315: Intuition-Building, Spotting Pedestal Syndrome, and Closing the Confidence Gap with Kelli Thompson

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We may not know what the future is going to hold, but the one piece of clarity you can find in that moment is if you are crystal clear on what you value, you can ask yourself, is my next tiny right choice in alignment with my values? Is it in alignment with what I stand for? Is it in alignment with the person that I am hoping to become?

What's next? This is a question we're all having to ask and answer more frequently. I'm Jenny Blake, your host of the Pivot Podcast and author of Pivot. The only move that matters is your next one.

For show notes from this episode, visit pivotmethod.com podcast if Change is the only constant, then let's get better at it. Here we go.

Welcome back, Pivoters. I am so excited to be here today with Kelly Thompson. Kelly is such a wonderful person. I've gotten to know her through the BFF community. She is a women's leadership coach and speaker who helps people advance to the rooms where decisions are made. Specifically women advancing to those rooms where decisions are made. She has coached and trained hundreds of women to trust themselves, lead with more confidence, and create a career that they love. And fellas, if you're here, this podcast will still be relevant to you as well. She's the founder of the Clarity and Confidence Women's Leadership Program and a Stevie Award winner for Women in Business Coach of the Year. She is the author of her brand new book, Closing the Confidence Gap, Boost yout Peace, your Potential and your Paycheck, which was selected as a must read by the Next Big Idea Club. Kelly, welcome to the show.

Oh, thank you for having me. I'm so excited to chat today.

Me too. I love how you open with this big juicy question. What would you do if you had more confidence? That's a big one.

It's a big one. I asked before I wrote the book, over 500 women that question and now I've just kind of included it in my standard questions. You know, when I'm speaking to groups, probably asked over a thousand people. And if you're listening, I would Love for you just to kind of think, gosh, okay, if I'm overhearing this, what would I do if I had a little more confidence? And the answers are, like, really inspiring, but they're also a little heartbreaking because, you know, you hear things like, I ask for a raise, I would start that side hustle. I would take my hobby and make it a real job. I would apply for a new job, I would change careers. I'd run for office. I hear so many women saying, you know what? I'd run for office. While that's really inspiring, it's also, like, a little heartbreaking to be like, oh, my gosh, there's so many unrealized dreams out there that imagine, like, if all of us just took, like, a tiny step towards those things. Just imagine the ripple effect of that. It's both really inspiring and it's also really heartbreaking. But I think at the same time, too, that's also what drives a lot of my why behind staying in the business? Because I love talking with women and really making some of these things become a reality in all of the different categories I talked about.

You also make such a strong connection between confidence and listening to our intuition. And so we're going to talk about things like second guessing why we do that, how to stop doing that, how to stop checking boxes. And I thought it was so powerful when you were telling your story and you talk about even beyond career, personal life, relationships as well, you definitely had your reckoning moment. You call it poop soup.

Yeah.

When you were really working through it. And what really struck me kind of stopped me in my tracks while reading. You said even in your first marriage, as you were walking down the aisle, something in your gut told you it wasn't right. And I'm just wondering if you could take us to that moment. I don't know who would have the confidence to make a U turn halfway down the aisle. And yet that little voice said something to you at that time that maybe you didn't have the confidence yet to really admit or listen to. I'm just wondering if you can tell us about that.

I'm glad that we're two authors talking about this, because one of the things I think people might be interested to know is I actually had a lot more detail around that that got edited out. So let's just talk about a cutting room floor story, if we will.

I love those. Those are the best ones.

These are the juiciest ones.

Be ready.

So I was really young when I met my husband. I actually Met him in college, and we had just started dating when I had already accepted a job in a different city. So I'm from Nebraska, the job was in Missouri. And so we dated long distance. And while we were dating long distance, we got engaged. So of course, you know, we weren't like doing life together really. And we kind of had this pact where we said, okay, I'll apply in your city, you apply in my city. And whoever gets a job first, that's where we're going to live. And so I got a job back in Nebraska and I moved back and of course started spending more time together. I started to notice that there were some red flags, but I was really young and I kind of remember telling myself, or like my brain kept telling me this message, you're in too far, you're in too far. And what I meant by in too far was we already had a down payment on a house, we had a wedding planned, I had a dress, I had a ring.

And.

And I think I'm speaking for myself. But when I was that young, there was an immaturity there in not really knowing how to trust myself or listen to my gut. So even though my gut was saying, hey, are you sure? Is this it? Is this really how you want to spend your life? Slow down. There was just those little nudges. My brain kept coming in. And I think that's where a lot of us get stuck. Even in our careers. We hear the nudging like, are you sure? Are you sure? But our brain comes in as like, you are in too far. You spent too much money. Your parents are going to be out of their deposit that they put down in the reception hall. What about this a thousand dollar dress that you just bought? What's he going to do with the ring? And I know that's a very personal example, but I think that in my continued, in my human experience, and at least with my clients too, we get those little nudgings. But our brain is so quick to be like, are you sure? And it's just such a shamey voice. And I just wish at the time we would talk more about intuition. A lot of the things that I say is a lot of our corporate leadership development, a lot of my schooling and education, it's all very neck up. So like, let's make a pros cons list. Let's get on an Excel spreadsheet, let's look at the strategy, let's look at the process, the facts. And they don't really teach us about all of the wisdom and Intelligence that is neck down, which is. Does this even align to my values? Does this even make me feel good? Does it make me feel big? Does it make me feel expansive? Does it make me feel free? Like, I didn't learn any of that till my 30s. And so that nudging, walking down the aisle was just a culmination of all those little red flags that I heard and that I ignored. But my brain was like, you're in too deep. And when I'm walking down the aisle, like, we are in deep, my friend.

Or all those eyeballs staring at you.

Yeah, everybody's looking. I mean, only movies are made about women who turn around. What is it? Runaway Bride, right? Where you turn around and you run away and you just don't do it at that time. You chalk it up to everybody feels nervous. And I think now having married my second husband, the feeling. I can contrast the feeling. There was a different feeling walking down the aisle for my current husband versus what I felt the first time around.

The first time around. Do you remember what the little voice said? Or was it just a feeling of kind of dread, anxiety?

Yeah. And I can still tell you exactly what the feeling was in my stomach. It's right at my sternum, right below my ribcage. And I often describe it as like that sound it makes when you drop a steak on a hot grill. It's like a. Like a sizzling. That's kind of that feeling that I had, but I wasn't wise enough to make sense of it. It wasn't until actually, I went through coach training in my 30s where they taught us how to listen to our bodies. And they ran us through this exercise about.

When things are not right for you. So they kind of walk you into the scenario. And you can kind of walk into the scenario as you're listening. Like thinking about a time when you were working on your least favorite project with your least favorite boss. Imagine being surrounded by your least favorite coworkers. You're probably getting this feeling in your body that's like something's clenching, something's tightening, something's sinking. And I remember the feeling I got was that feeling. And I traced it back to the feeling that I got with the person that I was engaged to after my first wedding. I felt that feeling, and I traced it back to when I was walking down the aisle and getting ready in the dressing room and getting ready for the wedding. It was that feeling. The still, small voice was like, kelly, are you sure it wasn't like a booming, like, you need to leave it was the still nudging, like, are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure this is it? I think, you know, are you sure? And it wasn't pressured. It wasn't urgent. It was just, are you sure? And I just will never forget that after I kind of found that feeling, being able to trace it back and. But at the time, I just didn't know what to do with it. I didn't know. Like, I just wasn't aware. I didn't have the knowledge, and I didn't know what it meant.

Yeah, it's so powerful how you described it. And just that sweet voice, like, are you sure? Not telling you what to do. Just, are you sure? And that compassion. You mentioned. Coach training. I'll link in the show notes to the conversation with Martha Beckham. But I always loved how she described something feeling shackles on or shackles off. And it was almost. I picture you walking, and it's like the shackles were on. It was just heavy, even if you couldn't put words to it at that time in that moment. And I feel like when we're younger, that second guessing is so strong because maybe we haven't developed the intuition muscle yet or we haven't learned to trust ourselves. The title of your book, to close the confidence gap. And so I also found it really difficult to know, even when I was feeling anxious, whether it was just fear and anxiety that I was gonna work through with all my personal development training and reading, or whether it was intuition. And I don't know what it is about earlier years, but it's hard not to second guess and just think, well, is something wrong with me? Because I spent, I don't know, at least all of my 20s, troubleshooting myself.

Yeah.

That is what the personal development industry all about. It's like, you need to evolve and grow. And so it's always, like, about fixing oneself in a way.

Oh, I think it's so easy. And one of the things I talk about in my book was, I think a lot of us who are brought up. So I was brought up in a very small town, Nebraska. Like, everybody looked the same. Everybody was white. Everybody was Catholic. That was just kind of my reality. And so there was just a lot of rules in my family for how to be happy and successful. You know, things like, get a job, go to college. My parents were educators, so they had graduate degrees. They were like, ooh, entrepreneurship is risky. Here we are. But they would be like, go get a job at, like, a really stable company, so you have really good benefits. And I think as a young person, at least, people who were like, yeah, I want to be happy and successful and I want to kind of please my family. They were good people, well meaning people, and we were happy so that I had no reason to question them otherwise. I think sometimes we can kind of get into our careers in our early twenties and start list checking because somebody that we respect, it could be our families of origin. Maybe it's a professor in college that we just really admire who's given us what seems like some solid advice. Sometimes we get into organizations and we cling on to a mentor and somebody that we really love and respect and admire that has said, hey, you should try or do A, B and C. And so we start checking those boxes without even ever stopping to ask, do I even want this? Checking in with ourselves, does this feel good? Does this feel more free or less free? Does this excite me? Does this give me energy? We don't even really stop to go, like, neck down and check in. Like, does this align with my values? Does it align with my skills? Does it make me feel good? We're just so quick to check boxes. And so that's why I think it's so easy to second guess is because one it's like, okay, well, they said this was a good path. They look successful, they look happy. And so I still remember one day driving home from my job. I'd been there for 11 years at this point, and I just remember it felt like I'd been pushing a rock uphill all day for weeks and for months. Honestly, I had no energy. When you have no energy, at least for me, like, I had no creativity left. I was just exhausted. I was drained. And I joke about this with my clients. I felt like every day I was getting dumber because I wasn't using, like, the skills and talents that I really wanted to use. And so it's just like, ugh. But the second guessing comes in because I remember thinking to myself, kelly, what is wrong with you? You are working for a company that is like a pillar of the community. Their name and their logo is on everything. They're at best places to work in town. People are lining up and putting in their applications to work here. What is wrong with you? And I think sometimes that's where the second guessing really meets our gut. And we have to have a lot of courage because our intuition is going to tell us things that our brain doesn't really want to hear. It's going to tell us things that are really inconvenient and Walking down the aisle and in having the realization that I needed to leave that job, it was highly inconvenient that my intuition was saying, hey, maybe you need to take a look at something else. But of course, we start to second guess because we're like, what are you talking about? You need to work harder. You need to get your stuff together. People want to work here. This is the best place to work. What's wrong with you? And so really having to tease out what is my intuition versus what is my ego giving me a shame story is where you really need to start paying attention. And kind of like we talked about earlier, your intuition is very nudging. It's very gentle. It's very like, hey, Jenny, slow down. Hey, Jenny, have you thought about this? Hey, Jenny. Just a very loving like, hey, Jenny. Whereas your ego's like, what's wrong with you? You should be happy. You should do this. And so if you're kind of in this situation, maybe just kind of pay attention to the urgency and the tone of the voice.

We'll be right back just after this.

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It's also hard when, as you described, leaving that one corporate role that you had when, quote, everyone else validates it. And so as part of the box checking list, when it seems like, well, anyone would kill to have this job or any of these ticked boxes, even you describe. And I had so much of this, of how much you weighed, what size, clothes you fit into. I had so many strict boxes that I was trying to check earlier in my life. And sometimes I think listening to our intuition is harder when everyone else is validating a certain path or choice because that's when my second guessing comes in too. Is there just something wrong with me? Why Can't I hack it when everyone else seems to be doing just fine in this kind of context? Or everyone else seems to reward and almost covet something that my intuition is telling me is no longer a fit?

This is the juicy here. Because this is the hardest, hardest thing is the ability to listen to and trust your still small voice, your intuition, when like you said, everyone else says, oh, but why? That's a great job. Or this is how you should look, or this is what you should enjoy. This is who you should marry. A question that I often had to ask myself and I even ask my clients is, who says that I often have them list. Okay, well, where did you hear that message? Where did you hear the message that you should work at a bank because it's stable? A lot of people say, well, my family of origin really wants me to be a blank. And that is very common in families of origin that some like, oh, our families are doctors, our families are lawyers, our family are bankers or teachers or whatever they are. And so a good question to ask yourself is, but is that working for me? And really having the courage to ask yourself one, is this working for me? I give folks kind of like a five question career alignment check that I had to learn in that really difficult moment of reckoning with what my gut was telling me to do versus what society was telling me to do. And the first question I asked myself was, do my values even align with this organization's values and not the values that they have posted on their website? Because that's just advertising, but I mean the actual values, how do they make decisions? And we can often tell what people value and what companies value by where they spend their money. You know, and here I was in a learning and development role, training role with a company that I was fighting tooth and nail all the time to even get a decent budget for learning and development. And that was kind of even an aha for me to look at the reality of the situation and say, our values simply don't align because they are unwilling to spend money here. Another question I had to ask myself was, am I using my skills and talents every day? Am I using my actual best talents? I'm getting a no for number one and no for number two. And then it was, well, what's my energy level at the close of most business days? Is it the good kind of, I've had a challenging day, but I feel invigorated because like, these are good, fun, juicy, sexy challenges. Or is it the I am so drained. I've been pushing a Rock uphill, like this is burnout energy. And then I had to ask myself too, it's like, is this moving me closer to my career goals, like where I ultimately want to be? Am I even a passionate about the industry and who they serve? And so just asking some of those questions really helped me tease out what is truly right for me, giving me the courage to really trust this still small voice, to trust this nudging and kind of separate out. I know that everyone else, and I have everyone in quotation marks says that this is a great job and I should stay. But unfortunately or fortunately, that's just not really a message that's working for me right now.

You also do a great job of highlighting. I've never heard this before, but when we're in box checking mode and when our imposter monster rears its head, you have something that you've coined, pedestal syndrome, and that was so powerful to have you name it. Because not only might we be judging ourselves against either the boxes, we're trying to check what society has told us, what everyone else thinks or is doing, but in addition, we put other people that we see perhaps doing those very same things up on some kind of pedestal. They must have it figured out. They must have all the confidence. They must be doing it right or be happy. And I'm not again going to what's wrong with me? So can you tell us a little bit more about pedestal syndrome and how it's the flip side of a lot of this.

This is just a name I made up. It's not a real diagnosis. So let's just, if we could take a deep breath. But what I started to notice, mostly because I notice it with myself, was early on in my career, I would put people on a pedestal because of their title or their longevity or the letters behind their name or something. And I'm like, oh my gosh, they're so perfect. They can do no wrong. They're so smart. And so when I was in the presence of these people, perhaps in a meeting or even in a one on one conversation, I would kind of hold back a little bit. I kind of be a little more silent. I wouldn't offer up as many ideas because I just kind of had this illusion that this person had this halo or this glow. And after I got to know them, I was like, oh my gosh, they're just like a normal human being. And they have questions and they have flaws and they have insecurities. So what I often see, what I experience and what I see with my Clients too is so often they'll go into new roles or they're even in existing roles, or they want to do something new. And they will put someone on a pedestal thinking that they know best. And that could be maybe they take advice from this person like, oh, they know best. Or they get into meetings with this individual and perhaps they play small. They don't articulate their ideas, they stay a little more silent, they withhold because they think, oh, so and so is in this meeting. And so you know what they know best. I'm not going to challenge their thinking or their authority. But what I offer to say is, and I ask people to really consider, and if you're listening, I would ask you to consider who in your life have you put on a pedestal at one point, thinking they were so amazing and so perfect. And then when you got to know them, you were like, oh, they're totally human and they don't know all. And they have worries and doubts and fears just like the rest of us. And the line that I say in the book is we need to really stop overestimating others intelligence and underestimating our own. And I think my biggest aha. Because I still struggle with it, I'll do it even as an entrepreneur. I'll see other entrepreneurs out there and I'm like, I need to do that because they have it figured out and that's how I need to run my business, only to figure out that, dang it, they suffer from the same human condition that I do. And they don't have everything figured out either. And I think I really kind of had this huge aha when I came to coaching and I had C suite leaders come as clients, I'd have CEOs come as clients and they would sit on the other end of coaching calls. Just in this shared human condition, we all have that we have nerves and doubts and worries and insecurities and concerns about how we show up and if we're making the right decision. And that was just so freeing to me to recognize that nobody, I mean nobody has it figured out, no matter what air or demeanor they kind of give off to everyone else, whether it's in the public or at work. So you can take them off a pedestal and remember that you can stop overestimating others intelligence and underestimating your own. Like you have the answers and the skills and the brilliance and it's time to own that as equals.

And it's such a good reminder, you state it so clearly in the book that for all your box checking, even when you had all the boxes ticked. You weren't any happier. And I find it very fascinating to pick an area, whether it's career, like you said, business. Mike Michelowicz calls it trying to keep up with the entrepr Joneses.

I forget how he's so good.

Created that word. Yeah, money. It's like when you don't feel like you have enough, you think you'll be happier when. But then even people with a lot of money or more money they can spend can also be miserable. Or they're just as worried about losing their money or saving their money or people shirking them out of their money. The worry doesn't necessarily go away. And something like weight, which you share in the book, you can think, oh, I'll be happy when I reach some number on the scale, only to get there and be even more miserable because now you're being even stricter with yourself and the self talk is even worse. And so it's so clear in the book how you say it of like, let me be the one to tell you, take everyone off the pedestal because. And Brooke Castillo even says it, there is not better than here. My friend Melissa shared that with me. Cause Brooke said it to her like, there is not better than here is. She was saying about revenue goals that she could tell that Melissa was thinking that their certain imaginary number was going to be better than where she currently was. She's like, first of all, you got to throw that out right now. And so that stuck with me too, hearing her say that.

My mom was a financial advisor. I talk about this towards the end of the book. And I'm married to a financial advisor. He is amazing, by the way. No doubts walking down the aisle with that one. I talk about that too. No, but they both said. They said, Kelly, you would be shocked. Some of my happiest clients are very average earners that live in very average homes. There's no there there. Sometimes people want to come in and work and by all the visuals, they make a lot of money, but they really don't because there's so much debt and there's so much whatever and there's just so many other worries. And I can even relate to my own experience. I remember even raising in the corporate ranks thinking, oh, when I get that promotion, then I'll feel accomplished and happy. But. But I kind of lovingly call it the new job smell. So we get into the job and at first you're right, we've got a new title. And you know, we could update our email signature and you know, we have a new salary and we go into our bank account, we're like, oh, this feels good, you know, I'm going to go shopping or whatever. But once that new job smell wears off, usually about 90 to 120 days, we start to realize, oh, this is just work. And in work there comes new problems, right? New problems in this job, new problems in the role, new challenges to solve. Oh my gosh, look here. There's this new difficult person to work with. Because every job has one, right? They never go away. And so that's why it's just so important to slow down, ensure that your choices are in alignment with your values and, you know, really are using your best skills and talents, making sure that are your relationship choices and where you spend your money is in alignment with your values. Because with every thought that maybe I'll be happier then or I'll feel more accomplished then you might for a little bit. But then just reality hits in and you're like, oh, this is just life. This is just work. The new job smell wears off. This is just a job. And so it's so important to really ask yourself, what am I doing right now to bring my life in alignment with my values and the way I want to live now so that I can be happy now? Because there's no there there.

It's amazing that your mom, like worked as a financial advisor, so does your husband, because they have a front row seat. I love this phrase, new job smell, because whatever it is, new house smell, new car smell, new job smell, it's like it's gonna go away. That's the hedonic treadmill. And I remember living in a studio in New York with my now husband. We were dating at the time for two years. We lived in a 350 square foot studio, no bedroom door. I don't know how we did it, but I always remember telling myself not to think that any relationship problems would be fixed when we moved into a bigger space. It was not easy to do that because maybe you did solve a lot of problems like having a bedroom door and an office, but it was like not to blame any problems on that and not to think we'd be any happier just because we got into a bigger space if we didn't address whatever was challenging in that moment. And then it made moving feel really abundant and spacious and wonderful. There weren't all these problems under the rug that I had just punted into the future of. As you say, I'll do blank, buy blank, or I'll be Happy when?

Oh, you bring up the best point. So if we can go back to my first marriage, I remember, of course, we were having issues, and I remember my first husband keeps saying, oh, well, you know what? I just don't like living here in Nebraska. If we move, then I'll be happy and all of our problems will be solved. And at that point, I think I was wise enough to be like, yeah, no, they won't. You might be happy for 90 days when we get there because you enjoy the warmer weather, because it was always the city smell, new city smell. But then, guess what? Everywhere you go, there you are. And I say in the book that there's a common denominator in all of my issues, and it was me. And I think that this is such a powerful lesson for folks who may be unhappy in their career, because one of the things that I really encourage folks to do, and I even had to do before I left, was, if you are unhappy in your job, do whatever you can in your current role to fix your current source of dissatisfaction, starting with yourself. Because it's true. Everywhere I go, there I am. And it's kind of like broken code. If our code is broken and we don't fix the reasons why, sometimes we're unhappy. Let me give you an example. Sometimes I have clients who are really burnout. And so they want to move and they want to find a job because they think it'll fix their burnout. What really is the problem is they don't set healthy boundaries. They're unwilling to communicate with their boss about their working hours. They're unwilling to say no. And so then when they make the career change, they think, oh, this will be so much better. But because they brought in the same habits, the same broken code, if you will, into the new job, they start to notice, oh, my gosh, this new job is burning me out, too. Because they are unwilling to set boundaries and challenge their boss about their workload or say yes or no. And so I just think that that's such an important reminder that if we're unhappy right now, let's start with ourselves, because we're the common denominator and say, you know what? How have I unintentionally created this problem? How have I created this for myself? What choices have I made? What decisions am I making or not making? How am I allowing people to treat me this way? You know, how am I unconsciously teaching people to keep me in this situation? And that can be a really painful but yet really empowering exercise that I know I personally had to do because when I going back to my personal life was on the other end of a divorce and then I called off a wedding, it was really easy to blame other people. Or I could say, you know, what common denominator? And this is me. So I need to sit down and I need to account for all of the choices, all of the decisions, all of the leaky boundaries, all of the unsaids, all of the things that I personally did that got me to this space so that I can account for them, so that I don't continue those behaviors moving forward and keep making the wrong relationship choices. But I think that that really is the same thing that I do with a lot of my clients in their careers too, is when things haven't worked. Let's start accounting for our behaviors and our choices that we've made so that we don't continue to recreate these problems.

We'll be right back just after this.

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And even in the burnout example, the person might be over functioning at home too, speaking from experience. But it's like where we have these parallels of I'm burnt out and it's not just because of my job. And as you said, pointing to the boundaries, I had to learn that. So the hard way in corporate, it wasn't till I developed the inner boundaries that things calmed down a little bit. I didn't announce it to anybody. But then I started telling that to anyone who was starting a job at a really intense company. Like no one is going to tell you when to put your phone down. They will probably reward you for whatever whenever you show up and you will be straight down the path of burnout, but also looking. So not just even blaming it on oh, I don't have good boundaries at work. It's like how am I over functioning in every area of my life or how am I not building in time for recovery? Or what's my relationship to rest? Do I think that rest is for lazy people? You know, and just redefining all of that. I'm glad you brought up this moment. This aha moment. I think we've probably all had one at this point of realizing the thing they all have in common is me. And that's right in the book where you describe the liminal space that you very hilariously call poop soup.

Uh huh, yes.

Can you tell us about poop soup? First of all, just the title alone sounds as uncomfortable as. As it is to be in that liminal space.

It is.

How do you not want to crawl out of your skin if someone's currently in that state right now?

Oh, it's so hard. And I know that so many of you that are listening are probably high achievers. And so what I'm about to describe to you is just going to be like. But the way that I described this was my current situation. Let's go with the kitchen table moment. I'm divorced. I've been in a relationship for five years. We're supposed to get married in three months. I call off the wedding rightfully so, so I don't make that mistake again. And all at the same time. I left the first organization I was at. I was in a job I honestly really, really loved. But I had found out that literally we were getting acquired. So all of this was happening at the same time. And I knew my job would be going away. And I remember sitting at the kitchen table that moment on the other end of two failed relationships, I was convinced my picker was broken. I didn't know what my job was going to be or if I was going to have one. And like I just sobbed. And that was the whole gosh, okay. There's a common denominator in all this, and that's me. And somebody defined it for me later was I was in this place called liminal space. And liminal space is where like the old life has gone away. Maybe it's an old relationship and you know you can't go back. And maybe you've made a decision in your life or in your career to say, I know I need to leave this job. I've tried everything I could to fix it. I know I can't go back. But the future isn't here yet. Like the future hasn't made itself clear or apparent to you as quickly as we would all hope that it would make itself apparent to us. And so you're in this weird spot where you can't go back to the old, but the new hasn't arrived yet, and you don't know what you want. We've talked about Martha Beck, and she says, you know, a lot of us, when we go through change, we go back into what's called square one, right? We go back to the beginning, and the metaphor she uses is a butterfly. And she says, you know, when a caterpillar turns into a butterfly, it doesn't just go into the cocoon, slap on some wings, and fly away like it's nobody's business. She's like, a caterpillar will go into a cocoon, and it will fully die and fully dissolve into this brown, soupy substance. And I remember learning about that, and I'm like, yeah, I'm like, it's like poop soup. It feels like poop soup. And I'm like, that's literally how I felt for, like, three or four months as I was trying to figure out my relationship, as I was trying to figure out what was going to happen in my career. I literally just felt like poop soup, like, sloshing through the world. I couldn't go back, but I didn't know what the future held. And she says the only way to get through that is by literally cocooning, by resting, by just having a pity party for yourself if you had to. And I had plenty of those on the couch where I would just sob and cry and journal and just cocoon and sleep and rest and just do these things that feel good. And for really high achievers, I know when obviously I've gone through it, I wrote about it, and when my clients go through it, this is hard because the ego hates ambiguity, and this time is full of ambiguity. And it just doesn't feel good to those of us who are high achievers, who are like, give me what's next. Tell me what's next. Tell me what's going to happen. I need to know. One of the things that I learned and one of the things that brought a lot of clarity to my life during that time was that was a time when I got really clear about what my values were. And even in my career and even when I'm, you know, working with others, we may not know what the future is going to hold. But the one piece of clarity you can find in that moment is if you are crystal clear on what you value. You can ask yourself, is my next tiny right choice in alignment with my values? Is it in alignment with what I stand for, Is it in alignment with the person that I am hoping to become? And in those moments, it might feel super, super tiny. But like, that was the only clarity that I had to lean on in those little tiny moments as I made little career decisions, little money decisions, little relationship decisions. As I would get asked out on a date, I'm like, will this person help me become the person I want to become? Do they align with my values? No. Okay. The answer is no.

Really, if you're in that spot. One, take care of yourself. Two, rest. Just embrace that you're in poop soup. You're in liminal space. And the key right now is just making those itty bitty tiny choices that feel in alignment to your values.

You also say that in that moment, around that time, you had this still small voice whispered, I have forgiven you, but you haven't forgiven yourself. And I think that's so beautiful because when we realize the common denominator is me, it's also easy to blame ourselves and just go into self flagellation. So that was just such a powerful moment of self compassion. And I used to just like, ugh, wrinkle my nose. Ugh, self compassion. Do I have to read about that? You know, Kristin Neff's work is so powerful. And my sister in law, sister shout out to Marissa Knox, studied with her and studied self compassion. But it's actually so true and so powerful that you also have to, you don't have to, but the choice is to forgive yourself for the past choices and keep moving.

It is so hard and especially for people who, like, that's not really been fashionable in corporate. But I just kind of realized that so many of the decisions that I had made were from shame. Like, I felt broken because I was divorced. I grew up in a Catholic family, so like, that's like a grave sin, you know, in the Catholic Church. And so I thought, like, I was marked for shame and for some reason didn't deserve a really amazing person or a really amazing relationship. So I settled. And I think I say this all the time. Like we literally cannot criticize ourselves into more confidence. Although we'll try really hard. Ask me how I know. But like, when we are constantly criticizing ourselves, I think sometimes we beat ourselves up and then we settle. We settle for good enough or we settle for following the rules. And it really wasn't truly until I was like, oh my gosh, of course, whatever higher power you believe in, hopefully it's a very loving higher power. But I was like, of Course, my creator, God, whatever you believe in, the universe loves me and has forgiven me. Why haven't I forgiven myself? I mean, this lack of forgiveness here, this lack of compassion is really leading me to make some really off kilter choices for sure.

You talked about taking the one small next step. So as we wrap up, if you could give listeners one experiment to try over the next week or two, what would it be?

Lots of times it's really hard to know what you want. And especially if you're feeling overworked, overwhelmed, maybe you're in liminal space, it is really, really hard to be like, well, what do you want? And I think the world can give you so many messages about what you want. So I want you to start with something simpler. I want you to maybe leave today no matter where you're at. Maybe you love your job, maybe you're in a good spot. But I bet you can answer this. I want you to write down three to five things in your life that you no longer want. What makes you feel kind of constricted, tight, small? Where do you feel resentment? Like that's a really big clue that it's either out of alignment with your values or a boundary as being clothed. So I just want you to start with listing three to five things that you know that you don't want and pick just one and maybe have a conversation, set a boundary, remove it from your life and just notice what happens. Just see if you get a longer term confidence boost from that.

So good. I love it. I feel like we could all do this exercise regularly, but I love that, just taking an inventory and then picking one and putting a little boundary up, taking one next step around that. Thank you so much Kelly. This is such a joy to chat with you. Your book is gorgeous, as are you. Where can people find you if they want to keep in touch?

The best place to find me is just on my website. You can go to kellyraythompson.com I'm Kelly with an I R A E and the book is there and I've got a tab with some free stuff with a career clarity guide, some salary guides and some other fun goodies. So you can just go snoop around and check me out. And then I like to hang out on Instagram and LinkedIn and it's forward slash kellyrae Thompson So drop me a note and I'll see you there.

Yay. We'll put all of those in the show notes along with the other episodes and authors we mentioned. Thank you so much Kelly and big thanks to everybody who's here listening.

Thanks everyone.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Pivot Podcast. Make sure you don't miss an episode or my insider tips and templates by signing up for Pivot List, a curated twice monthly newsletter where I share the inside scoop on what I'm reading, watching, listening to and the latest tools I'm geeking out on. Sign up@pivotmethod.com pivotlist get show notes from this episode@pivotmethod.com podcast and connect with me on Twitter ennyblake.

Remember, build first, then your courage will follow. Hasn't it always?

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