FROM STRETCHED TO STRUCTURED.

So obviously when we met you were going through a huge executive career transition. You were entering one of the toughest job markets in the last decade... Can you share a little bit about like where you were when we met?

But when I found myself in a career transition... it was really trying to understand one that transition is not always something that is happening in a dramatic state or panic state. Sometimes transitioning is happening when we don't see it or feel it where it doesn't seem tangible.

So for me that's what it really was about. Like where am I trying to get to for tomorrow? What is my why? What is my North Star? And when I had some time to think about that, I connected with [Career Evolved] because I thought it would allow, I would call it the structure for me to operate in, to reaffirm in myself who I am and who I continue to grow and evolve to be.

I might've had a fleeting thought of would I have to take a pay cut, but I believed in myself, the work that I've been able to do, the people that I've been able to impact, the value that I bring to organizations and to others.

How did you maintain that belief when everyone around you is struggling to get a job? I mean, there's most people at your level are out of work for at least a year, right?

It was probably almost close to a year before I'll start back working for an organization. But within that year, can I tell you, it was some of the best time ever...

I surrounded myself with individuals, whether it was friends, mentors, family... whether it was statements, whether it was suggestions, affirmations that we use in [Career Evolved]. And that allowed me to sometimes sit back and say, Oh, okay. I have done this. I am capable. I will be successful.

I was told by a friend of mine, a mentor of mine, that faith and fear cannot exist in the same place. And it's still something that every day I have to preach and practice to myself and affirm to myself.

So the affirmations were things that I had to use that continue to encourage myself... That's one of the things that CE did for me and so many others. It provided a structure around my time of uncertainty. It helped me with the language for what I was feeling.

It wasn't about a fantasy, you have to put in the work.

I think when people lose the title, they lose the job, they lose all the direct reports and they're thrown out in the market. Now you get to see how strong that value and belief and trust and ability. And it's one thing to know your worth. It's another thing to command it and make it happen.

One of the things I share with you is I think anyone in transition, whatever it is, has to remember we are not our titles. We are not the organizations we have worked with. I say work with, not work for. We are not the businesses that we may have built. We're more than that.

Now you're at one of the top 10 employers in the country, a team of 300 people below you. It's just the level of responsibility you have to carry daily. That's a lot to hold and to be so light with your energy and joyful.

The transition has not stopped the day that you accept the offer, the transition, it continues. I've moved almost across the country. So new area geographically, weather-wise, new culture within the people that I interact with. So that's still a part of the transition.

Sometimes transitions happen quietly. Sometimes they're happening internally before it ever shows up on a LinkedIn.

Give yourself grace, take time to sit back and as much as it's uncomfortable, use the time to reflect, to recharge, to reconnect, and decide what you want your next to look like.

The best version of you is just along the horizon. It's not where you are. You're just being prepared. You're just being stretched a little bit.