Do you feel like you have to figure things out yourself instead of asking for help?
I want to challenge that mindset, and so does my guest in this episode.
I am chatting with Cherie Bosarge-Dutton, and she is talking about the different seasons of life that she has gone through and the work she has done to figure out what she really wants.
Former reporter, graphic designer, attorney, and professional stylist, now an activist and author, Cherie lives in Weston, Florida, with her partner of 25 years and their two teenagers.
It may seem like a strange leap to go from communications to law to fashion to writing women’s fiction, but each of these moves represents personal growth, career evolution, and a search for passion and purpose (and all of them provide fodder for her fiction).
Cherie publishes under a pseudonym to protect her privacy but is happy to gush about books and other writers any time. She reads a book a day, loves the beach at sunset, and hopes to visit as many countries as possible in her lifetime. She’s currently at twenty-five.
In Today’s Episode We Discuss:
- Adjusting to changes in life
- Why sometimes the worst has to happen for you to figure out what you want
- Finding yourself after having kids
- Reaching out for help
- How to give yourself permission to explore if you’re not happy
- Allowing yourself to do what works for you
- Figuring out your next step
- The power of different perspectives
The message of this episode is that it’s okay to ask for help. Cherie talks about how once she asked for help, everything started to change. It’s a process, but things can change if you’re willing to ask for help and do the work.
Do you need help? Have you ever considered that a coach could give you the help you need? I’d be honored to be that person for you!
Book a call with me at www.andrealiebross.com/consult, and together, we can determine what type of coaching is right for you!
Resources Mentioned:
Connect with Cherie Bosarge-Dutton on LinkedIn
www.andrealiebross.com/consult
Other Episodes You’ll Enjoy:
36: The Four Benefits of Having a Clear Vision
37: How to Commit to Your Workout and Reach Your Fitness Goals with Vanessa Gregor
38: 4 Steps to Creating Your Vision
Andrea Liebross |
www.andrealiebross.com |
Episode 39
Speaker1: [00:00:09] You are listening to the Time to level up podcast, I'm your host business life coach, Andrea Libros. I helped women in business commit to their own growth personally and professionally. Each week I'll bring you strategies to help you think clearly, gain confidence, make your time productive, turn every obstacle into an opportunity, and finally overcome the overwhelmed so that you can make money and manage life. Let's create a plan so you have a profitable business, successful career, and best of all, live with unapologetic ambition. Are you ready to drop the drama and figure out the how in order to reach your goals? You're in the right place. It's time to level up.
[00:00:57] Let's do this.
Speaker2: [00:01:05] Hello. Time to level up, listeners. Welcome back to the podcast. Today, I am excited to share with you a conversation that I had with my client, Sherry. Sherry and I worked together for about 18 months. One on one.
Speaker3: [00:01:20] She took a year off.
Speaker2: [00:01:22] And recently she and I got back together in a coaching relationship. And we have planned and already executed one deep Dove VIP day. We planned for a total of four for the next 12 months. So as you listen, listen closely to how she describes how she has felt throughout her adult life, the different stages and seasons of life that she has gone through as an adult from being an attorney and a graphic designer and a journalist,
Speaker3: [00:01:55] To becoming a mom
Speaker2: [00:01:57] And an author, to becoming a person who moves with their family and figures out that have they done the work to determine what they really want. So sit back and listen and
Speaker3: [00:02:13] Buckle up to my
Speaker2: [00:02:14] Conversation with Sherry.
Speaker4: [00:02:16] No time to level up listeners. I am super happy and excited to have my client and friend Sherry with us today. Sherry wears lots of different
Speaker3: [00:02:27] Hats, has a
Speaker4: [00:02:28] Very interesting background, and she and
Speaker3: [00:02:32] I have been working
Speaker4: [00:02:33] Together
Speaker3: [00:02:34] Now for, I don't know, maybe
Speaker4: [00:02:36] Parts of three parts of three years. So that's what we're going to talk about. We're going to kiss. I want her to share with you heard her journey like literally and figuratively, like there was a moving piece in there. So there was a move. There was a
Speaker3: [00:02:49] Real journey physically
Speaker4: [00:02:51] And then also kind of emotionally and mentally what she's
Speaker3: [00:02:55] What she's gone through over the
Speaker4: [00:02:56] Past three years and how things have changed. So, Sheri, why don't you introduce yourself. Hi, I am Sherry Bosarge Dutton, the world's longest last name has a hyphen, though it does have a hyphen, doesn't help anyone, but it
Speaker3: [00:03:11] Does have one.
Speaker4: [00:03:13] And I am an author. I'm a mom. I am a partner. We've been married. We just celebrated twenty five years. Right. And that feels like a huge accomplishment.
Speaker3: [00:03:27] And I live
Speaker4: [00:03:30] Currently between Miami and Fort Lauderdale, Florida. That's where she lives currently. So let's start where you used to live. So when I met Andrea, I lived in Boston, ah, just outside of Boston in the suburbs, but
Speaker3: [00:03:46] I moved with
Speaker4: [00:03:48] My husband kids to Raleigh, North Carolina, or just outside of Raleigh into the Research Triangle. It was partly a move for my husband's work and his mental health. He was all done with snowy winters and he grew up in Chicago. So I think he
Speaker3: [00:04:05] Was done with being cold.
Speaker4: [00:04:07] So he wanted something that was a little
Speaker3: [00:04:10] Slower paced and
Speaker4: [00:04:12] A little less cold. So his brother was finishing his PhD in the Research Triangle. And so that seemed like a good idea. My job as an author was mobile, so
Speaker3: [00:04:24] We just did it
Speaker4: [00:04:27] And left, packed it up and left. And I grew up in a family. My dad was in oil and we moved a ton growing up. I don't even know how many schools I went to over the course of my childhood, middle school and high school years. And so moving wasn't scary or intimidating or anything. It was just we're going to do this, or at least that's how I approached it.
Speaker3: [00:04:50] And I that's how I
Speaker4: [00:04:51] Talk to my kids about it. They were both elementary school age at the time, so we treated it like an adventure and we were ready to go and we got and darling, darling, darling house that we were all in love with an adorable neighborhood called Apex or Scottsville in Apex, Darling. I mean, the school couldn't have been more precious. It was walking everything about it. Was it checked all that easy boxes, I thought, and and my husband's plan was to work from home and to do remote work, keep his job. This is pre covid, by the way. Oh, pretty covid. Right. So there was remote working even before. Right. So that was his plan. He had always traveled a ton. And so I was truly looking forward to that, to having more time with him and to having him around for the kids more and whatever. This was going to be this
Speaker3: [00:05:45] Magical
Speaker4: [00:05:47] Venture that is not like a story. It would it was it was this great story we were writing for ourselves. And fortunately, it turned out to not be a happily ever after story. It was a disaster. It was not good and not for. Any reason that I could have possibly predicted I thought I totally knew how to move and how to manage and make new friends and how to
Speaker3: [00:06:13] But
Speaker4: [00:06:14] Three guys, I've never moved in my 40s. I had never relocated kids. I had never there were a lot of things that were I had never. Yeah. And they were harder than I ever expected. And making friends was just an enormous challenge. Feeling settled was an enormous challenge.
Speaker3: [00:06:34] It was brutal.
Speaker4: [00:06:35] Just adjusting
Speaker3: [00:06:37] To having my husband
Speaker4: [00:06:38] Around in my space all the time. Actually, that went so poorly that before I'd been there even a month, I asked for him to give me for Christmas him somewhere else to work. Not in our home, never. OK, that's just. Yeah, yeah. So that was not great. And what I figured out in the midst of all this sort of juggling of our lives, that the one thing that was super easy for me, which had always been working and networking, those
Speaker3: [00:07:12] Came
Speaker4: [00:07:13] That was the same as breathing. I've always done that. I was an attorney. I was a graphic designer. I've done a lot of things in my past and those I have never, never, never been a struggle, finding motivation, finding direction, finding purpose. These were that was breathing air. But it wasn't it was hard. It was terrible, actually. I found I couldn't write. I had nothing to say, so nothing to write. I found I was making friends with people that I didn't feel close with or connected to. I felt like I had asked literally every wrong question when figuring out where we should live. I did not so interesting think about what I really wanted or what was important to me, what I valued. What about my schedule? And time was meaningful and that I wanted to prioritize. I didn't do any of that.
Speaker3: [00:08:06] I just said yes and jumped. And that had always worked before.
Speaker4: [00:08:12] So I found myself in North Carolina unable to do any of the things that had always worked. Like I didn't want a mom, I didn't want a partner, I didn't want to work. I was just sort of both unhappy, but maybe even harder for me. I was stuck, completely stuck. OK, so this is interesting. I just want to pause for a second. So notice sometimes that what I notice sometimes in clients, like one of my favorite questions is what's the worst thing that could happen? Right. So kind of going back to I just said yes and jumped like, what's the worst thing that could happen? And what's interesting is that what happened wasn't great, wasn't it wasn't really great.
Speaker3: [00:09:09] And yet, though, I think it was
Speaker4: [00:09:12] Necessary in order for you to figure
Speaker3: [00:09:15] Out what you did want
Speaker4: [00:09:18] For your kids or you did want to live what you how you what environment you had to you liked being and to write who you wanted to hang out with. So it's interesting, like even
Speaker3: [00:09:29] Though quote unquote,
Speaker4: [00:09:30] Maybe the worst thing happened, I think it probably was necessary. In a sense it was, because one of the things that had always been true is all my normal coping. So I'm not somebody that ever says no to anything. So I'm not one of those people that needs to learn to say, oh, yes, no, I was never a problem for me. I maybe needed to think things through a little bit. But I am one of the things
Speaker3: [00:09:53] That I figured
Speaker4: [00:09:54] Out is my normal coping
Speaker3: [00:09:58] That I've been
Speaker4: [00:09:59] Doing for years and years and years, all through college, all through my twenties and thirties. And having
Speaker3: [00:10:04] Babies
Speaker4: [00:10:05] Worked until it didn't. And then I
Speaker3: [00:10:08] Didn't have anything else.
Speaker4: [00:10:09] And so the go, go, go, do next, next, next had always worked until it didn't. And I think what I realized is in all of that time of go, go, go,
Speaker3: [00:10:21] I wasn't
Speaker4: [00:10:21] Really
Speaker3: [00:10:22] Chasing my goals, I was just being reactive. I was just
Speaker4: [00:10:27] Sort of
Speaker3: [00:10:29] Doing the thing that
Speaker4: [00:10:30] Was on my plate. I was just doing the things that were in front of me. And I was so happy. I mean, I, I would never take one second away from that. It was I loved being a journalist. I loved law school. I loved litigating. All of those things
Speaker3: [00:10:47] Were on a I did enjoy them, but I
Speaker4: [00:10:50] Never really asked, is this the plan? This my plan is this. Yeah. Actually serving what I really, really, really want to do. I was just doing that. Next thing I don't I don't even know. Describe it. I mean, I was very intentional about we didn't have kids for 10 years, we were married and had kids and was very intentional about that. I knew that there was no way I was going to have kids until they were number one priority.
Speaker3: [00:11:16] So I knew I couldn't do that until I had already gone to
Speaker4: [00:11:19] Law school and I'd already figured out what I wanted to be when I grow. Yes, yes, yes. And then at the minute I did I was like, OK, now it's time. Like, this is the time to have kids.
Speaker3: [00:11:29] But I never
Speaker4: [00:11:30] Thought, OK, so then what happens? So you have the kids and you start raising the kids and then and then we're sharing again, like Jessica, where was she coming along?
Speaker3: [00:11:39] So if she doesn't go
Speaker4: [00:11:40] Back to practice, like if I'm not going to be a lawyer anymore. And so when I started writing, when the kids were little and I wrote my
Speaker3: [00:11:48] First book, I was
Speaker4: [00:11:49] Very not on purpose. This was just a thing to do because the kids were little. And that always kind of written. And I thought, OK, I could do this. But it wasn't because I saw myself as a writer, like, I'm going to be an author and this is how
Speaker3: [00:12:04] I'm going to get there. I did not have
Speaker4: [00:12:05] That plan at all. I just thought I could write. And so when I found myself in North Carolina at loose
Speaker3: [00:12:13] Ends and my
Speaker4: [00:12:15] Kids were at an age that they were fine, actually my whole family could run kind of without me. It was the first time I had to really look at
Speaker3: [00:12:24] Myself and see if
Speaker4: [00:12:26] I was living my life on purpose or if I was just
Speaker3: [00:12:30] Kind of juggling
Speaker4: [00:12:32] What was there.
Speaker3: [00:12:32] Yeah, yeah. And honestly,
Speaker4: [00:12:35] It was the first first very, very first time in my whole life where I had to ask for help. I didn't know how to do that. And I had never I
Speaker3: [00:12:46] Think, like a lot
Speaker4: [00:12:47] Of people I had that everything is bigger. Audible. Yeah, everything's figurative. All I can do is keep going. Right. And you just keep going. Right. You'll figure it out along the way. Exactly. And I and I think I always had, um, until I started asking the really hard questions
Speaker3: [00:13:04] Like, what am I
Speaker4: [00:13:05] Trying to figure out? Like what am I trying to be? Who am I, what is the you know, did I have plan and purpose passed?
Speaker3: [00:13:15] Mom, and I love
Speaker4: [00:13:16] Being a mom and I love being a wife and I love.
Speaker3: [00:13:19] But was there like bigger than that?
Speaker4: [00:13:21] Was there more than that. I should I pursue this writing thing. Yeah. I like I'd always been a really good friend and a great volunteer, and I always I sat on six boards before
Speaker3: [00:13:35] We left
Speaker4: [00:13:36] Boston and I my first plan was to immediately jump on a bunch more when we got down to Raleigh and I kept looking around thinking, is this is this what I'm doing this what is this? The whole plan? And at some point I realized it wasn't, but I had no tools, zero like Guzik to sort of assess.
Speaker3: [00:13:58] So then what are they if if it's not the things
Speaker4: [00:14:01] That I've always been doing
Speaker3: [00:14:02] And I can't write because I'm
Speaker4: [00:14:05] Unhappy and what's
Speaker3: [00:14:07] Next? So how did
Speaker4: [00:14:08] You figure out what was what I called you? Because I figured out well, I remember
Speaker3: [00:14:14] You being like, no, I'll get
Speaker4: [00:14:18] Well, I was so used to having it together. Yeah. So one of the things that I figured out pretty quickly is none of the previous roles that I had done, like lawyer or whatever we're going to say anymore, that isn't that isn't that kind of time commitment I wanted to have with a career that isn't the kind of person that I wanted to be going forward and but the only one that
Speaker3: [00:14:42] Seemed like
Speaker4: [00:14:44] Maybe this is doable, maybe this is what I experienced Joy doing and I get kind of giddy about was writing. And so, I mean, I'd already published by then and I already felt like I could do it,
Speaker3: [00:14:57] But I was experiencing
Speaker4: [00:14:59] An extreme form of writer's block where I didn't. I kept thinking, if this is meant to be a career, like if I meant to be a writer, you know, I'm going to call myself an author,
Speaker3: [00:15:10] Then shouldn't I be
Speaker4: [00:15:12] Doing that actively? Shouldn't I be doing that often? And shouldn't I figure out a way to make that part of my life? And that was where reaching out for help made sense to me, somebody who could who was used to working with people who were in that career that was here. And I think something about the writing that was interesting that I kind of learned from you
Speaker3: [00:15:35] Is that you had a
Speaker4: [00:15:37] Really a strong sense of either
Speaker3: [00:15:40] I can kind of do my work and write or not.
Speaker4: [00:15:44] It's like it was so black and white, there was no gray down to where you had to be in the mood you had to
Speaker3: [00:15:51] Be in and who had who
Speaker4: [00:15:52] Was around and who wasn't around and what the weather was. I mean, you were really into very much black and white. Yeah. That was, I think, part of the absolutely part of the story. And so one of the. First things that you sort of offered up was thinking through which parts of that I could control, like which bits of that I could maybe tweak. And so one of the first things we tried was leaving North Carolina periodically to go right and go on vacation, go on a trip, go somewhere else. And it worked beautifully. I found that if I removed myself
Speaker3: [00:16:30] From
Speaker4: [00:16:31] Twenty four seven mom WAF Raleigh suffering and just went somewhere else I really could write. And the biggest relief in that was knowing that I wasn't like it wasn't an empty.
Speaker3: [00:16:42] Well there was still,
Speaker4: [00:16:44] I could still write, I still had stories to tell, there was, I wasn't done and that was a huge relief. And then once I sort of got through the idea of I'm not just done as a writer, like there's more stuff that I could do. Yeah. Then it was figuring out how to make that part of my actual every day where I didn't have to escape life to do it. I could make it part of my life.
Speaker3: [00:17:03] And then I tried to work on that.
Speaker4: [00:17:05] And that was interesting. And that involves leaving North Carolina. Right. So that you decided we're just not going to live here anymore. Right. And what it was such a revolution to me was that there were no variables in my life that weren't worth questioning. If this is not working, why are we doing OK? So people women especially get stuck and they don't even explore
Speaker3: [00:17:33] Why are we doing this or why aren't
Speaker4: [00:17:35] We doing it and why why not change it up like that? Like, sometimes that just doesn't even occur to us. And it wasn't occurring to you for a while. It wasn't. It wasn't. I thought this is what we done. We picked North Carolina. We live here now. This is it. But, you know, the other thing that's interesting is it wasn't like life was rough.
Speaker3: [00:17:54] I mean, roughen.
Speaker4: [00:17:55] Right. This is the other thing people go into. Well, I should be so grateful. Yes. Discussions about this. I should be so grateful to have everything we have, like physically, mentally, everything. And no one was there. Everything was fine. Yes. But yeah, right. But yet I was not thriving. It was not working. No, it's OK to explore. It was. And I think just giving myself permission to say I made a mistake. I have some wrong questions. I wasn't I wasn't ready yet when we moved here to face some things about my life, you know, just admitting, oh, shit, we got this wrong.
Speaker3: [00:18:33] Or, you know what,
Speaker4: [00:18:33] Not even not asking the right questions. Just not asking questions at all that to that, too, and certainly not asking questions of myself, giving myself permission to say there are things that I need and what are those things that will make me happy and that will allow me to live the life that I had planned. So the funniest piece of that I used to. So I embarrassed to say this, but I call North Carolina my home. And anyone that's just sitting in North Carolina, it's perfect. It's perfect. There's nothing. And I kept saying that, oh, there's nothing wrong. My home is lovely. The school is lovely. We are safe. We are financially stable. All those great things. Jeff loves his job, blah, blah, blah. And that was the hardest piece of it, was to feel discontent, surrounded by things that should have made me feel happy, safe, content and all those things. And but for me, it was a personal Veenhof. It was just being in my mid forties and feeling rudderless and ankylosing, purposeless and all these horrible things and really having to question who was responsible for that and figuring out ultimately that it wasn't the circumstances that were responsible for me feeling the way that I was. It was me. It was me choosing to stay in circumstances that were not working. So interesting piece of this, too, is that I remember
Speaker3: [00:19:53] All of your
Speaker4: [00:19:54] Extended family like in-laws and everything, OK? And that I remember remember you with us discussing how
Speaker3: [00:20:02] They're they're not going anywhere. They're the they're the
Speaker4: [00:20:04] Facts, the circumstances. They are in your life and how you feel around them is truly up to you. Like, that was a big revelation. It was. It was
Speaker3: [00:20:15] It was there there were
Speaker4: [00:20:16] So many times during coaching when I felt so just like a kid, like, oh, like I was learning things fresh, brand new that I should have known from the time I was five years old. I remember learning that it's OK when you're around your family, your extended family for me
Speaker3: [00:20:38] To
Speaker4: [00:20:39] Still do the things that make you happy. For example, I like running every day or going for a long walk or a long run like exercise makes me happier. It makes me saner. It makes me sleep better, all those good things. But around my family who are not exercising people, I just wouldn't
Speaker3: [00:20:56] I would stay up late
Speaker4: [00:20:57] With them. I would do all the things that they do and wonder
Speaker3: [00:21:03] Why I was.
Speaker4: [00:21:04] And slept worse and did not enjoy my holidays or my summer vacations or whatever with them, and it was nothing they did. It was expectations. They may be communicated, but it just never occurred to me that I'm now grown up and I know what works for me and I'm allowed to do those things. And it took
Speaker3: [00:21:24] A bit it was a bit
Speaker4: [00:21:25] Rocky a few times
Speaker3: [00:21:26] Because my
Speaker4: [00:21:28] Routines are not uncomplicated and they are not. I wake up early and I do a lot of things like do my gratitude or I do things that take time. So it took a little adjusting for folks, but they
Speaker3: [00:21:44] Lived nothing
Speaker4: [00:21:45] That everybody lived. They were still there when you got back from your run and they were,
Speaker3: [00:21:51] I know, crazy. So the point is, everyone lives.
Speaker4: [00:21:54] I was happy it worked, but those were the the sorts of really basic things that I think I
Speaker3: [00:22:02] Hadn't yet
Speaker4: [00:22:03] Learned how to do. But it all went back to the same things of not asking, not being OK, asking for what I needed or what I wanted and not feeling grown up enough. Yes, yes. Yes. So it it just it took a while for me to figure out that it was OK to question if my circumstances
Speaker3: [00:22:25] Were meeting my needs.
Speaker4: [00:22:27] And that's changing your thinking.
Speaker3: [00:22:29] It did.
Speaker4: [00:22:30] It did. Well, I think it was such a pressure release when I started asking the questions. So if this isn't working for me, if North Carolina is not working, what happens if we leave and all of the sort of fears or a worst case scenario thinking none of them were worse than staying.
Speaker3: [00:22:55] So so if it was a
Speaker4: [00:22:57] Mistake, again, if we picked somewhere else, even though I learn to ask better questions and figure out even if we made a mistake
Speaker3: [00:23:03] Again, it still felt
Speaker4: [00:23:04] Like I would learn. And so then we we get it right, like eventually we will. You start to have more patience with yourself.
Speaker3: [00:23:12] I had it
Speaker4: [00:23:13] And I had figured out at least one formula that would work. I knew I could
Speaker3: [00:23:19] Write if
Speaker4: [00:23:20] I remove myself
Speaker3: [00:23:21] From North Carolina.
Speaker4: [00:23:23] So worst case, I knew that was still on the table and I knew that that would that was an option. So there was no circumstance that would prevent me from writing going forward. So that was exciting. So then that made it feel freeing to contemplate.
Speaker3: [00:23:38] Ok, so then
Speaker4: [00:23:38] Ok, so let's not settle
Speaker3: [00:23:39] For. OK, let's pick. Amazing. So we did and it has worked out so great,
Speaker4: [00:23:45] So great,
Speaker3: [00:23:46] So great and so much and I would say
Speaker4: [00:23:49] Happier but you just your, your, you like all of you. All the parts of you. Yes. And then so we got down to Florida. I wrote another book, I published another book. We I published the one that had taken me eighteen months to write and then I published another one that felt great. And then I realized,
Speaker3: [00:24:09] Oh wait, I'm an author like
Speaker4: [00:24:12] This. I don't just write sometimes. Like I have an actual author, I have a website, I have books, I have a newsletter. There's like social media. There's a whole bunch of stuff that comes with being an
Speaker3: [00:24:23] Author and I'm managing it OK, but maybe
Speaker4: [00:24:27] I'm not managing
Speaker3: [00:24:28] It as well as I could be.
Speaker4: [00:24:30] And I had sort of gotten back into my old habits of not asking what's next, of not asking
Speaker3: [00:24:38] Myself if
Speaker4: [00:24:39] What's next is what I want. And so
Speaker3: [00:24:45] I knew
Speaker4: [00:24:50] That
Speaker3: [00:24:52] There were two.
Speaker4: [00:24:54] That was ridiculous. And instead I just reached out to you again because we stopped working together on a monthly basis or more routine. And and that was when you suggested that I do my wouldn't call a dove deep dove. Yes. Yeah. I think even that was
Speaker3: [00:25:12] What I needed. Right.
Speaker4: [00:25:13] And even you even said in the kind of part one of Deep Dove is kind of is you actually whoever that is doing some work on their own, like me guiding, but you're doing it on your own. And so that when we do actually come together, you've done some thinking beforehand. And I remember you saying like that thinking even before we even met, it was transformative. It was so so one of the questions that you asked, I don't want to give everything
Speaker3: [00:25:43] And the hardest one with coming up with
Speaker4: [00:25:47] A
Speaker3: [00:25:48] List of things to do before
Speaker4: [00:25:50] With the hundred things
Speaker3: [00:25:51] And even
Speaker4: [00:25:52] Trying to dig deep to come up with my hundred things.
Speaker3: [00:25:56] And I was like losing steam
Speaker4: [00:25:58] By like 20. I don't I don't know. And then I started digging deeper, like, what do I. What to do or do I want to see who do I want to be? What possible effects could I do? And I started getting to my ridiculous, but also just tapping.
Speaker3: [00:26:12] I think those
Speaker4: [00:26:14] Things you never just take the brakes off and say, what if for what could I do or what can I imagine?
Speaker3: [00:26:20] And it was funny what came out of it. Sort of surprised, I think, because I was
Speaker4: [00:26:27] Surprised at how much just
Speaker3: [00:26:29] Really
Speaker4: [00:26:31] Trying to think
Speaker3: [00:26:32] Through what would be the most
Speaker4: [00:26:34] Important things. Like if I if I could make like what would those be? Was really useful for me. And then the other, when that
Speaker3: [00:26:39] Sort of blew me away, was tracking
Speaker4: [00:26:42] My same patterns over the course
Speaker3: [00:26:44] Of all
Speaker4: [00:26:45] Of my professional life
Speaker3: [00:26:47] And thinking that
Speaker4: [00:26:48] Through every job that I've ever had and the successes and failures, the struggles and struggles and how just exactly the
Speaker3: [00:26:57] Same
Speaker4: [00:27:00] And the same struggles kept coming up. And it was so easy to see.
Speaker3: [00:27:04] Then once you write it all
Speaker4: [00:27:06] Out and you looking at yourself in like a really honest way, like these are not new is not surprising that everybody gets the same. But then having you, there can be no value placed. I mean, zero dollar value placed and having somebody else that is entirely shared, that is only
Speaker3: [00:27:32] There for my success like that is
Speaker4: [00:27:36] Of course my husband with me or my kids love me. Of course, my sisters, my mother.
Speaker3: [00:27:41] These are the I have
Speaker4: [00:27:42] Incredible support
Speaker3: [00:27:44] Network. But that's
Speaker4: [00:27:45] So different
Speaker3: [00:27:46] Than having
Speaker4: [00:27:47] Somebody who literally only wants what I want
Speaker3: [00:27:52] And wants to
Speaker4: [00:27:53] Help to me. Yes. That is just as invested in me being as content as I could possibly be as I am. What if
Speaker3: [00:28:04] There's no there's nothing like
Speaker4: [00:28:06] That. There's nothing as freeing, as opening as exciting. And it's that like it's electric. It's so great to imagine that somebody else is fully on board with you being all you. I don't know if it's so great. It was I love doing those deep dives because I think for lots of reasons. But one is that when we've spent that time together and kind of created a plan, taking into consideration the things that you've discovered about yourself, like the repeating
Speaker3: [00:28:34] Patterns, knowing
Speaker4: [00:28:36] What we're also taking into consideration what's worked and then looking forward like putting all of that together in a condensed period of time and being able to walk away saying, yes, I know what I'm where I'm going, I know my my next step. And like, what's the next
Speaker3: [00:28:52] Step is something you do
Speaker4: [00:28:53] Want.
Speaker3: [00:28:54] Just write what? And there's that
Speaker4: [00:28:57] Thing that you kept saying. You you said it to me before, but you said it to me probably like three different times during our divorce. It can be just that easy. I say that you're like, wait, how's that
Speaker3: [00:29:09] Going to happen?
Speaker4: [00:29:11] Because it's just going to happen. We're just going to have it happen. It can be easy. You're like, oh, I was like so
Speaker3: [00:29:18] Easy, really. But in my
Speaker4: [00:29:24] Mind, if it's not hard, then you're not doing it right. And it's that's I think that was why I got so stuck in North Carolina. And sometimes things are just hard and some things are just hard and you just struggle. But sometimes
Speaker3: [00:29:39] If things are supposed
Speaker4: [00:29:40] To be
Speaker3: [00:29:40] Easy, what if what if it's easy and fun even imagine. I know.
Speaker4: [00:29:47] I know. I know. And it is so. All right. So we're going to wrap up. Is there anything
Speaker3: [00:29:54] Ok, what would you
Speaker4: [00:29:55] Tell someone that's kind of in a stockpot or has done some
Speaker3: [00:29:59] Work, but yet
Speaker4: [00:30:00] Maybe that's true of things like what would be your best words of wisdom? Well, first is I mean, there is no reason to be stuck on your own that OK.
Speaker3: [00:30:10] And I, I would say
Speaker4: [00:30:12] One of the things that I kept falling into was an echo chamber of my
Speaker3: [00:30:15] Own terrible thinking. One of the
Speaker4: [00:30:18] Things that I, I think happens with a women like me who are used to success, I'm used to
Speaker3: [00:30:25] Achieving things, is that
Speaker4: [00:30:28] If it's worked before, it'll work again, is our thinking until it doesn't. And I'm stuck in the thinking that we can. And and when we don't have the tools or the outside
Speaker3: [00:30:41] Perspective to
Speaker4: [00:30:42] To go beyond what we've done before when we don't have the creativity to imagine something different, our new way, we just get stuck in thinking there isn't
Speaker3: [00:30:51] A way.
Speaker4: [00:30:51] And instead of asking for help and saying, can you see this differently than I'm saying this, can you ask different questions than I am asking or able to ask? Are you seeing pads that I'm not seeing? And. For me, that was the door opening, that was the the seeing that there were parts that I just missed. There were questions that I just didn't ask for. There were new ways of thinking about my same problem that I just hadn't occurred to me. And that can be as simple and as I know. Right. And then I would also
Speaker3: [00:31:29] Say it, even
Speaker4: [00:31:31] If you're at or for
Speaker3: [00:31:32] Me, like I was
Speaker4: [00:31:34] When we moved to Florida and I was feeling really good about my writing and I was doing really good about it. And I think the thing that was so incredibly reassuring to me was knowing that I can always look you back in,
Speaker3: [00:31:49] Knowing that I could. Yeah. That if if things got too big
Speaker4: [00:31:53] Or too much or
Speaker3: [00:31:55] Or maybe for me
Speaker4: [00:31:57] What I was realizing is, I don't know,
Speaker3: [00:31:59] I didn't and
Speaker4: [00:32:00] Thought through what could come next, I hadn't really taken the time because I was head down writing and publishing and focused. I really had taken time to look forward much and being willing to invest just that tiny bit of time, a tiny bit of money into doing that makes next year feel not it's not just doable. It's exciting. Like that's completely different. Of course I can write another book, but to feel excited about doing that, to feel like I have a plan and there's like that,
Speaker3: [00:32:36] There's just the world of
Speaker4: [00:32:38] Difference in those experiences. All right. That's a great place to end. You are excited and I explain.
Speaker3: [00:32:45] I'm excited for you. Thank you.
Speaker4: [00:32:47] So this has been a pleasure. I hope everybody has enjoyed listening. And if you're like Sherry, which a lot of people are, she's not a unicorn. You can't ask for help.
Speaker3: [00:32:59] So do it. Yeah. Thank you. Well, and I. So should
Speaker4: [00:33:02] I ask add one tiny
Speaker3: [00:33:03] Caveat that
Speaker4: [00:33:05] I don't write under my name.
Speaker3: [00:33:07] Ok, so she doesn't
Speaker4: [00:33:08] Write under a name, so don't
Speaker3: [00:33:09] Go Googling it. You'll never find it.
Speaker4: [00:33:11] I still don't know all
Speaker3: [00:33:12] You want you
Speaker4: [00:33:14] It will go. No I, I don't know. I think we're only one sister knows. Exactly. All right. Thank you so much. Of course. Of course.
Speaker2: [00:33:24] So what did you think? Could you relate? Did you notice how she really emphasized that it was OK to ask for help and that she learned that it was OK to ask for help? And once she asked for help, once she asked for coaching, everything started to change. It was a process, but things started to change both for her professionally as an author, her relationship with her family and her relationship with herself. And then even though she stepped away for a little bit, she recognized, huh, I could use some help again and she came back. So do you need help? Are you asking for help? Have you considered
Speaker3: [00:34:11] Coaching as help, even if you're
Speaker2: [00:34:13] Someone who thinks they should be able to figure it all out? You did. Who is your coach? I would be honored to be your coach if you don't already have one. Reach out. Let's have a conversation. Is one on one coaching right for you? Is group coaching or what about those deep dove VIP days before she even got to the Deep Dove VIP day? She found
Speaker3: [00:34:35] Value in it just in the
Speaker2: [00:34:37] Pre work. And it was a huge gift she is given herself and she's decided to keep giving herself that gift of a deep dove VIP day for the entire year, every quarter. So I would love
Speaker4: [00:34:49] And be honored to be your
Speaker2: [00:34:51] Coach if you don't already have one so that you can get the help you need to not just get unstuck, but to really move forward with intention and purpose. OK, see you next year.
Speaker1: [00:35:05] Thanks for tuning in to today's show. If you're ready to commit to personal and professional growth, move forward, make money and manage life. Head to Andrea Libros Dotcom. That's a ndr a l i e b r o. S s dotcom to find out about the ways we can work together until next time, go level on.
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