Finding Yourself and What’s Coming

Welcome to Navigating Your Career, the only podcast that blends personal development, professional skills and psychology to help you get happy at work and live the life you want. If you want to stop feeling stuck and start feeling better, this is the place for you. I’m your host, Melissa Lawrence. Let’s get started.

Hello and welcome to this week’s episode of the podcast. This week we’re going to take things a little more personal and go behind the curtains a little bit. I want to share with you the journey I have been on and what it means for you in your own search for your best career and some exciting shifts that you’re going to start to see. In my business, if this isn’t your first episode, you may have caught on that what I hope people do, specifically women in pharma or biotech, is to figure out their best career move, their best role, to get promoted or reach new levels of leadership and be an effective leader. I have a specific skill set, tools and process that I use that give my clients the astounding results that you have heard on the podcast or through social media or my website.

My success rate with clients is unheard of in this industry. All of my clients reach or exceed their goals and more so make big personal shifts and growth in their mindset and confidence, become better parents and feel just happier in their lives. It is truly the most rewarding job for me. It doesn’t even feel like work. I just love it so much.

We just got back from the holiday with the long break for Thanksgiving and it was hard for me to not work for four days because I love it so much, because I love reading about personal development and career development and psychology. And I have to find a balance of those things that are my own personal growth and development and what is work so that I know that I’m really taking a break and not using that as a cover to just keep working because I love it so much. And this is what I want for you too. I want you to love what you do, to feel confident in how you do it, and to shatter the glass ceiling that we talk about for women in the workplace. Now, over the last few months, as I worked on my own self development and growth, not just for my business, but me as a person, it has occurred to me that there was something a little off, maybe even just five degrees.

Like I said, I love what I do. My business is in high demand, more so than I can even supply at times, and you could say that things are going pretty great as well as I could have even hoped when I set out to do this work fulltime three years ago, almost. So you might wonder what exactly was off. Now, I had an energetic feeling and awareness that there were parts of me that I wasn’t showing. I stand up and I stand out.

I advocate for you and others. I do what I love, and I use a process I created myself. So I’m definitely not shy when it comes to standing up for what’s right, for standing up for other people, and for being the one that goes first to kind of show people what’s possible. But it’s almost as if I had identified a new blind spot, an area that I wasn’t even aware that I was shielding from myself. A new level of authenticity, a deeper understanding of who I am and how I still had areas that I was people pleasing or doing what I thought I needed to do or what I thought was right.

And I didn’t even know it. It’s fascinating. Now it’s possible that this was something that I had just become aware of because maybe I had a block or a bias in my brain that wasn’t allowing me to see. Or it could be that I just wasn’t ready to see it. And that’s why some of these things I’m going to talk about, I wasn’t really aware I wasn’t aligned with.

And I should probably give you a heads up that this episode isn’t only like a personal, vulnerable, behind the scenes look into me and what I’ve been going through and how it relates to you, but it is a little bit woo, a little bit like advanced concept when it comes to psychology and energy. So just bear with it. It’s okay if you maybe haven’t heard some of these things before, but I’m trusting that some of you have now. Given all of the growth I’ve had in my life and in my career and the vulnerability and realness that I have given through my business and showing up in social media in new ways, it could be that I just didn’t notice these things until now because I had had so much exponential growth. Right?

When you think about yourself on LinkedIn, you’re probably not doing what I’m doing, like out live videos and showing yourself doing things and photos and posting every day, right? Like, there’s a lot that I had to overcome initially to be that visible. So it’s possible that some of these little things I’m going to talk about today, these little things that have a profound big impact, I just wasn’t aware of them because I was growing in other areas at the time. And if you aren’t spiritual or woo, believe in energy or the power of the universe. Like I said, this may be a little bit out of your comfort zone, but essentially that five degrees I felt was off.

It’s not that I knew what it was. It was just a feeling. And it was so frustrating for several weeks feeling like I couldn’t pinpoint what it was when I just felt like there was something off and I just didn’t know what it was. And it’s important to me to be the realist version of myself, and it always has been, not only for my own inner peace and happiness, but so that my clients, so you so those around me can see that you don’t have to be someone that you aren’t or be like a stereotype to achieve your goals. So I was really determined to figure out what this was, what this missing piece was.

It was driving me bonkers, so I coached myself. But I also got coaching from trusted advisors and peers from my own coach. Now, this is the power of coaching. Now, you may think, but, hey, you are a coach, Melissa, so how come you can’t just, like, cure yourself with a snap of your fingers? You already have the tools, you already have the process.

And the answer is, because I’m a human and I have a human brain. And so I also am going to have blind spots. One of the greatest benefits of coaching isn’t the strategy or the guidance. It’s a trained professional who can observe your brain and see the blind spots that you don’t even know. You have to get greater clarity and get out of my own way to see things that my brain wasn’t showing me.

And coaching is the best tool for that, because if you think about any other way that you might learn, whether it’s in academia or if you read a book or you take a class, your brain is still filtering that information and applying what it thinks is relevant. And a lot of it you’re not even retaining. But when you talk to a coach that is an expert in coaching, they can make observations and put things together that you may not even realize or even if you’re in therapy. I’ve had this happen with clients where I’m able to put something together and offer an observation that is like a click, like an AHA for them that they haven’t even discovered in therapy. It’s really, really beneficial.

So I got coaching. I meditated, I journaled, I had dance parties, I even had my Akashic records read, all things both woo and logical to try to discover what this missing piece was. And then it came to me. I was sitting having coffee one morning after being coached the evening before, and it dawned on me. But before I reveal it, let me tell you a little bit more about how I got there.

So it is in context and in a way that may better resonate, so you can kind of see how this all came together. So this all started when I decided to redesign my office. I had felt like my office wasn’t a place I resonated with. It didn’t motivate or inspire me. It was just kind of blah.

It was just professional. It was nice, for sure. I’m very grateful to have the space that I have to have my own room as an office, all of those things, but it just wasn’t me. Right? Like, if you work from home or even in your office at work, if you have a cubicle or a desk and you look around and it’s just like beige walls and nothing really inspiring, it can be kind of difficult to do your best work in that space, at least for me.

So I started practicing some of the work that I teach my clients around letting go of social conditioning and making decisions from a place of people pleasing and trying to do what you think people should do. I just taught a class on this a few weeks ago, and I’ve gotten such good feedback from that class. So you can still, if you go back to a couple of episodes ago around making decisions, you can still get the replay for that. I highly recommend it. But I was kind of going through some of that old work around social conditioning and letting go of these kind of external circumstances.

And when I started doing that, I noticed that I had made a lot of decisions around my office design for the appearance of being professional or being taken seriously when I started my business. So the paint color in my office was called agreeable gray, literally called agreeable gray. You can’t get more neutral and agreeable and non confrontational than that. The furniture was white and neutral. My pop of color that I had in my office was teal curtains that you couldn’t see in my zoom space.

My clients saw gray and white with some photos and maybe an occasional face of flowers. Professional, right? And I realized that those things I picked because I secretly didn’t want to offend anyone. I secretly didn’t want to put anyone off. I didn’t want to have calls with people where they would think, oh, I don’t want to work with this person because she has a purple wall.

Right? But I didn’t realize that’s what I was doing. But deep down, that’s what I discovered I was doing. And if you know me, you’d know that I’m silly and I’m bold. I crack myself up all the time.

My wife tells me I’m the best audience for my own jokes, but I also make others laugh on the regular, too. And I like animal print and sparkles. I like nice things. I like candles and sporadic dance parties, and I gravitate toward jewel tones and rich, bold colors. So what happened?

How in the world did I end up with an agreeable gray office? Now, again, like I said, these are kind of advanced concepts because we’re talking more about the subconscious, but essentially there are thoughts and feelings that we have that are not known to us in our conscious mind. This is how, for example, I made the office choices that I did, which were 100% my decision. I didn’t have anyone in my life telling me it needed to be a certain way. I didn’t have any limitations.

I absolutely could have gotten a different color if I wanted to. And at the time I didn’t think that I was choosing something that I didn’t want. And if we get really personal with a really personal example, this is how I was married to a man for over a decade and with him for even longer and had like a wonderful marriage and children come out of that and didn’t realize that I would have preferred to be with a woman. It’s just not something I ever considered. Our brains are so tricky.

We think sometimes that when we aren’t being authentic or true to ourselves or when other people make big changes and we’re true to themselves, that deep down we knew it the whole time, that we know what we want and that we’re choosing something else, right? Because we know that we have doubt because we aren’t sure we’re going to be accepted. And then we build up the bravery to become that hidden person that we always were. But oftentimes that isn’t the case and that hasn’t been my experience, right? So when I had this big life altering moment and I met Ellen, my wife, and all of these things, it was very surprising to me as well because I didn’t feel like I was in the closet the whole time.

I didn’t feel that way. And I think it was confusing for some people to understand because that’s what they assumed also was like oh, this is just like OK, this is how you always were and you should just be the real you. And it’s like but that’s I was my real me then too. I just didn’t know this level of myself. It hadn’t been coming to the surface yet.

And when you look back, you can kind of see some of the clues but it wasn’t something that I was like repressing myself from or anything like that. Just like with my office, I wasn’t choosing intentionally to do a color that I didn’t really resonate with. And so that is how this all kind of came to be that oftentimes like what we really want it’s so buried in our subconscious and how we tap into it and even know it’s there is by doing intentional mindset work on our feelings and tapping into our energy, right? If you just try to think your way out of things that don’t feel aligned, you’re probably not going to make good progress, that can build awareness. But you really have to tap into your energy and your feelings to let go of the social conditioning because we have so much inundation of what we think we should do in our logical conscious mind, that to know our real selves, we have to tap into that subconscious.

And that is how this can of worms got opened. So I was doing this energetic work for my office and it helped me see the gap. I went through Pinterest and looked for things that I was drawn to and left the energy lead and not the logic mind. I handpicked every item for my new office, which is almost done. I’m just waiting on my desk to arrive.

And what I designed is beautiful. It looks like it’s out of a magazine. I don’t know what magazine, but it looks beautiful. And it’s really just a collection of things that I put together one by one through my energy without the social conditioning or thinking what I should have or what people would think. And everything has this beautiful meaning behind it, so I can look in every direction of my space.

And there’s symbolism and everything that’s in this room, and it’s jewel toned. So I have a purple focal wall with art that I had created from an artist that I found online that represents the glass ceiling that I help women shatter, both the ceiling that exists for women in society and the ceiling that we put on ourselves. I have a focal wall on the opposite side of the room that you don’t see in my zoom space, but that I see. That is this beautiful cheetah wallpaper, and it is Teal Art Deco combined. It’s magnificent.

The cheetah represents strength and perseverance, beauty, survival, and the divine feminine. I have gold accents and velvet curtains. I have a moon pod, which is a grown up beanbag chair, good for meditation and journaling, and the place that my kids like to hang out at when they come visit me in my office. So I haven’t shown my office yet because it’s not 100% done. But I will plan to share this and share some befores and afters on my social media.

So if we aren’t connected, follow me on Instagram or LinkedIn. The links are right in the show notes that you can see that when that comes out. Now, I was talking to my wife about how much I love my office now, and she said, It’s so you. And that made my heart so happy, because this isn’t a cookie cutter generic room anymore. I picked each item.

And for someone who knows me best to see all of these things put together in what would seem like a random way and say to me that it’s. So me reinforces that this was just a purely divine intervention to put this space together this way, because this isn’t a generic room where I was like, that’s the kind of room when I want. And I bought all of the things. It’s like everything was handpicked. Okay, so where are we at in this episode?

I felt something was off. I started getting in touch with my inner self, exploring, getting, coaching, spending time with myself. And the first change that I made was my office. Sometimes it’s easier to start with those external things. Now, in doing this work, it gave me a clue to what else I was feeling was off and how I deliver coaching and the results that I get for clients.

And I just finished coaching a client and we celebrated the end of six months that we had working together and all of the changes that she had made at work, but also the personal changes. Like she doesn’t have panic attacks anymore, she sleeps through the night, she doesn’t have anxiety at work, huge life altering changes and she isn’t unique. When I think back on many of my clients and review the testimonials and the feedback that they send me after coaching, what they say is very informative. Yes, I help you figure out your ideal role. I hope you get it.

I hope you make more money and work less hours and achieve the growth and happiness at work that you’re looking for. Yet the testimonials would almost have those results in the background. They would have the big pay raises and knowing what they want and getting into new jobs in the background and what they would have in the front of those like, would be shining through. And that feedback and testimonials is saying things like, I don’t have panic attacks anymore. I feel more confident that I can do anything.

I have a new and improved person, I have healed trauma with my family. That’s incredible. And of course, they also got those tangible career results, but these results are so important too. And so I started digging deep into what I do, how I do it, and what results really change my clients lives and how I can be even more clear in the results you get when you work with me. How I can show you and you can see and what I talk about and what I share, that this isn’t just typical career coaching.

One of my testimonials on LinkedIn says, I will change your life from day one. Now, that isn’t just about getting 200 more navigating a challenging relationship with your boss. It’s bigger. So what does this mean for you? It means that I’ve already started integrating some of the shifts in my presence online to align with the realest version of me and the profound solutions and results I provide.

The podcast is going to take a break for the rest of December. It’s incredible to think that I have never skipped a week in the over two years that I’ve had this podcast. There are over 100 episodes for you to binge on and revisit for those few weeks that we are going to be taking a break. And when the podcast comes back, it’s going to have a new name. You don’t have to do anything though.

If you are subscribed to the podcast, you will just see the podcast show up as normal the first week of January with a new name and all the prior episodes will still be there. So make sure that you’re subscribed. Now the way I show up for you here on the podcast and in the support and guidance I share with you on social media. It’s going to get more clear and encompassing of the results and the value of doing this work and how it is so much deeper than your career goals. I’m still going to help you with advancing in your career, knowing what you want, navigating difficult work situations and stepping into your best version of yourself.

But I’m also going to go deeper into the why and deeper into the science and deeper into your self concept and beliefs about yourself more than I ever have before. Now, if you go back and listen to prior episodes, if this isn’t your first episode, you know I talk a lot about knowing who you are first. I talk about confidence, I talk about mindset, I talked about doubt and anxiety. I talk about all of those things. But we’re going to talk about it in a way that is bringing it more to the forefront as opposed to what I feel has been more of the background.

So you are in for a treat. And what does this mean for your career? Why am I sharing this with you, right? As opposed to just unveiling? Because it’s not just about you seeing these adjustments in my business.

It’s showing you that we are always evolving and growing, myself included. And that is a beautiful thing that with everything I teach and help my clients overcome, I was there first. I go through it first for you. I know what it’s like to be whether it’s not knowing what you want, knowing what you want and not getting it, feeling undermined or defeated, wondering if you’re settling, getting paid less than you deserve, feeling there’s five degrees off, and that maybe your good job could be better. Whatever it is, I have felt it, I have experienced it and I have overcome it.

In the corporate space, I have created processes and tools that combine how I was successful, but also integrate the best career development strategies and psychology in real time. For you, right, this is so much bigger than anything you can get anywhere else. And with this shift, with me getting into this deep level of knowing of who I am and who I am meant to help and why, it is only going to help you get even deeper into knowing that for yourself. Because this is divine. Feeling like you’re really you getting in touch with who that really is.

If you’ve lost who she is, shedding the norms, shedding the people pleasing, shedding the trauma and the self doubt, it is freedom. And when you achieve this freedom and you know what you want and you have this strategy, you are truly unstoppable. This is what is going to change not only you for the better, but the ripple effect is going to change everyone around you. The industry we work in, the generations that follow, I want you to imagine women having access to meaningful work without being someone that they aren’t. Women making up at least half, if not more than the Csuite and the leadership team at every level.

Women who know how powerful they are and don’t let doubt cripple them. Imagine what that would do for companies, for our children, for our economy, for our future. It’s a movement. And if you want this too, I am taking you with me. So buckle up.

Now, let’s recap. I’ve been going through an awakening of parts of me I didn’t even know were suppressed. And things in my coaching business are about to get better than ever. And you are all going to benefit. There is going to be a gap in the podcast for the rest of December and then we will come back the first week of January with season two.

We had a full 114 episodes, not counting bonus episodes in season one. So when it comes back, there’s going to be a new name. But you don’t have to do anything if you’re subscribed, because the name will just be replaced. So instead of navigating your career, it’s going to say a different name. It’s not going to be a whole new podcast.

I also want to invite you to join my email insiders. Now, if you aren’t on my email list, you want to be? Okay. I send a weekly email with videos, insights, strategies that often aren’t shared anywhere else. And while the podcast is on a break for a few weeks, I’m going to be sharing some teasers about what is to come and some curated podcast episode playlists.

Last year, I did my top ten downloaded episodes of the year and I also did a curated list of episodes for new managers. This year I’m going to mix it up so you definitely want to get my email so you can get the inside scoop. You’ll also get informed when the new podcast name is released. And to join, all you have to do is go to my website and add your name. I’ll put a link in the show notes.

Now, that is all for this week’s episode, where you got a behind the curtain look into what’s been happening in my world and what’s to come. I am so grateful for you. Thank you for being on this journey with me. I look forward to us continuing in the new year and I hope you have a wonderful holiday season. I’ll talk to you next year.

Are you on my list of email insiders? If you love my podcast, you’ll love my emails. Every week I send practical resources and insights that will help you achieve your goals straight to your inbox. Joining is completely free. Head over to www.melissamlawrence.com to add your name.

I will put a link in the show notes.