I believe that a career is so much more than a job. It’s an extension of your life and an expression of who you are. A career might be something you fall into, but your dream career is created. And the dream starts with you. Learn what it actually means to follow your passion, how to get unstuck for good, and how to have a meaningful career that feeds your life and your soul. If your career doesn’t make you feel alive, then it’s not your Livelihood.

Wow, so I’m recording this podcast, right after the election, Biden and Kamala Harris have one, oh, my goodness, I’m so relieved, as is are many people out there, I think. And just, before we get into today’s episode, I will give you a little bit of a warning, I will talk politics on here from time to time, because it’s just a part of who I am. It’s a big piece of my values. It’s an extension of my values. And I also believe that everything is interconnected. And so even if you can’t directly see the link between your dream career and politics, I guarantee you it is there. I mean, think about your greatest fear when it comes to leaving your job. And I bet for most of you, it’s not having healthcare. I know that’s a huge one that people ask and fear a lot. I know it’s one that I personally feared, think about how much healthcare has influenced your decision on whether or not to leave your job, make a final decision and pursue a dream career. Healthcare was a big one for me, because my husband is disabled, and we relied solely on health care that we got from my employer. And if we didn’t have the Affordable Care Act, if we did not have access to Covered California, if we didn’t have things like Cobra, the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, I had to look that one up. Otherwise known as Cobra, we wouldn’t have been able to stay on my employer’s health care. So I talk about politics, because it has a direct correlation to what you create your life, how you create your life, the policies that politicians put out, make a huge impact on your life. And I think health care is a great example. Because I know a lot of you are out there wanting to quit your jobs like right now. But the health care, you don’t have the health care piece figured out. And so I know I will do a whole podcast episode, specifically on health care, because it’s such a big one. And again, like I understand because my husband’s disabled and we have to have health care. But again, these policies, politics, they affect your life in your career. So equally important in politics, and the world are the men and women who are leading by example. Kamala Harris just made her history as RuPaul would say, for being the first black South Asian woman, Vice President of the United States. Wow. Like, holy crap, you guys. That is just crazy. And I don’t know about you, but I cried my damn eyes out when I heard that news. It’s so inspirational. And just, oh my gosh, it’s just amazing to think about what she’s had to go through to get to where she is. It’s just mind boggling. The sexism, the racism, discrimination, societal norms, patriarchy, misogyny. And can you imagine the amount of mansplaining that this woman has had to endure? I mean, good lord. I mean, this woman is the woman who brought us the I’m speaking. I love that. I think we can all learn a little bit of self assertion from her. But regardless of what her policies are, I am so truly, truly inspired, and in awe of this woman. So of course, my coach brain instantly asked the question, how does one aspire to be something that no one has seen before? And luckily, Camila has told us exactly how she did it. I’m going to read her quote from her speech. What she said was, dream with ambition, lead with conviction, and see yourself in a way that others might not see you simply because they’ve never seen it before.

So what Does this mean I feel like there’s a lot of times people will see these very inspirational things and just kind of like, we gloss over them. We’re like, Oh, yeah, there’s just another Disney quote, whatever. But in other words, what she is saying is create a vision of your life and commit to believing in it so much that you can see it yourself. You can see yourself in that vision, even when the whole world says otherwise. You see it, you experience it, you feel it, you just know it, that it’s happening. Because you visualize it so much. vision and belief. Now, if you’re anything like I was, all of this sounds very Disney Princess fairy tale talk. I know, but don’t dismiss it. Everything in this world has been created. With a vision. Every single thing that is created by humans started as a thought. Part, that’s just Have you ever looked at it that way? I don’t know that. Like when I learned that it blew my mind. Like, of course, the car, you’re driving in the phone, you’re listening to this to the idea for this podcast, your fairytale wedding, your college degree, your career as it is now in your career as you wish it to be. Nothing is created without a thought, or an idea of what it could be. Nothing, nothing manmade, is created with out a thought. So I want you to ask yourself this question. Do you have a vision of what you want your career to be? And how vivid is that vision? Most of the time, we create these super vague ideas of what we want our lives to be, and then feel really frustrated by it. Because dammit, we just want the job. So we could feel excited, we just want to wake up and feel happy to go to work. I get it. But there’s no detail to that. So let’s create a little bit of detail for you. What are the details about this job? This career of yours? What kind of hours does it have? Does it have a nine to five? Is it super flexible? Where is it? What’s the vibe or the culture? Like? What are the core values in this career? What does the day to day work? Like? Is it creative, repetitious? Lots of logic and numbers? Do you work alone? Are you interacting with lots of people? There’s so much about the job that you can think of and to make it more tangible, so you can see it and feel it before you’ve ever reached that career. So there’s that aspect. And then there’s the you details. How do you dress? How do you act and speak? How do you carry yourself at this job? Who do you work with? What impressions Do you give off? What do people think about you? How do you lead others? How do you learn from others? What does your lifestyle look like? That’s a big one, because you don’t want to force your lifestyle into your career. You want your career to fit into your lifestyle? Where do you live? What do you do in your spare time? You see, how are we just going through those questions. And I would highly recommend pausing this podcast and going back and listening and answering those. Because it gives you an idea of what you want in a career. So you’re not just kind of floating around thinking, you don’t know what you want. Because you do know what you want. I bet you do. It’s kind of like being a kid again. Like you get to be really imaginative. You know, remember thinking when you were little and what it was gonna be like when you grew up. You know, for me, it was always like, eating ice cream was my vision of my life. When I was a kid. Yeah, I had really high aspirations. And I don’t even really eat ice cream now. But I think a really great example of this is Pinterest. How many of you out there have a Pinterest board of your future house, maybe your future wedding, or what you’re going to eat in the future.

Pinterest is such a great example because we’re pinning all these pictures and these ideas of what we want our life to look like. And it’s our house. It’s our food, it’s our clothes. It’s vacations, but we don’t really do this for our careers. And so we don’t have this visualization. We don’t have this idea of what we want it to hold Like so this probably sounds like a bunch of law of attraction, we bs stuff, visualizing, oh, what am I visualizing my career pending my career. But it’s very scientific actually. Olympians actually use visualization to enhance their performance, and even bring a whole team of sports psychologists to help them hear smell, feel that exact moment when they land the jump perfectly, or swim that golden metal race, the more clearly you can see yourself living in the experience that you want, the more likely it is to materialize. You don’t even have to believe me, you can go look it up, look up the science is really some crazy stuff. But I personally love it because it is the science, the neuroscience and the woo of the spiritual, new age, hippie stuff, which I used to never believe it. And now I’m like, give me all of it. It’s kind of a intersection of the visualization and the belief. So Camilla’s dream, is to be President of the United States. How I know that is because she ran for the United States, the President of the United States ended up dropping out. But I don’t actually think that she’s given up on that dream. I think her ultimate vision is to be a powerful and influential woman in the world of US politics. And with that vision, she sees the opportunity to become that woman. When you hold a vision of what you want in your mind, you’re more likely to see the opportunities when they arise. It’s called confirmation bias. It’s the tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one’s existing beliefs or theories. I got that off of Google definitions, so go look it up. But you can use this to your advantage. It’s kind of like when you play the slug bug game, where you you know, hit your friend or sister, you know, when you see a VW bug. Once you start playing, once you have that in your mind, you start seeing them everywhere. Everywhere, you’ll probably see one later, if you haven’t put it in your mind, go find a slug bug, you’ll see one like probably within the day. But when you believe in your vision, you gather the evidence to prove or validate your belief. But here is the sticky part. There’s also a lot of evidence to prove otherwise. Imagine all of the evidence out there to prove that camo couldn’t be the first woman VP, all of the obstacles, the racism, the sexism, being mansplain to interrupted, overlooked for promotions, failure. And the one that we use against all of ourselves our past experience, the I’ve never done this before. Camilla has never done this before. There’s never been a a woman vice president before. But she didn’t let that stop her because she had that vision. And she believed in that vision so much, that she can see herself as Vice President, she could see herself in that position of power. There are tons of reasons why she should have failed. And she actually has failed again, she ran for president and dropped out. But she didn’t let any of those failures or obstacles stop her. Why? Because she believed in her vision so much that she could see herself there. She felt it in her bones. obstacles and failures are part of the success. There is not a single successful person out there that hasn’t experienced rejection, fuck ups, failures, bad decisions, self doubt, on the way to where they are now. But their faith, like Komlos faith, in the vision in their vision of what is possible, is what keeps them from giving up on their dreams

every time they get knocked down. And so when you have that vision, and you can believe in that vision so wholeheartedly with passion and purpose, that is going to keep you going. Even when you feel that self doubt, even when you make those bad decisions. Even when you felt that failure, the rejection. The mess ups belief does not require you to have solid factual evidence. All it requires is faith and trust. And if Seeing is believing, then the more you visualize your future, you can see your future and the more you’re gonna start believing in it. Alright y’all, keep on believing and I will see you next week. If you enjoyed this episode, and then come connected Christy towns.com I want to hear your biggest takeaways, your aha moments. And I want you to ask me any burning questions you might have about what it means to create your livelihood. And don’t forget to help spread the joy by leaving me a five star review in iTunes and sharing this episode with a friend, a loved one a colleague, because I am on a mission to revolutionize the way we think about careers, because I really truly believe that every single one of us deserves a career that makes us feel alive. I’m so excited to be on this journey with you and I will see you on the next episode.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai