Episode 86: Making Untraditional Twists with Lee Chaix McDonough

Welcome to The Career Clarity Show, where we help you find a lucrative, soulful, and joyful career path for you!

Today on the Career Clarity Show, we are talking about making interesting untraditional decisions through the course of your career. Lee Chaix McDonough, the founder of Coach with Clarity, is here to discuss the Coach with Clarity ® Framework to talk about ways to find a pathway towards a fulfilling sustainable life.

This episode is for you if you are curious about a framework to help you feel more fulfillment and more sustainable energy around the work that you’re doing. Lee shares her story about how she made some interesting decisions along the way of going on a trajectory that has a pretty set professional path to it but making some pivots and twists and turns to make it feel like it truly fits.

SHOW NOTES:

• Coach with Clarity
• Coach with Clarity Podcast
• Instagram: @CoachWithClarity

Subscribe to The Career Clarity Show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, and Google Play.

And, follow The Career Clarity Show on Facebook and Instagram — and sign up below to receive emails when new episodes come out!

Transcript:

Lisa Lewis Miller  0:04  

Welcome to the Career Clarity Show. If you want to create a career path you’ll love you’re in the right place. I’m Lisa Lewis Miller, career change coach, published author and your host, and each week we’ll bring you personal transformation stories, advice and insights from experts about how you can find a more fulfilling, soulful and joyful career. Hello, and welcome to the Career Clarity Show. I’m Lisa Miller, and I am delighted to have you here with us today. On today’s episode of the Career Clarity Show, we are going to be talking to somebody who has made some cool interesting untraditional decisions through the course of her own career, and who has an incredible three m framework to talk about ways to find a pathway towards fulfilling sustain sustainable life giving work no matter what direction your desired work dreams, or your trajectory or your vision take you in today’s episode of the podcast will absolutely be for you if you are curious about a framework to help you feel more fulfillment and more sustainable energy around the work that you’re doing. And it’ll be a fabulous episode for you if you want to hear about somebody who has made some interesting decisions along the way of going on a trajectory that has a pretty set professional path to it. But making some pivots and twists and turns to make it feel like it truly fits. And today’s episode of the podcast will be for you if you’ve ever been toying with or playing with the idea of entrepreneurship or going out on your own, because today’s guest will definitely be covering that as a part of our conversation today as well. On the podcast today, I have for you Lee Chaix McDonough. Lee is the CEO and founder of Coach with Clarity, a training and education company for life and business coaches. She’s also the host of the coach with clarity podcast, and the author of the number one Amazon book act on your business, braving the storms of entrepreneurship and creating success through meaning mindset and mindfulness. After over a decade as a clinical social worker and public health professional, we became credential as a coach through the ICF. And now provides ICF accredited continuing coach education for intuitive heart centered coaches. Lee, welcome to the Career Clarity Show. 

Lee Chaix McDonough  2:28  

Thank you so much. I’m really excited to be here today. 

Lisa Lewis Miller  2:31  

I’m excited to have you not only because I think you are a delight and doing a marvelous work in the world, but because I think you’ve made some really interesting and courageous decisions in how you have mapped your own career trajectory over the years that I think have borne these really beautiful fruit in the work that you do now. But I want to start everybody at the beginning here because other people listening to this, don’t get to know your background and your story the way that I do. So can you help people understand a little bit more about your background? By sharing about some of the decisions that you have made along your professional path that have shaped how you’ve arrived at where you are today? 

Lee Chaix McDonough  3:12  

I would love to and it’s funny because it’s like how far back do you want me to go? Because when I was a kid growing up, I had dreams of being an actress. In fact, I did community theater from the age of eight, really focusing on musical theater, I even double majored in Dramatic Art and psychology in undergrad. And for a long time, I thought I was going to go the theater route. But in addition to performing what really fascinated me most was understanding the motivation of a character. And that really lent to wanting to know more about what motivates people. And so that dovetails really nicely with my interest in psychology and human behavior. That’s ultimately why I pursued a path in social work because I knew I wanted to be a therapist or a clinical social worker. And I also wanted to integrate some of what I had been taught growing up around social justice and serving others and social work seemed like an ideal profession for that. So I took one year off after my undergrad program worked enough bad jobs to know I wanted to go back to school. And I did a dual degree program where I received my Master of Social Work and my Master of Science in public health with a focus on adult mental health and maternal and child health. And while I was in school, actually my final year of undergrad I met my husband. We got married right before I started graduate school. He was in dental school, so we were both full time students together. And he was going to school having just finished his time at the Air Force Academy. So I knew that no matter what I did, if I was going to marry this man, I had a future as a military spouse in front of me. And fortunately what I have found is that the skills I developed as a social worker of public health allowed me to pick up and move and find employment pretty much anywhere we went, whether it was for a county health department, a hospital system, government agency, I am really grateful that making that decision at the tender age of 22 to go into social work and public health paid off in the long run. And I was able to get a pretty diverse range of experience as a social worker and as a therapist as a result. So that was really kind of the main, like the first part of my professional career, until I did a little little bit of a pivot and went into business for myself and figured out a different way to leverage some of those skills and experiences but serving a different population. 

Lisa Lewis Miller  5:39  

One of the things that strikes me about your story right off the bat is that the decision to do a dual degree program and give yourself some optionality built in there opened up some really interesting possibilities for you to have a career that looks a little bit different from perhaps a more traditional masters of Social Work typical route. listeners to the podcast may have already heard me talk about this. But before I went out on my own doing career coaching, professionally, independently, I worked with the University of Southern California School of Social Work, and was the career advisor to the MSW students. And when you work with hundreds and hundreds of MSW students, you see that the pathways that are typical for somebody with a social work degree can can sometimes feel limited, perhaps not as limited as people who get their their clinical mental health counseling, licensure, or their marriage and family therapy, degree in licensure. But they can sometimes feel more constrained than what you wanted, or what you hoped for when you enrolled in the program. So I love hearing that even when you were thinking about that academic pathway to serve in a way that felt really heart centered for you. You open that up to have a lot of different places to explore a lot of different areas with room to groove, if you will. 

Lee Chaix McDonough  7:06  

Oh, I love that. Room degroof. Ooh, that just makes me want to dance. Yeah, you know, I have to say, I’m really grateful to my past self, for making that decision. And at the time, I’ll be honest with you, this was my high achiever. If I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it all flat out 100%. Also, why not get two degrees for the price of one, like this was me really kind of wanting to check the box. And while I knew that I wanted to serve women and children, and I was particularly interested in pregnant women, and I did my master’s thesis on perinatal depression. That’s what led me into public health because I knew I could focus on maternal and child health, specifically, the perinatal period. And I could bring that in and combine it with some of the mental health concerns that we were seeing to depression, anxiety, trauma, and so forth. So there was definitely an interest there combined with the desire to just like, go all out, and be the best that was that I have to admit, that was definitely a driving factor. And that ambition is still here in me, I’m not gonna say it’s not, but I think I’ve tempered it a little bit. So it’s less about what I need to prove to others and more about what’s gonna bring me the greatest sense of fulfillment. 

Lisa Lewis Miller  8:20  

Well, that feels like such a beautiful jumping in point to a lot of the things that we’re going to talk about in our conversation today. But as a spoiler for those of you listening, Lee is not currently practicing as a public health professional any longer. So talk to me a little bit about that inflection point of leaving behind the ambition for ambition sake, and tuning into more of what feels good for, for you, and what feels like success on your own terms. out at that insight, or learning that lesson, perhaps shape the decisions and the choices that you made that led you to what you do today. 

Lee Chaix McDonough  9:00  

Yes. So there were certainly some environmental factors. In 2015, my husband was getting out of the Air Force. We were moving from where we were stationed in Germany, back to the United States. We were looking at returning to North Carolina, which was his home state, and my chosen state. And so it was a pretty big transition. And we also had two little boys who were making that transition with us. They were eight and six, when we moved back to the States, so they had spent their formative years in Europe, and we’re really unaccustomed to what life was like in America. Couple that with my husband buying his own business. So not just entering the civilian world, but becoming a business owner himself. I anticipated a lot of change. And so I made the decision to step back from my career temporarily to help my family navigate this transition. And that worked great for about nine months and after about nine months, you know, I think I think that’s kind of fitting. I started getting the itch to return to some sort of person professional work. And yet I also had this strong sense that while I loved mental health, and I love public health work, I was meant to do something a little different. And I didn’t exactly know what that looked like until I really tuned into my husband’s experience being a new business owner yet a very experienced clinician. And that tension that happens when you are an expert in one thing and a novice in another and trying to negotiate the differences between that, that can be really stressful. And as I was watching him navigate that I thought to myself, there’s got to be someone out here who can support him through this process. Because I kept thinking some of what he’s dealing with, I’ve seen before in a therapeutic setting, but he’s doesn’t meet diagnostic criteria for anything, he doesn’t necessarily need a therapist, but what kind of support is out there for him. And that looking at it through that lens, I did some research. And that’s when I started learning about coaching. And the more I learned about it initially thinking maybe for him, the more I realized, oh, my goodness, this, like I just had this full body sensation, that coaching was something I needed to look into that it would be a beautiful way for me to leverage my existing education and experience coupled with my inner wisdom, to continue to serve other people and really live into that value of service. But to do it in a way that just felt a little more expansive, than than a traditional therapy approach. And so that’s really what kind of marked my transition, I enrolled in a coach training program in 2016, started my business and five years later, it’s still going strong. And now I support other people who want to transition into the field, and I provide coach training and education. So it’s been quite a journey. And I really am quite thankful to my husband, honestly, because not only has he been supportive throughout it, in many ways, he was the original inspiration.

Lisa Lewis Miller  11:49  

One of the things that that really stands out to me about that decision making process and that exploration process is how driven by service and support and helping people that was for you. Because there’s so many people who are considering making a pivot or a shift in their professional trajectory, know that they want to help and serve people. But when it comes to the more granular the more nuanced, the more specific definition of how you personally would most enjoy and value being of service to others. It can feel really difficult really confronting to sit with that question. That’s one of the big things that we support people with in the Career Clarity Show program that we run. And so I love that you let your natural curiosity and your desire to serve and answer this question, lead you on an exploration that then gave you a lot of very somatic emotional body centered feedback that, ooh, this feels really interesting and good. But I want to ask you a question about that. Because when you make the professional commitment to get a master’s degree, to move in a specific direction to establish yourself as a social worker, or a public health worker. And you have this vision, that sweet 20 year old you had cultivated around maternal health and supporting moms and babies. out, did it feel to play with the idea of walking away from that or stepping back from that in this season or chapter of your professional life?

Lee Chaix McDonough  13:30  

 Yes. Oh, my goodness, I’m so glad we’re talking about this because it was not an easy process at all. And there were so many conflicting feelings that came up as I was even just investigating this other profession of coaching. And then much less when I decided, Okay, I’m going to do this, I’m going to invest, I’m going to start a business. As you mentioned, somatically, it felt right. Like I knew this was the right thing to do. And even in my heart, I knew that I was going to be able to connect with and serve a broader audience. But my head was definitely kind of getting in the way. And I really struggled with the thoughts of Who are you if you’re not a therapist or a social worker? What will other therapists think of you? Are you betraying the profession? Are you betraying your ethics and your values, I really had to do a lot of deep soul work around those questions, and also find some sort of reconciliation between my head and my heart and my guts so that they would all be aligned. As I moved forward with this decision. I knew it was the right one, and yet I was having a lot of just kind of inner turmoil in my head about it. And that quite honestly took me the first 18 months of my business to really sort out. How did you sort it out? Well, for the first 12 to 18 months, I let that fear lead me. I wasn’t necessarily super public about the work I was doing. It took me that long to even call myself a coach, I was so uncomfortable with the label of coach after having been a therapist, a clinical social worker for 15 years or however long. It I almost felt like so many people have bad opinions of coaching, and a lot of therapists looked down their nose at coaches. So I can’t call myself a coach, I need to call myself, a therapist transitioning to coaching or consultant, or a therapist coach, I tried all sorts of different labels before I finally realized, luckily, if what you’re doing is coaching, people are not going to find you if you’re not calling yourself a coach, and they’re not going to believe in the work you’re doing if you’re not even comfortable owning that part of your identity. So it was this very interesting mix of acknowledging that I could have more than one path and that I’m multifaceted and that there were many parts to my identity therapist, one coach is another. And I was so much more than those labels. And that how I labeled myself What role I played in the world was only a small fraction of who I was. And so the minute I did some identity work around who am I really what matters to me? And how can I ensure that the steps I’m taking are meant for me, regardless of what label I use around them, that that was very healing and ultimately freeing and allowed me to move forward in a way that it’s not that I don’t care about what people think I do, I’m human, I care about what people think. But the extent to which that dictates my decisions, that’s completely different than how it used to be.

Lee Chaix McDonough  16:35  

That’s such a huge insight. I think that when we are in the midst of a transition, the steps to take to pull off a career change, are, are fairly straightforward, right? You build skills, you build knowledge, you build relationships, in the arena that you want to move into, you start to think of yourself in a new light, you start to apply for different opportunities, you start to seek out things that look different than what you you had been seeking out in the past. But that identity piece, and all of the meaning and the stories and the the heft, the sort of gravitas that is associated with the identity label, or the box that we have put ourselves into, can have a surprising amount of influence or pressure or control on what we feel like we are, we’re able to do what we feel like it’s possible for us what we feel like other people will accept in us and even what we feel like we would allow or accept in ourselves. 

Lee Chaix McDonough  17:37  

Yes, that’s exactly right. And it is terrifying and wonderful to release yourself from that terrifying because I do get a strong sense of purpose and motivation and drive by the things I do. You know, or, or the roles that I play, being a business owner, being a therapist, being a coach, being a wife and mother, like those roles, bring me a great deal of satisfaction, and and I’m proud of the work that I do. And so then it becomes How can I create space for that, and identify with those roles in that work, and yet not let it define who I am. Or maybe even more importantly, my self worth, because my worth is not dependent on those roles, or the things that I do. And, and so that’s that’s the balancing act. And I don’t mean to sit here and suggest I have that figured out, because it’s something that I work on every day. And I think in fact, the the more progress I make in my business, and the more I identify with, oh, I’m the CEO, I’m the founder, I’m running a coach training program, you know, it’s accredited, like, it’s really easy to get hooked by that. And I have to remind myself, I can be proud of those accomplishments. Absolutely. But that doesn’t define who I am, or, or why I matter in the world. 

Lisa Lewis Miller  18:55  

That’s such an important disambiguation and distinction to draw, because it can feel really easy to associate your work and your worth as being synonymous or being inextricably linked to one another. And recognizing that, that we all are inherently valuable and worthy. Just by being just by just by existing just by human being. And that our work can be separate from our identity, as much as we want it to be or as little as we want it to be. But they are two distinct concepts is so important and can take so much pressure off of how we think about work and what work has to be and what we have to accomplish and, and all the layers of connotation or nuance or story or whatever that get wrapped up in this this simple four letter word. 

Lee Chaix McDonough  19:54  

Yes. For me. It really came down to Understanding that my work could be an expression of who I am. But it didn’t have to be an extension of who I am, if that makes sense. And that worthiness is my birthright, it’s your birthright, it’s all of our birth rights, just by the very fact that we are here we have worth that does not need to be proven, it doesn’t need to be justified, it simply is. And so when we can really just breathe into that and just kind of luxuriate, in how liberating that is, then that gives us a lot of freedom of movement. And that’s when the work you do becomes an expression of who you are and what matters to you. Without defining you. That distinction is so juicy, an expression of who you are not an extension. 

Lisa Lewis Miller  20:50  

Oh, that’s so good. Again, it’s so freeing, take so much of that mental pressure cooker that you can put yourself into, and just press this little release valve. This is welcome to be an expression of who you are, and who you are, can shift and how that is an expression can shift and evolve and change over time. Oh, I love that. I feel like people in my career clarity course are going to see that show up in the course somewhere in the coming week. 

Lee Chaix McDonough  21:16  

Excellent. 

Lisa Lewis Miller  21:18  

Lovely. Well, let’s talk a little bit about that the work that you do now. And your three m framework, because one of the things that has always made your work resonate with me is how authentic and heart centered it feels and how effortless it feels, and it looks on the outside. And I have been attributing that to your philosophy and to your framework. So can you share a little bit about the three M framework and how it came to be, and what it means and what it looks like in expression in life. 

Lee Chaix McDonough  22:02  

I would be happy to and I do want to receive the compliment that you just paid me and acknowledge that sometimes it feels like, you know that I’m the duck that may look smooth on the surface and the little just paddling like crazy underneath the surface. So, so I received that. But also there’s as you know, there’s a lot of work that goes into that. And I am grateful for this, this framework of the three M’s, that is really my, my perspective, my modification, if you will, of a therapeutic approach called acceptance and Commitment Therapy, so ACT or act, we just call it act. At one point in my career, I was working for the Department of Veterans Affairs. And I was seeing a lot of veterans with depression, trauma, PTSD, anxiety and the like. And one of the modalities that the VA had approved and was training their mental health professionals on was acceptance and Commitment Therapy. So I completed a six month traineeship and act. And I was really taken aback not just by how powerful it was for my clients. But how it created a personal shift in me. And my mentor at the time even said, if we’re going to ask our clients to do this work, we must be willing and not just willing, we need to do the work ourselves. So this whole time I was applying the principles to my life, my career, my family, as I was working on it with my clients as well. And I really do view my life as being kind of a before act and after act perspective, because act really did allow me to view myself how I relate to myself and how I relate to others in a very different way. So I used that as my primary therapeutic approach for many years. And then when I hit that transition in 2015, of not being a therapist anymore, not working, taking care of my family and starting to feel a little unmoored. I remembered I was I was we were unpacking and I was putting books back on my bookshelf and all of my act literature came out and I was like, Oh, I know what to do. I’ve got the tools right here, I know what to do. And I started applying act again, to help me through that personal transition. And then as everything was going on with my husband and I was exploring coaching, I realized act is just as applicable in this space as well. But oh my goodness, there’s a lot of jargon. And there’s a lot of very psychodynamic or psychologically oriented language. How can I make this accessible for people who are in more of a small business world or an entrepreneurial role, and that was really where the book came from act on your business and where the three ends came from. So I really drilled down the major act components into these three pillars of meaning mindset and mindfulness. And in their essence, meaning is about your values and what brings purpose and meaning to your life, how you want to show up in the world and how you want your actions to reflect that sense of of meaning. mindset I view as being about how we relate to our internal experiences. Specifically, our thoughts and our emotions. How do we interpret our thoughts? How, how bought into them do we get, and then with our emotions, how much space are we willing to create for the unwanted or uncomfortable emotions? That’s mindset work to me. And that is often at the crux of what we’re facing one, we’re in a period of crisis. Because when we’re having those, those situations where we’re getting pulled away by our thoughts, or we’re trying to run away from our feelings, it takes us out of the present moment, we’re either living in the past or projecting into the future. And so that’s where that third m of mindfulness comes in and helps us really anchor down into the present moment. So that we are showing up fully out what we do is an expression of who we are what matters most to us. And it really weaves all three of those ends together. So that’s the framework that I use in the coaching I do, certainly, it’s a part of my training program. But more than that, these are principles I really strive to incorporate into the rest of my life as well, some days more successfully than others, but, but it really has been my anchor through not just some challenging periods, but also periods of joy, as well. And it’s really allowed me to live into the joy and, and be fully present and grateful for it. So again, the applications of it are really broad and powerful.

Lisa Lewis Miller  26:23  

I thinking about those three Ms, through the experience of what it’s like to be a budding business owner, resonates so much of my own personal experience, because I remember back to when I was first building that career coaching practice, you know, while I was doing the work as a career advisor, and how, in the beginning, when you’re thinking about how do I even build a business? What does that even look like? How do I find clients? What do I use for my software, there can be all of these questions that are very future oriented that can leave you swirling and immobilized with decision fatigue, analysis, paralysis, perfectionistic pressure that you have to get it right the first time. And one of the things that I support people with now when they are coming to me, because they want to transition from corporate to running their own business is helping to really anchor into what are the problems you need to be solving right now, today in the business, you do not need to be worrying about which CRM software you’re going to be getting, if you don’t even have any clients yet. Like, let’s focus on that the presence and the mindfulness and attending to just what’s needed in this moment, rather than sending yourself spinning into the future on how do I make all these decisions, and what’s the best color for me to be using in my logo, and, and all the things that can add a lot of confusion, and a lot of layers of, of, of delay, to being able to actually put yourself out there in the world and start operating as a business owner, be it on the product side or the service side. 

Lee Chaix McDonough  28:07  

That really resonates with me, because, again, at the end of the day, it’s not just what action are we taking, but how are we feeling about it? And how is it going to connect us with making forward progress in a way that that feels good, so that we can go to bed at the end of the day feeling proud. Or at least like yeah, that’s I lived today the way that I can I can feel really proud of and that’s that’s where we connected with the values. That’s why I think really anchoring into what matters most to you, is so important, because that’s what ultimately will inform the decisions that you make. And the thing about values too. The reason I like doing that work is because there’s no right or wrong when it comes to values. There’s no good or bad when it comes to values. And so my values probably look different than yours. I mean, we probably have some overlap, I would assume service is probably a core value for both of us. But then the maybe my value, I might hold one of freedom and you may hold one of stability or vice versa. And that’s not right or wrong. It’s simply what really resonates with us and how we want to live our lives. And then when we’re clear on those values, we can look at the actions we’re taking and ask ourselves, okay, to what extent is this congruent with what matters most to me, I find that when I am feeling lost, or feeling uncertain about next steps or doubting what I’ve done, if I go to my values, that’s usually my my test of Am I on track or not? Because if it’s aligned with my values, and even if I’m having some doubt, I feel fairly confident in my decision. But if it’s misaligned with my values, then that suggests to me like okay, hold up. This is this is a red flag and we need to dig into this. So For me, I always anchor myself in the values because that then informs how I relate to some of the mind chatter that might be coming up after a decision. And so again, if I can just anchor in my values, and bring in that mindfulness process to do so that really helps me reaffirm any decisions I’ve made, or it allows me to course correct. 

Lisa Lewis Miller  30:20  

I love that, Lee. I think that the way you’re proposing, effectively identifying your values, and then using them as a, as a metric, or as a scorecard to help you feel clear about your decision making is so helpful. Because one of the biggest things I think people really struggle with when making a career change decision is, Is this right? Is this gonna work out? Is Does this make sense for me? And if you’re trying to answer those questions in a vacuum, without a frame of reference, or a sense of what your northstars are, it can feel impossible to feel competent, and clear and comfortable on what your answer to that is, you might have some intuitive nudges. But so many of the people who come to us are really analytical, and intellectual and thoughtful. And those intuitive nudges often don’t feel sufficient as a basis for making decisions. So to be able to have a really analytical, thoughtful framework, based on your values, to then check your decision making process against can make it so that even if you’re making a decision that feels unexpected, or unusual, or off the beaten path of what people thought you were going to do, you have this quiet sense of self trust and have clarity, based in seeing how this decision serves and allows you to live out the values that you say are most important to you, and how you want to show up in your life. 

Lee Chaix McDonough  31:54  

That’s exactly right. I feel like I would be remiss, though, if we didn’t also address the fact that sometimes we have difficulties making decisions, or we second guess ourselves, because we’re experiencing a values clash, where we have two values that are present that are important to us. And in this particular instance, they seem to be working against each other. And I feel this quite often as a working mom, where I hold the value of love and family and being there for my kids, and the value of service and drive and wanting to be there for my clients and wanting to grow my business. And sometimes those two values come into direct competition with each other. Am I going to see this client? Am I going to go to my son’s basketball game? I mean, a very simple but a very real world example of when I have to decide which value takes precedence right now, and how will that inform my decision making process. So for people who are thinking about making a career transition or taking a new job, if it feels confusing, it may also be because there are competing values at play here, value of stability versus value of exploration. I mean, that’s that’s a legitimate concern. But I think when we see it for what it is, when we see it as a values conflict, as opposed to a right or wrong decision, then it gives us a little more flexibility and how we want to approach ultimately making a final choice. 

Lisa Lewis Miller  33:14  

Well, so now that you brought that up, I’m curious, how would you guide somebody who was facing that exact values conflict in thinking through the decision making process there?

Lee Chaix McDonough  33:25  

I think it starts by asking the question which value needs or wants to take precedence right now. And so for example, if you are, let’s, let’s use the let’s talk about like making a transition into a new job. If that if there’s an underlying value, that Doing this will somehow jeopardize my safety or my stability, or my family has concerns about that, then we need to acknowledge that that is speaking to the value around stability and family. And depending on what’s going on in your life right now, that may be the value that needs to take precedent. And so then it becomes Alright, maybe it’s not a no, but it’s a not yet to this career shift. On the other hand, if making this job switch is going to open up new paths for you, and going to lead to greater fulfillment that in turn will allow you to be more connected to your family, then maybe it’s worth kind of taking a little risk with the stability and taking this new job knowing that in the end, it’s actually going to serve them too. So again, there’s no right or wrong answer here. But we can kind of explore what if from a values based perspective, and then ultimately figuring out a way to take that external data. So the feedback we’re getting from other people, you know, the societal messages, if you want to factor that in, we can take that and we can blend it with our internal knowing how we’re anchoring in our values, what our body is telling us about this. We can take all of that data into account the external and the internal and ultimately reach a decision that ideally feels values aligned and and is coming from a place of intentionality, and weighing all of the data equally. 

Lisa Lewis Miller  35:07  

I love that. And I’ll add on to that when I have those kinds of conversations with clients. Another thing that that we explore sometimes that sometimes works and sometimes does not work, is if there’s a way for both values to, to win and to be honored at the same time, yes. So you know, in the example of it’s, it’s five o’clock, and my son has a basketball game. And there’s a possibility that I could take on a client, it would be challenging to have both values be able to win at that exact decision, that exact time slot in that one particular instance. But that, when you were talking about values earlier, and talking about freedom versus stability, a lot of people honor and want both. And that can come up in huge ways when thinking about navigating career change. So one of the things that we often look at is, what’s the most risk managed way that I can keep moving forward, so that I do honor my value of stability. I don’t go out in a blaze of glory and quit without having a financial safety net, or without having any prospects on the horizon. But I give myself the space and the permission to start exploring, making that change and trying some things out and running some small scale experiments to see what works and what feels good. And where am I finding momentum, so that you can both have have your cake and eat it too, in that you’re doing things that are really risk managed, thoughtful, strategic way, so that you’re not exposing yourself or your family to outsize risk. And that you’re finding ways to move forward that honor, your desire for freedom or your desire for exploration and growth. And don’t have that completely stifled are stamped out or traded off and traded away, in order to value stability. 

Lee Chaix McDonough  37:02  

I’m so glad you brought that up. I think that is such an important point. And I know that when faced with decisions, especially when we’re under stress, it’s so easy for us to revert to the binary, either this or that. And we fall into that either or thinking, which again, is a natural stress response. That’s kind of what happens to us. And and it takes, it takes some practice remembering that we don’t always have to come from an either or perspective. And as you said, we can embrace the both and we can see what other opportunities may be available to us that we’re not considering because we’re so focused on the either or, and this is really where creativity and curiosity can serve us so that maybe we can come up with an innovative solution. Or we can come up with a timeline that’s going to work where maybe it’s not about saying yes to one note to another, but it has more to do with with timing or degree. And so when we can be flexible and curious, that can that can really serve us. So I’m so glad you brought that up. That’s a really important point.

Lisa Lewis Miller  38:03  

Well, and to your point that feels like a pivotal piece of the mindset of if you go into these kinds of value, value friction points, with the mindset that there is a path to a win win, or there is a way to make it work. If you’re willing to be flexible on timing or urgency or sequencing, or whatnot. It feels like it opens up a lot of possibilities for forward movement that can feel really good.

Lee Chaix McDonough  38:33  

Absolutely, yes, that’s that’s exactly what the mindset work is about to and about seeing when we tend to have those those limited viewpoints or the limited beliefs about ourselves or about other people, how we relate to them. And that can kind of, you know, narrow, narrow our scope. And so when we do the work of separating who we are from what we think, and we open ourselves up to the idea of there may be other possibilities out there that I’m not considering not just about all the stuff in the world, but also in me, there may be things about me, I haven’t even discovered yet. And then all of a sudden, it’s like the possibilities are limitless. 

Lisa Lewis Miller  39:11  

And thinking about that mindset piece, when you give yourself permission that that you are allowed to change and evolve. That those things you haven’t discovered in yourself yet may open up new divergent doors from the pathway or from the trajectory that you’ve been on so far and that it’s okay, to pivot. It’s okay to adapt. It’s okay to explore running your own business after having had a trajectory that was a little bit different prior. It makes it so much easier to take action in the direction of things that will feel fulfilling and life giving and sustainable at the same time. 

Lee Chaix McDonough  39:47  

Yes, I think if we approach evolution as be expectation, you know, and we create space for that change, and of course change is going to look different for each one of us. And, you know, some of us won’t need to start a new business. Or leave a job in order to experience evolution, but others of us will. But if we think about that change being a constant and expected, then all of a sudden it normalizes it, and it doesn’t feel so, so weird or scary or uncertain when we make the decision to go down a different path. 

Lisa Lewis Miller  40:19  

I love that the first coaching training program that I completed was with Jenny Blake in the pivot method. And she is famous for saying if change is the only constant, let’s get better at it. And love it. Such a beautiful, not stressful way to think about it. 

Lee Chaix McDonough  40:38  

Excellent. 

Lisa Lewis Miller  40:39  

Well, Lee, thank you so much for coming on the Career Clarity Show today and for sharing all of these beautiful gems and distinctions in thinking and frameworks that everybody who’s listening to this can use to feel more grounded. And we’re clear in their day to day lives. If somebody has been listening to this and loving what you’re talking about, and wants to learn more about you and the work that you do in the world, where’s the best place for them to follow up? 

Lee Chaix McDonough  41:05  

I would love to continue the conversation with with them and with you. And you can certainly find me over at my website Coachwithclarity.com and I’m also active over on Instagram, I’m @coachwithclarity, so feel free to slide right into my DNS. But I think that the website and Instagram are really the two best places to reach me. 

Lisa Lewis Miller  41:23  

Well Lee, thank you for coming and sharing your brilliance on the Career Clarity Show. This has been such a wonderful conversation. Thank you so much for having me. And that’s a wrap. Let us know what you thought about today’s episode. leave us a review on Apple podcasts because not only can your stars and words help us find great guests and topics to feature on future episodes. Your input also helps other people find the resources they need to discover the work that lights them up. And make sure to check out my book Career Clarity Show finally find the work that fits your values and lifestyle. For the link to order it go to GetCareerClarity.com/book. And don’t forget to get your other tools resources and helpful goodies at GetCareerClarity.com/podcast. Thanks again for joining us for the Career Clarity Show today. And remember, if you don’t love your work, we should talk because life is too short to be doing work that doesn’t light you up. Talk to you next time.