Financial Feminist - 64. Finding Your Purpose with Ashley Stahl

Episode Date: January 10, 2023

The great resignation that started in 2021 set off a wave of workers across industries finally asking themselves the question, “is this REALLY what I want to do with my life?” If you are one of the many, who have considered a career change or are still trying to figure out what that “passion” is, today’s guest is here to help you untangle the modern job hunting advice and help you discover your unique skillset, and how to use them to find your dream job. Tori is joined by Ashley Stahl, author of You Turn: Get Unstuck, Discover Your Direction, Design Your Dream Career, to talk about the ten skillsets she believes are the most valuable in the current market, how to know which one is yours, and how she utilized her skills working for the Department of Defense to trust her instincts and build a career she loves. Learn more about Financial Feminist, our guests, get transcripts and resources on our show notes page: https://herfirst100k.com/financial-feminist-show-notes  See if Tori is coming to a city near you for her book tour! https://herfirst100k.com/hfk-events Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, financial feminists. Hello. This episode, it is January for you, but for me, it is December 20th and it is snowing outside in Seattle and I am sitting here recording, looking at all the snow and I am over here just like singing my Christmas carols and loving life. A week before my book launched, I'm trying to get a little bit of calm energy before the beautiful metaphorical storm. I hope the new year has been treating you well. How's the future? How's it looking? But we're back today with our usual guest episodes. And let me tell you, wow, this one, I was taking notes while we recorded for like things to think about in my own life. It is so good. It is so good for anyone who's

feeling lost in their career, lost in their purpose, lost in life, and just trying to figure out what a next step might be. If you're someone who's wanting a change and not sure how to get there, well, then this episode is for you. Ashley Stahl is a counterterrorism professional turned career coach, an international bestselling author, a Fortune 500 spokesperson, and an expert on intuition, career clarity, best-selling author, a Fortune 500 spokesperson, and an expert on intuition, career clarity, and fulfillment. Damon John from Shark Tank says Ashley's bestseller, U-Turn, Get Unstuck, Discover Your Direction, Design Your Dream Career is, quote, the ultimate guide to discover your path in the workforce. With more than 7 million views, her TEDx talk on intuition and fulfillment

is ranked amongst the top 100 TED Talks on the internet. Between her online courses, subscribers, and show, the U-Turn podcast with 2 million downloads, she has been able to support clients in 78 countries in self-discovery, upgrading their confidence, and finding career fulfillment. She maintains a monthly career column in Forbes, and her work has also been featured in outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, CBS, South, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and more. Ashley is such a wealth of information, and you should check out her book after you listen to this episode. In our conversation, she breaks down how she figured out that her dream job was no longer her dream, what she did

to pivot, and walks us through what she considers the 10 skill sets of the workforce and how to determine which might be your best and how to use that skill set to figure out the next steps in your career. It's a great episode for anyone in a transition or thinking about transitioning in their career. Let's get into it. And now a word from our sponsors. you came on i was like is it cara diogardi is that who we're is that who we're we're chatting with oh my god i love that for me no she's she's great i don't know what she's up to i kind of want to google her now i was just wondering what 50 cent and cisco are up to why what's what prompted that i just heard the thongs i just i'm in miami right now and i just I was just wondering what 50 Cent and Cisco are up to. Why? What prompted that?

I just heard the thongs. I just, I'm in Miami right now. And I just heard the thong song in a coffee shop. And I was like, where has Cisco been? Okay. So we have like three things to talk about before we actually get in the episode. Okay. I've never been to Miami. I'm going in like two weeks for a speaking engagement.

Do you have recommendations? I've never been before. Wait, what are the dates? Because I want to be with you if we can make it happen oh shit um let me see and if anybody the podcast will be long out by the time this has happened but it is the week so the week of the fifth yeah it's the sixth the night of the sixth december 6th is when i'm in miami that's perfect if you have any space let me know me know and we can rage against the machine. The thing I love about Miami is that there's always airplanes going by when you're on the beach with little signs that are like, little John tonight

in the club, fat Joe. It's like a dream. That's like their marketing. That's like their advertising. You're just laying on the beach and they're just letting you know with the airplane. Yeah. Yeah. I've literally, I've never been to Miamiami oh do you live there is that where you live full time no i'm in a i'm in a new little situation ship right now and it's taking place in miami it's taking place you're like i've planned it i've designated miami as our location it started in new york and it trickled down to the tropics yeah i love it okay yeah so you look exactly like carrie deogard i'm literally going to google her because i'm like wondering what she's up to for those who are wondering who that might be um the only reason i know her is because

she was an american idol judge for a while but she's like a songwriter and a singer she got married in 2009 thrilling wow she's uh sold sold sales of albums on which her songs appear exceed $160 million. Wow. There you go. What a badass. I don't know what she's up to now. Maybe still writing songs. I don't know. Well, there you go. Wow. You know, people sometimes tell me I look like Cindy Crawford, which I absolutely don't, but it's only because I have the mole. I see that too. Okay. Yeah. I see that too though. I have to say though that I'm like, that's all I've got going. And you know what's so crazy about this mole is that people form instant friendships with me if they have a mole in the same spot and I tell them it's like oh we're bluetooth paired like through the mole that's

that's really sweet it's kind of like twins having like what is it ESP yeah yeah exactly that's that's really cute I had an ex tell me I looked like Scarlett Johansson. I could totally see that. Oh, don't flatter me because I was like, that is nice. You're just trying to get in my pants, but you're so inaccurate. Like that is so kind. That's what I thought. You were just trying to get in my pants with a Cindy Crawford comment. So, you know, something like, no, I was like, I was like, there's no way I look like her thank you but like i know i get um did you watch succession yes okay i get shiv from succession yeah daily i can see that too you do kind of look like a hybrid shiv scarlet like a charlotte

a charlotte a charlatan that's so kind of you to say scarlett johansson i i how are we gonna get any content out you're way too fun for my time no we're gonna loop it back to counterterrorism oh yeah we're gonna get there okay i am so excited to talk to you today so i we're gonna spend probably 15 at least 15 minutes on this so So I studied terrorism in college. No way. I, yes. So I took, because this was me, I took for fun, a 400 level poli sci class my sophomore year. I majored in organizational communication and theater, did not major in political science,

not even close. And I was like, literally, I had a physical book of like all of the classes that were offered by my university and i was the kid who went through with a highlighter and was just like this class seems interesting great perfect and so i literally found i was like politics of terrorism this sounds interesting so i took it my sophomore year and then it changed my course of study so for my senior year thesis for my com thesis i wrote about like isis how isis uses social media to recruit western women yeah and so i was watching like fucking beheading videos and propaganda and all of that

shit so i'm just so excited to talk to you so what was that experience i'm so happy to scratch that itch for you tori yay so like what brought you to that world? Like what was that like? Well, I mean, I studied Al Qaeda and the Islamic Maghreb. So it was before ISIS was even a thing. So I feel like I'm pretty outdated at this point. But at the time I had a lot of family on the East Coast and they were really impacted by 9-11 and nobody passed away. Thankfully that I knew, but obviously it was such a tragic thing and I feel like the way that human memory works is that we remember where we were whether it's like a standout weather situation like a storm or like a current event that's a really big deal like 9-11 so I

just remember where I was standing this will show you how probably young I am it was my first day of second grade was 9-11 and I still remember oh my god i love that for you give me some of that age give me some of that age youth i just i was just telling you like i went to get a facial the other day and the lady was like what are we going for today and i was like i want to look like i'm seven like i'm in an anti-aging spiral like just but anyway back to the counter terrorism which we can talk about is the patriarchy trying to force you to look child like a little girl. Yeah, that's a whole other. Yeah, or it's like my skewed mindset.

The Leo DiCaprio's of the world. Oh my gosh, right? Well, so counterterrorism. I had family on the East Coast. I was always really into culture. I had a knack for languages when I was a kid. Like I learned Spanish when I was five. I forgot it at this point, but my French is still bilingual.

And I just thought, what a cool cause for me to, what a cool opportunity for me to help the world. And I think that was very much at the height of millennials wanting to follow their passion. And that was one of the biggest lessons I learned. And that's what carries into my work now as an author and a podcast host like you. It's like the concept that, you know, my message has become, don't do what you love, do what you are. And I think the thing about counterterrorism for me was obviously I don't love counterterrorism, but I love being of service and I love making the world better. And I love foreign languages and I love cultures. And I find that my worldview is so expanded because of being exposed to other cultures. You know, one of my best friends just had a baby and I was just telling her, I'm like, you know, I really believe that when you have a baby, which who am I to talk?

I'm not a mother, but it feels like you don't even own them. It's like they belong to the world. Like they just you are just a vehicle bringing them here. And so I feel like a citizen of the world and have always felt connected to people beyond the scope of my culture and curious about them. And so when I got to college, just like everyone else, it was like, what do I major in? Well, who am I and how do I even know what makes sense for me to major in? was really just getting crystal clear on, okay, what is my skill set and how do I work best? Those are two core dynamics that I think people don't always hone in on that are really key. So when I was in counterterrorism, my core skill set was writing. And I thought, oh, I'm an intelligence analysis. Great. I'm going to do a lot of writing. What I didn't realize at the time was that that's a lot of analysis, which is pretty much the opposite side of your brain than writing.

Writing is creative, you know, then we have analytical. So I think a lot of people have these career defining moments where they make a story up about who they're going to be because of these moments. And for me, 9-11 was just one of them. And so off I went and focused everything I had on studying national security, being a part of the solution, being passionate about languages and culture. And it wasn't until, you know, like you said, I'd watched, you know, a few too many terrorist incidents in front of my face and had to travel to 18 countries that were war zones that I was like, okay, this is not a fit for me. that were war zones that I was like, okay, this is not a fit for me. I'm crying in my room. And this kind of brings up the how. So first it's what you do, meaning what is your skillset? And I wrote a whole book about this because I think that this is what people are missing the most when they don't like their career. And I outlined 10 different core skillsets, but then there's how you work best. Given that we know that more than half of people leave their job because they don't like their boss, what we can assume to be true is that how your job looks, how it looks,

meaning what are your hours, who are the people, it matters just as much as what your job is, your tasks. I would argue sometimes even more. I think there is a stat out there that say most people quit jobs because of bad bosses more than any other reason. It's because the person that is in charge of basically their development, their growth, their stability at a company doesn't have their best interest at heart or doesn't advocate for them in the way that they need. And I think that that's super important. Yeah, exactly. And I think a lot of people who

have come back you know, back when I was doing my private practice, even more so than I do now, I just remember people coming in and they didn't even know where to start to figure out how they could figure out their path. And for me, going from national security to an entrepreneur, to a podcast person, to an author, it's like, and even right now I'm in a meditation teacher training just because I really don't have an intention of being a meditation teacher. No, well, it sounds like we talk about this a lot on the show. And I'll get into my prepared questions in a second. But like, curiosity, I think is the most important trait to have, especially in your career. Yeah. Because we've literally been asked the question of like,

what do you want to be when you grow up since you're like four or five years old? And so instead of like asking, what am I going to do with my life? Or like, what is my life's biggest passion? I really encourage people, especially like young people who are like graduating college, trying to figure out or even going into college, like what is my major? What do I want to do? Just like, what do I want to do next? Because especially in today's world, you're not going to be doing the same thing for your entire life. You're not going to be at the same company. You're probably not going to be in the same industry or doing the same job because your interests change or

you learn more about yourself. And so I think curiosity and asking yourself, okay, what am I just going to do next is one, a way more accessible question than what am I supposed to do with my life, but two, invites curiosity as opposed to like panic and dread. I love what you're saying. And also, you know, the factor that, you know, we just came out of a pandemic or arguably we're still in one. So the amount of job titles that don't even exist yet, that are about to exist in the next five years and every five years, one of your core skill sets becomes obsolete. So times are changing so fast that this outdated idea of a five-year plan, it just doesn't make sense anymore. I think the truth of the matter is

what you want to harness in your career is your core skill set. And I think one mistake that people tend to make in their, in my opinion, so this is just what I think for what it's worth, they think that their purpose is in their work. And I get that idea that your purpose has to be in your work because you spend 90,000 hours of your life at work on average, which is two thirds of your time awake on this planet. So to me, it makes sense that you want it to feel good. That being said, your purpose moves. I just had a lot of friends have babies and their purpose is in motherhood right now. Back when I met them, their purpose was in their business and whether they sold it or closed it, they're in a different era. And so the pressure that we experienced from a young age, like you were saying, and I open up my book talking about my preschool graduation, actually, the principal had us go up to the mic, each kid and say what we wanted to be when we grew up.

each kid and say what we wanted to be when we grew up and which is like well-intentioned and cute especially when you know it's a little four-year-old being like i want to work with them i want to be a veterinarian like that's very cute but it's also like how do you know right and like we we've also especially with i think america is we we are so focused right the second question when we meet somebody out of out of is like, what's your name? What do you do for work? Like it's so focused on our careers rather than like who we are as people. Exactly. Exactly. And I've gotten so out of that. And weirdly, even though I'm a career expert and spokesperson around this kind of stuff, I don't identify with my career at all. I don't identify with my bank account. I don't identify whether it's high or low. You know, someone once told me, it's like sometimes you're in the front of the bus,

sometimes you're in the back of the bus, but just stay on the bus. And in my career, I've been in the front of the bus, whatever that looks like for me, like doing really well financially, making a lot of impact, putting a lot out there. And I've been in the back of the bus. I try something like my YouTube channel,

I swear, like my mom's Insta story has more views than my YouTube channel right now. And that's totally fine. You know, it's like, I think that your message around being curious to me is one of the core messages of my work is be experimental. Life is an experiment. Life is a numbers game. And what we are putting ourselves through in our career, telling each other, like it's almost like the equivalent of your mom coming up to you your first day of preschool and saying, the first person you have a crush on, marry them. It's like, wait, we don't even know who we are. Why are we doing that with our career? The first career you pick, you better build it. It's like, no, start to see your career as a pod that you enter and calibrate with. I really think there's a few key lily pads in people's careers. The first one is, I don't know if I love what I'm doing, but it's serving

some sort of purpose, whether it's paying my bills or keeping me occupied, whatever. A lot of people hang out there and they're fine. And some people, they say they're fine, but what they really mean is they're not in touch with their pain and other people are actually fine and it's fine to be fine. That's okay. But my work is about the second lily pad, which when I was writing my book, it was about how do I get people to swim from one to two? How do I get people from I'm fine to this is my gift. And I'm at least working in an area that harnesses my gift. And that's where I focus the most on skill set. And instead of saying your career is a place that you have a purpose, which if you want, that can be your purpose.

But I actually think your career is a place that you get to contribute to the world. And there's a lot of purpose and contribution. And when you're contributing your highest and best use, your skill set, your zone of genius, you're making an impact. And the research shows that it feels good to be good at things. So you feel good if you're doing a good job. And if you're being you and you're getting paid to be you, it sounds quite like a nice little flow state, you know, if I don't say so myself.

So that's really what my goal is, is to get people to that second lily pad of at least knowing what their gift is, Because then it becomes like, almost like a river of opportunities where you're in the current of your gift and people notice gifted people. Like think about your team. You probably have a lot of amazing people. There's probably one where you're like,

damn, that person is in their gift. Like they are a magician. And those people stand out. You don't forget them. You talk about them. You rave about them. They just rock your world. So when you are working in your gift, you're that person.

And people start coming to you for all sorts of opportunities that run the gamut. And that turns your life into an experiment. And the thing about opportunities is that they're really abundant. They're really exciting. They can also be a very high form of distraction. So what's really amazing about opportunities is that you get to choose. And when you know what your skillset is, when you're on that second lily pad, when people start coming to you and presenting you with opportunities, they see that you're gifted.

Your life is about saying yes or no. Your life is about filtering. Your contribution, your career becomes an experimental filtering experience. And I think that's what gets you the opportunity, not the guarantee, but the opportunity to get to that third lily pad which i think is dharma like true flow state true divine human experience of like wow i can't believe i get to do this and i've moved in and out of the second and third lily pad i mean when i'm podcasting whether it's on my show or just here with you i feel a lot of dharma in it um not from a place of like i mean you're killing it i mean thanks tori i mean we launched right in there was like i don't think i've even asked you a question and i'm here for it yeah you asked about counterterrorism like

all right you want to go into a little spiral girlfriend yeah off we go yeah so i think that um a lot of people are hungry to feel something and it makes sense for me that they feel that way. But I think that there's not enough patience to actually be in the process that it takes to really create a path that is true for you. And we're all in a rush. We're all thinking to ourselves, like we need to get an answer. We need to have a plan so that we can feel some sense of stability. But, you know, sometimes backing up, it's not backing down. You know, sometimes you need to take a step back. You know, a lot of people think they're moving forward. Like I had a friend who got married a long time ago. I remember she looked at me on her wedding day and she said, I shouldn't be marrying this guy. And she walked down the aisle

and it was just like okay I can't tell you the amount of people that that in my life that that is also yeah I've had multiple conversations with friends who are just like yeah we're engaged because it just seemed like the next thing you do yeah I'm like yeah what I know or literally I had a I had a friend who told me like we're ten thousand dollars into this wedding, so we can't get out. And I'm like, that's not it. Your divorce is going to cost. Yeah, that's what I said. I'm like, that's not it. They're married now. Hopefully they're happy. But like, yeah, no, that's literally okay. I have so many questions for you. Like literally just off of that. Okay,

I'm going to talk about your book because you keep bringing it up, which I love. U-turn, get unstuck, discover your direction, design your dream career. Can you define a U-turn for us and then the three steps you talk about in the book to make one successfully? So to me, when I think about people in their life, and thanks for mentioning my book because it's like my favorite thing in the world. When I think about people, they often feel like something's not working. When I think about people, they often feel like something's not working and we become like ping pong or pendulums where we just try to go the other direction. Like it's very reactive and reactivity is one of the worst places you can be in for your career because you're not thinking clearly when I mean, your amygdala in your brain is usually hijacked when you're, you know, your decision making centers. When you're anxious, when you're unhappy, you're not thinking as clearly. So the U-turn, instead of going the opposite way from which you came, instead of reacting, is about coming home to Y-O-U, a U-turn. And what that looks like to me

is that real critical moment of transformation where we hear that voice in our head, that wise voice, that witness that is watching us. And instead of muffling it down, instead of pushing it down, we decide to listen to it for once and get radically honest with ourself about our lives. And it can be so scary to do that because happiness is not for the faint of heart, right? Like fulfillment is not for the faint of heart because it- And it's not for the comfortable. It's not for the comfortable. And it's uncomfortable to be uncomfortable.

Like who wants that? Literally, that's what I was, that's the thing I talk about with like the example I just gave of my friend who was like, yeah, well, you know, I'm basically sunk cost in this wedding. I need to get married. And I'm like, I don't blame this person at all. But I'm like, yeah, well, I'm basically sunk cost in this wedding. I need to get married. And I'm like, I don't blame this person at all, but I'm like, you're comfortable. You have the stable job that you don't love and that you tell me you don't love all the time, but it pays the bills. You have the person you're in a relationship with who it's a lot harder to get out of said relationship, at least temporarily. You have comfort. And even if you know the right decision is I need to quit my job and find something better, that is temporarily incredibly

uncomfortable to break up with this person and to admit to your family, oh my God, maybe this person wasn't the person that I'm going to spend the rest of my life with. It's very embarrassing, I'm going to spend the rest of my life with. It's very embarrassing, deeply uncomfortable, but also you owe it to yourself to build a life that you're actually proud of instead of one where you're like, I had the least shame upon my head, right? Like I had the least egg on my face. I'm like, who cares? Yeah. And the thing is that that's what causes anxiety. And, you know, anxiety is such a messenger and resentment. I mean, it's just a whole Lebanese Snicket's unfortunate series of events to follow. But I will say, you know, people usually, it's the human experience not to make a change until you're so miserable in your current state that it outweighs your fear of the unknown.

So, you know, at any given moment, we're all toggling between the fear of the unknown and our current situation and how we feel. And I hate that people have to get so miserable in their current situation that that's when they go into the unknown, especially when it comes to their career, because they were already always going to go into the unknown. So why not do it when you're lukewarm? Why not spare yourself that kind of suffering that you don't need to go through? You know, we know what we know without knowing why we know it. A lot of the time, that's my definition of intuition, knowing what you know without knowing why you know it. And we tend to push it down because it's so freaking inconvenient. And I think the difference between me and a lot of people, and I don't know where I get this from, but I'd rather know, and I'd rather unravel my life every single time because I feel it coming together even better every time. So whether that's leaving the three-year relationship or the five-year partner

who proposed to me and we got a dog together, whether it's moving to New York because LA doesn't feel like my home anymore, whatever the unraveling looks like, giving myself what I like to call the dignity of the process. There's a dignity to process. And a lot of us don't want to be in a process. We just want to be in a result. And that resistance creates so many more messes. Wow. Okay. We have to talk about, okay. Oh, this is so good. I went through, I wrote about this in a recent email and if you're subscribed to our email list, you got it. But what I, so good I went through I wrote about this in a recent email and if you're subscribed to our email list you got it but what I uh I went through something in 2020 that felt

just like I don't want to be too specific to keep my privacy but it was like it was like a the life event that just altered everything for me I got to the point where I was like I don't know how to move forward without like I don't know how to do this and I was October to December I got to the point where I was like, I don't know how to move forward without like, I don't know how to do this. And I was October to December. I got to the point where I was so numb because I had felt for so long that I was like, I don't know if I'll ever be happy again. And as someone who is joyful and happy, most of the time, that was the most terrifying thought I've ever had in my entire life or the most terrifying realization. And I was so focused on trying to get through it. Now, I thought I was processing correctly,

right? I was crying. I was going to coaching and therapy and I was talking to friends, but I kept going, oh, when this happens, then I'll be okay. Right. Or like when we get to a year, then I'll be over it and it'll be fine. And I put myself on a timeline because it was so uncomfortable to be in that I was trying to fabricate the light at the end of the tunnel. Yes. When i just needed to sit in the dark for a while like i had to sit there and be uncomfortable and that was how i was going to move through the discomfort not on my own schedule not when i dictated again i thought i was grieving quote unquote correctly but i was so focused on like, okay, like this,

this, this will pass. We'll get through this. We'll move through it by trying to move through it. I failed. And like, that was the most powerful, again, horrible, worst thing I've ever been through. Awful. But I'm so glad it happened because my control issues were so, uh, like, you know, calibrated up to a hundred that i was like okay we'll just move through it we'll just move through it and i'm like no you need to sit in it you need to sit in it for a while nothing's gonna happen for a while it's gonna suck and you just need to understand that it's going to suck a hundred percent and some of the most profound people i know they all happen to have had a lot of darkness, like a dark

night of the soul. And I don't know if it's a chapter or a heading in my book, but I talk about how rock bottom is sacred, you know, it is. And there's a power to it. Like you can only go up from it if you really bottom out. Being a human is hard. Like there's so much we need to do to be here. We need to like, you you know go to school if we're in a you know western at least society where that's the setup we have the privilege to go to school right it's a have to it's a get to but it's it's there and it's hard we got to do the homework we we got to pass maybe we go to college maybe we don't then we got to get a career and we got to put food on the table and then maybe we have kids and we need to provide for them. And by the way, we need to have purpose and love what we're

doing while we provide and do all these things that we show up for. And then there's heartbreak. And also watch while the world seems to be burning. Yes. And that was another reason I was a goner in counterterrorism was I couldn't take in, our brain is not designed to take in the amount of information that we take in every day. I mean, think about our human experience. I was just thinking that. I scroll through Twitter and I literally saw like trigger warning, sexual assault, and then right under it, like Elon Musk being a piece of shit. And I literally had the thought, same thing where I was like, if I was passing people in a street and they were just yelling this at me, I would plug my ears. I would like, I don't want to do this. And yet

we consume this level, like scrolling through TikTok, it's like i got i got fired because of an abusive boss and then like midterms and then this and then you know oh the polar bears are dying and i'm like i do this on a multi-daily basis without a thought exactly and you know it's interesting because i noticed that having moved to new york it's like I watch people try not to see the homeless people who are mentally unwell. And I get it. addict and eventually became homeless and passed away from that. And so for me, I do my best to hold what's going on in the world around me and hold my own reality and sit in it and also be a person that is happy and grateful and joyful and present and alive. And again, it kind of goes back to what we said about process. Like you needed to be in the dignity of your process. You know, you needed those days where you thought you were working on it by checking the boxes that align with what it

looks like when somebody is allegedly healing from something, but that's not what you actually need to. You need to sit with the sheets over your head and just be sad in your stuff. And the good news about life and maybe the bad news, depending on how you want to look at it, is that everything is so temporary. You know, if it's good, it's temporary. If it's bad, it's temporary. That's literally, yeah. And what I came to this realization, and again, I talked about it in the email I sent, we can link it too, is like all of those moments I had of like driving at two in the morning with friends in college

with the windows down and like telling the person I was dating that I loved them for the first time and, you know, riding a roller coaster, like all of the moments that I truly felt alive and just like the, you know, perks of being a wallflower, like alive. Oh my God, that's my favorite book. I can't believe you said that. Well, there you go. The movie, right? Where right where she's like you know she's got her head out the sunroof like all of those moments i had where i was like god i life is so beautiful i realized that was the same thing with my pain because i could feel deeply enough to be so deeply happy and i could feel so deeply enough to be so, so devastated. So utterly naked and raw and devastated. And like, wasn't that a beautiful thing in its own way? I had a guest on my podcast

named Jason Goldberg and he is amazing. And he talked about how you can't just take the good feelings and not the bad feelings. It's all one pipe that your emotions go through. So if you turn it off, you don't get the good ones, you don't get the bad ones, you don't get to pick. So either you turn it on, you turn it off. And I just think, why would we want to be here on this planet? We are beings with so many cells and neurons designed to feel. Why would we rob ourselves of the importance of that experience? Yeah. Well, and we talked about before, and I want to, I want to round back to this because what I've realized in my career and in business, in my relationships, every time I have not trusted my gut, which I think you would call

your intuition, right? It's the same thing. Like I have gotten in trouble literally every single time. Like the, you know, the, every time I, my gut has fired and gone, that's not it. And then I don't listen to it. It manifests six months later or even six years later with a person or, yeah, a business decision. So I know that a lot of people in my life have been gaslit so much or are dealing with mental issues to the point where they either can't listen to their gut or their gut doesn't speak to them anymore. They don't know how. So how do you tap into your intuition? What is that feeling like? And how do you listen to it even when it's telling you to do the scary thing that feels uncomfortable? Yeah. So when I was at the Pentagon

in counterterrorism and, you know, learn languages, did the stuff that was one of the top things that I learned was how to really access your intuition. Because for a lot of people who are on the path to being a spy, like I was, it's a lifesaving tool. Um, why do scientists call our gut the second brain right now? Because it has more than 200 million neurons. That's the size of a cat or dog's brain. Um, I have a German shepherd named Jupiter who's like a hundred pounds of pure intelligence. And I mean, I taught him how to give me a high five in like four minutes, you know? So it's like, they're pretty, that's pretty smart. And so to me, there's a wisdom to your stomach sinking and you feeling pulled towards something.

And, you know, we live in a time right now where I think we have over-prioritized our intellect. And there's many different bodies of work around intuition, intellect. But I would say first things first, if you feel cut off and you're not into your intuition and you feel really stuck, the first order of business is not to jump around and try to grab onto something. It's to find you again. When you're you, you can hear you. It sounds obvious, but it's not. I always tell people, make a list of people, places, experiences, friends, things that make you feel like you. So for me, I grew up in Los Angeles. The ocean does something for me. And so when I'm totally cut off, it wasn't unusual for me to hop in my car and put my feet in the sand and grab a journal. And I would

leave that hour feeling like a lot more me again. I have a lot of girlfriends and I love them. There's a couple in particular where it's like, wow, whenever I'm with them, I'm really me. There's something that happens in my nervous system where I get quiet and I get calm. It's hard to hear yourself when you're not regulated. And it's a very dysregulating world that we can live in sometimes. So just regulate yourself by getting back to yourself. I love hip hop dance classes. So you'll see me do that. I love rap music. I love cupcakes. Like there's some weird stuff that you're going to find me doing when I'm trying to get back into my body. But just do that. And that could take you a few months. Like be patient with yourself. Be kind to yourself. Get back into your

body. Another thing I'll say is Osho, kind of a controversial figure, but he defines instinct, intuition, and intellect differently. So intuition is not to be confused with instinct. To me, instinct is bodily. It's like your cells are firing, your body is breathing. You do not need to intellectualize breathing. You don't need to think about it. It's just happening. Animals run away from a tsunami hours before it even happens. It's instinct. It's like their body knows that something's coming and their body knows to run. We don't have that in our instincts for whatever reason. As humans, we get swept away. So really taking a look at your instinct and your body, it's like you need to take care of your body so that it could keep functioning at its homeostasis on your behalf. I think the

second level is intellect. And we live in a world right now where it's all about the brain. It's all about what we think. But according to, you know, I'm in a meditation teacher training, like I was mentioning, we only see 0.0035% of the electromagnetic spectrum, meaning that the majority of what is in front of us, we cannot see. So whether that's different cells or bacterias or beings or whatever is in the invisible for our eyes, the limits of our five senses, there's a lot going on that we are not aware of. And I think what's harnessed within that is intuition. So like I said earlier to me, intuition is knowing what you know

without knowing why you know it. And we could always get into the why, right? There's 200 million neurons of why you probably think something that's coming out of your gut. And I think it takes work and it's a life choice to live vulnerably. It's a life choice to live honing your intuition. Like I'm vulnerable every day and it hurts. It hurts to be this way. I feel like an open wound sometimes being so honest. And so, but it's the only way I can go to bed at night with myself. It's the only way I'm going to like myself is if I'm vulnerable and real. And it's not like I'm sharing myself with people who are not safe for me to share myself with. Right. Who are not deserving of that vulnerability. Right. Yeah. But I lean towards being open and honest and transparent. And I think it's the same thing with intuition. It's a choice you need to make every single day. And sometimes it will feel like it's against reason. But if you look back into your life right now the most important things in your life whether it's people you know opportunities you took something that happened to you did those come

because you intellectualized yourself into them because you decided to go do it or did something you know like i met my best friend outside of a nightclub 12 years ago like i didn't control that meeting and so i think that we intellectualize and control and plan, and we miss the opportunity to be in our intuition and to follow something much deeper. my career. And I've talked about this on the podcast before, where back in 2015, 2016, when I was working a corporate job, I would look at people I admired. I don't know if you know Jenna Kutcher, who's now a colleague and friend, which is wild. I looked at her business back when I was 22, 23, didn't know anything about running a company really. And I looked at her business and I was like, I can do that. Why can't I have that right now? And of course, what you realize is that she's been at this for like five years, seven years, and she's over only an overnight success to you because you discovered her last night. And so I kept thinking to myself like, okay,

I know I'm capable of that. Why do I only have a thousand followers on Instagram? Why do I, you know, why am I not being able to coach more than one person? Why are people not interested in that? And of course, what I've realized is like, she took five, seven years, however many years to get to the point where I discovered her and thought, I want that. If I had the business, if a genie popped out of a bottle and gave me the business that she had at that point, but I wouldn't have been ready. I wouldn't have been capable because I wouldn't have

gone through building and understanding and learning a lot. And I imagine you have something similar to say of like, I think both in how quickly society moves of like we want things immediately because we're used to getting things immediately but also because again it's uncomfortable to wait or it's uncomfortable to like slowly build to the point where you get the thing that you maybe want well so let's look at that why is it uncomfortable to wait why why do we just jump? I think it's because we, we haven't, and this is like human psychology. So I, after I got my master's in war, I got a master's in spiritual psychology. So I don't know what that means about me,

much to have like a spiritual void that I needed to fill after. Yeah. War and peace. Yeah. It was just like a causal relationship. But you know, one of the things i studied in my master's in psych was human attachment and you know if you haven't read the book attached by amir levine you have to read i'm sure you have i'm anxious attachment i'm getting better at it but yeah oh yeah me and you both sister yeah yeah well i promise you in this new friendship men have gaslighted me for so long that i have become anxious yay we are so bored of that for you we are gonna just fire them all from that yeah oh i'm a lot better and i've learned a lot and also you date people who are like if something's wrong i will tell you and i'm

like oh you'll tell me i don't have to ask you constantly if you're okay and worried that you're lying to me? Yeah, it's great when you date somebody like that for the first time and you're like, this is how it should be. Anyway, yes. I know. I know. I'm in that right now. I'm like, wow, this is easy. I forgot about that. And I feel like what happens, okay, so for those of you who don't know attachment stuff, obviously Tori and I are just like deep in the spirals of anxious attachment together, but there's four different types. There's anxious, there's avoidant, there's secure.

And then there's the little lucky 5% that's anxious and avoidant. So I won't go too far into attachment. What I will say is that how you, your attachment is about how you relate to people, especially when in intimacy. So it has a lot to do with your relationship with your parents growing up. And a lot of attachment is formed if you want a secure

attachment, meaning you're very regulated, you're okay with intimacy, you don't run when people get closer, is learning how to self-soothe. And what happens is a lot of people who have insecure attachment, meaning anxious or avoidant, meaning the anxious people are like, do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me? I'm scared. I don't want to lose you. And then the avoidant people are like, go away. You're too close. Ah, I'm scared of intimacy, but I want it, but I can't. These people, I think it comes back down to, they did not have typically, according to the research, the opportunity to co-regulate with their parents. So maybe their parent was busy. Maybe their parent was all over the place. Maybe their parent was, you know, avoiding them. And they did not have

a parent that when life happened, they could sit with them and help that kid regulate themselves, regulate their nervous system, except a hard event. And they go out into the world as adults, not having had that with a parent and not being able to do that for themselves so we also call this of course parenting your inner child right right self-soothing yes my my mentor calls it like her little girl yeah little girl who's like kicking and screaming and yelling inside that's like yeah everybody's going to abandon me and everything's awful and people will judge me for being vulnerable and it's like you have to parent yourself do you know who's so lit on this topic is dark dr margaret paul if you've never had her on your podcast she she wrote a book called inner bonding it's all about like

bonding with yourself reparenting yourself and she made me cry on my own podcast hopefully they edited that out but maybe they didn't because of my vulnerable life choice oh i cry almost every podcast i record it's a running joke here. It's just where we're at. Yeah. It's just, let's get undone together. But I think that a lot of people who are being reactive like that in their career, they just didn't learn how to self-regulate. They didn't learn how to self-soothe. They didn't learn how to have that dialogue with themselves in the in-between of, I hate my job, but this is temporary. And it's not about

just pep talking yourself and staying in your head, but really feeling like I've got you, I've got your back. I'm going to make sure that we figure this out, but you need to be patient and allowing your body to accept that you're not just going to go grab onto something, but to find comfort in the now, to find comfort in being patient so that you can get to the right answer, or else you're doing your own version of walking down the aisle towards a partner or a job, marrying it, and then having to undo the mess that never would have happened. And then you're further away from what you wanted than you thought you were. One of my favorite ways that I do this i'm sure you know liz gilbert eat pray love big magic yep

i learned this from her she writes i think i think she calls it like god but it's really like the higher version of herself she writes herself letters back and forth so and i do this when i'm struggling or when i just need some reassurance it's literally just like hi i'm scared and then the inner part of myself whatever you want to call it universe god my higher version responds love i'm so sorry to hear that what what do you need oh i'm really scared that yeah this's going to leave me and we fought last night and I just don't know what to do. That sounds really hard. Trust and assure that I'm here. You're going to be okay.

If this person does move on, you've survived worse before. You're going to be okay. This person loves you and they will communicate to you if something's wrong. And literally just like the back and forth of very compassionately talking yourself down. And literally just like the back and forth of very compassionately talking yourself down. And it's incredible what's literally I have journals and journals of myself responding to myself freaking out about shit. Like, it's so crazy. Very powerful.

And that's actually the Gestalt method of therapy. So there's a whole body of work about Gestalt, the philosopher did. And that is what his work is. Sometimes therapists who use the Gestalt method will have people sit in two different chairs. And each chair represents a different aspect of themselves. So in this dialogue, you wrote down, it's you as you are now. And then the other chairs are higher self, right? Like your wise self, your parent inside, that can help you. Is this the same guy who did the puppet therapy? Oh, my gosh, who was that? Yeah. I mean, I don't know if it was him.

You know, the person who's like the puppet is like, it's slightly different, right? It's like different concept of the puppet says what you can't say or what you're too scared to say. Yeah. Oh, I love that. Yeah. Therapy is so powerful. I don't know how all of us are getting by without it. It's a necessary thing for me. Okay. So you talked about like your gift, your flow state, your passion. I have two questions for you that I'm sure people listening are trying to figure out. One, how do I decide what this is? How do I figure out what this is? And two, how do I find that in a capitalist hellscape? Like when I have to have a job and I, but I try

not to contribute to, you know, I don't want to kick puppies or kill the polar bears. Like how do I find it and how do I either make peace with it or try to find it in a world that is so inequitable? Yeah. Well, first of all, I read this book called The Science of Happily Ever After, and it talked about how the research indicates that people around you know if your marriage is going to fail before you know. And what I learned from that is that neutral observers are powerful. They have no skin in the game. They have no attachment to things going well for you. I mean, they do, but they're just witnesses, right? So whether it's a relationship or it's your job, you can really trust neutral feedback. And granted, you don't want to just ask anyone for

it. You want to respect the opinion of the people you ask, but, uh, you know, asking the people around you, whether it's at work from college, you know, professors from high school, people that you feel like have a good sense of you, just a simple question of when have you seen me at my best? Like when have you, and professionally, when have you seen me at my best professionally? The answers that you'll get might surprise you, especially if you ask your own parents. That's always kind of interesting. Like where do they see you at your best? They've watched you quite a while.

I think colleagues though, being able to say, oh, when you're giving presentations. And I think one thing that holds people back a lot of the time is anxiety. Like for example, skiing, my family used to force me to go snow skiing and I freaking hated it. Like I just hate snow skiing. I feel like out of control. I'm scared. I'm going to, you know, hit a tree that, you know, my uncles are daredevils. So they take me to mountains when I was a kid that I really shouldn't have been on. And I was crying my whole way down the moguls. Um, and that I hated skiing but what I realized when I went skiing you know years later with friends and I was begrudgingly attending with them like kind of in a victim energy like yes I'll go with you but I hate it a they were all green skiers meaning like easy slopes and I

had the best time and I realized oh wow I love skiing when I am not managing anxiety. So if you have the tastiest cupcake ever, but there's anxiety sprinkles on it, it's going to taste like a bad cupcake. So I think sometimes we might get feedback that we shine a lot in an area that we're really anxious. And that comes back to do you want to avoid pathways that are very high frequency for you because it brings up something in your body? Or do you want to work on your body's response to these edges for you so that you can free yourself and liberate yourself into paths that really harness your natural skills and talents? So for me, public speaking, I have an agent, I go on speaking tours, I want to die every time. I want to die every time. Like 100 eyeballs, 4,000 eyeballs.

You said you have a speaking engagement. Like I so, you know, I get it. It's just. That is so interesting because I don't get nervous at all. I light up. I joked at my last speaking engagement. It's like I'm standing, I'm trying out my standup comedy routine like every time. I'm just like, great. This is so natural to me. I don't, I do get nervous, but I don't care as much if it's free because then I'm like, oh, I'm just sharing. But if I'm getting paid a lot, then it's like, this is a client. This is a contract. My agent is going to, it affects his reputation.

Oh, oh, interesting. Interesting. Am I going to say 20k worth of value right audience i have to say good things i have to give actionable takeaways i have to yeah interesting but yeah i would say where have you whenever people seeing you at your best that's a good one another thing is a joy journal so let's say you feel really lost and stuck do that thing i talked about with your intuition like start to rejuvenate yourself by being around people, places, things that feel good and bring you back into your body. But I would say also really taking a look at where you light up every single day. I hate to admit this, but when I was working at the Pentagon, I lit up on my coffee break because I was giving my mind a break from all the heavy stuff. But I was forming relationships

with the barista at my local coffee shop and I was total friends with a break from all the heavy stuff, but I was forming relationships with the barista at my local coffee shop. And I was total friends with all of them. And they all kind of got excited to see me. I got excited to see them. And it was my little ray of sunshine every day. So in my joy journal, some days my coffee was the best thing that happened to me that day. And you can write down in your joy journal, what's joyful for you every day, just a sentence or what moved you, what spoke to you or a task that you felt really like enlivened by. And what you'll notice after 30 days of doing this is there's usually a skillset pattern in there. There's usually a pattern in your interests

in there. And it's helpful to just start watching yourself and taking notes on yourself. So you can say, oh, wow, I really light up when I'm writing or communicating. In my book, I think it's chapter two, we talk about core skill sets. So I can give you guys a few of them just to help people kind of see this. One is words, and that's my core skill set. Another one is service, being a humanitarian, being a helper. Another core skill set is analysis. These are the researchers, the academics. So there's 10 of these core skill sets and i think what's so important is most people when they read through my 10 they're like oh i i feel like i might be one of three or four of these and from there it's about having the conversations with

people asking for feedback noticing your track record noticing where you feel like you're pushing a river like you really think your core skill set of speaking because you, you, you really, it took you like four days to write something that took me a half of a day, you know, really taking a look at where you're being. How do we do that? How do we find that in a world that's burning? Right. Well, okay. So let's say you collect feedback and you know, we were talking about those three lily pads, right? So the first lily pad is like, you're fine and you're collecting feedback, right? Then you're moving over to my little second lily pad, you know, we were talking about those three lily pads, right? So the first lily pad is like, you're fine and you're collecting feedback, right? Then you're moving over to my little second lily pad, you're swimming and it could take you a few months or even a couple of years to swim over there. You're it's experimentation, which goes back to the real message.

I think of this conversation is if you want to be powerless, just stay stuck in limbo. It's such a powerless place. But if you want to be in your power, sometimes you need to show up, make a commitment, see what feedback the universe gives you, and course correct along the way. Yeah, I think the wrong choice, I'm putting wrong in quotes, is to not make a decision at all. So many people I think are scared of making the quote unquote wrong choice or failing or, oh, my parents want me to be this, or I want to be able to show up at my 10 year reunion. Who goes to those anymore? But like show up on Facebook or Instagram again, who I don't know. I'm like 10 year reunion, Facebook, how old am I? But like be able to like post on social media of like, I am this kind of person with this kind of life. it's like okay I would

rather you make a decision that ends up not lighting you up but at least you know that now than doing the oh I'm so scared of not pleasing somebody of failure of making the wrong choice that I'm not going to do anything at all. Again, I'm going to stay comfortable. Exactly. And so I think when you say, how do we do it? It can be messy. And I think it's about, talk about self-soothing. You need to self-soothe yourself through experimenting with your life. And if you're not willing to experiment and course correct every time, and I get it, we don't want our resume, if we're in the workforce, to look like a graveyard of trial and error, right? Like not,

not ideal, but happiness has a cost of admission. Fulfillment has a cost of admission, has a tax and the tax is trial and error. So are you willing to say, okay, these are my four core skill sets. I read Ashley's book or forget my book. You do something else and you realize, okay, these are my four core skill sets. I read Ashley's book or forget my book. You do something else and you realize, hey, these are my three areas that I shine the most. And it has to do with your function, right? People talk too much about their interest or their industry. Your interest or your industry is a backdrop. You can be a coder at Walt Disney company in the same week. You can be a coder for Google, very different types of, you know, you have the entertainment industry of tech, but you're still doing the same function. Your tasks throughout the day from nine to five, how you're harnessing your mind, your body, your heart, your hands are the same. So it's important

to really tune into what is that skillset? What are those tasks? What are those functions that you carry out that you're most brilliant with? Ask around and then say to yourself, who do I know in the world that is using these skill sets? Get on LinkedIn, do an advanced search. One of my courses, we have a tutorial on how to use the advanced search as a way to discover more people who are out there using your core skill set in a way that maybe you never thought you could use it. You know, job titles are infinite. And a lot of the times my work is just about helping people learn what they don't know is out there. You know, you don't know what you don't know until you know it. So sometimes it's about, okay, this is my skillset. And,

you know, going back to our conversation when we were little kids, veterinarian, it's like, that's what I heard at my preschool graduation. I want to be a vet. I want to be an astronaut. I want to be a teacher. I want to be an astronaut. I want to be a teacher. I want to be a lawyer. I want to be a doctor. Well, you know, good news, everyone. There's taste testers, gamers, and all sorts of other things in between. You could do so many things.

I've gotten paid as an entrepreneur to do some of those random things that are so much fun and so surprising that I can't believe it exists. So I think your work is to go into discovery, not just taking something with the best of your knowledge, but having conversations. You know, whenever my life feels really stuck and stale, I know that it's time for me to have more conversations. So what that looks like is, you know, clarity comes from engagement. It doesn't come from thought. You can't just think your way there. So I'll get on LinkedIn. It doesn't come from thought.

You can't just think your way there. So I'll get on LinkedIn. I'll maybe put my college in. I went to King's College in London and I'll look for alumni. Let's say I'm looking into using communication as my core skill set. People think I'm a good communicator. My other question would be for you is, are you an introvert or an extrovert? So once you look at your skill set, do you want to externally share that skill set or is that an internal skill set?

How does your energy ride best? That's another question to ask yourself. And then I'll take a look. So let's say I'm a communicator and I'm more introverted. Okay, so let me look at writing or content jobs, things that allow me to use words, but kind of stay inward and stay behind my laptop. I'll get on LinkedIn and I'll put into the advanced search writing and I'll do an advanced search of people who went to King's College London.

And I'll just start messaging them. Hey, I'm a fellow alumni. I'm looking into making a transition and I see what you're doing to be super interesting. Do you have 10 minutes for a quick conversation? People who have associations with you are informational interview. Yes. People who kind of have some sort of overlap with you like the same school. You're going to get a higher response rate, which I think is always ideal. And I will also add, if you are a student, that is the card that you don't know you're about to lose. That is like the best thing ever. I like, hi, I'm a student. I'm trying to figure out my next step in my career. Do you have 15 minutes? Oh my gosh. That is like the best calling card that eventually you won't have anymore. So use it while you do. That is like the best calling card that eventually you won't have anymore. So use it while you do. And I would add to it too, if like we have a, we had an episode with Doc G talking about like, how do you reckon with, okay, finding the thing you're good at slash your passion, the things that fulfill you with also knowing that you need to make money and you need to

like try to build your financial future. So listen to that episode if you haven't already. try to build your financial future. So listen to that episode if you haven't already. But I think the greatest takeaway that he gave was there is a balance that you can find, right? And maybe your career doesn't light you on fire, but it's stable and consistent. And all of the things you do outside of that career are the things that you love. Your hobbies, your relationships, the side hustle that maybe makes you money, your hobbies, your relationships, your, you know, the side hustle that you maybe, maybe makes you money, maybe doesn't. Like, your career doesn't have to be the thing that lights you on fire. It can just be the thing that you get paid for. Because regardless, we,

even if I love doing something, I think it would be hard to show up if I didn't get paid, if that is my career, versus the thing that I'm doing, regardless of if I get paid because it lights me on fire. Yeah. And, you know, I think there's so much black and white thinking, you know, like it's either this or that, we either love it or hate it. But I mean, there's a fine line. I mean, even right now, millennials kind of started the polywork movement, meaning, you know, the recession happened and we needed to take five jobs on to keep our lights on and pay our bills. Now, Gen Z is using polywork more as a tool to express themselves, which I think is really cool. So instead of them having one full-time job, they're taking on three part-time jobs and maybe they want to work in film and they're taking three

different jobs in the film arena that allow them to harness different skill sets and explore which path they want to take. So the power of the part-time job cannot be underestimated when it comes to self-discovery. So if you're in a place in your career where you are having these questions, there's nothing wrong with having those conversations of where have you seen me at my best, getting into your body with your intuition, doing some of the things we've talked about, getting on LinkedIn, doing those conversations, but then also this piece. Yeah. You talk about in the book, and you've mentioned this, of like 10 skill sets of the workforce you discovered. I want people to read

your book. Can we talk like half of them? Let's talk about like five of them. How, what are they, first of all? And then how do we use these to translate? Like, how do we figure out what our dream career might be using these skill sets? Yeah. So we kind of started on those. So one is words, right? People who are good with words are communicators and kind of going to that same concept of introvert versus extrovert is very important. The second skill set we've mentioned was service. So the service people are the helpers and an important question for people who like to be of service, whether it's assistants or just even, you know, it could be nurses. It could not be. It depends on how you lead, right? Like a therapist or educators, like I'm an Enneagram too, and service is like our big thing. And so it's like, for me,

services take on a role of like, yeah, education and also service to my team, which I really try to do as well. Well, I think the thing that's important to know, like you're saying, is that the job doesn't imply the skill set automatically. What's important to say, okay, so take a look at this. A psychologist. Some psychologists are going to be amazing with their words. That's why people come to them. It's like they put words to things.

Other psychologists are going to be highly analytical and they're going to be able to find patterns in who you are. So two different core skill sets, same career path, different impact, right? But both in the right career. So that'll bring us to the analysis skill set. Before we get into that one, the service one, it's important to ask yourself, am I a helper because that's a coping mechanism I developed as a kid of being super helpful? Or is that who I am? I like to be of service because some people come from cultures, especially my best friend is Persian Jewish and her cultural dynamic is something that she's had to really work with is this norm of kind of being collectivistic and forgetting yourself.

And that has made her be such a helper and god bless her nicole now pavar she's a therapist and helping so many people with this but it's it's interesting to watch her have to undo that being so if she didn't do self-discovery we talk about it in my book of like this default to altruism for women of like we condition women to be altruistic and then punish them when they're not when when they're quote-unquote selfish when they choose themselves you have to come on the u-turn podcast to talk about this i want to talk here about your book please come so i think self-discovery is about undoing a lot and looking at are you really a service person or is this just trauma playing itself out from your upbringing and who you had to be?

I have a dear friend who thought her core skill set was service because she lost her parents at a young age. She took care of her brothers. Turns out it's not service at all. It's coordination, which is another core skill set. Coordination is the people who cross the T's dot the I's. It's the event planners. It's the project managers, operations analysts. These are the people that make things move forward and thank God for them. It's my lowest core skill operations analysts. These are the people that make things move forward. And thank God for them. It's my lowest core skill set. And then I'd also talk about, what did I say? Words, service, analysis, the analysts, the academics, the researchers.

Numbers is another skill set. The number crunchers, the bookkeepers, the accountants. So these are pretty straightforward skill sets. Or even the digital marketers that are making strategic decisions based on algorithms and data and all of that. Exactly. And so kind of going back to my point with the therapist, it's not about saying this job is this skill set. It's about saying this is my skill set and there's many different options that I can harness it through. And so where do I want to bring this? Where sounds like

the best fit? So once you look at skill set then you can go into your interests like you know I'm interested in writing and I also that's your your thing you want to sharpen throughout your life that's your tool that you want to carry with you and make a contribution through but maybe you you know look inward and say to yourself well I love wellness or I love fashion so I'm going to write for a fashion brand. You can pair these things together, but just realize that your interest is a backdrop. It's not the foreground. Oh man. I want everybody to read your book. I want to read your book. Okay. Two last questions for you. First, for the people out there who maybe already know what their gut is saying about their career, about their relationships, about whatever, their life path, but they're scared. They're scared of

failure. They're scared of what people will think. They're scared of blowing up their entire lives. How do you cultivate that intuition? how do you get comfortable being uncomfortable i think the first thing is to get leverage on your mindset you know a lot of the times we think we're stuck but the only thing that's stuck is really just what we think our thinking is stuck um there's so many times where i feel like stuck in my career but then i look and you know every single day we've got people watching things I've put out there. It's like the seeds that we plant keep moving. And sometimes we just feel stuck and we get stuck in that story. So I would say, take a look at what's going on in your mind. When you feel like your piece is disturbed, when you feel off or scared, check in with what,

what thought is going through my mind about this that's causing me to be scared. A lot of the times I'll feel uncomfortable and I'll do this. I'll set an inner alarm off when I feel that discomfort and say, what am I thinking right now that's making me feel uncomfortable? And I'll think, oh, wow, I'm just thinking that I haven't seen that person in five years and I wonder what they think of me. Okay, that doesn't deserve me being stressed out. Moving on. It allows you to get leverage on your thoughts and actually choose them.

We can't choose necessarily what we think, but we can choose what we believe. And sometimes when our mind isn't right, we kind of have to say to ourselves, like, I'm not going to trust my mind today, which is kind of counterintuitive. People always say, you know, on Instagram graphics, like trust yourself. Well, it's like some days I look in the mirror and I'm like, whoa, I am not myself today. So I'm not going to trust what this mind is saying. It was so impactful. About a year ago, somebody told me like, you don't have control over your thoughts. Like you don't. Truly you don't. And that was such a permission slip because my mind thinks some really mean or awful things sometimes. And I'm like, am I a mean and awful person? And it's like, no, there's some times where I'm driving down the

road. I have no interest in dying whatsoever, especially right now. I am trying to live as long as I can. But my brain just goes, what if you just turn the wheel a little bit and just like hit that next car? Like, what if you just do it? Right. And we call them intrusive thoughts, of course. But like, of course, I'm not that thought. thought like and it was so freeing to realize yeah and i want you to repeat that what you're not your thoughts you're your beliefs what was it oh you don't you can't choose your thoughts but you can choose what you which ones you believe for sure i kind of see our mind like the nasdaq ticker i don't know i've just been in new york for too long at this point i mean you're on the right podcast to bring that up. Oh, it's constant and terrifying and goes up and down all of the time. And yeah, totally.

Yeah. And you just can become a witness. There's something so much bigger watching you. And I think there's a wisdom to watching the thoughts go by and deciding if you're going to let them cause the feeling you're feeling. Yeah. All right. My last question for you. What's something that someone who is thinking about a transition or a career change, what can they start doing right now to move towards that or feel out if it is the right thing for them? I think the networking conversations are huge, like really talking to real people. And not only that, but LinkedIn is a place where people describe their jobs in a way that you might not see on job posting. So I guess I'm just obsessed with LinkedIn at this point because I think it's so useful for people to get new information on what people are doing. But don't underestimate the

power of conversations. Don't underestimate, you know, I had a mentor who once said, if you want better relationships, ask better questions. So really thinking about what questions can you ask someone that is really going to help you understand if this is the right place for you. Is your mentor Danielle Rob robey no i've never heard of danielle but she sounds lovely oh she literally said that exact she was also on my podcast she's a friend of mine she said that exact same thing she has like a card deck she's an interviewer that's what she does she's like a tv journalist and she asked she has like a question deck and she literally i think word for word that said that exact thing on this show that's so funny that's great no i got that from jay abraham he mentors

them maybe she got it from him he got it from her i don't know but that's so funny yeah ashley so impactful one of my favorite episodes i think we've ever done we launched right into it that was so good where can people find you plug away thank you so much for having me you're so fun i really hope i catch you when you're in mi having me you're so fun i really hope i catch you when you're in miami in a couple of weeks i i want to get drinks or something that would be lovely freaking rage um as far as where you can find me i my book is everywhere books are sold you turn y-o-u turn it's two words get unstuck discover your direction design your dream career my podcast is the same name you turn podcast tori you're gonna come on we're gonna get so weird on

there and talk about your book and i absolutely love the podcast it's my passion project so if you want any more content from me that's where you can go amazing thank you for being here thank you too thank you so much to ashley for joining us for this episode please check out our book you turn and you can also listen to our you turnTurn podcast. Thank you again for joining us, financial feminists. If you are starting the year getting your financial shit together and you're new with us, make sure to check out the huge back catalog of episodes. We have episodes on everything from home buying to mindful spending to how to start investing step by step to, oh my gosh, everything, everything and everything of your heart's desire. And if you're loving it, also consider leaving us a review. It's so helpful to us and helps our podcast reach new listeners,

which means we can keep bringing you new episodes with incredible guests. Happy New Year, Financial Feminists. Happy 2023. Thank you again for listening, and we'll see you next time. to Financial Feminist, a Her First 100K podcast. Financial Feminist is hosted by me, Tori Dunlap, produced by Kristen Fields, marketing and administration by Karina Patel, Olivia Koning, Sharice Wade, Alina Hilzer, Paulina Isaac, Sophia Cohen, Valerie Oresko, Jack Koning, and Ana Alexandra. Research by Arielle Johnson. Audio engineering by Austin Fields. Promotional graphics by Mary Stratton, photography by Sarah Wolf, and theme music by Jonah Cohen Sound. A huge thanks to the entire Her First

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