Your Next Chapter Won’t Come From Your Old Blueprint

Foreign.

Welcome. Here we go. I thought I would start this podcast just by reading you a little bit from the guide that I have been working on. As you know, we've been doing a seven part series that helps. I affectionately called beyond the CEO, which as I have said on every podcast, it might stick with that title, it might be called something else. And this is Transition six. This is the movement of from where we were last week, which is playing, right? Exploring curiosity, allowing yourself to be in a space of not knowing. When we have spent so much of our existence in knowing and in focusing and in determining and in creating. What do we do when we don't know what we want to do, but we know we don't want to do what we're doing?

And so now we're into Transition six, which is intentional design. So I'm just going to read you some of what I wrote and then we'll talk about it. The sage knows her presence is enough. She no longer tolerates hustle, frequency. She takes each step with calm, knowing with her own pace, her own pleasure, her own power. She designs with discernment. And what remains in her life has been chosen, not inherited. This is where the sage steps forward. She has played, she has wandered. She has allowed herself to not know, to try, to be unsure, to begin again. And now she begins to choose. Not reactively, not because she should, not to keep peace, but because she's heard enough of her own truth to start designing from it. This is where we move from experimentation to embodiment, from playful possibility to grounded direction. So I know, you know what, one of the things that I know, I referenced this over the last couple podcasts. There's so much work in this space and I was actually just listening to one of my favorite podcasts, Pivot, actually, with Kara Swisher and Scott Gallagher. I love them both. They're hysterical. And Scott's on vacation. And so Kara was interviewing Mel Robbins and she was talking about her Let Them book, et cetera, and super, super interesting to listen to her anyway. She's such a data driven person. I have a lot of respect for people like that. Like the way that people can remember things and know things is really, really powerful. But what I was aware of when I was listening to her and what she said, frankly, is because Kara's like, well, I've heard that before. I've heard that before. It's like stoicism, Buddhism, you know, all these different kinds of ancient wisdom. And Mel was like, yeah, well, it's because it's all universal. Truth. And so what I know about the work that I do here with you is. It's a. It's universal wisdom. It's not. I'm, you know, I love to think I'm smart, but I'm really just helping to share with you what I think is true for all of us in our own way. And once we have allowed ourselves when you and, and you know that you've. You know that you've allowed yourself time to play and be curious and experiment because you've done things you've never done before. You've met people you would have never met before. You've sat in rooms you never would have sat in before. You've had conversations you have never had before. You have allowed yourself the freedom that comes from discomfort with permission, right? So often discomfort comes at us and we don't want it. We didn't. We didn't give it permission. We didn't want it to be here. But giving ourselves permission to be uncomfortable is how we know we are in the sixth transition of exploration and playing curiosity. So we can't get to this next transition, right? To really. To intentionally design our next steps. We know we can't do that if we haven't played, because that, if you, if you skip that and you get. And you feel like, okay, now I'm designing it, that's because that's your hustle. That's your striver mentality. That's. That's the woman who always achieves things. She. She's back again. And you didn't let yourself go through the process of trying things and releasing things. So is that a terrible thing? No, it's just. I think we create new and more exciting potential visions and futures for ourselves when we really do do so without any weight of past expectations, past safety, past anything. So intentional design is when we come into clarity and we say, okay, things I know now, things I have figured out. Right? And the journey for me has been the same. And I don't have a timeframe for people. I think some people this is like three months. I think for other people, this could be three years. I know for myself, you know, I've had a business now for 13 years. We just celebrated that milestone. And I know and have known, especially in this past year, to go into an unknown space.

I have had to release.

A lot of sacred cows in my life and in my business. And it's very scary to let go of things and not put something in its place when you're used to that. And so what I have found Myself doing is a lot more play, right? And you, you all have heard me talk about things like, I've discovered pickleball a couple years ago. I've never been an athlete. I've. And now I like, I can't get enough of playing pickleball. And I have allowed myself the permission to be uncomfortable with new friends, like, meeting people. And for sure, like, the whole first probably year plus of playing pickleball.

With the people that I play with. A lot of them, I really didn't talk about myself much. I didn't really connect with them. I just played pickleball, friendly, had a good time, right? And then I would leave. And now I'm allowing myself the opportunity to kind of talk about what I do and what do they do. And, you know, of course, people are always kind of like, wow, I. No idea. I'm like, right. Like, we're all so interesting, because I'm coming out of curiosity into clarity, my personal focus, my clarity, my focus. My focus is new projects and new people. New projects, new people which lead to new connections. I am an extrovert.

I have been my whole life. I still get a little depleted and Covid messed me up. But I am an extrovert. I work from home all day alone. It's really bad for me.

Now, some of you are like, what? It's heaven to work from home. I agree with you. I like the freedom I have, but I do not like the aloneness. And so, you know, that message has been very clear as I've been playing with ideas, like, I want to be with people I want to do. And I have tried on so many ideas. I just sent a text to one of my sage clients, was like, hey, maybe we should have work sessions in my house, you know, one day a week where other women come and we just work together. We don't have to have a topic, we don't have to do anything. We just. We're just here, right, for the other people like me, who like to be with people. Not everybody does, but just to have that sort of casual office chitchat, right? Let's chat a little coffee, get to talk about our day. What problems are you working on? Let's go work a bit. Let's have a little lunch. We'll talk about this, right? So anyway, we go from curiosity to starting having clarity. For me, it's to be with people in person. And that was really reinforced by two messages I heard. It was actually Galloway who was talking about how they have found that virtual meetings, zoom meetings, connecting with People on Zoom does not have the same impact on your, your mental health as being in person with people, which I've always known energetically. But then when I went to Arthur Brooks retreat, he talked about that. Literally. Science says when you are talking to people on Zoom, you are not releasing oxytocin, which is the feel good that that comes from being with people. And I know this. I know. So for me to go from curiosity to clarity has been I need to create opportunities to be in person with people. And what I also know is there's resistance to that because people are busy. And so I've had a lot of dancing in this space with myself because I wonder if that's actually a feasible plan. So when you go out of curiosity, let's say you go to some experiences and you do things like a wink, wink. I keep trying to tell you you should come to my Hawaii retreat. I think it will be the most amazing thing you've ever done. But whatever. But right, like you do, you go out, you go to networking. I went to a dinner last week with Kajabi. I'm a Kajabi hero. I went to the dinner, it was fantastic. I loved it. I had a great time. I met new people. Right. The more you put yourself, and maybe for you, it has nothing to do with people. It has to do with what your brain is looking at, what you're working on, what your mission is, what your passion is, where you want to live. Maybe all you want to do, all that you're curious about is other places on this planet go. Because the thing about being a well resourced woman is if all those resources are sitting in your bank and sitting in your house and sitting in your mind, what are you doing with them? Come on. You have built a dream come true life. Let's go, mama. You've already proven how fucking badass you are at building a successful business or a leadership career. Like, look at you. This isn't it. Let's go, let's go. So we're going to sculpt out of this time that we've spent being curious and open and playful and engaged. We're going to sculpt out what's clear. What's clear for me is this modality right here talking to you. Absolutely love it. I did coaching calls that I shared on my podcast last a few months ago. Absolutely loved it. Writing, still love it, but in person. And so I'm going to start doing some one like half day, little in person events. Those are coming. So if you're not on my list, you probably should be go to the visionary CEO. Everybody finds out stuff there. Get yourself on my list. But your. Your clarity is what we're talking about. And what that looks like is the people, the places, the commitments, the clients, the. The patterns that you have, the wardrobe, the clothes that you wear, the way that you wear your hair. Have you noticed that there are certain things you started changing? We want to refine. We don't. We don't need to add. I would expect for myself, and this has been the case, there's less things in my house, less things in my closet, less stuff. More about what I want, what is intentional, what is on purpose by design. Intentionally designing your world. The sage practices discernment from wisdom. Not have to's, not habits, not people pleasing. So we have to make lists, right? We have to make a list of all the things that are a yes for me. All the things that you're ready to let go of. I just sent a text to my daughter today. Cause she's starting her new season. And she was like, I don't know. The energy in here feels like last year. I'm like, all right, I think it's time for it. We need new textiles. We need to rearrange the furniture. I don't know. We need to change it up.

Some of us are highly, highly affected by our environment. I am one of them. I change things all the time. New pillows, new new rugs. I buy the rugs that are washable, and you can just. I buy. I just. I like new things. And it's funny because I've noticed about myself, I'm incredibly loyal in my deep, meaningful, personal relationships. I don't trade those out very, very easily. I as the same is true with my clients. I have clients I've worked with for years, and I love them. I don't trade out my clients. They don't seem to want to trade me yet either. So that's good. But. But my environment and the words, the work I do like that moves. That's a very energetic movement, dynamic space for me. Dedicate some time just to your own focus on what it is you want to design into your life on purpose. Do you want to start a new seed idea? Dedicate a little time to it. Do you want to write a book? Dedicate a little time to it. Do you want to build friendships with other women in your community? Dedicate an hour to it. Most of the women I know at my age talk about how they don't have close friends who live nearby. They have Friends around, just not nearby. It's hard to make friends. We have to work at it. We have to curate relationships if we want them. So we start asking some questions. And in this guide that I'm going to provide for you, I have these questions. Because, again, these transitions, I don't know that they all go in order. I'll be frank. I feel like you could be going through a lot of them at the same time. I do think, though, that play, curiosity, exploration has to come before intentional design, because I feel like it's almost like you're leaving money on the table if you don't allow yourself to do things that you've never done before.

I feel like you're leaving out options that you don't even know exist. There's a window, I think, when we do this work, when we assess the business readiness and we do that, we start mentoring and developing someone or people to take care of, take over for the business, right? To. To be the. So that we can be the consultant in that business. When we start to challenge beliefs that we've had for years, this is where I think having a coach is really, really, really, really valuable, because you need someone to hold the space where you can be heard and challenged. There's so many things that we believe that we don't even know are just habitual thoughts, not truths, but they feel so real that they limit us, right? And then we start the play process, we start to say, okay, I'm going to go back into my life and reclaim what I think. I want my business, my life, my future to look like. And that's when exploration happens. And then we get to intentional design, which is this podcast today. So I'm just inviting you to recognize that just like Mel Robbins said, just like Arthur Brooks has just said, just like the work I did with Rebecca Campbell at her retreat, like, there are these universal truths and this flow that I've designed through this. Beyond the CEO 7 transitions, they're. They're not rocket science, but I think we overlook a lot of these elements and we want to just go from, I'm in pain, I don't like this anymore. What do I do? To immediately designing something new? And we don't go through the other steps, the other transitions, and therefore, we end up building something new on. It's kind of like how they build. You know, I don't even. I'm not good with cars, but, you know, like, it's like the Beetle. The Volkswagen Beetle is built on the Carmen Ghia frame, which is the Carmen Ghia frame is actually the Porsche 911 frame. I'm making that up. I don't think that's true. But, like, there's this reuse thing instead of, like, what if there's a whole new frame? What if. And what happens to you in your body and your brain when I say that?

Because that is the best part to watch what your brain does. All right, my friends, if you are out there and you are interested in working with me somewhere, just go to the visionary CEO and find out what we're up to. I'd love to meet you. I want to do things in person. If I didn't make that clear. All right, I will talk to you next time.

We have so many great things coming up. Are you on the list? Go to thevisionary CEO notes and add your name. I will send you some fun things, and you'll be first to know about some really fun and interesting, interesting things that are coming up. Like, say, the Hawaii retreat. So visionary CEO notes and get your name on our list.