36: Amy Cunliffe on Compromised Boundaries, Quitting Her Job, and Leaving Well
“Could you give yourself the permission to evolve? Could you give yourself the permission to say that’s okay?”
After spending over a decade supporting entrepreneurs, startups, and corporations grow their businesses internationally, Amy Cunliffe quit and left that career behind.
As a Certified Business Coach supporting business owners in their growth phase, and as the creator of The Entrepreneur Compass, Amy has taken her decades plus experience supporting the international growth of over 500 leaders, startups, and corporations, and helps her current clients simplify their businesses on their journey towards reliable financial growth.
“We’ve got to stop gripping for dear life. When you’re gripping with your life, what can I hold in my hands? Nothing, right? I’m not creating any space for anything new to come through. If you’re gripping this old job or this old identity or this person, you’re never going to be able to let it go. Give space, like open those palms up to allow them to receive.”
Additional Quotes:
Could you give yourself the permission to evolve? Could you give yourself the permission to say that's okay?
We are the ancestors of the future, and we are the caretakers for the next generations, and so when I think about leaving well. If you're leaving your role, that you leave it in such good stead for the next person to slip into simply, easily, with comfort, and that you know that you've done your best, and you go forth with grace.
To connect with Amy:
Take the Workplace Transition Archetype Quiz.
To learn more about Leaving Well, click here.
My Bookshop.org Leaving Well library has many resources to support your workplace transition journey!
To support and contribute to the production costs of this podcast:
This podcast is produced by Sarah Hartley.
Transcript:
We've got to stop gripping for dear life. And when you're gripping with your life, what, what can I hold in my hands? Nothing. So I'm not creating any space for anything new to come through. But if you're gripping to this old job or this old identity or this person, you're never going to be able to let it go, give space, like open those palms up to allow to receive.
This is leaving well. Where we unearth and explore the realities of leaving a job, role, project, or title with intention and purpose, and when possible, joy. I'm Naomi Hattaway, your host. I will bring you experiences and lessons learned about necessary endings in the workplace, with nuanced takes from guests on topics such as grief.
Confidence leadership and career development braided throughout will be solo episodes, sharing my best practices and leaving well framework. Expect to be inspired, challenged, and reminded that you too can embed and embody the art and practice of leaving well as you seek to leave your imprint in this world.
After spending over a decade supporting entrepreneurs, startups, and corporations to grow their businesses internationally, Amy Cunliffe quit and left that career behind. As a certified business coach supporting business owners in their growth phase, and as the creator of the Entrepreneur Compass, Amy has leaned into her decades plus of experience supporting the international growth of over 500 leaders, startups, and corporations.
She does all of this to help her current clients simplify their businesses on their journey towards reliable financial growth. Amy, I'm so glad to have you here with us. And I'm going to jump right in and ask you to share your own story about leaving your job and if you'd also include information about your trip to India.
Yeah. Well, so thank you so much for hosting. Yeah. So in 2018, I quit everything and I don't like, I didn't know at the time what everything meant and what it ended up being was like, not just my job, but a whole bunch of funny behaviors. I was a people pleaser. I was overly ambitious in terms of like single mindedness and I had a fear of People not liking me, people pleasing, not liking go hand in hand.
But on top of all of that, I just wasn't sure that my job designing these services to help these startups, these small businesses, and these corporates to grow and scale internationally was really what I wanted to do. And I was really confused because I felt like I had all the success and I loved the work I was doing.
I was proud of my skills, proud of my experience, and I knew I was delivering great work. And that was where, you know, where I've had that, that ability to support over those five, over 500 entrepreneurs, excuse me. I'd even been invited over to Silicon Valley. I'm here in New Zealand and I co designed a service with VCs.
I helped, uh, that was around helping startups secure funding and I was sent to work with global teams, LA, Hong Kong, Dubai, India, leading workshops, developing individuals, teams and services abroad. And I just want to be clear that this was came with great perks. Yeah. So I had also five weeks annual leave for holidays at a very good salary.
I traveled when and where I wanted. And he didn't change the fact that I felt drained by how I got there. So again, just going to call out what I said at the top, which was the people pleaser, the fear of not being liked and why all this tension was kicking in. And I wanted to know, I wanted to do something else.
Yeah. And I didn't know what I could do. And I was super constrained by my own thinking because I couldn't think beyond my own job title. And I'd always done things the exact same way, which was following my passions. Follow the next, like, hurdle, ring, rung, whatever. And I still felt stuck. So let's go back to 2018 again.
And it was the first time that I ever quit without a plan. And without a next role lined up. And it was also the first time I gave myself permission, even though I didn't understand that language at the time, to just figure it out. And so this led me on this whirlwind year. Landing me first in Fiji, where I just like took the time to like decompress on a beach.
And then when I returned back to New Zealand, I ended up in a contract role. And that was great. And then I was wrapping that up. And around that time, I had an email in my inbox and that was inviting me to go on retreat to Morocco. And it was a personal and professional development retreat. You had to apply for it.
You had to be interviewed for it. And then you receive a notice. Yes, you're in, no, you're out. And I was like, I'll just apply, give it a punt, don't even know why I'm applying to this, don't even know why I'm interested in this. And I thought to myself, it's not like I'm going to get it. And then, and then the weirdest thing happened was that they said yes, or now it's not so weird, but at the time it felt weird.
So this seemingly unreasonable invitation would change everything for me. And 10 days after I got the call to say, we'd love for you to join, I left New Zealand for that retreat and started the long journey to Morocco. And that trip expanded my perspective of what it meant to be an entrepreneur. At that time.
I'd only ever seen it from the point of view of like SAS startups, uh, business owners or large corporates, but like people making like multi millions, but here on that retreat, I saw solopreneurs, I saw influencers, digital creators, online coaches, and consultants. And it blew my mind in terms of what it meant to be your own boss.
So then after Morocco, I, I flew to India to do a yoga teacher training and I'll just really quickly with Morocco. I did like a breath work training right at the end, not training session right at the end. And I'm like, well, it's like bow down, complete believer after that, because in like a single breath in and a single breath out.
I don't know how many breaths I'd done before that. I had released some of the fears that I'd had of judgment. So that was incredible for me to like, wake up and like, be kind of like, Oh, I don't feel that anymore. So mind blowing back in India now doing yoga teacher training. And so there I was like surrounded by yogis, but on my lunch hour was the only time that I kind of had like access to the outside world.
And I saw these digital nomads. On my lunch hour. And I just started asking the questions, like, what are you working on? What are you doing? And, you know, some of them are like Forex traders and I was just fascinated by that. And then I also met people who were like, we're in this startup phase of our business.
And we're actually going to this one particular one was like, I'm on my way to Silicon Valley to meet with VCs. Interesting. Right. Um, so I provided them with business tips, shared stories based on my experience. And they kept coming back to ask more questions and apply it to their own businesses. And like I said, one was on their way to secure funding, um, in Silicon Valley.
And I realized that with my previous experience, I was able to support him. And then so much when that he left, he was saying that him and his business partner were feeling incredibly confident with their pitch. And it was there that I realized that I had experience and qualifications. That went beyond my job title.
And so I returned to New Zealand, hopped over to LA for a while, went to Toronto to visit my family, and I was just like, just traveling and soaking up experiences and it wouldn't be another six to seven months after that time supporting those digital nomads. And after that time in Morocco that I would start my own business and where I'd help people build the skills and confidence to grow their business with a solid strategy to help them step into leadership and.
So now, today, I, I'm doing that, right? Like, that's what I do for a gig and a career, is like, I support other people to build businesses. And it's all over the world. And it's like, whether they're thinking about what the heck is going on in their careers or in their businessing. And businesses, excuse me, or thinking like, and getting them to go like, like that Drake song, like, hell yeah, effing right.
Like I'm on fire. That's what I want. I kind of want to get them to whether it's ideas or where they are booking clients, blah, blah, blah. But it's just really helping them understand. Where they may need to redefine success or their values so they can experience more fulfillment just generally speaking and work So that they don't have to do what I did and just kind of like leave everything So yeah, that's like a synopsis but dig in where you would like So there's a I wrote down a couple of notes and so I want to come back to some things But I would love to while we're still on this track.
I would love for you to share If you're, if you're willing and from a trauma aware space, what were some of the biggest like vulnerable lessons that you learned since that decision in 2018 and maybe it was in the early stages of between the leaving and the Morocco trip. Maybe it was coming back because I know there's, you know, the concept of repatriation from one country to another.
I think that can also be. really impactful when you've come from something that's big and life changing. So I'm curious if there were a top two or three, I know you talked about the permission to figure it out. You also talked about breath work and how that was impactful, but what rises to the top when you think about lessons?
I, I would say the biggest thing I realized was just how buttoned into a version. Of myself. I had created. I don't even know if that makes sense. It's like I'd put on a costume and I didn't realize it. That was what caught was causing so much of the tension for me to feel fulfilled in my work that I was doing.
And so when I gave myself that permission to just be like, I'm not. I'm not going to try to figure this out right now. Like I'm not going to try to figure out the next job. I'm not going to figure out whatever. And also really acknowledging that I was in a position of privilege at that point to do that.
I had a supportive partner and I had finances set aside that allowed me to take all this time to figure stuff out. And then of course I did that contract role because I was just kind of like, okay, I'm figuring stuff out. This just worked out to really realize that I had been. I would say that from childhood we all kind of do this thing where we really want to fit in, and I've been doing so much of the fitting in that I was like really buttoning in the parts of me that wanted to express so that that was huge for me and like.
Um, unpacking that or like unzipping that costume, essentially, that would probably be one of the biggest ones. And then returning home, home being New Zealand now, was a massive adjustment, not only in terms of how do I want to work, but I did all, all, all of this, not all, like my, my partner joined me in LA, my partner joined me in Toronto, but I did all this other stuff without him.
And so when I arrived back onto the shores here, he was like, you're like the exact same joyful, amazing person I know, but something has radically shifted. And he was like, I can't put my finger on it. And so we were no longer playing on the same page, right? Like we were no longer singing from the same song sheet.
And I would say that was probably one of the hardest things for us to figure out how to kind of realign or like come back together and to say, we're growing together. That was really difficult. Yeah, those are the two big ones that I actually found really difficult. That's powerful, and I would love to go right into the next one, which I have lots of questions about, but I often ask guests what their relationship to change and transition is, and often when I ask someone who does not move around a lot or hasn't experienced different country culture, it's a different set of answers than someone who has.
And so I'm curious about your personal relationship, Amy, to change and transition and then maybe expand a little bit on how that was with your partner, because I think that's part of the fear. Is that if we make change or if we have to go through transition, what will those around us, how will they come along with?
Or not. Yeah. So great question. Okay. So it's highly circumstantial. My husband and I always have this conversation of which of the two of us is more adventurous. Right. And my husband. For example, is the first one to, uh, huck himself off the cliff when we're bungee jumping, right? Like he's, he's doing the somersault off the cliff.
He's the first one at the front of the plane. If you're going to skydive, he's the first one down the mountain when we're snowboarding. Absolutely. My husband is like the most like living on the edge kind of dude. I know. And I absolutely love him for it. And I love him for it because it just teaches me so much.
So he's like, I'm the most adventurous out of the two of us. And now I'm like, no, I'm the most adventurous of the two of us. I'll join him on that cliff edge, but I do need him to yank me down the side of it with him. Right. I'll join him on that plane, but I'm probably in the middle of the pack. Because if I'm at the end, I'll be like, just take me down in the plane.
But I've got to be in the middle to be like, oh, there's someone behind me. I got to keep going. Right. But when it comes to changing homes, changing countries, changing jobs, I am the first one to be like, life is too short. This is what I want to do. Yes. So I really want to appreciate that your question is highly circumstantial for people and highly subjective.
And so for myself, like, I definitely am like, change is. Required because you're going to outgrow whether you understand it or not, you're going to outgrow this costume and it's going to start stifling you, you're going to outgrow a role or a person, and we'll get to that one. And we've got a, we've got to stop gripping for dear life, and when you're gripping.
With your life, what, what can I hold in my hands? Nothing. So I'm not creating any space for anything new to come through. But if you're gripping to this old job or this old identity or this person, you're never going to be able to let it go, give space, like open those palms up to allow, to receive. So there's all this gripping that we're doing.
And I'm not like that. I'm like, let go. No grip. Let go. Then I'll go right back. So I go through that process of, of trying to figure it out. And that's how I knew that last full time job I had, I was gripping, but I didn't understand what I was gripping on to, and I was just like, I really just gotta let it go.
And I called my husband, I was like, I really need to let this go. Do you support it? And he was like, absolutely. So there's that. And then on to the other piece of understanding of my partner and my husband and how important he is to me when I came back, I mean, how vulnerable of him to be able to share, like, you're the same person, but radically different.
And the subtext of that is, what does that mean for me? And what does that mean for us? And knowing that I had a partner who was willing to even have that conversation, I think goes to show that, A, I picked well. Two, we work hard on our communication. And three, I was like, but I can't imagine a life without you.
So how do we now start doing that alignment piece? So it's like, not easy to get back into realignment with anyone, but that constant choosing of each other and this, and this relationship and this commitment we made to each other. I would love if you would talk a little bit about some things you've not intentionally danced around, but that have just come up and I've just been like, they've been rising to the surface around boundaries and values and the connection of those two.
And I'd love just your thoughts on the intersection of boundaries and values and necessary endings. Okay. So I, it's so interesting that you bring this up. So I talk about boundaries a lot, but I've been thinking about. Like, thinking about this topic of values, because I knew we were going to have this conversation.
So I was just thinking about how values really played into me leaving my career. And what I would say is that when I left and I had that tension, it was like, I didn't know what my actual values were because the values I had had were proving people right that I was the best hire. Right. Being able to get the praise for the job.
Well done. I was, I also have a chronic disease. So I've got rheumatoid arthritis. And so I never want to be defined by being like the sick one. And so I'm always like, I can do just as much as the next person. So I had all these. Values that I had never explicitly said, but I had internally felt and those ones crossed all of my boundaries of self that I had never really articulated what they were.
So if I were to flip that to now, I think about like the values I have and I highly value being in community, whether that's working with teams or individuals, but the value would be of collaboration. So where I can be in a space to work together effectively to achieve a common goal, sharing ideas, resources, responsibilities, to just make everything better.
It's just the way it works. Fertilizer and soil make for flowers. So it's all good. And then what I realized now also is that I have a value around authenticity. And so it's like being true to myself and my beliefs, but being able to articulate that in a space. And that's where I would say my personal boundaries were being compromised.
By myself, because I was not able to articulate what actually was mattering to me at this time that I was like, but I'm like achieving, achieving, achieving. And I was also like, and burning myself out because I was like, I don't want to tell people I'm tired. That's where authenticity is so important to me.
And I'd like to say that, like, I have a value of being able to be curious. Which allows me to take calculated risks, right? Small, tiny risks that lead to big leaps. So that's like the desire to learn and to explore and to like, hear a lot about failing. Like, oh you gotta be able to fail. But it's like, these like 1 percent miniature fails.
So in like the corporate world that I work in, I work in the space of design thinking and agile. And so it's like these iterative processes of what are our big things that we want to achieve, but what are these small ways that we're going to get there? Like how do we de risk every two weeks? So curiosity to me is really important.
And again, where my boundary was being compromised was on curiosity. Because I was like, well, I can't let people see me be anything but like this way. So I couldn't allow for more creativity and innovation in the way that we could work better. That would suit me. I was so worried about it suiting everybody else.
The boundaries we create are for ourselves, ultimately. And they need to be aligned to what your values actually are. And if you don't do the inquiry to understand your values, and I certainly did not up until my late 30s, you'll have this tension that you'll constantly hit because you're Your manager's going to have their set of values, your organization's going to have their values, and then your values have to come into play.
And you don't always have to align with corporate values, but you've got to be able to honor yours. And to say, how do I honor mine while honoring theirs at the same time, without feeling like you're stunting yourself? I, Recently posted a quote by Elaine Walteroth, and she's talking about part of your next job description as you move on from something should be reassessing your boundaries and how leaky they were.
Because if you take that into your next job, you could have just stayed at the old one. If you're not willing to assess that and I love that you said, where were your boundaries compromised, and that you have to articulate them, you have to articulate your values into boundaries so that you can Like you said, serve yourself first, uh, in that way.
Absolutely. And I, and I absolutely love, uh, what you're just saying there because if you don't, if you don't figure out what it is that you were unhappy with or disappointed with, you'll, or perhaps another way of saying that is if you think that it is around your circumstances and your environment, And you can't understand how you contributed to that, that's where that leak is.
And so I really love that, that you're talking about that because I can absolutely hand on heart tell you exactly, like I gave you, I've told you already where and how I let myself down that then led to this environment or how my environment influenced me to let myself down. Right. Where I could have just risen to the occasion.
And I think about that now, you know, I'm just about to sign a contract. And when I think about it, you know, I sat down with my husband because it's a longer contract than what I'm normally used to. And it's bringing up a lot for me. And I sat down and I was like, I don't know if I could do this. I don't know if I could do this.
Right. Like, I'm like, that's a real big commitment. And it, it makes me feel like I'm going to be like an employee again. And he was really great. And as you can tell, like I work from home, having my husband to come around is just phenomenal for me to be kind of like batting ideas around. But the conversation we had was to say, okay, but what do you value?
Not only in your career, what will you value for yourself? Outside of the job. So I still need freedom and flexibility to travel, right? So I need to figure out with this longer contract. How much will I haven't asked that question, but how much will that be part of it? And will it be okay? And because it's longer as well, you know, we're talking at different rates.
And so what I've never had to think like this in terms of how much I what's my minimum in terms of what I value for the work that I'm doing at a longer piece. So what's my walk away point. So there's, there's been a bunch of other values that have come up to be like, oh, this is what. I understand about myself and then also, um, being able to service my solopreneurs still in the margins of, of this bigger contract.
I'm like, can I still manage that? So just, it's been really great having that kind of conversation because these are new pieces and, and nuances I haven't had to really contend with because I've had, I've had a lot of privilege in the, to be honest, in the terms of how I've set up my schedule. And so this one is really challenging it for me again and making me re examine.
It brought up for me too, you had originally said something about curiosity. And so, in getting this contract that you're being asked to explore and negotiate, it sounds like you're bringing in the curiosity piece of what is it that I need? And, you know, thinking about even the long term ness of this potential contract, what are you potentially missing out on in the next six months if you have this long commitment?
And so, yeah, being able to Touch base with your values. And I always say to the clients that I work with also, you have to operationalize your values. You can't just have them on a sticky note on your computer. I mean, that's great. That's one more step than most people do with their values. But how do they show up and how do you make decisions against and with them?
Um, so that's really good. Yeah. I love that. I love that. Like, so, so I would, I would be like, like if you have my sticky notes up there and that was all I was doing. If I was operationalizing, I love that. I love that terminology. Ask yourself the questions. I value curiosity. So where are you lacking it here?
And, and for me, what you're saying is a way to give yourself permission. If I were to use it in my example of this contract with this longer one that I'm looking at, it's like the more I hold true to my value, the better it is for the business I'm walking into as well. And it's actually a disservice to the business I'm going to be working with to, to have this internal tension.
And so if I were to look at my values and like operationalize them and like turn them into questions that would be phenomenal in terms of being like, this is how I can make it work. And that means they're going to get the best of me, which is something I still really, really think is important, but I'm going to show up in my best way without that, like, Oh, I have.
Compromise myself to give them the best of me. No more, no more. Right. And you just have that beautiful, transparent conversation. That is my next step. Yeah. I love that so much. One of the questions I always ask myself, and it's just over here as I turn and look is when something comes up for me now, there's three questions I love to ask myself and it has to be a three out of three in terms of answering.
Yes. If even one of them is a no, then it's not going to work for me. And so the three questions I like to ask this, this goes back to operationalizing values. The one I first want to ask myself is, do I have enough energy for whatever it is? Fill in the blank. And if I'm like, yes, go on to the next question.
If I'm like, no, I'm like, then really put this stuff down, step away, start re evaluating. The second question is, do I think I have the energy to complete fill in the blank? So you can have enough energy in your tank now, but for me, like looking down the barrel of this really long contract work, I'm like, do I have enough energy to complete it?
And I realized I was like, yes, and I'm going to have to chunk it down for myself and celebrate myself along the way. And to like kind of go, you're a third of the way through, you're two thirds of the way through. So that I feel that I'm still got some momentum because it's longer. And then the third question I ask myself is, will this be satisfying?
And if I can say, yes, I can see how this will be satisfying, then absolutely go for it. And again, if there's a no, I don't have an energy to complete it. Or like a no, this doesn't feel like it will be satisfying. I'm like, just drop tools, pause, take a moment to evaluate. Why am I even entertaining this? I'm just sitting with those three questions because I think that would save.
So many folks, the hassle and the pain, and so as you're listening to this and listening to Amy with those three questions, I would challenge you to consider whether those would also work for you in making decisions, and I'm also, Amy, thinking how beautiful it could be for your longer contract, should you sign it, to as you celebrate along the way, that's where you inject your travel.
Absolutely. Make sure you get it all in. I am curious what about sharing client stories specifically, but what are the common barriers and blocks that you see that the person listening to this might be able to resonate with from your work? Yeah. And so, um, to be clear, we're talking more about like leaving or transitioning.
That would be great. Yes. Yeah. Okay. So essentially the biggest one that I notice is. That people have such, so there's four that I noticed and they're going to be really common. You're not going to be surprised. So money, time, space, and vulnerability. So let's start with money. So I work with clients who are either going to be transitioning out of their career and into running their own business or ones that want to evolve in their career.
So it feels really scary because again, they're pigeonholed by their job titles, understandably. And so the concept of money really comes into this because it's like, how much is enough, right? And so determining, for me, when I work with my clients, I'm kind of like, what are your nice to haves? What are your must haves?
And we're not talking about cutting your lattes out. But it's just really understanding what could you, like, for me, travel is a huge thing. My family's in Toronto. And so it's like, if I were to prioritize travel in the next year, for example, going home to Canada is going to be high. But I'm taking a week to the Maldives, perhaps we'll go low, right?
Like that would be a nice to have, but it won't be a must have. So a must is like the amount of money. It means that you're not worried or stressed out to live your life. That's what I believe a must is a nice to have is the extra or above and beyond like the cherry on top stuff. Like maybe I could find a bit more cash to go to the Maldives.
Whatever. So there's, there's that, which ties in really nicely for time. So if I take this long contract, I'm not going to have as much time available. Right. And so this is, I'm using myself as like the case study, but this is exactly what I hear from my clients. Just as my clients say things like, I'll make time to focus on this when things in my life settle down.
News flash, your life is never going to settle down. New dramas every day. Right? It's just the way it is. I'll make time once the kids are out of school. Or, I have kids and a mortgage. So, I don't have the time now. My favorite one is, I'm too old. And so I've written this down because I wanted to remember to tell you this.
So one of my favorite from childhood, and I didn't know the word mentor at the time, but one of my favorite people is that the mayor of my city became mayor at the age of 57 in 1978. She retired at the age of 93 in 2014 of being mayor of the town that I grew up in. After she retired in 2014, she remained an active public figure serving as the first chancellor of a college and for our airport authority board.
And she was also a special advisor to the province of Ontario. If you don't know, go check out Mayor Hazel McCallion. She has since passed, but she is a force to be reckoned with. So when anyone says to me, I'm too old, I'm just going to like, let me tell you a little story about Hazel McCallion. And we all have a lot of constraints and obligations.
And so I always say with time, it's like find the pockets and also audit your time. So what can you do in the margins of your day and figure out how much time you're wasting? I saw a post the other day of someone saying, like, if you had a spare half hour, what would you do? And like, all these people were like, I would do all these amazing things.
And I was like, on my, in my head, I was thinking hand on heart. I bet you do, but you forget because you just go straight to scrolling, which no shame. I do it too, but we're not conscious to go, Oh, I've got a spare half hour. Let me make something of it. We just kind of. Go, I've got some spare time. Grab me some popcorn.
Grab my phone. Settle in for a scroll. But going back to that, if I have the right time with this Maldives example, which by the way, I'm not going to the Maldives this year, but you know, if I did that audit of my time, And I really thought about like the fact that things aren't going to be settling down, then I could just say, like, maybe at the end of the contract, that's my, that's going to be when I fit it in.
Right. So it gives you that sense of like when you can and can't do things and be realistic about it. The other one I always hear is, but I don't have space. I don't have space to, um, do my creative project. I don't have space to think on my own. I don't have space anywhere doing anything. Now, as I speak to you right now, Naomi, it's very embarrassing to tell you this, but this is also very true.
I caveat or context at the beginning of the year, I actually lost my home to a flood and I had to evacuate and everything. So I'm not living in my home. I'm living in a what we call temporary emergency accommodation. My temporary emergency accommodation is a. One bedroom unit, the second bedroom, which is where I'm sitting in.
It is my closet. It is my office and it is also where I do my workouts. So it's supposed to be a second bedroom, but it's quite small. So when people talk to me about not having space and I tell them, I'm like, well, literally in front of me is, is my treadmill directly in front of me. It's my treadmill to the left of me is my clothing.
I'm like, and where I am is. It's beautifully set up for me and it is my, my little office. We can all find space wherever, wherever we try. And if it isn't in your own home, you could go to a cafe or a library. Or if you're working, I often say that if you're in like an office building, we often have those beautiful lobbies and you could work from a space like that.
So we've got to think a bit more creatively about space. And then the last one that we mentioned was vulnerability. And this is, this one's hard for everybody. We want to make a change, but we've got to confront that internal dialogue, all the what ifs, all the what are you afraid of's, all the but I'm not good enough's, and I'm all about answering these questions that come up, like, what if, what if I do this and I make a change and I hate the new job that I'm going to?
I'm like, okay. What if, so walk me through it, what if that actually happens? Could you have, um, gotten some good work experience? Could you have made some new wonderful colleagues that become friends? Could you have expanded your network? Could you have had all these things happen and still you hate your job?
Absolutely. So could you then find another one? Alright, so just starting to really start to answer these questions. The other one that people often ask me is What if I quit my job and my business fails in one to two years, or I hate my business now in one to two years? Okay. What if? Like, tell me about that.
Tell me more. Like, let's, let's walk the logic out. Let's walk the logic out. Right. So what if in one to two years you hated this? Could you give yourself the permission to evolve? Could you give yourself the permission to say that's okay? And, and yeah, that was unfortunate that you ended up hating it, or it failed.
But could we also look at what we learned in those one to two years? What did we learn about what we wanted? What did we learn about what we didn't want? What could we improved on? What could we have improved on? So I'm asking questions to basically get you to Get better answers. But my, my big thing is that, like, when it comes to being vulnerable, we like to overthink in our heads, but we're not willing to articulate.
And if we're willing to start articulating, we'll start to realize usually that our thinking is there to teach us something. And a lot of it is to protect yourself and to keep your safe. And if we look at it from the lens of this is trying to keep me safe, how could I de risk things? Or how could I make sure I feel safe through this process?
So those are like the, the big four that I often hear from people and I myself go through it from time to time. Like, like I said, right now, as I'm moving through this idea of this new contract. Yeah, well, and I think I love those four. And when you were talking about time, the thing that I hear people say all of the time, what is time anyway?
So if we instead like harness that and say, what is time anyway, and make it work for us going back to your example of. What do you do if you have 30 minutes? I'm often told by people who know me, I don't know how you do everything that you do. And it's because I've learned how to really take advantage and elevate the time that I have.
Some mornings I sleep in. Some mornings I don't start work until 11 o'clock. So what I've done is also be very specific about what work and what it is that I want to do. And then when people say, I don't know how you get so much done, it's all aligned work. Or it's very intentionally chosen based on what values I have or what I hold dear the way I spend my time when I'm not working.
And I also just wanted to reflect a little bit when you were talking about space. I recently got headphones that are like over the ear headphones and I've always before had just the little buds. And my goodness, does that create the most amazing space wherever I am. Because they can talk, I don't know what you call it, but you can toggle on, like, not being able to hear things around you.
Yes. And my goodness, that has been such a beautiful way to create space. So if I'm walking, if I'm on an airplane, if I'm at a cafe, just being able to create that. So I think we can get curious and creative about the answers to those four things, money, time, space, and vulnerability. So I'm just really glad that you brought those up.
Yeah, I love that. I love that you're using the headphones. It's the only way I can get most of my work done. And I've got those like, I don't think I'm ADHD, as, as a side, but I listened to like an ADHD music style playlist, because it's so It's meant to get you focused and meant to give you like that calming effect.
So I'm like, this stuff is gold. So I'm always plugged in as well. It's beautiful. It really is. Then the last question is, what does leaving well mean to you? So it's beautiful to think about leaving well. And I think a lot about goodbyes at, with your family, right, like at that precipice of the door, whether it's you're going away, like I have, like when I left my family, people are like, how could you have moved so far?
And it's always like, because I had the support behind me. And so when we're, When I'm thinking about leaving while it's about, how are we leaving people behind? Well, and how are we leaving our, how are we leaving ourselves, right? Like how, what, what state are we in? So transitions are really important in how we want to make them.
So I think of at the beginning of a Monday, even about leaving this week behind already. So I think to myself, I project myself to Friday and be like, well, how do I want to feel about this? And what will, what will I be most proud of? Right. And I'm like, Oh, well, I want to be most proud of this. Well, I better make that my priority then.
And so when I think about leaving, well, I like to think of it in that lens where it's like, we're being generous and gracious with the people that people in places and things that we may be leaving behind. And that is like being reciprocated for us and to us. Yeah. So with graciousness, with gratitude and with a sense of care.
I think that's what I ultimately want to say is that like, I feel that this is a bigger kind of moment for me, but I really think of this, like, even our time on this planet, I'm really getting really kumbaya here for you. We are the ancestors of the future, and we are the caretakers for the next generations, and so when I think about leaving well, it feels like that as well, so that if you're leaving your role, that you leave it in such good stead for the next person to slip into simply, easily, with comfort, and that you know that you've done your best, and you go forth with grace.
That's incredible. I love that you just succinctly wrapped all of the beauty of leaving well and I, I think that there's such beautiful overlap with leaving home, leaving a country, leaving a dinner party. I mean, as simple as leaving a dinner party is how do you intentionally leave and I think it's so magical that you said, how do you start the week, knowing that there's an ending coming because endings are necessary and people leave.
And so that's just such a wonderful way to close out this episode. Thank you so much, Naomi, for hosting me. Thank you, Amy. I appreciate you. To learn more about leaving well, and how you can implement and embed the framework and culture in your own life and workplace. Visit naomihattaway.com. It's time for each of us to look ourselves in the mirror and finally admit we are playing a powerful role in the system.
We can either exist outside of our power or choose to decide to shift culture and to create transformation. Until next time, I'm your host, Naomi Hattaway, and you've been listening to Leaving Well, a navigation guide for workplace transitions.