This is a podcast interview (Josh Trent with career coach Ashley Stahl) exploring how people "kidnap" themselves—remaining stuck in unsatisfying jobs or life patterns—and how emotional inventory, clarity, and engagement can free them. Stahl emphasizes that clarity is generated through action (engagement), that fear of the unknown competes with tolerance for current misery, and that generational beliefs can perpetuate self-limiting choices.
Chapters
To talk about your u turn. You know, in that talk you mentioned, you wrote on the journal that night, I think you said, I ways that I am my own kidnapper. How do I kidnap myself? And I thought that was so profound because how many people really, realistically take any kind of emotional inventory in their life? With my clients, I have an emotional inventory process where we split the things that are causing us pain and. And driving pleasure and what are we grateful for? But there's something really profound and really unique that came up for you when you began this process, which I think propelled you into even more ways that you do what you do now. Did you. Do you remember that night? I mean, you must have been going through so much emotion and just so much when you got home. How did that come through where you wrote that on the top? I have it right here, actually. You said, I'm my own kidnapper.
Yeah. I wrote all the ways in my journal that I have kidnapped myself in my life. Like, all of the jobs that I've taken. Like, I can't tell you how many people have said, like, I need to stay in this job so that I have another year on my LinkedIn profile. Like, all of the little things I've done to just hold myself hostage in versions of my life that don't work for me so that I can look like I'm surviving, so that I can feel like I'm surviving and getting by. And, you know, I get it. I get why people do that. It's like sometimes we forget, like, living in and of itself is such an achievement. Like, you've got to get out of bed. You. You've got to, like, go to school. If you go to a country that you need to get educated, you know, sometimes we don't feel well. You've got to make money, put food on your table. It's an achievement to exist. Like, it requires a lot. And so to me, just realizing, like, having compassion for those versions of myself and for other people who are out there, kind of holding themselves hostage is so important, but also raising that awareness. So I wrote down all of the different life events that I had chosen to just hold myself hostage in my life. And I made that decision after writing my journal. Like, I need to set myself free. And I think you always are, really. A decision away from a completely different reality. It doesn't have to be so dramatic or big to make a big decision.
What do you think holds people back the most? It's a big question. I don't know if there's one Answer. But when you think hold holds people back the most from actually in their body and in their heart, not just in their mind, because people think like freedom is a mental thing. We can intellectualize being free, we can intellectualize being healed. But to embody, it's way different. So what is it like? Is there a few ingredients that you've seen over this time that makes people truly free?
Yeah, I love that. I think one thing is clarity. Like, if you don't really know yourself, you're gonna just turn your career and your life into this graveyard of trial and error. And sometimes there's some great things about that, but I think the world makes way for people who have clarity. And it's not to say that we always are going to have clarity. We're constantly in transition. That's who we are. We are transitioning. And so my biggest thing for anyone who really wants something is for them to make the decision to go on the path to get that clarity. Because in order, like the quotes say, in order to get somewhere new, you need to do something new. And clarity comes from engagement. It's new. Never going to come, just from thought. That's like sitting in a rocking chair and hoping you're somewhere else by the end, an hour later. So I would say that's one huge ingredient for people holding themselves back. The second thing is this dynamic between fear of the unknown and our misery in our current situation. I think these two dynamics really are always at play in our lives, our careers, our decisions. So the fear of the unknown usually will paralyze somebody, but they usually won't launch in and override their fear of the unknown until their misery in their current state is so much that they no longer care about the unknown because they're too miserable. And so my thing is, what can we do for anybody listening, what can I do for anybody in my life for them to lower that threshold so that they don't have to get to misery? They can start asking questions when they're lukewarm. They. Too many days in a row, you.
Just hit my heart so strongly. I have in the past two weeks, I've been doing a lot of deep work because I have a son on the way. And so his. His middle name is my grandfather's name. And so I've. I've mentioned this. Maybe this is the second or third time I've mentioned it. So my audience is probably like, we know Josh, but I gotta tell you again. Cause it's exactly what Ashley's talking about. His middle name's Morrow. Because my commitment is to heal all my generational wounding, all the things that have happened to my father, my grandfather, and everyone that I potentially will pass on to my son. And so it's this beautiful reminder for us to not necessarily choose Ashley to repeat the same things that we've learned that are harmful. Do you, in your work and with your clients, specifically with the person you're talking about that was on LinkedIn, and they're like, I need to be on LinkedIn for one more year, even though I hate my job. These. These beliefs are passed on. They're passed on and on and on. How do you address this in your work, with your clients, in your programs, where you're actually guiding people through generational pain, making them aware of it? Like, hey, you're repeating your parental patterns here. Is there a process you take people through for that?
Yeah. I mean, that's what's so fun about me having a book and a message that's around job hunting is that I kind of have a message for the masses. And so I don't open the door with the concept of healing. But. But your career is really about healing and confidence. And your mindset, like your bank account, is a direct reflection a lot of the time of where your mind's at. And so it's like, I have to know how to do this work. And so there's so many different modalities that I've learned, but one of my favorite ones is, number one, just starting kind of light and asking people, like, what was the conversation like in your house about your career, about failure, about success? What did you witness in your family? Like, I watched my dad, hugely successful, with millions and millions of dollars, lose it all. And we lost our home, and we moved to the suburbs when I was, like, seven, which is a very formative time in the child, in a person's brain. That's right. When all of your beliefs and your patterns are being programmed into your mind and solidified. So I really believed a lot about loss and about how you can't keep success and how, you know, money is what brings you fun, and when you lose it, it's gone. So I like to just have a lighter conversation with people out of curiosity about, did people talk about money or career or success in your house? Like, what was the vibe? And from there, usually people have their own pain, their own limitations. And so I always ask people, like, what are you believing about your career right now that's keeping you stuck? And so I'll have them fill in the blank. I'm not where I want to be in my career because. And I'll just put, like, a line, what? And usually it's a limiting belief. It's not something that's actual. Sometimes I will hear somebody that says, you know, in order for me to get this promotion, they told me I need to finish this certification. So it's, like, logistical. And then I could argue with them and say, well, you could do it somewhere else. You don't need that there. You know, so. But I will usually hear something like, well, I need another year of experience of this thing, or I don't have enough experience with that thing, or I'm not as good at this. It's all limitations. It's all. And so usually from there, I'll ask them for a moment in their life where they felt that very present for them in their career, and they'll take me into a conversation at work or something where their peace was totally disturbed and they felt that belief so strongly. And then I'll ask them to go back into a memory in time. Like, when was the first time you ever felt that in your life? And I'll figure out, like, what was the aspect of them that was present? So was it sadness? Was it anger? And I'll ask them to give that aspect of voice so, you know, maybe back. You know, maybe John Doe, he doesn't believe he can get anywhere because he's not good at math, and he keeps messing up with math. I don't know. And then I'm like, where'd you get that from? Well, in grade school, my teacher, like, totally freaked out when I failed my test. My parents punished me and. Da. Da. Okay, well, when's the time at work where you, you know, felt that? We'll go through that. We'll go into that moment in his memory, and I'll say, what was the aspect of you that was present? How did you feel? And he'll say, I felt like a failure. And then I'll want to have him maybe journal for seven days from the voice inside of him that feels like a failure. Freeform writing. I'll teach him how to forgive himself for those beliefs and to come up with new, empowered beliefs. I mean, the truth is, we're making up everything, so we might as well make ourselves win in the thoughts that we think, because life just is more friendly that way.
