Don’t mix work with pleasure, people tell you. I am not the same person at home than I am at work, something I have never understood. How can someone be this horrible, mean person at the office and then suddenly at home be a lovely, committed partner who picks up a tiny pink telephone when their toddler calls them on the play phone? How can someone lie through their teeth, make up stuff, and then swear that they are an honest person? That one has nothing to do with the other, they say. Frankly, between you and me, I call BS.
That contradiction is the bridge between how you show up and who you are. And we see it everywhere right now, most loudly in politics. The old, outdated message of more, more, more is clashing against what most people believe in, and the ones proclaiming that message the loudest are usually the ones carrying the double bind themselves. Much of corporate is regressing straight back into that same behavior, because it is easier to treat people like numbers on a spreadsheet than as people.
They pay a lot and make it easy. Corporate gives us free treats, coffee, maybe even go-carts to make work fun. But at some point they turn on the screws, and we are caught in the golden cage. We can’t leave, we make too much money, the outside world is overrun with those of us who have exited, meaning how much opportunity is really left? And we designed a month-to-month lifestyle that doesn’t allow us to take time off, to take care of ourselves, because we become the victims of our own success. The more money we make, the more money we spend. We invest it into our children’s education, bigger cars, bigger homes, better vacations. We chase and chase and chase. Our identity becomes the job. The way they see us, whomever they may be, edified in our job title, our carefully crafted image.
And then it happens. Boom. A moment in time. A fire. A health scare. The death of someone. Or, like in Rachel Castro’s case from Know BS, a large commission check she got screwed out of.
I always say that change only happens when the pain of staying is greater than the fear of changing. And almost everyone I know thinks change is great, as long as everything stays the same!
Change is hard. With the fire that took everything from us that we owned eighteen months ago, we didn’t have a choice. Many of these life-changing events don’t leave you a choice. If it’s not there, you have to rebuild it. If you rebuild it, what are you going to rebuild? And on and on the question goes, circling back to the beginning.
When you are in a disaster of any kind, you know who your friends are. You learn how long the empathy window is. You learn how to receive, how to allow people into your life. You learn that always being in control deprives others of the chance to step up. And often, you pray. You pray for a sign.
I prayed for a sign to tell me what in the world this all meant. At the same time, this week’s podcast guest, Rachel Castro, prayed for a sign on how to get out of corporate and do her own thing. That is how we met, two years ago, just a few months before my disaster. She had her wake-up call. And I had my fire.
Today she is well on her way with her business. She leads a team of five, her branding is locked in, and she has done everything exactly right. Of course, there have been mistakes and setbacks, but she tells the story of how she escaped corporate and figured out how to make this life happen for herself. Today she makes decisions like a boss.
And what was it that she wanted, as a sign that she came out on the other side? To take her mother on a first-class trip to Europe. She’s there now, two years after first uttering the wish.
Every Person Matters
In my entire career I never looked at myself as up there, or above anyone. I learned this from my father who said that good company needs everyone including the janitor, and I better treat all of them with the same respect. And from Brian Tracy, the speaker and author of many books. I was his celebrity handler at an event, and people followed him all the way to the valet just to talk to him. I whispered in his ear that he only needed to say the word and I would free him from the trove of fans clinging onto him. He looked at me and said, “Every person matters.” And he meant it.
I never again looked at a person as a lead, a prospect, or a KPI. I realized he was right. Every person matters. When we engage in business from that perspective, we give to our clients, and we allow them to give to us.
Rachel is one of those people. She pushed me, more than once. And she’s been right, more than once. If we don’t allow the signs we pray for to be heard, we only continue down the same path. But if something stops us, if someone asks you a question like “can you teach me to be you,” perhaps in that one sentence was everything hidden that I am building now.
Seeking Connections, Not Transactions
It’s no longer about me. I don’t need to be on the stage anymore. I don’t have to fight my age and be upset if I don’t fit the mold of the cool 35-year-old. I don’t have to be the one with the microphone, the fancy suit, and the high heels. I can be the person in the background, applauding my client who just delivered the talk in their fancy suit. And I can say hell yes when they soar past me. Not to say that I’ll say no to an opportunity to share my message and microphones are most certainly welcome, but it doesn’t have the same pull.
Do I need a thousand clients, or can I work with a number that doesn’t make me lose myself again in the to-do lists, that gives what I have built and puts it into the hands of Founders of the Future, those who come after me? Can I find the same joy in watching someone dance with joy and be successful as I would if it happened to me?
The answer is yes. This is what is emerging nineteen months after the fire. I don’t seek transactions. I seek connections.
Closing Reflection
My hope is that if you have been watching my story, you recognize that change means changing something. That the thing you’re holding onto so tightly wasn’t yours to begin with. Nothing is. We take nothing with us. It’s all borrowed anyway.
This is a question I ponder again and again. If we let go of the construct of what we designed ourselves to look like, and fully surrender to this moment, the lack of clarity, the confusion, the deep desire with no fully formed plan, and trusted that what is ours is coming the same way we were forced to face the truth that what we had wasn’t working, would that not open the door you are waiting for?
Let’s grow,
Beate