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Episode 98: Sustainable Ambition with Kathy Oneto

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 to Kathy Oneto who specializes in the concept of sustainable ambition. One of the biggest things that we talk about when it comes to career clarity is that when we have ambition that drives us and creates a sense of a hustle, it doesn’t always enable us to feel the way that we want to feel – in our personal lives as well as in our professional lives. 

We are going to be talking about how to define success on your own terms. If sustainable and ambition are two words that you’ve never really put together in your life before but you are intrigued as to how, this episode is absolutely going to be for you.

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Show Notes:

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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. Welcome, welcome back to the Career Clarity Show. I’m Lisa Miller. And as usual, I am delighted to have you with us today. For today’s episode of the Career Clarity Show, we are talking to a fabulous human who specializes in talking about something that is very near and dear to my heart. And I imagine for each of you listening, it probably will resonate hugely. And it’s the concept of sustainable ambition. You know, one of the biggest things that we talk about when it comes to career clarity and finding work that feels fulfilling and soulful and lucrative is that when we have ambition that just drives us and creates a sense of a hustle and constantly being on, it doesn’t always enable us to feel the way that we want to feel, or to make career choices that empower us to show up as the people that we want to be in our lives, even in our personal lives as well as in our professional lives. So on today’s episode of the podcast, we are going to be talking about how to define success on your own terms. And really feel like you are stepping into a career that feels good for you and feels good on the inside and not just shiny on the outside. Because one of my favorite quotes from Tony Robbins and no matter if you like him or dislike him, I feel like this quote really resonates is that success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure. So on today’s episode of the show, if you are somebody who needs to think about what fulfillment means for you, or maybe you’re someone who needs to revisit and refresh on whether or not you’re pointing yourself towards a fulfilling life giving direction, or if sustainable and ambition are two words that you’ve never really put together in your life before, but you are intrigued as to how this episode is absolutely going to be for you. I’ll also put you at an episode that we’ve done in the past on ass kicking with limitations, which will be a different spin on the same topic, but might be a great one for you to listen to. If this really resonates for you. Check out a link for that in our show notes. And you’ll be able to be really well equipped to define success on your own terms, create a sense of sustainable ambition and then actually make it happen. Now my guest for today’s conversation is the lovely and wonderful Kathy Oneto. Cathy is a strategist with over 20 years of experience with CPG and retail companies on both the client and agency sides. She offers a diverse perspective, having worked with fortune 500 companies and applying that experience in entrepreneurial environments. Kathy brings experience to her role as a coach to executives and those looking to optimize their careers. She’s the founder of sustainable ambition, a platform to help professionals craft a fulfilling career to support their life from decade to decade, the end goal to find more fulfillment and ease in their professional and personal lives while still being ambitious. She’s also the host of the sustainable ambition podcast. So if you love podcasts, definitely go check hers out. I was incredibly honored to get to be a guest on one of the early episodes. And she’s a wonderful interviewer. And her motto is that it’s not about finding work life balance. It’s about creating personal reward, cultivating a regenerative career, and building work life resilience. Kathy, welcome to the Career Clarity Show.

Kathy Oneto  3:53  

Thank you so much for having me, Lisa, I’m really looking forward to our conversation.

Lisa Lewis Miller  3:58  

Well, I am looking forward to our conversation too. Because this idea of sustainable ambition is one that I can imagine for some people listening feels like an oxymoron. These two words don’t go together like this is not a real thing. So I’d love to have you jump in and start us with the story of why and how sustainable ambition became a concept of interest in your own life.

Kathy Oneto  4:27  

Yes, I know it’s it’s really interesting when you read the description of what I mean by sustainable ambition, it’s really ambitious, is it not? And to put those two concepts together and I will say that this concept came to me as I got to more of my mid career point. And I was starting to reevaluate what I wanted for my own career. And I was starting to have conversations with my peers and friends and colleagues and I started to hear very similar things, you know, I just want something different from my career, my satisfaction is changing, my ambition is changing. And so it made me just pause to think about that and start to pay attention to like, what’s really happening here. And then when I started to look back at my own career, I started to realize that, oh, I’ve actually kind of been living this idea of sustainable ambition, all of my career without really knowing it. And so what I mean by that is that I started my career, just to give you a couple of examples of my work experience. So I am from California, I went to school in Virginia, I ended up in New York City, but when I chose a career coming out of undergrad, I, you know, had the opportunity to potentially work in investment paying or at a consulting firm. And I ended up having the opportunity to work at a large advertising agency, working for the CFO and other people in the financial organization. So it wasn’t, it wasn’t still an insignificant role. But whenever I was right out of undergrad, but part of the reason I took that job was that I didn’t want my work to content completely consumed me. I wanted to be able to actually enjoy New York City. And I also, this is the crazy part. I was an athlete growing up and I had started to get some interest in doing triathlons. So who moves to New York City and thinks, oh, I want to do triathlons. But that’s what was in my head at the time. And so I was conscientious about what job I was taking as I left college. Now, that might have been a little career limiting in some ways, but I’m fine. And you know, and yet, I’m somebody who, when I talked to my peers after and we all went to business school, where they were like, What do you mean, you went to the museums or went to the symphony? Or you swam up at Columbia? Or you took a pottery class? Like, how did you do those things? I’m like, Well, I wasn’t working 60 to 80 hours a week, guys, like I was probably working 50 to 55, you know, but I wasn’t working 80 hours. So for me, there’s other examples I can give you,

Kathy Oneto  7:16  

Lisa, but I, you know, just, I started to look back and kind of realize, oh, I’ve been kind of living this myself. And then I also just as I look out into the world and look at how are we defining success out in the world today? Not in a sustainable way? how, you know, what our expectations of how our career should be managed in this linear upward trajectory? Is that really realistic? You know, or this addiction that we have, especially in the United States, to just being busy? You know? And, you know, like, that’s not, you know, that’s inherently unsustainable. So I think I was just seeing out in the world, these confluence of issues, if you will, and I wanted to offer up, is there a better way? Is there a different way of looking at this? And, you know, can those of us who still want to be ambitious find just a way to manage it in a way that brings more fulfillment, more fulfillment with ease into our lives?

Lisa Lewis Miller  8:22  

What a juicy question. And, Kathy, I feel like the fact that you were even thinking about that, and had the self awareness, and the cognizance to be wondering those questions, and even thinking about them in the early decisions in your career, is really interesting, because for so many of us, the the almost addiction to the kind of sexy or sides of success starts that early. It starts with, well, what major Are you going to pick for your undergrad so that you can get the best possible job? And how do you make sure that they really appreciate you and see your worth? Well, gosh, you better work 60 hour weeks. And, you know, well, now you’re making all this money, and you’ve got these golden handcuffs on and now you can’t leave and take a step back, even though you’re not happy. And it just becomes like this spun up tornadoes swirl of stress and anxiety. And I’m, I’m wondering, what do you attribute it to? That you didn’t get onto that train? What do you attribute it to that you had the presence of mind? To say, you know, let me take a good enough job so that I can create a really rich, holistic life for myself.

Kathy Oneto  9:37  

It’s a great question, you know, I I’m not 100% certain where that came from, to be honest with you. And I think to some degree, there was an intuitive sense. It’s interesting. It’s almost let me go here which is like, I almost feel like I still brought that childlike kind of innocence to some of what I was doing. And I have to say, some of the pressures that you’re noting, I think I felt even more in my 30s. And as I got further into my career and where I started to feel more pressure to, okay, well, you gotta be going for that VP title, Kathy, and you better lean in, and you better do this, or you better do that, or, you know, I’ll just admit, even in the last five years, this idea of like, Well, why didn’t I go for that, you know, Chief Marketing Officer title, like, what does that say about me? And I think earlier in my career, I think I was more attuned, or even just as a younger person more attuned to, what am I just wanting to learn? How am I wanting to grow. And so, you know, I went to school from California and went to school on the East Coast, having this may sound crazy, but like, having never seen the school on my own, because we couldn’t afford to send like, my parents couldn’t afford to, like fly with me. So I got put on a plane before suitcases and went off to school and, you know, dealt with getting myself from the airport to my dorm and getting my suitcases up three flights of stairs. And it’s just, I don’t know, I was like, I just want to go do this. And that’s how I want to grow and learn and stretch myself. And it was the same with moving to New York City, it was almost like this leap of faith kind of thing. So I, I think there was almost like, more, I didn’t have as much of the societal pressures perhaps being put on me. And maybe I just that had an infiltrate me as much quite yet when I was making that decision. At that point in my early career.

Lisa Lewis Miller  11:43  

Well, then the follow up question has to be what switch flipped in your 30s to all of us data and start creating those wonders and worries and the self doubt and the questioning about should I be aiming for this VP level? Should I be feeling more ambitious?

Kathy Oneto  12:00  

You know, it’s not like I wasn’t ever ambitious, or that I didn’t want to Excel or do well. But, you know, it’s, again, I think you start to see other people around you doing certain things. And I think you start to let other voices in, instead of right, really listening to, you know, well, what is my purpose? How do I want to have an impact? What are my values? How do I honor those values. And, you know, I still did that all along the way of my career, you know, I chose a business school, because of the values that they held, I chose to work at Clorox, because of the values of the company, I went to work at a natural food startup because I wanted to work at a company that actually had a product that was delivering a positive benefit from a health and wellness perspective. So I was still following those kind of breadcrumbs. But it’s, it’s, it’s interesting, I, I think I lost track. And frankly, it is when those shoulds pop into my head, and those shoulds start to guide my actions. Because I’ve had some myths, missteps, I’m just gonna admit over the last like five plus years, where it’s like, it’s because it’s being driven from the should that I’m like, some, there’s dissonance here. And I’m not tuning into myself. So and I can’t really say why I’ve let those shoulds pop up in it, I think it’s possibly like pure set, you know, that you’re around, you know, looking at how other people’s trajectories are going. And I, I do think there are some of us, you and I might have even talked about this a little bit where there are some of us that fit in quite well into a normal corporate structure, or what these normal definitions of success are. And then there are some of us, and frankly, probably more of us, then, you know, corporate America wants to recognize that are not one note, or are going to find fulfilment in a different way. And by building our careers in a different way. And there’s just in my opinion, not enough acceptance of this, and and awareness of it, that there is a way to craft a career and in a way that’s more fulfilling for you. And it’s not going to necessarily look like everyone around you. But you know, what’s the trade off? Do you want to be more as you said, do you want to be more fulfilled? You know, or do you want to be holding your own self up to a measuring stick? That is somebody else’s?

Lisa Lewis Miller  14:42  

I love that distinction, because I think that you’re really highlighting that the more that we look externally, the easier it is to get pulled off of your own truenorth. The more that you’re using the measuring stick of keeping up with the Joneses or what is my peer set doing or wait my old colleague got promoted to what level or This person’s making how much money or they moved to where. And that, that absorbing of the external information and then making it mean something about yourself seems to be a really common place to start to get pulled off track and off mission. And it sounds like the moments in your career and the decisions in your life that have felt the most aligned are the ones where you really stuck to your gut of these values are important to me. So I’m going to seek them out, be it in a natural food company, be it at Clorox, be it at a business school, the more often you route back into and ground back into, well, who am I, the easier it all gets. And Kathy, I appreciate that your your career has, has been 20 years, because I think that a lot of times, it feels tricky to think about our careers in more longitudinal senses, especially for folks who listen to the podcast, who are 25 3035, that it can feel like there’s this enormous pressure to figure it all out, and get it all right. And you know, to check the box and kick up your feet and just be able to coast for the remainder of your career and of your life. And when you put that much pressure and expectation on something, it doesn’t really give you the spaciousness to pivot, or realign or reassess, or maybe take a lateral step, or even a step that might in terms of pay or in terms of title move you backwards, but in terms of alignment or in growing skills that you want, or happiness, move you away, way forward. And so I I really appreciate that, that this perspective can come from the place of saying, You got a lot of time to play with, you got a lot of opportunity to make moves, and decade by decade, craft a career and make decisions that feel aligned with who you are in that season.

Kathy Oneto  17:07  

Yeah, I totally agree with that. I think, you know, our society doesn’t talk about this enough. And I think that there’s just so much pressure, as you just alluded to, for us to just know, it’s as if people think that our career trajectory is like our personality that it’s wired within us, right. And they don’t realize that there’s, yes, there’s a little bit of nature in there, right. But there’s a lot of nurture, as well. And your career is not just a chip that’s in your genes, like a part of your genes are in your genetic code, like yes, we all have our talents and our strengths that we need to lean into. But it is a journey. It really is. And I think, you know, as I’ve done research with people in career transition, I’ve really learned the other thing about this is that your satisfaction and your ambitions, you know, it might not be for everyone, some people are really clear, right? Look, you know, I know somebody like, I want to be a CEO of a CPG company, you know, my first interview guests on sustainable ambition, you know, he’s known that because of the world he came from, etc, he that’s still his ambition. Some people are that lucky, I want to be a doctor, whatever it could be. But for the majority of us, you know, it’s not that clear. You know, even Peter Drucker talks about like, for, for a lot of people, it’s really not until your late mid to late 20s, that you really kind of know. And then I go back to a book that’s from some time ago now, but Pope onsen, a great writer, who wrote what I want to do with my life, you know, after his research, you know, of interviewing all these different people ended the conclusion of his book with we all many of us almost only get a glimmer, you know, of what we’re meant to do. And so, I this idea of like, it’s almost like, I hate to use this expression. But then some love was like, I just was for some of us were like, I just want to find my partner. So I can say, settle down, and like lock everything in. And then like you said, coast, and it’s like, you know, just like a marriage is not our partnership is not like you lock it in and you coast, a career is also not that way, you might find a path, but you have to continue to pay attention and nurture it over time.

Lisa Lewis Miller  19:19  

And you know, what also stands out to me about that example is that there’s a level of personal responsibility that you have to take for creating the kind of experiences that you want. Changing and updating and making the decisions to lead you in a direction that feels good. Because just like you’re talking about with the partner example, that just because you found a person who is willing to be with you for the rest of their life does not mean the rest of your lives together are going to be puppy dogs and rainbows and roses automatically, that there’s a lot of personal responsibility that you have to take for your initiative and what you’re putting in to make it good and make it work for you. And I know you’re a big believer of this principle as it applies into the career realm do. 

Kathy Oneto  20:04  

Well, I mean, this is one of the things I really loved about your book. And you said this in the book, which is like, remember that this career clarity work? Is like worth it. Right? It’s worth the effort. And what I loved about what you said is it’s work. It is work folks. Like if this isn’t like, you know, again, you don’t go on autopilot. Like it really, it’s not even like sustainable ambition. It’s not easy, but it’s possible. And it means like, you need to take responsibility. And I think, you know, sometimes I think that people also expect their their employers right to own all of this are to take responsibility, or why aren’t they doing this for me? Or why aren’t they training me? Or why aren’t they in? It’s like, at some point, you really do have to take personal responsibility. And I think we both believe like, you even shared this with me on our my podcast, which is like, you need to look inside yourself, you are the one who has the answers, right? Only you know, who you are, and what you really desire. So, you know, you can’t, you can’t expect to go on autopilot, if that’s where the answers and like the signals reside.

Lisa Lewis Miller  21:07  

Absolutely. And I think in a lot of ways, it’s derived from the previous generations expectations around work, that you get into one company, one Corporation, and that you’re going to be there for 40 years, and you’re lucky to be there and the goal is longevity. And that you’ll get your pension at the end and your sheet cake at your retirement party. And when that’s the model that you’re working with, the only responsibility that you really have to take is getting your foot in the door and then not messing it up too bad to get fired. And 50 years ago, that was a completely viable way to think about careers, and jobs. But these days, because the marketplace is changing, so dynamically so quickly. Like Jenny Blake, who we both know and love, says in her in her book, and probably also in our podcast, we live in an age of pivot or get pivoted. And so if you’re not willing to take responsibility for actively cultivating your professional reputation, and actively cultivating your interest, so that you have optionality, if one of the the career trajectories that you’ve put yourself on falls through or changes being pivoted is, the less fun of the two options. So putting yourself in a position to be able to pivot and to be nimble and agile and have other options out there is worth thinking about even if you feel so overwhelmed, you feel like your brain could just explode right now, at least thinking about how to keep a couple doors open so that you might walk through them can be a huge act of professional self care, in a way.

Kathy Oneto  22:57  

I agree. And I think you know, I think we both believe in curiosity and following your curiosity. You know, it’s such a powerful thing to just really continually ask oneself, well, what am I curious about now? You know, how do I want to grow? How do I want to learn? And what do I want to get mastery in right into start to pay attention to those things as you’re going along, such that you are keeping those doors open, and you’re starting to plant the seeds for what’s next. And I do think that’s really important. It’s not just, you know, I kind of focus with some folks on you know, that second half of your career and when people are kind of looking to what’s next. And you know, Peter Drucker again, talks about, like, you know, if you’re not starting to plant seeds, prior to you getting to that stage, you’re not going to have a success, successful second half. So it’s, it’s a signal for all of us to really be paying attention. And I kind of wonder, like, you know, are not only has the work world changed in terms of like, you know, this, this, hey, you can’t just expect to stay in one career over time in the work world, you know, our world is just changing so much. That’s why I talk about building a regenerative career, you have to be re skilling and learning but you know, it’s also adjusting to who your satisfaction in your ambition over time. And I think one of the things that impacts that that, again, isn’t talked about enough. I think it’s like, we’re all running so hard. Like so much is asked of us from a work both, frankly, a professional and personal life. You know, these days, like they’ve even shown in studies how, for example, motherhood takes more hours in today’s world than it took in the past. And so it’s like these expectations even for women of like, what motherhood is like slap on another 10 hours on top of the fact that many of us are asked to work 50 to 60 hours a week, and you’re kind of like, Well, why do our satisfaction or our ambitions have to shift over time? You know, it’s it’s kind of No wonder, in some respects that you know, in called to look for any model.

Lisa Lewis Miller  25:10  

Well, I want to back you up to this regenerative career idea because you just slip that in ever so quickly as you were talking about how many expectations and pressures and hours of work we are doing in our lives. So can I back you up? And have you expound on that a bit? What, what for you defines and constitutes a regenerative career?

Kathy Oneto  25:33  

So for me, what I mean by that is, it does relate back to this idea of like really paying attention to managing your career from decade to decade, paying attention to Am I still satisfied with my work? What am I looking for from my work over time, and then again, also paying attention to your ambition, because I just believe that those things can ebb and flow over time. And potentially, what we even are ambitious about any moment in our life versus another time, can shift. So just even take the simplest example of the realities of men and women, having families and having children. And you know, when that happens, it’s a big shift. And guess what your ambitions and where you want to put your attention across all of your life is going to change. And if you don’t go into that with eyes wide open and think about what does that mean for how you want to adjust your career in your life, you know, it’s just you’re doing yourself a disservice. I think that sometimes, I guess what I just believe is like, go in, like I said, with eyes wide open, instead of trying to just assume, and I’m sorry, I love Sheryl Sandberg. But it’s like, and I don’t really want to say like, Don’t lean in. But there’s also reality to, you know, making choices around how you’re going to be in your life. So as an example, one of my upcoming podcast guests, she’s the chief people Officer of a large public company. And she was saying, even for herself, I need to define what balance means for me, or I need to define what motherhood means for me, if I use again, it comes back to this self defined measures, Lisa, as opposed to these external measures. She’s like, if I use the external measures of how I’m going to think about myself as a mother, I’m gonna lose, right. But who can define those things for oneself, but but her right, so. So that’s like the self defined elements. But getting back to regenerative career, one of the ways I think about it is regenerative from a standpoint of paying attention, what’s important to you in the moment, and adjusting what you may need to be doing with your career at these different moments in time. So another example of that is, again, the number of people that I talked to who are in their late 40s, early 50s, that are like, I want something different from my career now, you know, been there done that leaning towards contribution or ready for that next growth curve, you know, so if you’re not paying attention to the fact that and being ready to regenerate your career at that stage, again, you’re going to come up to this point of being surprised and shocked, shocked and not ready. So that’s what I mean. And and a final thing I’ll just say is, again, we talked about this a little bit earlier, our work world has changed so much, the world is changing so fast, if you are not paying attention to getting re skilled, or learning new things, or even like staying on top of new technologies, whatever it might be important for your career, like, then you’re not regenerating, right, you’re not staying on top of things. And there is a reality in today’s fast moving world, that you’re going to potentially become irrelevant, right? Like, I made a conscious choice in my career to be like, Oh, my gosh, I’m gonna step off this path. And this is an element, this was a little bit of a should but I still think it was a smart thing for me to do, which is okay, I live in tech Central, like I’m in the Bay Area, I need to get some e commerce and digital experience, you know, I need to go back to school and go learn some digital marketing skill set. Like that was a conscious choice for me to do that to make sure I was still gonna maintain relevance in my career. And so if you’re not paying attention to those things are realizing I mean, I would hope that everyone knows these days, like we have to continually learn. But I just want to emphasize that point again, that again, to build a regenerative career is all that’s also a key component of it.

Lisa Lewis Miller  29:48  

Kathy, that’s, it’s so important to really highlight learning as a critical piece of relevance and regeneration. Because I can imagine somebody listening to this podcast and thinking like Well cool in what free time am I going to be learning because I’m so busy, I have so much to do. And one of the things that I talk about with respect to learning is what I refer to as the F word of careers, which is the word fun. That part of the goal of learning and growth is to lean into the things that feel fun and interesting. And that satisfies some kind of curiosity for you. And great if they have ROI to them, but it’s even okay to allow yourself to lean into learning and growth and fun, outside of activities that have a return on investment. Because just the amount of energy and reconnection with yourself that can come out of taking a painting class, or taking a distance or running a class or joining a hiking club, or whatever you do, can contribute to that sense of regeneration. But there are also plenty of ways to give yourself a space and permission to learn that can ultimately have some really nice ROI and allow you to recalibrate your career to make sure that enjoyment is a piece of it. Because it can feel so easy and so inevitable to get sort of spun up and and sort of carried away in a career trajectory that feels like work with a capital W and with sort of a brow furrow that comes with it, like I do this work. And if that’s what you want, if that’s how you’re defining sustainable ambition for yourself that you want to be in a job that comes with a brow furrow every day, kudos to you. And I’m so glad that you’re, you’re following your alignment on values. But I would guess for most of the people listening to this podcast, that brow furrow a feeling is not one that you want to be having on a daily basis in your work. So giving yourself this space to say what could I learn that would feel fun for me? What can I lean into that would feel interesting and give me a little bit of intellectual stimulation that feels different from my day to day life is so regenerative and also strategic, when you’re thinking about managing your career, year to year, decade to decade to make sure that you still feel like yourself in your work.

Kathy Oneto  32:26  

Yeah, I could concur with that. I think the couple of things that come up for me around that is one, that when you do that, to this whole whole notion of diversity of thought like expanding your skillset, like even when you’re doing something that feels divergent, from what might be on on squarely in your light kind of expertise, or where you’re wanting to trying to improve, you may think that. So as an example, you know, I’ve taken improv in the past. Some people may think like, oh, how does I mean, improv these days is more accepted than the time that I that I did this, but it’s more it’s more in our lexicon, I think now and our norms, but some people might think like, well, how is that going to help me, but it’s like, well, because it teaches you how to present yourself differently, or how to play or how to be a good partner and be more collaborative. And so you might think it’s divergent, right? That it actually builds a different skill set and a built different muscle that’s probably going to be contributory to what you’re doing already. The second thing that I think is great about what you brought up Lisa’s that, you know, another part of sustainable ambition I talked about is right effort. And a big part of that, in terms of sustainable ambition is this idea of building one’s resilience. And, you know, if you’re not doing some things that are playful, or that give you pleasure, like that are filling up where your resilience stores, then you know, you’re not going to be able to kind of have achieve the sustainable ambition. So I love your for me and my own head, you’re kind of pulling together two different aspects for me, like both doing something that’s really restorative or life giving, if you will, and giving you that resilience, but also bringing in that enjoyment and fun and potentially having that positive skill building impact that you might not even realize,

Lisa Lewis Miller  34:24  

well, and I love the way that you’re underlining that resilience and restoration and enjoy really can and do have an intersection point because I mean, goodness gracious with dealing with the pandemic of the last year. If it was not crystal clear that we all need to be really actively putting opportunities into our lives to fill up that that resilience meter. And to feel like you’ve got something playful or hopeful or joyful happening in your life, and some way. I mean, this year has taught us a lot of lessons. But for me, that’s certainly one of them. And even when it’s hard, leaning into restoration, regeneration, and resilience seems to tend to pay off seems to be worth it. So that’s such a great point.

Kathy Oneto  35:19  

Yeah, I really believe so I took it, I always referenced him. But Dr. Rick Hanson, I took a course with him. And he wrote a book around resilience. And one of the things he talks about is, you know, this, he has kind of a four steps, I always just focus on the first two, but it’s kind of like, you know, have an experience it experience and then embed it, right, really take it in. And that that is an element of that is really just being present for it, right. And it’s when you embed it, and really let it sink in, that it becomes a part of you and becomes this element that you can call upon. And so you know, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve kind of I can come upon a challenging time, and I can go back to experiences and like it can, it really can sustain me a lot more. So investing in and if these don’t have to be this is the thing, sometimes people think pauses or doing these resilience kind of activities have to take a lot of time, they don’t, you know, it can be just even pausing and taking in, you know, I take in, you know, bees that are fluttering around my garden, or it could be just taking in your children playing together and the joy that they’re having together or your dog doing something, right. So it doesn’t have to be big, momentous things all the time. But they you know, if you actually pause to take them in and have them fill you up, it’s kind of like gratitude journals and things like that. But they’re so important, as you’re saying, and you’re right this year, if this year has taught us anything that’s so important. And frankly, as we start to come out of this pandemic, I’m already starting to hear this from people. Oh, my gosh, the floodgates the overwhelm the concern about it right. So I just I the underscore of the importance of figuring out how can you build some resilience into your day to day and kind of restore yourself on a daily basis is pretty important.

Lisa Lewis Miller  37:21  

I love that thinking about making it sustainable, no matter what the external conditions make possible for your ambition is a beautiful place to bring us to a close for today. Kathy, it’s been such a pleasure having you on the podcast, and I’m sure there are people listening who are thinking to themselves, I want more of what she’s selling. So for people who are loving your message, where are some places that they can hear more from you? Yeah, thanks

Kathy Oneto  37:46  

so much, Lisa. So sustainableambition.com is my website you can also find resources at sustainable ambition comm slash resources. And then please look for my podcast. This is stainable ambition podcast on Apple podcast, Google, many other places that you you might find your podcast, so I’d love it if you checked it out and had a listen.

Lisa Lewis Miller  38:10  

Well, Kathy, thank you so much for coming on the Career Clarity Show today and sharing your brilliance.

Kathy Oneto  38:16  

Thanks so much for having me, Lisa. It’s been a pleasure.

Lisa Lewis Miller  38:24  

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.

About the Author Lisa Lewis

Lisa is a career change coach helping individuals feeling stuck to find work that fits. She helps people clarify who they are, what they want most, and what a great job for them looks like so they can make their transition as easily as possible. Lisa completed coaching training in Jenny Blake’s Pivot Method, Danielle LaPorte’s Fire Starter Sessions, Kate Swoboda's Courageous Living Coaching Certification, and the World Coaches Institute. In addition to that, she apprenticed with the top career coaches in the country so she can do the best possible work with — and for — you. She's helped more than 500 individuals move into more fulfilling, yummy careers and would be honored to get to serve you next!

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