idea. I have no clue where to begin. And that's terrifying. So that's actually pretty normal because if you think about it, that's not been the driver. It really hasn't been about. And the ability to kind of set that aside. Some people attribute that to part of their Success around, you know what? It doesn't matter what I want. Here's what needs to be done. This kind of in service of the greater good. So, you know, my advice is to start small. You know, that it's a muscle that needs to be built. And particularly I was a chameleon. I could bend and mold myself into whatever the environment needed. And so it took me a while to build up the muscle. Starting with being really clear of, like, what do I want for dinner? You know, even just these little things where I'm very. I. I position it as being laid back, but it's a. I don't know, what do you want? Right where I can very easily just accommodate to whomever I'm with. Because I don't know, I don't really care. It's okay if it's not about me. And particularly working mothers, that is very, very common where we've lost sight of due to caretaking, due to juggling all the demands, losing sight of what is it that you need. So starting small, really tapping into what, what do I need? What do I want at this moment? And then allowing. I want to rest, I want to sit on the couch. Because then what normally happens is the inner critic pops up and is like, sit on the couch. How lazy. There is stuff to do, there's stuff to get done. You need to be doing all this. Or the other scenario is you sit on the couch and then somehow feel guilty or feel shame about it of, I can't believe I'm just sitting here on the couch. Who do I think I am? There is, you know, life to be done. So really starting small of even just acknowledging in this process moment, what is it? What is it that I want? What's calling to me? And a big piece of it is quieting down enough. So developing these reflective practices or some way of quieting the noise enough to hear the whisper, you know, the whisper of our intuition. Because in Act 1, people are quite literally telling you. And in Act 2, it has to come from within. And if we are running around so crazy, not slowing down enough to listen to ourselves, because it's a whisper, it doesn't usually it's not a scream. And it takes slowing down enough to listen to it. So if that's walking, if it's meditation, if it's yoga, if it's just simply finding some time to be alone in silence, even if meditation isn't your thing, that's when the whisper happens. And starting to pay attention to when things hook us in a really positive way. So those are slowing down to the question of what I want. But the other things I would say in that become really critical in starting to dip that toe in the water of actu is an absolute must. You need to know what you stand for, what you value. You know, doing some sort of values exercise. Because our values become the guidepost. They become the guideposts when we face something difficult. When we have a difficult decision to make, we have to come back to our own internal compass of what do I value? So how would that guide me in making this decision? And this isn't just like life, this is business, right? So one of my values is autonomy. And that really steered me away from working in corporate America. You know what? This doesn't really work for me. And I've never been able to put my finger on why. But once I clarified my values, oh, I have this incredible value of autonomy, of doing things my own way. And I have a. I struggle when being told what to do and needing to fit into a box. And that really was so clarifying of I need to start my own business. One of my other values is around ease. Like when things start to feel too difficult, when things can happen seamlessly and with ease, that feels good. So even a regular practice at the end of the day, I always do it when I'm cleaning up dinner. It feels like I'm always at the sink when I'm doing it. So it doesn't have to be sitting on a pillow alone by yourself. It is for me, it's doing the dishes. And I think back on my day of do I consider it? We're so binary in our thinking around this, but do I consider it a good day or a bad day? And then aligning it to, well, how does that trace back to my values? Like, ah, today was a good day. I was able to do my own thing. There was ease, you know, there was a quality is another one of my values that it was very, you know, I felt like I produced quality work. It was a good day. And when there's a bad day, inevitably I can trace it back to a value. So that's a really, really powerful way of helping make these big decisions by knowing what you're all about, these tenets by which you make your decisions and you live your life. And then the other thing I would suggest is knowing your strengths and not only knowing them, but really starting to own them. That you have to be Building Act 2 of your career around what you're about, your values and what your superpowers are, your Strengths. If you're not, you're still somebody else's supporting cast member. We try to be these utility players in Act 1.

Right.

And Act 2 is really about doubling down on you and betting. Betting on you.

Yeah, definitely. The other book and conversation that really came up while you were talking is Cassie Holmes and her book Happier Hour, which I will be linking for everybody in the show. Notes. So good. Both in. She has a similar story. Not of the barista dream, but in her case, she's talking about how she was on the train and saying, like, she's going to, you know, move and go live on a beach somewhere and invite her family to come with her. But, you know, it's not a guarantee that it's required. And, you know, she was. I think she was at Wharton and, you know, just earned, you know, all she'd been working for and ended up transferring things. She's at UCLA now. If I'm getting schools and things mixed up, I'm sorry, Cassie. But, you know, because she wanted the sun, she needed these things for her life. And she talks about that, you know, people need between two and five hours of discretionary time in the day on average to be able to have that real level of feeling as happy as you can. And if you have more than that, the, like, live on the beach, you actually are less happy than if you had five hours of this discretionary time. And so finding two hours that can be spread throughout the day, like you said, taking your time for mindfulness while you're cleaning up the. The dishes, if that's something that resonates for you, where for me, that's more chore than it is a mindful time, but, like, going for a walk, I really enjoy. Right. But getting like, you know, 15 minutes here and story time with the kids or, you know, those little things, you can find two hours pretty fast. Right. It's not that hard.

Even though when you first said it, I thought, oof, two hours. That my first reaction is, that sounds like a lot, but that you're. You're. I could not agree with you more that it's the. It's the breaking up. It's finding the time. It doesn't have to be two hours alone in silence by yourself. Because that for most people is untenable.

Not yet. Never gonna happen. Not at all. Right? For most. For most people, yeah, for sure. And I am fortunate that I get a lot of time on my own. Like when I'm working on books and things, where I will go stay at a house by myself. For four or five days and be working or I did two weeks in London by myself just a few months ago and I know that and I got to go meet with people while I was there and everything and people I was talking to, they're like two weeks by yourself because it's like eating by myself, flying internationally by myself, like doing all the things. And that can be scary too.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yes.

But you know, I think it's a good balance. So anyway, I'm going to link to Cassie's book too because I think people will get a lot of value from that for sure. And just, you know, I think she's got really good tips and things and steps in that, in that book for people that are looking for this and like you said, taking that time, I would really look at, you know, as you're finding that, that opportunity where there's that point where you go when people say you're like, wouldn't it be, yeah, it'd be nice if I could X but I can't. Right. And it's sort of even the thing that's like the off handed.

Yes.

Thing that you're like, oh, I, yeah, I wish I could sit out with a glass of wine but. Or yeah, it'd be great if I could go for a run. But like whatever the thing is, then like go do it. Yeah, just go do the thing.

Totally. I love that concept. So I sometimes I call it that Wouldn't it be cool if. So what is, what, what is your version of. Wouldn't it be cool that for most people they're like, well, does it have to be feasible? Like, don't worry about that. Don't worry about feasibility. And for me it was, wouldn't it be cool if I could leave corporate America and replace my salary and work less? And that I've grown into calling this. One of my clients was like, oh, that feels illegal. And, and she said that I guess that I'm going to call it my illegal move. And I love that notion of calling it your illegal move. So I invite people to think about what's, what's the illegal move. You know, for me it was leaving corporate America, which felt like safe, right? That was the safety net. It's like I can have insurance and a stable salary. I'm going to leave corporate America, work less and make more. That was, that felt illegal to me. And I did it and it did it with greater ease than I ever thought was possible. And that's what for many people, many, many people, that's what Act 2 is about is finding whatever that illegal move is. Like, I am not sure this is possible. And then trying. And I have seen dozens and dozens and dozens of people be quite pleasantly surprised of, wow, I overshot the goal that I thought was illegal in the first place. And that's what's so exciting to Me about Act 2 is these beliefs that we have come into that might not be true, that are really just putting limiters about what's possible in success and our success beliefs. And there might be more possible if we truly design it than if we're trying to play within someone else's design.

Yeah, I love the. Wouldn't it be cool if. I think that's such a thing that people say all the time. And like you're saying, as someone who did also leave, you know, corporate America job and like, the things that I thought were the top of the world are like, I'm looking down. So, like, I'm. So far, it's so much more than anything that I ever thought when I was in it. And I think it's important though too to acknowledge that not everyone should be an entrepreneur or should go start a business or do any of that. That's not the path for everyone. But you also can have a different boundary and it might be within the same role that you have, or maybe it's you as you're looking for that one promotion, but what. What does that look like for you within the organization you're in? Or maybe it's in the same type of job but at another company. What's the dream? What could it be? How. How might that work? That it. It's not limited to people that want to be entrepreneurs.

It's not limited to entrepreneurs. And what I, what I would say for people in organizational structures is don't limit it to the jobs that currently exist. That maybe designing looks like pitching. Pitching, like, hey, here's what I could do. These are my strengths. This is what I bring to the table. Here's how I could make it work here. So very often in, in existing structures, it looks like you created your own job and that.

That.

Wouldn't it be cool if, oh, I could merge this and this and. And it's like, well, go. Go make the offer. And, And a powerful move in act two is instead of asking, offering, ask. One is, could I please, May I please do this? Could. Could you get, you know, bet on me and give me a chance? Act two is, hey, here's what I bring to the table. Are you interested? Do you want to see how this could work here, it's so much more empowering. It's claiming your worth, it's claiming that you are on a trajectory and hopefully it can work out here, but if not, you're probably going to do it somewhere else. And that is incredibly magnetic.

Well, and like owning what you want and what's important to you and knowing what you care about. And like you said, it could be that you've had a child now or you are getting married or whatever it is and your priorities have shifted and you just want better boundaries at work. And sometimes the, the bad boundaries that you have are self imposed from Act 1, like right to use that right. So nobody necessarily said you had to volunteer for all the things or that you had to be getting up and starting at 5am and working until midnight and whatnot. You just sort of adapted into that. And so whether it's saying, you know, asking for one day that you get to work remote every week or that you're going to have a no meeting day or whatever it is, but I think finding what those boundaries can be and then if you present it like you said, not as oh, can I please and saying this is why it is beneficial to the company, this is something that I really want and this is how it's beneficial to me. I'm really excited in this and I think it would be cool to, to create this area of knowledge for the organization and would love to dedicate 25% of my time to this. How does that sound? You know, whatever. Right. But again, presenting it with that confidence is really key.

It's key, it's key. And I think that's so often what we miss is you have to be, you have to sell it, you have to be so excited and you have to believe so much in it that that is contagious. And so often I hear people, oh, I, I made the ask. I'm like, well, if you talked in the way you're talking to me, it is not very convincing. And, and so that's what I push a lot of my clients to think about is what are you just evangelical about that you want to just get on a soapbox and you could talk about it all day long and it lights you up and you just have so much energy for that's what you should do. That's what you should do because that will translate, that will translate to every single person who hears about it. And that's how we become valuable. So we talked, you know, to fully wrap around our whole conversation around feeling valued. Sometimes we have to show the value we bring in order for that reciprocity to happen so people fully appreciate it. And when I really started owning my space and like, you know what? This is my superpower. If you need this, cool. If not, I can find somebody else for you. My career really took off and, and really owning. Owning our space and trying to be the jack of all instead of trying to be the jack of all trades is key. And I think it's very counterintuitive that it feels like, oh, breath, breath is important, that that will win me more work, that will give me more relationships. Like, oh, no, you gotta double, you gotta double down, double down in your space and know that you'll attract the right people and the wrong people will move along and that, that, that's okay. And that scarcity can't be, can't be. That scarcity mindset. Can't be, can't be driving.

I love it. Well, we said before we started talking that we knew we could talk all day. We're definitely. So we're gonna, we're gonna take the pause. We're gonna go ahead and move forward. And for everyone who is now so excited to learn more from you to get in contact, what is their best pass? Whoa. Best path to do so?

My website is Development Corps C O R P S like the Peace Corps or the marine Corps. So www.developmentcorps.com. i'm sure you will put it in the show notes. My email also exists there. My blog is there where I write about a lot of these things and would love to be in touch with people who this resonated with.

Awesome. And yes, you are correct. We will definitely put that link in the show notes and make sure that everyone can get in contact with you and just, you know, thank you so much again for joining me on the show. It was a lot of fun to chat with you today.

It was super fun. Thank you so much.

Thank you again to Kate Gigax for joining me on the show today. What got your brain buzzing in today's conversation? For me, I knew the moment I started talking with Kate that her message and approach was going to resonate with. With so many people who listen to.

The show, whether it's from interactions on.

Social media or clients or students I've.

Had over the years.

I know that so many of you are right in this space that Kate's talking about that transition to Act 2 and not quite being sure how to adjust your mindset or where to even start. How do you even know what you want? And then Once you do, how do you get support for it? Is anyone in your life going to be on board? Do you need to get a new job? A new place? A new everything? I know change like this can be scary and it's possible that some people won't be on board with the transition. I speak from experience here, but a lot of the time that's okay. Focusing on you is so important, both in showing up for other people and just having a better balance to your life. I'm not going to get all preachy on you here, but know that the journey is worth it and if you resonated with any of the get outta act one Transitioning to act two issues we discussed today, just try to do a little something for yourself.

Ask that.

Wouldn't it be cool if Question or take a moment for mindfulness or check out the Power of no by Vanessa Patrick, either her book or the episode, which is going to be linked for you in the show notes. There are so many little changes that can make a big difference. And on that note, definitely tune in next Friday for my conversation with Marcie.

Rader because she has all the tips.

For little changes to habits that can help you to work well and play more.

If you aren't already subscribed to the.

Brainy Business podcast, take a minute to do so now to be sure you don't miss that one. And whatever action you decide to take after listening to this episode, please come.

Share it with Kate and I. You can find me as the Brainy.

Biz across the socials and Kate is at kategigax K A T E G.

I G A X.

There are of course links in the show notes for everything, including those social links and other ways to get in contact with Kate, related past episodes and books all waiting for you in the app you're listening to and atthe brainy business.com3 2 and thank you again to Kate Gigax for joining me on the show today. It was a delight to chat with and learn from you. Join me Tuesday for another Brainy episode of the Brainy Business Podcast. It's going to be a lot of fun. You won't want to miss it. Until then, thanks again for listening and learning with me and remember to be thoughtful.

Thank you for listening to the Brainy Business Podcast. Molina offers virtual strategy sessions, workshops and other services to help businesses be more brain friendly. For more free resources, visit thebrainybusiness.com.