You can do hard things. Like, having career goals that scare you a little bit. Or have that tough conversation with your boss. (Even if the boss is you.)
Jess Critchlow is a lovely human, a coach, and founder of Light Up Work, where she helps kind quirky professionals get the grounded confidence they need to hit their big audacious career goals. I loved talking with her, so I'm sure you'll love listening to her!
What you'll hear. . .
Work with Us!
Jess: (IG) @lightupwork // www.lightupwork.com
Julia: (IG) @divine.realignment // www.divinerealignment.com
CONFIDENCE AND THE CURIOSITY MUSCLE
Julia: [00:00:00] Hi, everyone. Welcome to Becoming Divine. My name is Julia Wesley. And today we have very special guest Jess Critchlow. She is a couch, a coach and founder of Light Up Work, where she helps kind quirky professionals get the grounded confidence they need to hit their big audacious career goals.
I love that. And thank you so much for being with us.
Jess: [00:00:19] Oh, my gosh, Julia, I'm so excited to play. And also, I just want to clarify, I primed her brain to say couch, because that's what I wrote first and had to fix it. So I put that in your head and I'm sorry about that. I'm not a couch and I'm sorry, I put that in there.
Julia: [00:00:34] It's funny. As I said it, I was like, 'that's her fault'.
Jess: [00:00:37] It's true. It's accurate, you're right! It was!
Julia: [00:00:40] Anyways, let's get into it. I'm really excited to talk to you because you do a lot of your work in the workplace. One of the things on your website is 'I want the world to be a better kinder, happier place,'-- me too-- 'and while that would be lovely, if it started in our families, our schools, our governments, I think the low-hanging fruit is our workplaces'.
I completely agree. I mean, we're there eight hours a day, right? If your workplace sucks, no matter what you do, when you come home, you're probably still going to be carrying that kind of energy.
Jess: [00:01:09] Yeah. Yeah. And I also find as much as we all recreate our childhood, everywhere we go, and so we find people at work who push all the same buttons, it is much easier in my experience for people to have grown-up conversations-- uncomfortable conversations-- to start building that muscle with people they work with, because there's less of an emotional baggage around it.
You know, it's like, 'Oh, that's Fred from accounting. And if he doesn't like me, it sucks, but I can live with that. Whereas if it's my mom, that's a way heavier weight to try to start with'. So it's also, there's just less charge around building some of these muscles that we need everywhere.
It's just harder to start everywhere else.
Julia: [00:01:49] That's really interesting because I was going to ask you, from my perspective, the way that I interacted with work, it would be easier for me to have hard conversations with my family because we're very, we're that kind of family like we're very close. Then it would be for me to have a stick-up-for-myself conversation at work, because I was so very worried about my safety.
My survival. So it was very attached to making sure that my boss approved of me, that the work I was doing was enough. And so I was going to ask you, how do you get people to have those tough conversations if they're stuck in a survival mindset?
Jess: [00:02:25] Yeah. Yeah. And so the first disclaimer, I'd say, is this: I don't actually always tell people to have tough conversations at work if it's a psychologically unsafe place. So one of the things, and I've been wrestling with this a lot, and I'd love your opinion on it, one of the things we see a lot in our world is, ' Be authentic! Be yourself! Be yourself, no matter where you are. Just go all in as you.' And I'm like, 'yes, that's a very privileged standpoint though', because it's not safe for everyone to be themselves wherever they are.
So the first thing, and I'm speaking from a place of-- I'm at like at the apex of privilege, like neurotypical, able-bodied, cisgendered, heteronormative, you name a privilege and I've pretty much got it. So I can sit here and be like, 'I gonna to be myself. It's magic!' And it is, but it's safe for me to do that.
So the first thing when I work with people is, is it unsafe or are you just uncomfortable? Cause those are two very different things. And so we look at objectively, what are some of the behaviors of your colleagues? What are some of the behaviors of your boss? And is it a story that you're making up?
Cause we all make up stories, right? That's how we work. That's how the brain goes. And can you get over the discomfort or is it fear because something is genuinely unsafe. So that's always step one, is let's assess the safety first before you rush in and be like, 'I'm going to give you my truth!' And is like, fired!
Oh, no. Yeah. Right, right. So that's step one.
Julia: [00:03:47] Yeah. That would make a lot of sense. I think when you're in the survivalist mindset, absolutely. You're going to feel that, 'if I express myself, that's it. I'm toast, I'm done for.' At least that was my experience. Sometimes I did find though that expressing myself, got me out of a situation that actually wasn't good for me.
And so while it was hard and while I felt unsafe, it actually opened me up energetically to receive something better. Or safer for me, if we want to frame it that way.
Jess: [00:04:23] A hundred percent. I think too, like I spent a lot of time in corporate. That's, you know, that's where I spent the majority of my career. Specifically in behind the scenes roles.
So I started in HR, moved into organizational leadership development and nine times out of 10, your discomfort is probably not true lack of safety.
Again, assess it. Don't just go on my word and start going forward at work. But what I saw behind the scenes a lot, is leaders were very often confused about why their team wasn't telling them things.
Now they weren't doing the right things to create that environment, don't get me wrong, but there was actually space for more honesty, more authenticity, more tough conversations.
It's almost like there wasn't a tipping point. There wasn't someone modeling it. And when I hear people say, 'but that shouldn't be me! It shouldn't be my job to create that! It shouldn't be me to start creating that culture.'
Yeah. It's not fair. It shouldn't be you. But, so what? Do you want to be right? Or do you want to be free? Do you want to be right? Or do you want to feel good at work? This is sometimes the choice.
Julia: [00:05:23] So we have determined that we're just uncomfortable. We're not necessarily unsafe. How is it that you coach someone to get past the survivalist, complete fear of discomfort? Because sometimes our brain tricks us into thinking that your discomfort is actually a threat to you.
Jess: [00:05:42] Yeah. I'd say nine times out of 10 our brains do.
So step one, the short answer is like, 'it depends on the person'. But a more useful answer to that question is pretty much always, we always look at, 'what are your stories?' first. And we really play with stories in two different ways. So when I say stories, I mean the actual script your brain is giving you. Because here's the thing with our brains.
They're a lovely sidekick. They really are. And they want us to be cocooned like in a lil' cozy sweater, on the couch, eating Doritos, never taking any risk ever, because risk inherently comes with failure. Like it's not going to go right every time.
[00:06:18]When I hear someone say, ' Okay, I did it. I had the tough conversation with my boss, and it went freaking horribly.' I'm like, yeah, yeah, there is no guarantee, just because you're being brave, that it's going to go well. Right?
So part of it is recognizing your brain never wants you to take any risk ever. So let's look at the stories what are the scripts in your brain? You know, we do a few tools that help.
One of them is, 'what's the projected fear?' So that's where your brain is doing a choose-your-own-adventure of, 'if you tell your boss you don't like them talking to you that way, then they won't give you the promotion. And then eventually they'll get you out of the team and then you'll be broke and then you'll lose your job and then you'll be homeless'.
You just went from having an awkward conversation, to being homeless in five seconds!
Part of it is what's the projected fear. Part of it too, that we do a lot of, is retraining what your brain makes up about the physiological experience of fear. So, what often happens more often than not, which is a survival mechanism and make sense, is: our palms get really sweaty, blood rushing to our head, pit in our stomach.
You know that feeling, right? We interpret it as fear, and we interpret it as, 'this means that something is wrong. This is not okay'. Sometimes that is true. When you were standing at the mouth of a dark alley at 3:00 AM. Oh my gosh. Listen to that voice, please. Don't go down the alley. Right?
Julia: [00:07:31] Right. Right.
Jess: [00:07:33] Some of it though, is you're about to be a bad-ass. Like, there is risk, yeah. Because you're about to be brave. And so can you start to retrain your brain to experience that feeling in a different way? So instead of, 'Oh my God, I'm so freaked out and scared right now'. It's, 'I'm so exhilarated, cause I'm about to be really brave'.
It's that you're like on the roller coaster and it's clicking? That's the same physiology as fear, only you're interpreting it as, 'this is so exciting'. Right? So how do you like retrain your brain to get out of those knee-jerk habits, and move into something that serves you better?
Julia: [00:08:08] That really reminds me of cognitive behavioral therapy. And as you described a projected fear, I would do that all the time. And it's not that I was actually unsafe at work. I was so convinced that being myself was going to kill me-- even though I am also very privileged and it wouldn't have-- that it was so hard for me to say, 'Hey, this is actually what I want. And I feel disrespected right now, and that's not cool'.
So, one of the other things that you work on, I think is imposter syndrome.
Jess: [00:08:39] Yes. Oh man. Gotta love that gremlin.
Julia: [00:08:42] Do you see that this is a bigger issue for some people than others? Like maybe perhaps women than men that you work with?
Jess: [00:08:50] Yeah. And it's interesting. And I probably have a weirder perspective on it because the workplaces I've worked in have been predominantly men. So it's been tech and engineering. And in my experience, I'm sure there's data, like consolidated data on this that would look different, but in my experience, there's been a grouping of people that it tends to show up in. And in my experience it's always been the emotionally intelligent people. it's always been. And that is more often than not in women identifying people. Yes. They tend to have developed that skill more. But just as many white dudes that I've worked with who have the emotional intelligence, who are able to think from other people's perspectives-- the sort of shadow side of that is, ' but there's so many other smart people in the room. Who's going to listen to me because so many of these people are brilliant?' That's, I've seen it more from that pattern.
Julia: [00:09:36] So it's not necessarily that you're a true imposter. It's just that you see things from multiple perspectives. You recognize yourself as that, I'm not always the smartest person here. It's like being very humble.
Jess: [00:09:48] Yeah. Yeah, it is the shadow side of humility is knowing, 'yeah, there is someone else who can do this better than me'. That's fact! There's no point in arguing with that.
And I think that's something that when I work with people around imposter syndrome, one of the first things we do is just normalize. I worked with this seriously alpha male CEO of a tech company, and he had it too!
Like it's, it is everywhere. So one is you're not the weirdo. We all got it. So that's one, two is it's so counterproductive to argue with yourself. Wasted energy. And so when you have, even from a good perspective, like even when you have good intentions, your brain pops up and says, 'you shouldn't be doing this presentation. There's someone smarter than you who can do it'.
What I see a lot out there as people are like, say, 'get out of here brain! Yes, I can. I'm great'. And that's well, meaning, but it just ends up causing a conflict in your brain. And again, back to that cognitive side of things, what happens is your brain will look for evidence that you're not the best at it, and it will find it because there is someone better than you.
Yeah. So we want to move away from setting up this argument with yourself and almost just bypass it completely. Just like, 'Yeah, there's someone better than me. I'm going to go contribute what I know now'.
Julia: [00:11:02] Yeah. Its very meditation training.
Jess: [00:11:05] Yeah. There's a lot of mindfulness in there. I've never thought of it that way, but you're absolutely right.
Julia: [00:11:10] It is. It reminds me of when I teach people to meditate and they're telling me, 'but I can't stop thinking'. And I'm like,' well, don't stop. Just pay attention to what you're saying. And then eventually your brain will go [relieved breath]. And that space in between those two thoughts is where you can just sit and rest for a moment until your brain comes up with something else.
And so it's very much the more that you fight, the more energy you give to it.
Jess: [00:11:34] Yes. I love that perspective. I've never thought of it that way. Like I remember hearing someone, maybe it was the guy who does Headspace, I don't remember but saying-- and I'm curious if you teach this to your students with meditation-- of if you have noticed you're thinking, you're doing meditation right.
Like that's not failing, that's actually doing it right.
Julia: [00:11:53] Yes.
Jess: [00:11:54] Yeah?
Julia: [00:11:55] Absolutely. My dad is also pretty woo-woo. One of the things that we talk about is, he's like, 'I don't know how to meditate. It's just, I try and sit in silence,' and I'm like 'try walking'.
If you're paying attention to what you're doing, then you're being present. That's all meditation requires of you. You don't have to fight yourself. You are where you are, and it's, as soon as like you were saying before, as soon as you acknowledge where you're at emotionally or mentally, then you can work with it or at least bypass it, work around it.
You don't have to give it the energy of almost the validation of fighting with it and saying, 'no, you're wrong!' You don't have to give it that kind of credence. You can just say, 'that's nice of you,' and then just skirt around it. I think that's very woo-woo of you.
Jess: [00:12:36] Yeah. Yeah. I love it. Yeah. And it's interesting isn't it?
Like there's really-- I think I said there's two ways and I didn't describe the two ways-- anyways, one of the ways is to go deep into the story. Really play with it. Really get curious about it. Ask yourself-- and you can do this with a journal.
You can do it with a coach, do with a trusted friend. Be careful with friend, make sure they're not going to throw their own stuff in there.
Dig in! Really get curious. Where's that story coming from? What fears is it? What triggers does it have a connected to it? What fears are really underneath it? Cause it's never the thing. You're not actually worried about being fired.
It's the thing beneath the thing. So really dig in and figure it out and like unpick that knot. And then the other way is what we were saying. It's just, ' okay. Thank you for showing up fear. Thank you for letting me know. You want me to be safe? I'm going to go do the thing anyways, but thank you. I'm on onwards'.
They're both valid and I do both, but yeah.
Julia: [00:13:26] It's like the difference between being caught in a giant sinkhole, and moving around a pothole. Right? So in my work, when we really dive into the problem, it's like, 'well, this is like a Grand Canyon of a problem. I could try jumping across it, but I'm going to end up at the bottom of it anyways'. Maybe go down there gently? You know?
Jess: [00:13:46] We'll just set up a ladder! [Laughter]
Julia: [00:13:48] If you can look at it and skirt around it, that's like a pothole kind of an issue. But it sounds pretty much like you're talking about energy work and energy healing.
I wondered if you had any training in that, because going deeper into your bio, I see that you're actually Reiki attuned.
Jess: [00:14:01] Yeah, I've done a lot of Reiki. Here's what I-- I don't actually talk about this much, because my background is working with really left brain people.
Like--but to you people, you get it, right?
I always joke that I take super woo-woo stuff, and then I repackage it, so no one knows that it's woo-woo. There just like, 'what a great corporate tool I now have!' I'm like, 'yes, go for it'.
Especially things with team buildings. Cause I run a lot of team buildings in corporate. And I incorporate a lot of stuff that we-- I call it team building-- it's looking at the energetics.
I'm formally trained in coaching through a school called Co-Active Training Institute. And it's very, very right-brain type of coaching. I've done corporate coach training too, but this one is very like, a lot of training around intuition, a lot of training around reading the energy in the room.
So yeah, I bring in a lot of that. I just don't tell my corporate friends. That's what it is. . And then I've experienced, oh my gosh, you name it. I've done it. Mediums, psychics, human design. I'm obsessed with Reiki healing, Buddhist retreats. I just think, throw everything at it. Why not?
Julia: [00:15:06] What I love about that is first of all, I do this professionally. I do the woo professionally, but I'm so very left brained. I come from such an academic background. I fought this tooth and nail because I was so sciency and I was like, these two things cannot exist at the same time, but you know, they can.
One of my favorite things to do is to take spiritual concepts-- we're talking about energy, we're talking about consciousness, we're talking about working within it, paying attention to it. And presenting it to people as, 'this is practical, because this is how things are', so I love that.
And I, it seems sneaky--
Jess: [00:15:42] But you know what? This is my way of not feeling sneaky and feeling like I'm in my integrity, is like, well, the Buddha did it. He was just like, 'Hey, don't listen to me. Just go try it. And if it works for you, great. And if it doesn't, that's cool too'. I'm like, okay.
Hey, the Buddha did it. I can do it!
That's a lot of what I do. And I'm sure you're probably quite like this too, is don't just believe me cause I've said it. Try it on. Let's get some readings and see. I imagine, the mediums I've seen, they've been like, 'I'm going to throw it out there, you tell me if it resonates, if it doesn't we move on'. It's not like, this is 'no, this is what they're saying. I don't care if it doesn't resonate, this is what your spirits are saying'. It's, 'I'm going to throw it out and we'll see what happens in your body and see what your reaction is'.
Julia: [00:16:24] One of the things that really freaked me out when I was first learning mediumship, because I was of the mindset of 'I'm not going to believe someone else if this is true, I'm going to do this myself. Is this possible? I'll let you know'.
And, as you're doing mediumship, one of the scariest things is to actually present that information. Cause you don't know, you just have some old lady coming up to you and saying that this person really loves pink frosting.
And you're like, is that going to mean something to them? And so as you put it out there, one of the things that you need is confidence. I know that's another thing that you really work.
Jess: [00:16:55] Yeah. One of the big ones I call it the gateway drug, like confidence is the thing you need. I jokingly say, it's the thing you need to make your vision board happen. But it really is because, we think first of all, we all think confidence is something it's not. We all think it's this, calm, cool, collected, not nervous, not scared, not asking for help, not needing support, just like Lone Wolf.
That's not confidence. That's complacency. That's cause you don't really care. That's fine. I schedule it in, I just am very clear that it's not being confident. It's because they don't care that much. Whereas, good example I always give people is, especially people who've seen I did a TEDx talk and they've watched and they said, wow, you were really confident.
And I go, yeah, I was, how are you defining confidence? No, you weren't nervous. I'm like, okay. No. I was so nervous. I was legit trying to hold back throw up. I was pacing backstage going, 'don't throw up. Don't throw up. Don't throw up. Of course. You're nervous. You're about to be brave. Of course you're exhilarated, you're about to be a badass'.
Doesn't mean I wasn't nervous! So yeah, that's part of what we do first is let's redefine what we're talking about here. When we make up a lot of stuff, we let our confidence sit on a very fragile foundation. So for you in your work, for example I would make up it's about being, right.
So if I share what I'm channeling and the person goes, 'no, that doesn't mean anything to me'. If your confidence is resting on being right, you're right away, like, Oh shit. Whereas if your confidence is resting on, ' I know my abilities and I'm taking action' and they say, 'no, that doesn't resonate'.
You go, 'Oh, okay, brilliant. What does it spark for you then?' And you can stay in your curious high vibe place. So that's a big part of it is, let's redefine it people, cause the one we got is not helping us in any way. It's not helping any of us.
Julia: [00:18:42] You really nailed it, especially when you're first starting out, typically in mediumship or any type of woo-woo, and you're like, 'is this real?' A lot of it is based on being right. And so every time you present something to someone and they're like, 'what are you talking about?'
Jess: [00:18:58] 'I don't know about any yellow flowers'.
Julia: [00:19:01] Exactly! And it really shakes you, but I like reframing confidence and if I'm getting this correctly and if I'm not, let me know, confidence is having a belief in your own abilities.
Jess: [00:19:13] And the second part of the definition, the part that no one actually likes-- understanding your abilities, believing in your abilities, and taking action as a result. That's a part no one actually likes. Cause you can sit in your bedroom all day and be like, 'I am in touch with the spirits, man. I'm a great medium! I never offer that out. I'm never going to tell anyone I can do it'.
And that's not confidence! That's, come on. Anyone can sit by themselves and be like, 'I'm really good at doing presentations. I'm never going to offer to do a presentation'. So the second part is the part no one likes, which is you have to do something with that ability.
You have to go out there and do something with it.
Julia: [00:19:50] And the, going out and doing something about it, I think is from my experience, changing fear to being exhilarated.
Jess: [00:19:59] Oh, that's a big, yeah. A hundred percent. That's like, that's 90%. If you can retrain your brain there, you're good. You make it happen.
Julia: [00:20:05] I suffered for a very long time with almost debilitating anxiety. Like I'd wake up and I'd be anxious. I go to bed and I'd be anxious. I was so thankful for those hours where I was unconscious because I wasn't anxious or at least I didn't remember it.
Jess: [00:20:18] You're like, 'yay, it's sleep time!. I don't have to fight with my brain!'
Julia: [00:20:21] Yeah, exactly! one of the things that I did when I would encounter something new, I had never felt anything other than anxiety. And then, so it got to the point where I think I was learning meditation and someone said, 'exhilaration and anxiety are the same physiological response'.
And I was like,' wait a minute. So are you telling me. . . Wait a minute'.
Yeah. Part of your work to help people be confident through changing their identification with that physiological response?
Jess: [00:20:49] Yeah. A hundred percent. . Yeah. Thank you for summarizing. That's a really good way to articulate it.
I'm actually really curious about something. That anxiety was that before you fully understood and embraced your ability to channel?
Julia: [00:21:03] Oh, that's interesting. It's part of it. So a lot of the times I was very energetically open. What you might call the unbalanced empath .
So I was picking up on everybody's stuff, identifying as everyone's stuff. And of course I had my own issues. I could not stand myself. Well, all of that was like this unholy trifecta concoction. And it's funny because actually, as I started consciously working with energy and spirit, I was like, 'this feels like anxiety'.
So I feel as if a lot of the times being a medium and you're open and you're not paying attention, you attract a lot of energies that are just, ghosts that are hanging out. Like Joe Blow at the bar, who's an alcoholic. And he's ' well, you've got a problem. Let's talk', so it's that kind of thing.
And there is a certain amount of power and authority that comes from saying 'I can change the way I identify. And my story around what I'm doing'. Right. And so you work with stories a lot, you were saying.
Jess: [00:21:59] Oh, yeah. That's a huge part of what we do together. The one thing I want to tack onto this because I'm just very conscious of, I don't want anyone to get the wrong impression.
When we talk about changing your emotional literacy and being able to interpret it in a different way, I want to be careful that doesn't go all the way over to gaslighting yourself. And this happens a lot in corporate and people have gaslit the shit out of themselves.
So they walk into a conference room, and there's a really weird vibe. And they right away just dismiss it. They're like, 'Oh, I dunno why that's in my head. I'm just going to buckle in for the meeting'. . And so I want to be careful that purely because you're getting more curious about your emotions and retraining your brain to interpret them in different ways, I don't want people to then dismiss the data that their emotions bring them.
And it is a balance and it, invariably, we go too far, one way too far, the other. But if you're feeling something, there is probably a reason for it. It might be something to your point with retraining yourself around different ways of interpreting anxiety and understanding how much you're taking on from other people. But just dismissing it completely, and being like 'anxiety is silly. I feel excited'. That's too far the other way too. It is useful data, and it is useful information, and you've got to build that muscle, but it's not about dismissing it, does that make sense?
Julia: [00:23:15] That makes perfect sense.
Jess: [00:23:17] Okay.
Julia: [00:23:17] I like the word that you used, curiosity.
Jess: [00:23:19] Yeah.
Julia: [00:23:20] I had been so far into the belief that everything I was feeling was anxiety, that I didn't have that curiosity as to 'what am I actually feeling?' So for me coming from this place of, this could be exhilaration.
Every time I walked into a room, the only thing I felt was anxious, like, I'm going to die. I wasn't going to, but that's the belief, right? That was the story. And I was having a conversation with someone that I had interviewed before, and we talked about feeling uncomfortable and about how sometimes to grow it's not always about being uncomfortable.
Sometimes it's nice to feel safe every once in a while. And so that was one of the things where it was like a light bulb moment for me of being like, 'I'm already uncomfortable. What does being comfortable get me?' That was just a nice little juxtaposition of what is it like to be comfortable at work?
I don't know, but I want to find out.
Jess: [00:24:07] I love that you dove down there. I just, yeah, we've sort of fetishized trauma and being uncomfortable. And while there is obviously growth at your edge points, of course there is. Sometimes I work with people who beat themselves up because they feel like they don't have enough trauma to have the struggles they have.
They're like, ' So I didn't get along with my mom. I shouldn't be this lack of confidence'. I'm like, ' 'dude, stop ranking trauma. You can have a story that doesn't work for you. And you don't have to then feel guilty because you haven't had a bad enough life'.
And one of the things I say is, your stories don't always have to come from trauma. Trauma will absolutely create stories to try to keep you safe. And you've got to unpick those. I have a story that I really struggle with and it's from a positive place. It's because as a kid, I was labeled smart, which is lovely. That's a lovely thing to happen to a kid!
Only, it meant I didn't like trying things because I didn't want to lose that identification as smart. So anything that was slightly outside of my comfort zone, I wouldn't try. And that's still something I have. I come up against it all the time. That's not trauma, that's not this horrible story, but it is something that keeps me from doing my work in the world and keeps me from serving people.
So it's something that I have to unpick. So it doesn't always have to be horrible. You can be cozy and still grow.
Julia: [00:25:29] Yes! Yeah, that was revolutionary for me. It was one of the things that I was dealing with. How does a plant grow best? You're really just a plant with more complex emotions. So does the plant grow best when you scream and yell at it and it's uncomfortable and it's thirsty and its soil is not supporting it? Or is it grow best when it's comfortable and all of its needs are being met?
And that was really like revolutionary for me. And the idea of being comfortable at work actually propelled me into this job oddly enough.
And that leads me to the next thing. They really wanted to ask you. How do you have tough conversations with your boss when you are the boss?
Jess: [00:26:08] Oh, like meaning with yourself? Like when you're the CEO?
Julia: [00:26:11] Yeah! When I'm like, how do I disappoint myself?
Jess: [00:26:13] Yeah. And isn't it funny because I know you've seen this too. I do it. You do it. We start making up all these rules about what our work is supposed to be. It's no longer fun and enjoyable. And yet we're like, 'I've got to put in 12 hours today because that's what a business owner would do. Even though it makes me miserable'.
Go get a job then, if you're going to do that. Like, why are you taking on the risk of being self-employed if you're going to stick to all these arbitrary rules? So let me just normalize for you that, yep-- every boss I know has some version of that.
So the first thing I'd say is if you can get a therapist or a coach or a spiritual support, do that. Cause honestly, arguing with yourself is never going to work anyways. If that's not a financial option right now, which it's not for a lot of people, get a journal, if there's some trusted other self-employed people, you can be in a mastermind with set that up, set the ground rules up.
Again, be careful there because you don't want to add to each other's stuff, but you can find people you trust to talk it out with. And you can do the work you do, you can do some energy healing. You can do some meditation, you can build that mindfulness muscle that will all help.
The top tier is working with someone because they're going to be able to call you on all those things, more so than a journal. And it's definitely an awesome second option, but I don't know. I'd love to hear your opinion on this. I'm not convinced we can do it alone a hundred percent. Or we can, but maybe it takes way longer. I'm curious what your views are.
Julia: [00:27:43] We go so much farther and quicker if we go together, than if you try and be a lone Wolf about it. I'm not saying it's not possible. So I had self-treated my anxiety and depression with meditation, and that took years, right?
But it worked and maybe if I had support, I could have gotten there even quicker, or with less bumps along the way. And if I was brave enough and kind enough to myself, I could have gotten myself that external support. But, I was doing the best I can. So I always recommend if you're able to, reach out to someone.
Jess: [00:28:14] Same. I think we've also got this sort of funny, it counts more if I've done it alone. No one's keeping score.
Julia: [00:28:21] Yeah. No, it's true!
Jess: [00:28:23] Anywhere where someone's like, 'you got 12 points cause you did alone. They only got three, cause they got spiritual support'. There is no, there's not written down anywhere!
There's no points. There's no points for doing it alone.
Julia: [00:28:34] It's so true. I wonder because I'm so Type A, and such a perfectionist that I'm like, 'I can do it alone!' Like I could, but did I need to? I don't know.
Jess: [00:28:46] Oh, yeah. I get caught in that trap. Oh my God, more than I'm willing to admit on here. Let's just put it that way. Like, 'I don't need any help writing a hundred different emails. I can do it on my own!''.
Julia: [00:28:57] So I'm actually really curious to hear how you got into this specific type of work.
Jess: [00:29:03] Oh, good question. So I spent over a decade in big corporate And I was walking this tight rope of being recognized at a relatively young age as being very accomplished, very talented, on the high potentials list-- cause corporates love to put people in lists, all that kind of stuff.
And I felt like I was walking this tight rope because I didn't feel that inside at all. If I made a single mistake, I couldn't. . . Handle it. I had no resilience. I had no inner confidence. I just had a lot of posturing. And a friend, my best friend, she really is-- I like to super narcissistically think the universe put her on earth just for me.
I'm sure that she's living her own story, but anyway. She was doing coaching training at the coaching collective institute that I talked about, and she had asked me to be a sample for some of the other students in the course. So I did that and I was like that's a little sip of the Kool-Aid.
That was pretty magic. So then I hired a coach, we dug into all the things, and that was the gateway for me. Of really the inner work, because up until that point, I'd done degrees and I'd done the post-graduates and I'd done all the outer. There's like letters after names and there's papers on walls and frames.
But I'd not done a single piece of inner work, no therapy, no coaching, no energy work nothing. And that was the gateway for me. It was like, that moment where you get exposed to something and you've been struck by lightning.
I was like, okay, I got a taste of it. I'm going to dive down the rabbit hole. And I did all the things. Like I was saying before, like I did the coach training, yes. And I sold all my stuff and moved to England. I went on Buddhist retreats. I got trained in meditation. I got energy healing, Reiki, mediums, psychics. Intuitive coaching, like you name it.
And I was like, ' yeah, I'll sample some of that'. And for me, obviously that clarified a lot of where my excitement and, I call my company Light Up Work because that's the thing I'm curious about is, how do you make work light and fun and joyful?
And I don't buy into the myth that like, 'that's fine for you, but I work at a manufacturing plant, so we can't have fun'. I'm like, ' Hmm. I don't know. I don't think that's accurate. Let's examine that a little bit'.
And so I got a taste of the Kool-Aid, dove in and just like chugged gallons of it and realized how much of what lights me up in my corporate world was the team building side of things, the workplace culture, coaching and developing leaders.
And then, I had, my first kid, realized they didn't want to work 60 hour weeks anymore and started slowly but surely doing it on my own. So it was just a regular old step-by-step kind of deal. Yeah.
Julia: [00:31:33] Yeah. It's funny how that sneaks up on you, isn't it?
Jess: [00:31:35] Yeah. Yeah. It is.
Julia: [00:31:36] I also do work in helping people understand that they express themselves no matter what job they're doing. So there is some part of you, you may not have felt completely fulfilled in your corporate job, but you're like,' I really like the team building part. That feels like me'.
And I really love the encouragement behind, you can create a job or your job can be joyful.
Jess: [00:32:00] Yes. And I love the way you said, 'you can create a job or your job can be', cause I think that we put a little bit, sometimes too much pressure on our jobs to also overlap completely with our soul's purpose. And don't get me wrong, I think it's freaking awesome. When you can get paid to do your soul's purpose, like hell yes to that. But if your soul's purpose is to create beauty and you feel so lit up with, and that's your thing, I think we start to put pressure on ourselves.
Like, 'okay, now I got to go to design school and I got to go be an interior designer and I have to get all these clients'. Maybe. Or sometimes you can keep working as a financial assistant cause you don't hate your job and it funds your soul's purpose.
So I always like to caution people, yes I'm an advocate for loving your work. I think just don't also make up that it has to be your calling. Sometimes they can be different. Like a friend of mine, she's so fantastic. She works part-time in a finance department over in England. She has a podcast as well. She's so spectacular.
And she likes her job and she likes who she works with. And then cause she works part time and she does coaching in her other hours. And she's happy with that.
It's not 'like, Oh, I can't wait to quit that job. It's the worst. It makes me so miserable'. She's like, 'no, it's great. I like it. Love my colleagues, we've a great time.' That can be a model that works too.
Julia: [00:33:19] I completely agree. It's about finding outlets for who you are.
Jess: [00:33:24] Yeah, a hundred percent.
Julia: [00:33:26] Yeah. And the current paradigm that we have, that's not going to fit everyone. And if you're someone like me who follows a very non-traditional career path, there's no degree path, for what I do. We can try, we can create certifications and whatnot, but there's no governing board for what I do. So it required me to remove myself from the paradigm I was in. But that being said, that's not going to work for everyone.
So I do like the idea of, 'well, I'm really happy doing this, and then I'm also really happy doing this other thing I do, and I feel fulfilled. I'm good. I'm great'. I think that's cool. If you can manage that because I've had a couple jobs from like, I really like the community aspect of this. I got great friends here. Everything seems to be working. I just hate what I'm doing.
Jess: [00:34:10] Yeah.
Julia: [00:34:12] Yeah. Everything else is great, but--
Jess: [00:34:14] And who, I think it was, I want to say it was Mark Nepo who said-- I'm going to totally butcher this quote-- but the idea is, if you love something, love it and do it. Stop trying to turn your verbs into nouns. So if you love gardening, garden. Go and stick your hands in some dirt. You don't then have to go to horticulture college and start a landscaping company.
You can just go and get dirty. That can be exactly what you need.
So it's, I think it's sort of circle back to what we were saying earlier. What we were talking about around curiosity. Get curious about it. Maybe your soul's purpose is to teach flamenco dancing on Saturdays and then be an accountant nine to five. And that is perfect for you. And maybe it's burning everything to the ground, moving to Argentina. You know what I mean? Get curious!
Julia: [00:35:02] Yeah. And then it brings me back to this idea of imposter syndrome. I think sometimes people wrestle with this idea, 'well, if I'm not doing it fully, am I really this thing'. You ever run into that, or something where you're like, 'well, I do it part-time but am I a photographer? I don't know'.
Jess: [00:35:18] All the time. And that's just another story you have to unpick. Like it's as simple as that. It's just we live in a very, you know what, I'm not trying to blame it all on the patriarchy, but we live in a society where you meet someone new and you go, 'hi, I'm Jess, what do you do?'
And they go, 'hi, I'm Tiffany, I'm an accountant. What do you do?' Your identity is your productivity. Your identity is the thing you do, 40 hours a week. Yeah. And it's just a made up paradigm that actually doesn't serve anyone anymore.
So just being mindful of that, it's also still being in your integrity. I think that's part of the challenge some people have with the advice they see on imposter syndrome is like, 'just say, you're a photographer who cares!' That feels out of integrity for you. It's like, 'well, I'm a photographer, but I never actually had any clients', you can say, 'oh, I work in a finance department, nine to five and I'm an aspiring photographer. I love photos. And I'm so excited to do that even more in the future'. You can still be in your integrity and not let the imposter syndrome quiet you down.
Julia: [00:36:12] Yeah. Because it's almost like an affirmation that you don't believe. Yeah. Yeah. It's never going to work.
Jess: [00:36:18] Yeah, I know. I always say I'm like, 'affirmations are awesome'. I love them. I tack them up all over, but when I say them out loud and I feel like a complete fraud, it's not helping me cause it's my brain back to arguing with itself. And it just feel weird and gross. So I need something a little closer to my current state to work for me anyways.
Julia: [00:36:37] No, I was the same way ,and I remember trying to get to a point where I felt comfortable identifying myself as a medium or a channel or an Akashic records reader, I would say, 'but are you though? Like, who gave you permission?' And so you get to the point where it's like, well I have done it before.
You know, It's almost like baby steps. And I think that is a really great way to help you get to that big audacious career goal. Do you think that maybe your career goals should maybe scare you a little bit to excite you? Is that the better word?
Jess: [00:37:06] Oh wow. Interesting question. I've never been asked that before.
Julia: [00:37:11] I like to challenge my guests.
Jess: [00:37:12] Oh my gosh, you're good at it. If I knew this, I wouldn't have signed up.
I'm going to go with, yes. Even though I'm just thinking about it on the spot and I might email you later and say, I changed my mind. I'm a process-after-the-fact kind of gal, but I'm going to say yes, because anything that doesn't scare you-- and not full fear, like relax everyone, but it should give you a little bit of like, 'Ooh, I don't know. That feels like a stretch'.
Anything smaller than that, it's probably letting your stories take over a little bit. And when I say smaller, by the way, I want to be really clear with people. Your audacious career goal might be to take a three year secondment and travel.
It doesn't always have to be promotions, more, bigger. For some people it's like, 'I'd love to go down to three days a week so I can spend time with my kids or to travel or to sit and write'. So just be mindful-- again, that curiosity muscle. Cause for some people it's terrifying thinking of going down to three days a week, or six hour days, or whatever.
So it should be a little uncomfortable. It should feel a little outside your realm of something you can do right now; and don't make up that, that means bigger and more. Sometimes what scares you is less, quieter, more being less doing. So notice that as well.
Julia: [00:38:34] That's a really beautiful distinction.
I have been of the mindset that big and audacious meant more, rather than sometimes less.
Jess: [00:38:44] We do! Yes. Yeah.
Julia: [00:38:46] And it's almost the less that's more scary, than going for more. That's a really good point.
Let's see. Is there anything else about your work that I'm missing or that I've overlooked? What's that? What else is a really big part about what you do?
Jess: [00:38:57] This was just so much fun talking to you. I don't really remember what we've talked about. It was just like I says, jamming with you. I feel like we covered a lot of it. We covered a lot of it.
If I have one final little bumper sticker, I want to stick on everyone's face is, yes, it's this. And it's about confidence again.
Here's the other thing we do with confidence. What we get wrong is we think it's like a cookie-cutter thing. You being confident is going to look very different from the next person's confidence. And it's a continuation of what we were just talking about, but confidence for one person is going to look and sound different from the next person.
Building that curiosity of, where do you feel like you're you got the exhilaration, you're a little on your edge and you're believing in your abilities and you're doing your thing? That's not going to look the same as the next person. So not to get tripped up in, 'it has to look a certain way'.
That's more just nonsense that your brain's feeding you to say, 'you're not there yet. You're not there yet'. No, you probably are. I'd be willing to bet some money that you're probably there already. So just feel into that a little bit.
Julia: [00:39:58] I think sometimes when we're not sure about where we're going or what it is that we want, maybe we can get into that trap of,' this is what someone else is doing. And in order to be successful, I need to do that as well'. I get that a lot. Especially in a career that you have to make up as you go along.
Jess: [00:40:16] Yeah. Forging your path, man. There is no like, 'I'll just do it the way that person does it'. Like, that person doesn't exist for you. So you're like making it up again!
Julia: [00:40:27] Yeah. Did you run into that in building this coaching career of yours? You're like do I mold it off someone else's or do I completely wing it?
[00:40:36] Is it a confidence sort of thing that you have to--
Jess: [00:40:39] It's such a good question. I would argue, I totally messed that up the first, probably two years. And it's fine. Cause I learn best by screwing things up, so it's fine. But I was just like, 'okay, I watched a webinar by Marie Forleo, so I just have to do all those things'.
That's not me! Like, 'okay, I downloaded this freebie from this person. So I have to implement these 10 steps and then I will have my business figured out'. Look, I love learning from people and you don't have to recreate the wheel. And of course, you can understand, look at how other people do it. But yeah, I was a mess.
Huh? I was just, I still wrestle with that. A lot of The discomfort of I'm doing this a little bit differently than this person who I really respect over here. So that's really, 'Ooh, I don't like it. I don't want to be out on my own'. But I've built my ability to stay in the discomfort of 'I'm going to just try it my way and I can course correct'.
That took-- yeah, that's taken me 15 years.
Julia: [00:41:40] That's resilience training.
Jess: [00:41:41] There we go.
Julia: [00:41:43] Well, Thank you so much for talking with me, Jess. Would you mind telling everyone how they can reach you and work with you?
Jess: [00:41:48] Yes. Thank you so much. I knew this was going to be so much fun, but I proved correct. Yeah, the best place to find me is usually on Instagram. That's where I hang out the most. So @Lightupwork. My website is lightupwork.com, and I have some fun, little free stuff on there. I have a confidence archetype quiz. I'll just give you some ways to lean more into your brand of confidence.
And that's really the best ways to start working with me. It's just find me there and yeah, we can connect and hang out.
Julia: [00:42:15] Awesome. I love quizzes. So I'll be taking that.
Jess: [00:42:17] I know me too. This is why I made one. I'm like, I'm obsessed with quizzes. Anything like what brand of dog are you? What kind of laundry detergent are you?
Julia: [00:42:24] Oh my God!
Jess: [00:42:24] I need to know this!
Julia: [00:42:26] Tell me who I am through what color Lightsaber lightsaber I am.
Jess: [00:42:28] What Harry Potter character?
Julia: [00:42:32] Yep. Same. Thank you so much. I hope people reach out to you. I'm looking at your website right now and it looks amazing. I love anyone who can go on a Buddhist retreat in a forest.
So that sounds super fun.
Jess: [00:42:45] Oh, thank you. I'm so grateful. We got to hang out. I had so much fun with you.
Julia: [00:42:49] Me too. All right. See you next time.