Why Losing or Leaving a Job Hurts: Career Grief with Kathy Caprino

0:00 You leave a company, and suddenly you're wondering, do I still matter if I don't have that title? Who am I without this job that's been such a huge part of my life? We talk a lot about finding your next opportunity. We don't talk nearly enough about how much it can hurt to leave the last one, even when it was your choice. Today on Landon Lifted, we're talking about career grief with Cathy Caprino, a career and leadership coach, former therapist, and author of The Most Powerful You. And this one gets personal. After 15 years at Hershey and eight years at Duck Donuts, I know what it feels like to have so much of your identity wrapped up in a company and then have to figure out what comes next. Kathy and I talk about what you're actually grieving when it comes to jobs ending, how that experience can shake your confidence, and how to make your next move with more intention. Because when you've poured years into building something, just move on is pretty useless advice. Let's get into it. Welcome to Loud and Lifted. Kathy, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited for this conversation. I am too. And you know what I love? I love when I meet a listener and they say, I have a great episode idea for you. I'm like, okay, awesome. I love to hear what my guests think is important or relevant to them. And I was meeting a woman for coffee a couple of weeks ago and she said, you know what you need to do an episode on? And I was like, what? She's like, career grief. And I thought, Holy shit, how did I not think about this? I've experienced career grief, right? Many of us had.

1:25 I'm like, it is such an emotionally filled topic that I don't think we talk enough about. So lo and behold, doing some research, I found you. So thank you for being here and being willing to talk about this topic. We appreciate that. My pleasure. And it is far more prevalent than I think people realize. It's interesting that she came to you with that term. Yes. because I think you found me because I wrote an article with that. And I'll just say that it got a lot of reaction and someone wrote me privately that it hit them so hard that even me talking about strategies right within that same article was hard for them. Interesting. Because they were still in the grief period. And sometimes we're not ready to move forward. Sure. We're still processing. So I'm so glad we're talking about this. Right. And you know what? Now that I'm thinking about back to that conversation, she might not have used the words queer grief. She said breaking up with your company. That was what started it. She's like breaking up with your company. And I was like, oh, and just like any breakup in our lives, there's a lot of different reasons of who instigated and what happens next.

2:32 So let's just kind of start at the ground here. Like how do you define career grief. So, you know, can I, Betsy, just give a little bit of background from where this is all coming from so that people understand, because we all have our own frame, our own way of seeing things. So I quickly, I had an 18 year corporate career, marketing membership services, market research, product development. There were good times and good years, and I learned a lot, but towards the end, when I hit 40, I had a lot of bumps and those bumps turned into full blown crises, but I didn't understand what what's happening. What is this? Because it all was like a wave. What many people are feeling today, a wave of things. And so kind of the worst thing you can do is do nothing. And that was me. I did nothing.

3:20 And what happened was one month after moving to a new town with my family to be closer to that. Vice president job was 9 11 and one month later I was laid off in a way that was really pretty brutal for me. I mean, it was, I can't say it was respectful. It was done calmly, but it really did a number on me. Long story short was in therapy at the time. And my therapist said, I know this looks like the worst crisis you've ever faced, but from where I sit, it's the first moment you can choose who you want to be in the world. Now, who do you want to be? And from that conversation, I won't give you all the details, but I became a marriage and family therapist. So a lot of what I talk about as a coach, even though I do not do therapy in my coaching work, which is now 20 years, it's got a therapeutic lens. And then I found career and leadership coaching with a lens on women's issues, but I have all sorts of men that I've served and helped. So to answer your question, I think you asked, what is career grief? It's every aspect of pain. suffering, confusion, not feeling wanted, not feeling respected, not feeling valued. Grief can be from a loss that you've had, even a loss of yourself, a loss of your identity, a loss of the beliefs you once had about and the visions you once had about what's possible. So we talked previously about my latest

4:51 book, The Most Powerful You, about seven damaging power and confidence gaps. For instance, I don't recognize my special talents. I communicate from fear, not strength. I'm reluctant to ask for what I want and deserve. It goes on and on. We can have grief in every one of those pockets of power gaps. So I'd love to give you a nice, you know, one sentence, but it's a sense of loss, confusion, separation from ourselves, separation from the dream we had for our life. All of that can be career grief. And, you know, grief is such a strong word, right? Like, I think a lot of times when you use the word grief, you think of loss of a person, right? That's where it goes. But it's interesting because that's why this makes so much sense because losing a person obviously is very emotional and intense and impactful, but so is our career in a different kind of way because it's part of who we are. And especially a lot of times from a title or the brand that you were representing, that kind of becomes our identity, essentially. So how do we separate that when this happens? Whether we chose to depart a company or the company chose for us, right?

6:01 The grief can still show up. So how do we move forward when we're in that situation? So are we particularly talking about breaking up from a company or a career or a particular job? What is it that we want to focus on? Let's talk about companies because I think that's... Companies. Yeah, let's start there at least. So it sounds like when, when that person had said, you know, I breaking up with my company, that can mean a few things. It can mean that you started with all the best hopes and beliefs and intentions. You know, there's a lot to think about here. What I always talk about is, you know, when you're looking at a job or a role, it's not only what you do functionally and accounting, marketing, HR, it's the outcomes that you're serving. Do I like what the company is putting out and how they're putting it out? It's how you are treated.

6:55 It's how others are treated. It's the values and the principles of the organization. It's the communication that the leadership has. It's all of those things. So sometimes we don't vet a company well enough before starting. We have one, a lot of people think, you know, an interview is an audition. I just have to get the job. You have to vet them as carefully as they vet you. So sometimes we haven't vetted it properly. And that was one of my problems in my last role. That company had the largest shareholder litigation in the history of America before bringing in a bunch of new people to kind of, you know, clear the space, clear the air. Well, shouldn't that have been a very huge... Huge red flag for me.

7:44 The largest? Okay. I should have feted it. I don't think I even realized that was the case till I took the role. So sometimes what happens is we get in there and it's not what we think it's going to be. And it's not what it needs to be. And that can cause a lot of pain because we might've disrupted a lot of things. We might've moved our family. We might've... So there's a lot of expectations. So sometimes you're there eight years and... Suddenly this happened to me as well. I think it was 11 years, a new company, another company bought us. And I was in the marketing market research function and the president, the new president said, I don't believe in market research. Oh, great. So a lovely, uh, so he put me on other projects, but my identity was crushed.

8:32 So what I'd want to ask everybody is what's the form of grief or breakup that you have because. Every one of those permutations is touching you and reaching you and affecting you in a different way. If someone, for instance, says, I don't even believe in the thing you did for 11 years, your identity is really going to be hurt. You're going to be, unless you're really evolved, you're going to feel hurt. You're going to feel shame. You're going to be mad. You're going to be defensive. So how we deal with it is the, you have to look at the exact. problem that's occurring and how you're getting triggered in what you're feeling. Did that make sense? That was a long answer. No, it's true. And sometimes you do have to think like, do I actually miss the job or the company or do I miss the title or being needed or having influence or knowing where I belonged, right?

9:23 Like it's all those pieces of knowing like, well, what are we actually grieving here, right? Like what's the part that we're missing. You know, my first book, Breakdown Breakthrough, was about the 12 hidden crises working women face. And one of them was overcoming loss. And it's exactly the point you're making. Sometimes what we're grieving is who we got to be in that role that we feel we can't be now. As opposed to, you know, I just lost my job. Let's just go out and get another one. You might've felt like, wow, I really had a voice. I was really listened to. And, you know, now with AI, for instance, oh, there's a lot of pain and grief over. I was replaced in some way. So you're so right. We want to look at who, who we got to be in that role. And is there a way to be that, you know, what comes to mind too? I'm, I'm older. I have two grown beautiful children. I remember when they both left for college, I was grieving and in part it was. that I felt I couldn't be that person that I loved to be in every way, being in the fabric of their lives and all of that. So we can have that kind of grief over loss in many, many different facets. No, that's so interesting even from a mom perspective like that. And from a career perspective, I basically have been at two companies my entire life. I worked for Hershey,

10:55 which I chose to leave there after 15 years. cool brand. People loved it. And, you know, it was time for me to move on. But I remember like watching what was happening, you know, or still watch what's going on. I'd be like, Oh, why they do that? Oh, I wonder who's who handled that decision? Or like, you know, you still oversee that you still question because you have that, you know, again, I cared about the brand, I cared about, you know, where it was headed, but you know, chose to leave and, and then, you know, spending eight years at Duck and a very visible role where people thought it was cool that I was the CEO, right? Like it's a fun brand. My kids loved it. I took donuts to people, you know, so I had this visibility and I had the visibility of a fun brand that people loved, number one.

11:37 And then number two, like, oh, I'm a female CEO. Like that kicks ass, right? So there was this, and I am like not an ego person by any stretch, but there was this title and this positioning of my I don't want to say cool factor, but like my, my visibility, my experience, you know, and, and again, what you got to do, how you got, how you got to serve. Right. Yeah. And so, you know, walking away from that, it was like, Oh shit. Like who, I don't even know if it was who am I? I mean, part of it was that or like, am I still relevant? Like what's, you know, what, what am I going to do next? There was that whole career piece of it, but it was, it was the such a loss of, you know, pouring your blood, sweat and tears into a company to help it grow for eight years and then poof, you're gone. Well, you know, so you're bringing up another point which you may or may not want to talk about, but it's how we depart. So, you know, being laid off the way I was. Um, and I was saved from some of what could have happened, which is being walked out and not being allowed to say goodbye. Well, that is what happened. I left without being able to say goodbye. If I had waited till the morning, they strip you of your card key of your laptop.

12:50 How you depart from something is either going to feel like I will never get over this or that was clean. That was fresh. I said what I had to say. I was respected. you know, how we leave those last days, those last weeks can make an enormous difference. But absolutely, if you've loved your identity there, the fear is how do I get that back? And also, for a lot of people, there is shame. There's, you know, it's not done in a way, even if it's intentional that they choose to leave. Sometimes it doesn't go well. Sometimes the final conversations don't go the way we want. So there is so much to unpack about why we feel pain and grief and confusion when we leave something that's meant so much to us.

13:41 Absolutely. So if someone's listening to this and they have left, whether on their own or maybe not by their choice, what happens next? Like, how do we start to rebuild that sense of value or purpose and, you know, move on essentially, whether it's just from a company or career standpoint? Like, what does that next transition look like? So are we talking here mostly about people who it wasn't voluntary for them to part? Is that what we're talking about? I mean, ideally, I think probably that's the one that stings more when it isn't someone's choice. And I think especially nowadays, a lot of people are dealing with that, where it's like, oh, I can see the handwriting on the wall, but this isn't going to go the way that I intend to. So I think it is more around that. I think there's grief when you make the decision, too. But I think especially right now, there's a lot of people who aren't necessarily making that decision who are dealing with it.

14:29 know what comes next. So, you know, this is the therapeutic view here. You have to give yourself time, um, because there can be traumatic feelings, trauma. And a lot of people say, well, isn't that a big word? Isn't that for like when you're in war, the truth is you can feel trauma sitting in a meeting. If someone puts you down and shames you, it depends on what triggers you. It depends on what your childhood was like and could you speak up and did you feel valued? So the first piece is. give yourself time to heal. It's hard. It's hard to separate from an identity that you enjoyed or that brought you a lot, that brought you financial compensation you were proud of.

15:11 Somebody just the other day told me they missed the identity they had, and it was around the financial piece. So the very first thing is love yourself, be gentle with yourself, take some time before you hop into job search or or, you know, looking, give yourself as much time as you can to heal and kind of process it. The second thing I would suggest is I have something called a career path self -assessment. It's 13 pages of questions I wish someone had asked me 40 years ago. And if I had answered these questions honestly, I don't think I would have made some of the mistakes I made. Now it's just a word doc. You can reach out to me at kathycaprino .com and I'm happy to. Send that to you. You can download it. I'm also working with a very cool HR company in the UK to develop an AI driven version of it so that it can help hundreds of people, you know, in the same week do this. But what it asks you are questions like write down every job you ever had, what you loved, what you hated, what you never want to do again, what you got from it that you want to carry forth and rate it on a scale of one to 10. And if you're in your 40s, 50s, 60s, you've had a lot of jobs. And people forget that years ago they might've really rated a job a 10 or several jobs, but then they took another path, maybe for the money, maybe for the security. And then the job ratings went down.

16:41 And then often you see, I had toxic colleagues, toxic bosses, but do that assessment. And it also asks, What do you value? What are your special talents? What do you want to bring forward now? What are your dreams for your life? What is the legacy you want to leave? These are questions every professional should answer, but particularly before they're going to make any decisions. And everyone says, oh my goodness, that was so eye opening, but also talking to another person about it, a coach, buddy, whatever, it can be very revealing that maybe that role wasn't the perfect fit for you, but in some ways it worked well.

17:24 It gave you work -life balance or whatever. But what you want to do is, first of all, heal from any kind of pain and trauma that this parting has given to you, and then be very intentional about what is next for me in this chapter? What is going to be meaningful? What outcomes do I want to support that are going to support my values? Who do I really want to be? And I promise you, the more intentional you can be, the better you'll market yourself, the better you'll network, the better you'll understand what organizations you're drawn to. The whole thing will go better. The next chapter. I love that. Well, and you bring up a good point because if this happens to someone, that confidence takes a hit, right?

18:07 Like if you lose your job, no matter what the circumstances were, it could have just been a major downsizing, you're let go. Like your confidence is just hit from that. So I think for a lot of us, it's hard to recognize what are our talents, what are our abilities, what are our values, but then that happens. And now it's like, now we're really down here trying to get back up. So how do we... It's a struggle, but how do we overcome that? And I love the assessment piece of that. That's a great point. But are there other things that we should be doing to realize like, wait a minute, I enjoy this. I'm good at that. You know, just kind of having that list or does that come through the assessment? I love this question. So I have a TEDx talk called Time to Brave Up. I'd ask everybody who watch it, but it talks about the 20 facts of you. So let me break this down. And in my book, The Most Powerful You, Power Gap number one is not recognizing your special talents, abilities, and gifts. And there's a free workbook. You can get all that as well. Again, you can just reach out to me, but I would read that first chapter and it's on audible if you like to listen, but it walks you through a set of exercises to get in touch with what you are great at. That was your question, right? How do we really know? So most of us don't recognize, number one, our great talents, because number one, often those come very easily to us.

19:25 So if you're a great speaker, if you're a great, some people really create frameworks. They see a huge problem, they're in a minute able to break it down. But if you're, if it's easy for you to do that, you don't see that that's a gift or some people are incredible communicators. They know how to share an idea and get buy -in and hear from others, get people excited. But again, if we're great at that, we often don't know that we are. So here's one really fun, quick exercise. Think about, let's say three things that you are most proud of in your life. And I truly, I personally don't care if. It's when you were 10 and you had a lemonade stand and you made $100 and there were other stands out and they weren't making anything and you donated that money to something you cared about, right?

20:14 You could be eight years old. I want you to think about the things that you are absolutely most proud of because those are the things that touch your own values and your interests and your passions. And then think about what were the skills that made me sell $100 worth of lemonade? What were those specific skills? So if that job was wonderful that you had and you were really successful at it, what did you do differently than someone else that made you had that set of experiences that made you successful? If you can target those, okay, here's what I care about, here are outcomes that made me proud, and here are skills that I have, talents that I have. You're gonna really know about it better how to talk about yourself how to frame what you want next and you know There's another piece Betsy that people particularly women really struggle with but men too It's knowing what your business impact is the value of what you do So, you know, I have a big thing going on on LinkedIn I got a big following there and I'm so grateful for that huge community and all the amazing comments and feedback and connection we have But I'll also, not but, and I will look at a lot of people's LinkedIn profiles every week. I'm looking at hundreds of them for my clients, et cetera. And I see that people are not communicating the value they're delivering.

21:43 And how do we do that? You want to think about metrics, you want to think about scope, and you want to think about the why does it matter what you do? Because, you know, it can mean a lot to you, but... In the business world, we're also looking at how can you hit the ground running and help my business solve the problems I have. So if you can articulate it and dimensionalize that like, you know, my coming in and revitalizing a fading product generated. 30 % more customers and that was a net benefit of blip revenue. If you can have metrics there, that gives us scope. Some people can't, they can't share that because it's confidential, but the more you can demonstrate what the impact that you had, what it did for the business, what it did for the culture, what it did for the people. it's going to make you remember how valuable you were. And it's gonna help you speak about it in a way that makes people go, wow, I think I need that. I love that. That's so true. And it's funny being on the receiving end of resumes through my career, right? For especially high level leadership jobs and seeing how people position themselves. And yeah, seeing titles and brand names, that's all great. But when somebody can, and even if I don't know the details of numbers, but oh, 30 % increase, this launched or whatever, it does stand out. And you're like, oh, okay, I see the impact that they were able to make, not that they just had a good title at a big company, right? So I definitely have been on the receiving end of that, which

23:15 was ironic then as, again, starting my new venture, a new life, a new career, I was like, wait, I need to take my own advice. Like, I know what I have reviewed, right? But now it's like, oh, okay, but I felt... uncomfortable, I don't know, which is crazy to put yourself out there and to promote yourself, but you have to, right? We are in the business of marketing and selling ourselves. That's just the reality of it. Can we talk about that for a minute? Yeah, absolutely. So many women have said to me, why can't my work just be for itself? Why do I have to do this? And I've seen this kind of in a stark way. I once talked to my client who was a anesthesiologist.

24:02 And I said, so tell me what you think your special talents are. And she said, I don't really have any. And I said, hang on a minute here now, could I come in today and do your job? And she said, well, no. And I said, could I actually kill someone doing your job? She said, yes. And I said, I think you have some special talents. So, but here's what she said, what women often say and men too. That's not a talent. I went to school for that and I studied that and I interned in that and it's a practice skill. But here's what I need to share. Yeah, but you do it in ways that are different from other people. It's not just that everybody is not the same. Every one of us is like that thumb print that is different.

24:47 So the way you communicate, she used to train interns and residents. at the hospital, the way you're doing that, the way you're helping them get over their fears, that's different from this person, person B, person C. So you have to understand, first of all, how are you different in the way you do it? And also I would really ask you to not think of it as this icky gross thing that I'm talking about myself. We've got to get more comfortable in the work. I just read an article, I wish I could remember the title. The work doesn't speak for itself. The work is on paper. The work is what you're doing. It doesn't speak. You speak.

25:27 I love that. So isn't that, oh, I wish I could credit the author of that. It's brilliant. But we have to get good and the better you can do it. And I promise you, if you can talk about the facts part, oh, this is the important part of the formula. Uh, another client I had years ago said I had six sessions with her on the seventh. something like that, she said, what I did actually changed the airline industry. And I said, how is it possible that I've had six sessions with you and I didn't know that? And why is that not on LinkedIn? And she said, well, I'm afraid someone's gonna say I didn't do it. This is something I hear a lot. And I said, did you do it or did you not do it? She said, I did it, but I was the leader, the leader of the group. I go. Absolutely and you're not going to take credit for what your team did, but what did you do as a leader?

26:20 Maybe you got the resources, maybe you got the buy -in, maybe you, you know, oversaw blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Maybe you did this, this and this. So as the leader, yeah, you're not going to take credit for what your team did in every way, but you have to understand the leadership lens. prowish that you brought into it and talk about that. And it doesn't mean you're taking credit where credit is not due. Does that make sense? It totally makes sense. And I can't tell you how many women I have heard say that through the years that, oh, well, I don't want to take credit. It was a team effort. Then just position it that way. And the reality is, if you're paranoid about that, that you feel like, oh, I don't want to step on people's toes or make it sound like it's all about me, then you're definitely not going to do that because you're already aware of that being like, oh, so you're thinking about how you're positioning things versus somebody who maybe is coming at it a little bit. line.

27:07 So to me, when you're paranoid, I guess we'll use the word about doing that, I mean, you're most likely not going to do it because you're sensitive. That's a great way to look at it. You're already caring about that. You know, if anything, we have to push you farther on the spectrum of speaking about what you've contributed. Correct. So don't worry about it. Yeah, absolutely. So let's add a little different of a layer to this. So, and again, I'm sure it's my age. It's a part of my career that I'm in and my friends and past coworkers is, but there seems to be this midlife layer going on for a lot of women lately where, you know, they've had a great job. They've had the big titles and they've spent decades building the successful career. And then they realize maybe this doesn't fit them. anymore and so you're seeing women leave jobs starting small businesses doing whatever or just kind of just not being as satisfied in their current role and and starting to wonder like did I change the environment change so nothing is probably technically wrong but but if the work isn't meaningful or just isn't a good fit anymore what do we do when we find ourselves in that situation that I keep hearing more and more women talk about lately which I love that we're talking about it I feel like that's step one is to acknowledging it right but But then what, what happens after we acknowledge that something doesn't feel right anymore in our career? What a great question.

28:27 All right. So first of all, let's normalize it. There's a reason for that. And, you know, as a therapist, I studied developmental stages and, you know, early on, let's say in our twenties and not everybody fits this mold. I know that, um, but often in our twenties, we're trying to figure things out. What is it that I want to do? I have to make a living. Maybe I do want to start a family and I'm thinking of that. In the thirties, it can be starting a family and kind of creating some financial stability. Now, again, not everybody fits this at all, but developmentally, these are often what's happening in our minds. Forty, we are looking at how are we going to balance everything that we've created? But as you get to 40, and certainly 50, there's another layer that comes in. And what it is, is seeing that there are potentially fewer years ahead of you than behind you. And for some people that subtle, for some people it hits you like a brick.

29:26 For some people saying the age 40 or 50 is very hard for them. So what I'd want you to do is recognize this is not something crazy. We shift, we change. And what often happens in the 40, 50 stage is meaning becomes more important. And so, you know, I, I, really speak to this personally. For four years, I had something called tracheitis, an infection of the trachea. Who's ever heard of such a thing? Every three to four months. And doctors said, I don't know what this is, plied me with antibiotics, which wreaked absolute havoc on my body. And back then I didn't really understand what energy healing was or, but a friend of mine said, go to an energy healer.

30:13 I went, they knew nothing about me. I walked in and they said, What do you do for a living? They said, this first person said, what you're going through here is a crying within. And it was so true because it was the hardest job for so many reasons, really difficult. And I said, I don't like that answer because that means I can't stay at this job. You know, I'd have to quit. So I go to another energy healer and she says, what do you do for a living? I'm like, oh, this again. And she said, Don't you realize that this is the seed of your personal expression? So you're clearly not you in this role. And now this role of two years truly almost killed me.

30:58 And it was different from my previous roles where I did feel more appreciated and more aligned. What I want you to do is honor that you're having this feeling and understand that we change. I mean, you wouldn't want to be who you were at 21, would you? We change. So I would ask you to think, What is bringing these feelings on? Could it be that your values haven't been met? For some people, they're doing the work. It's decent work, but it isn't who they really are. It isn't what they loved. It isn't passion driven. And here they are at 50 or 40 thinking, wait a minute here, this doesn't fit now. Doesn't fit me. And it doesn't fit. the life i want to have outside of work for a lot of people they love to the work but they also now have children or they're caring for parents and it's not working so what you want to do is sit down do that that career path assessment don't freak out it's a natural developmental phase but now we have to figure out what does it mean And I would say this, a lot of people think, let me throw the baby out with the bath water. Let me check the whole darn thing and, you know, start a nonprofit.

32:09 I have a lot of clients in nonprofit that want to leave nonprofit. This is not to bash nonprofit, but a lot of us say, I want to be a teacher. And they think teaching is the easiest thing in the world. Does anyone know teachers? It's not easy. You don't want to wax poetic about another field. If you are thinking of shifting, you want to do a lot of research and you want to do it in the right way. For instance, one more tip, cautionary tale. When I decided I was going to be a therapist and I gave up corporate life, I decided, let me talk to a few therapists, but I chose only those who were incredibly successful. One who had a bestselling book, one who didn't need to take insurance. Don't do that because what you're doing is just. kind of a self -fulfilling prophecy that I'm going to love it and everyone's successful. Interview people on the entire spectrum, those who left it, those who are working in social work and aren't the best -selling author and actually need to take insurance or whatever.

33:04 I think you make a really good point, right? That there's a process. And I think often where women or men who ever get themselves in, I don't want to say in trouble, but maybe they don't go through the process and they just immediately jump, right? Like, oh, I'm not happy. I don't like my job. Oh, hey, over here, this pays 10 grand more. I'm going to, you know, take this job down the street and not go through, you know, really those steps of like, okay, what am I looking for? What would satisfy me? And now we're stuck and now we're not happy, but now we're somewhere else, right? So it's kind of that going through those, the steps or the process to really identify, like don't, don't run away. Like there's been, there's been many times. throughout my career where I did want to run away from, you know, a job versus running to an opportunity. So I think it's really looking at, you know, what's the opportunity, what would make you happy, what would satisfy you versus like running away from where you currently are because you're like, another week that sucked, right? Like, and we're going to have those days and weeks and sometimes months, right? Like sometimes there's this extended period of time where things do suck and maybe it's just a phase or a time and hopefully it can, you know, move on. But if not, then it is kind of figuring out like, okay, well what? do I want to do? What would make me happy? What would throw me on a Sunday night that Monday I am going to work? So, you know, I think you make a great point with the process for sure.

34:18 Can I add two things based on what you just shared? Somebody said to me once, I want to love every minute of my work like you do, Cathy. And I said, where'd you get that idea? I never said that. Never ever. And I would never. It's work. So work is not going to be going to the movies. Work is not going to be on the ground with your kids playing. I mean, some people think that does feel like work, but I want you to understand it doesn't mean you aren't going to feel conflicted. You aren't going to feel confused. You aren't going to feel insecure. You're going to have moments of that in any work, I think, if you're really stretching yourself. Please don't confuse the veneered varnished look of Instagram and LinkedIn with what people are really going through.

35:06 Work is work. But I remember my dad who was at GE his whole career after being in the army, he died at 93, 10 years ago. Seven patents he adored GE. He said, And he was not a philosopher. He was a chemist. But he said, if you can like your work more than 50 % of the time, it's a good job. I'd like it to be a little higher than that, but it's not a hundred percent. How could it be? That's, I don't think if I'm wrong, please let me know, write me on LinkedIn and say you're wrong. The second thing to think about is this. And I have a lot of client talks about this. Sometimes the field that we're in rubs against Some of the particular personal pain points we have if you don't like conflict If you don't like going head -to -head with people where your agenda feels different from then that's probably not the role for you So what I'd ask you to understand is What is inherently me? What are some of the challenges? I have that either I'm gonna live with those challenges like I'm not confrontational forget it It'll never be me. I'll never enjoy a job that's confrontational. You can honor that and get a job that isn't going to put you in those situations. Or you can say, I would like to be more confident speaking up. I actually want to stretch in that direction. But these are the things that people don't think about.

36:34 And I think often, not to cast dispersion, but career coaches often don't go deep enough. Coaches don't. Because if... If there are parts of you that are going to keep coming up in every job you're going for, these are things you have to understand. Am I going to thrive in this role? Or was the reason I was removed from that role because I will never be good at that. It's just not going to be me. What do you think? Oh, that's so true. No, you're right. It's being honest with yourself, right? That's what it all comes down to is sometimes there might be a career or a company that's just not a good fit. And that's OK. But going back to your earlier point of understanding who you are, what you want to do, what your strengths are, right? That's just all part of it versus, well, I've been doing this for so long, or this was my major, or my family all had this. There's all these reasons I think we get stuck. which just, you're gonna be miserable. So it's just having that honest conversation with yourself of who you are, what you're good at, what you wanna do, what's gonna make you happy, and then figuring out the plan to make progress to get there. But yeah, it's easy to get stuck or it's easy to leave one role or one opportunity and then end up in the same boat somewhere else. So let's avoid that, right?

37:49 Let's make the changes. No matter what the situation is, when you leave a job, leave a company, I think there's lessons learned. pros and cons, right? Of things that you're like, I should do that again. And I should never do that again, right? Like there's going to be those takeaways. So it's, it's, it's the growth and the learning from, from those transitions, I think are easier said than done. Right. And sometimes you have to reflect on it, you know, sometimes the first few weeks may be a little raw. So it may not be something that you sit down on day one and say, let's, let's have a deep dive. You know, like, no, no, I would not do that. I would not. And I would say this. You say there are lessons learned, not always, if you won't learn them. Oh, that's true. Very true. So I had that in, you know, being laid off after 9 -11 with a hundred people. I really took that personally. Like, and anyone being laid off, I think knows what I mean, that you can feel like you're kicked to the curb, like garbage. So I resisted learning some of these lessons. until I got some outside help. And this is another really important point.

38:53 We can't see all this by ourselves usually. So you can find a mentor, a buddy, a sponsor, someone who's 10 steps ahead of you who can see it a little more clearly than you. But I finally realized 100 people were laid off and I was one of the last and probably one of the highest paid. vice presidents, I'm going to be on that list probably along with some other reasons, I'm sure. But we often internalize negative things about ourselves when these things happen that may or may not be accurate. So if that's what you're doing, that may not be the lesson you're supposed to be learning. So get some kind of help where maybe an outside perspective can say, don't you see that a hundred people mostly at these levels were laid off? It isn't that you weren't, it isn't that you didn't just get a promotion three months ago, you did. So learn the right lessons.

39:47 For sure. And you bring up such a good point that it comes up on episode after episode in different capacities. It's, it's using the people around you, whether it's a mentor or hiring a coach or a friend who understands a business, whatever, but not going through this alone, right? And having those conversations with somebody who can. whether it's a shoulder to cry on or a different perspective or just feedback or you know they might say something you're like oh I didn't think about it that way right so it's we can we can only do so much in our own head by ourselves and sometimes that's that's worse when you when you're in your head trying to figure out everything by yourself so i i love the point of reinforcing that you need people around you that are they're going to support you and be there for you because it's it's definitely a difficult time no matter what the circumstances where that got you there. It truly is. Be kind and gentle to yourself. Where is the best place for our listeners to connect with you? There's lots of good links we'll definitely put in the show notes, but where's the best place to connect with you? Thank you so much. Well, a few things.

40:40 CathyCaprino .com is a good one. There's a lot there. A lot of people say, where do I begin? You can just reach out to me on LinkedIn. I'd love to hear from you. I'd love to hear what you're getting from this. And my podcast, FindingBrave .org, would love, love, love to have you there too. Great. Well, thank you so much for being here, Cathy. Thank you, Betsy. Thank you for a great conversation. So appreciate it. Here's the question I keep coming back to. Do you miss the job or do you miss how you felt in it, being needed, having a voice, knowing where you belonged? Those are different things and understanding what you are actually missing can help you figure out what you want next. You don't have to have that answer today, but when you're ready, give yourself permission to ask what you want to carry forward and what you'd really like to leave behind.

41:25 And please. Have that conversation with someone you trust. We can get pretty deep in our own heads trying to figure this all out alone. You'll find Kathy's information and resources in the show notes. And if someone in your life is going through a career transition, send them this episode. Make sure you're following along and lifted wherever you listen and take a minute to leave your view. It helps more women find these conversations. Until next time, stay loud and keep lifting.