Hi Justin, thank you for being with me today.
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Hey Kelly, thanks for having me on.
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It's great to see you.
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Okay, and I'm really looking forward to our conversation.
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ah And so let's just dive right in.
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All right.
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Let's do it.
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I'm excited to dive in.
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Okay, cool.
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right, oh you know, each of, know, Life from Within is about em the moments in our careers
that stretch us.
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So each of us in our careers experiences these moments that stretch us, whether it's
through a career pivot or recovering from a career setback or up-leveling in some fashion,
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whether it's the first time stepping into the C-suite or launching a new venture.
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And so,
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We're here today to talk about a time that stretched you in your career.
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So could you Set the scene for us and tell us about a time where you had some intense
personal growth?
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Yeah, and I feel like you're lead in, we're going to touch on a handful of those things
and at least The memory that initially pops up.
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So In 2023, I was leading in a growth capacity as a vice president of a publicly traded
company focused on cardiovascular disease, oncology, and a number of other specialties
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that
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had personal meaning to me.
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My mom's a two-time cancer survivor and uh I was diagnosed with valvular heart disease in
November of 23.
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And uh due to that diagnosis, I found myself confronting a really scary health uh
condition and, you know, stepping away from work just six weeks later in early January of
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2024.
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stepping away from work six weeks later.
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was that, uh okay, so the timing on that was not ideal, although ah it did give you space.
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tell us a little bit about what did that feel like?
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Yeah, It was terrifying.
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um I think ah we as people look often for stability and one, one area of stability we, I
can take for granted.
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I have historically taken for granted is my health.
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And secondly is our, our job and our career.
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And you take those two things away.
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um at the same time and I definitely remember just a period of like one fear for my life
and then, two just In some ways that was that was a gift.
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ah I I had the time and the space to focus on Understanding that diagnosis before I began
the suss through okay um this health setback has
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uh, changed maybe my outlook on my personal life.
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It's, it's impacted me professionally.
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Um, How am going to map out?
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How am going to chart the course for the rest of my life, both personally and
professionally?
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Yeah, so You use the word fear, the phrase fear for my life ah and.
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uh
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Not all of us have experienced that in our lives where we're in an acute phase.
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Mm-hmm.
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where that is very present for us.
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Mm-hmm.
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What?
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And then on top of that, you had the destabilizing experience of your income.
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No more income coming in the door.
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Yeah.
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So what did you do first?
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I mean, you obviously, were, yeah, what did you do first beyond like the trying to
understand what the diagnosis is all about?
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Yeah, I don't even know if I knew this in the moment, in the midst of the storm, but now
looking back here, we're more than a year and a half removed and nearly two years removed
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from the diagnosis.
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I think I was in the mindset of, I'm going to address the nearest alligator.
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There are multiple alligators.
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I couldn't solve them all at the same time.
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I honestly, didn't have the emotional or the intellectual bandwidth.
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to do it all.
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And so the first thing I had to resolve was the diagnosis in November came with really
unsettling non-answers.
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that diagnosis, cardiologist hands down the valvular disease uh word and basically drops
the mic on me and says, good luck.
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Like I'm not, I'm not qualified.
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to assist you.
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There was no direction, there was no handoff.
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And so left my own devices, Google, WebMD, and a few cardiologists who I worked with, who
were very kind to me in a time of need.
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There was some risk of open heart surgery being needed.
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And that was goal number one.
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do I need this or do I not?
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Because if I do, need it.
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I didn't know if I would need it quickly or not.
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And so just closing out that loop would give me some stability and some peace to look
around at the other, the alligators, as I said, the other challenges I was facing.
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How did you lean on your community?
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So You had multiple alligators.
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You were dealing with the biggest alligator, the closest alligator first.
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How long did it take you to get to a place where you even started to think about the other
alligator, the work situation?
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Yeah, so I started unraveling the ball of yarn around my cardiac condition pretty much
from November through call it March of 2024.
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And I was selectively interviewing in areas where I just have a personal affinity and uh
emotional connection, namely in the mental health uh fields, specifically around
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addiction.
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I've got a better sibling who's long struggled.
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She's been in active recovery for a number of years now, but nearly lost her to opioid use
disorder.
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And so I was interviewing and evaluating what was next.
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But the cardiac stuff didn't really close itself out until summer of 2024.
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I, you know, I'd seen, I saw
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cardiologists a number of times, they wanted to pull a pulmonologist in.
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There's a whole bunch of medical appointments.
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And then finally, what culminated and gave me a breath of fresh air was in like June or
July, I had a cardiac MRI done and cardiologist said, Hey, like good news, your valve.
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three of them were identified as problematic in my echo in November comes back and says,
listen, they look
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slightly better than what they look like in your initial diagnosis.
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And so I felt like a huge weight lifted from me.
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um And then there were some other things that entered the fray, but yeah, I would say that
I started to be in a better place for really evaluating professionally what would be next
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in, I'd say,
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late summer, early fall of last year.
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Okay, late summer, early fall of last year.
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And so you're talking, You were in the cave for, yeah, nine months.
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What would you say surprised you most about yourself, about how you showed up in that
time?
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Um, I think.
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I think what I'm proudest of is really cultivating community around me that had my back in
the midst of it.
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And it didn't always feel in every minute to minute moment like I was supported.
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But now, again, with the hindsight, benefit of hindsight, I was just really supported.
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I had former colleagues who checked on me and...
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I had mentors professionally who've just always followed my career and have known
everything, many things about my family's life and my personal health journey checking in
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on me.
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And then, you know, I had the support of those that I pay.
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I had my therapist who in the storm, you know, I was seeing her probably twice a week just
to...
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Just the process, big, the big emotions that come up, you know, especially around these,
uh, existential, uh, conditions.
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And, know, just as a reminder for you and your audience, like I was, I was 39 years old
diagnosed with diabetes disease.
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Like that is, it's a disease that does not usually impact people until they're in their
late seventies, early eighties.
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And it's usually because just father time is undefeated.
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And so, um,
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it was a real shocker and really proud of the community and the support that um was
available for me.
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So you cultivated community.
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Was that different?
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Was that something new for you?
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Did it feel...
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uh
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hard to cultivate community?
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or yeah tell me about that was that is that something natural to you I guess is what I'm
asking
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Yeah, it was natural.
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Fortunately, the community had already been cultivated.
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It wasn't emergency is here, time to go out and try and find emotional bandwidth to sow
seeds into the field for community.
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It was more or less the small investments and relational investments with friends and some
of the few family members that I'm close with.
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um, and others in my community that bore through at a time where I just, most needed it.
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That's really wonderful to hear and it
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I would love for more people to do more of that.
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Make the investments, I think you even used the uh phrase small investments, right?
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Make the small investments in relationships that matter to you and make those investments
today.
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ah Not obviously with the intention that you're you know, you're gonna call right.
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the way it did.
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Yeah.
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mean, so many people, at least recently around me, have said you make these investments
when you don't need anything.
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uh Knowing full well there will come a day when you will have needs.
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And that's the way I think life works.
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friendships and relationships are symbiotic.
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like you At times you are a net giver and sometimes you're a net taker and um Yeah, that's
the ebb and flow of our lived experience
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Yes, I concur wholeheartedly with that.
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Tell me, so how did, How did the way you saw yourself change?
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Ooh.
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Um.
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yourself?
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Saw yourself see?
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How did the way you see yourself change?
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uh it's it's it's bringing up.
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It was hard to say it was hard is is grossly understating because there were moments at
least in the week or two or three after the initial news where I'm just like, am I
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Am I destined to live the life of an elderly person from here forward?
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Am I going to be prohibited from doing the things that I love?
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I moved my life to Colorado in early 2021 or early 2022 rather.
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And did I do all that for not?
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Am I not going to be able to go peak 14ers?
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Am I not going to be able to do the lazy person's jog around the park I live near?
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ah There was a fair bit of identity cracking uh that happened not only from a physical
health, but just like, who am I when some of these capabilities of mine may be stripped
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away from me?
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And it turns out they haven't been stripped away from me.
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But in that season, in that chapter, ah they say perception is nine tenths of reality.
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And my perception at various times is that I was in a uh really severe fight.
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And what I experienced was, are the ramifications of this?
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Did you ever get to a place of acceptance?
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Meaning, did you ever get to a place inside where you felt at peace with the possibility
that you may have to live the life of a 70-year-old?
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from here on out?
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It would be easy for me to say yes, of course I did because I that hasn't played out.
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Um, I don't, I don't know that I did.
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Um, What I was so dogged about was just understanding like what, what is the so what of
this diagnosis?
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And that's what was elusive in the first, gosh, 60 days, 90 days and it just drives you
nuts.
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And I talk to people now who's who sit with chronic disease undiagnosed and
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Some of them say seven, eight, nine years they haven't had answers and I struggled sitting
in the unknown for 90 days of like, do you have to open me up?
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Do you need to replace my aortic valve?
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Will that give me a better quality of life?
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Are we better off to do it when I'm young and more able-bodied or do we wait as long as
possible and intervene later in life?
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Now I've learned the answers to these questions since ah and ah
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But yeah, I'm not sure Kelly that I ever wanted to accept.
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Yeah, I think I was, yeah, in the stages of grief.
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Were there, you mentioned community as something you leaned into.
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Were there other practices that you, and therapy, obviously.
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Sure.
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Yeah, I think, you know, I spent a lot of time in the, in the somatic experiencing
modality.
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So the therapeutic modality of what, what emotions are living in my, in my body in this
moment, we all know people, if they tap in or drop in, know what fear feels like.
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Usually it's, it's walking down an alley and someone's behind you and you're, you don't
feel safe.
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Uh, that fear emotion.
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was really pronounced in this kind of season.
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so leaning into somatic experiencing to explore that, understand that, make friends with
it versus resist and try and push it away.
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uh Meditation and sitting still is not a strong suit for me, but finding
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Silent moments each morning on a yoga mat in my my living room ah With insight timer on
doing something led You know proved to be helpful and then a little bit of reading so the
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untethered soul was a resource that I just really spoke to me in this time of um Really
Assessing and exploring just
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just identity and what it means to be here on this earth.
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ah And yeah, it helped gain perspective and understand regardless of how big the emotion
or the experience feels in this moment in the grand scheme of things, we're but specks of
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dust.
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Yeah, yeah, perspective.
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It's a good word.
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So, okay, so let's fast forward to end of summer, beginning of fall.
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You have some relief from the fear, the wondering of, am I gonna have to live the rest of
my life like an elderly person?
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So you'd had some answers to those questions.
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uh And so now you have to figure out the next step for work.
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And so you're coming.
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out of this intense place.
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Mm.
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I would imagine searching for a job, looking for the next opportunity didn't feel quite as
fraught as it might for someone who's never been out of work ever in their life and it's
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their first time, right?
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Tell us about how your approach shifted.
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Yeah, well, the approach shifted while, You know, I came out of this diagnosis period and
then I had a family member begin to move towards dying.
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So my grandmother then, you know, started to decline.
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In that experience, sitting with my gram near the end of her life uh really informed
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The way I would prioritize my search from that point forward.
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we're talking late summer of last year forward And really there's just three filters.
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The first is does the mission touch on something that I deeply care about?
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And, and I'm not of the mind that everyone needs to care much about their job and the
product or service that they work on, but
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For me personally, it matters a lot.
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It was a big reason that I worked out a business that operated in cancer care because of
my mother's diagnosis.
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so mission was the first lens that I evaluated companies through.
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The second, uh really just trust in the management team and the people at the company.
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And in an interview process, this can always be challenging.
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you only get so much time.
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And so I learned to index on second degree opportunities.
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So I knew someone who knew the management team really well, could vouch for them, or I
knew an investor who knew the team.
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And again, I could get more of a 360 degree view than simply being a candidate and a
process.
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And then the last filter, and this is intentional, is
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Is the opportunity or that?
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Yeah, yeah, please.
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Sure.
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number two.
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So number one was mission.
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Number two is trust in management team.
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uh So this one doesn't seem as obvious in terms of, hey, I went through this really
intense experience and trust in the management team is really important.
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give us a little, in a way that feels comfortable for you, give us a.
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Give us some context on why that's so important.
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Now certainly you're at the executive level.
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so for a management team, For you to be able to trust the management team is really
important because some of these people are your peers and one of these people is gonna be
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your boss, right?
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Okay, go on.
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Yeah, so I'll bridge you and I now looking back can understand why.
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Yeah, it's not obvious.
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So the diagnosis was like, it felt like a super unsafe time in my life.
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uh Super unsafe.
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ah And I think that trust in the management team comes down to wanting an environment
where not only I bring the safety, uh
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in the way that I communicate and the way that I treat others, but also that it's an
environment that keeps me safe too, emotionally and otherwise.
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So that should some other storm appear on the horizon, you feel like you're in a group of
people that are gonna care about you as a human, as well as what you produce.
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That's 100 % right.
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And at the executive level, you're undoubtedly going to encounter alligators as we
discussed earlier or storms.
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And knowing that we as a team are bound together and we've got each other's back and we
know how, as best we can in an interview process, how we'll behave in the foxhole together
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is just something I really.
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wanted to understand as part of my process.
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Yeah, well, and I love the back channel reference checking recommended for everyone.
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Whenever possible.
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Yeah, exactly.
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it the other way.
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It's a two way street.
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Exactly.
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Okay, so one was mission, second was trust and management team.
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What was the third filter?
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Yeah, so the third filter is, is this role and opportunity one where the skills or the
tools in my toolkit that I wield the best are going to be used?
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I think early in my career, I would focus on, well, I really want to be good in this area.
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And I've come to accept over the course of my career that there are just areas where
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I'm stronger and there're areas where I'm not as strong.
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And so that's why I haven't gravitated towards a hard finance uh role over the course of
my career.
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I just, recognize that there are people that are more gifted in that area than I.
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And so, um, but topics or commercial focus roles where we're building either partnerships
or we're
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finding ways to access sales better and we're thinking through constructs to price things
more effectively with the support of someone who's really strong in finance.
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ah That's what really motivates me.
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And so yeah, those are the three lenses.
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Yeah, I love that.
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Yeah, so that last one you mentioned, you talked about using the skills or the areas that
you're strong, leveraging the areas where you're strong.
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And then you just wrapped up by saying, wait, did you use the phrase?
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That's what gives me energy.
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That's what motivates me.
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That's what you said.
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That's what motivates me.
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You know, the way I see it is ah it's not just, it's not enough.
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for it to be skills that you're good at, because we could be good at things that don't
really motivate us, right?
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We might be better than the average person at something that doesn't really motivate us.
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So I think the melding of the two is really important.
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So it's something that's both you're strong in and it gives you motivation, energy.
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Completely, completely agree.
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I can think of two or three areas that I think others would say you're really good at and
I would say I am good at it and I don't find a lot of fulfillment or joy in doing those,
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utilizing those skills.
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Yeah, yeah, you know, it's funny, I feel like I can, for me, I can be in the details.
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But if I stay in the details for too long, without having the freedom to pull out and the
need to pull out in the work that I'm doing to see the bigger picture and work in the
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bigger picture as well.
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It's just a big drain.
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Nothing but a big drain, right?
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Yeah.
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Okay, so
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What advice would you give to someone who finds themselves in an unexpected place like you
found yourself in?
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What advice would you give them?
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Yeah, it depends on the unexpected place.
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um you find yourself in an unexpected health place, I recommend finding the two or three
people closest to you that have any clinical background, not necessarily using them for
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their professional advice, but using them for their...
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the intersection of your friendship and their clinical experience.
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There's a fair bit of disbelief sometimes in the medical community towards patients.
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And it's not because any physician's necessarily singling someone out.
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They have their own stressors and own uh reasons, but uh finding that support is immensely
helpful.
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And then if it's on the other side of a...
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uh
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Job transition either unexpected or a decision someone has made to leave.
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You know everyone talks about networking networking for the sake of networking I find that
be unfruitful I think doing the kind of the inner work of what motivates.
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You know, are the type of people that you want to surround yourself with the skill set you
want to utilize and then
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what areas of the market, if you're motivated by a mission, what is that?
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If you're motivated by a cool product, what is it?
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And you quickly build a Venn diagram.
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And then from there, you post on LinkedIn, you write thoughtful notes to strangers to
engage them.
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Avoid the spray and pray application process, I think.
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Like most things in life, careers are built through a relationship and not applications.
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Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
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So what hasn't been said that you want to make sure the listener hears or knows or takes
away from this conversation?
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Yeah, I think the one thing that I'd want listeners who've tuned in for this to kind of
take away is - One crummy moment, health-wise, career-wise or whatever, is just that.
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It's just a single crummy moment and our lives are full of many moments.
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uh, many redemptive moments.
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And so you're just a moment away from, from your own redemption and whatever, uh, whatever
challenge you're facing.
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I love that.
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Justin, that's a great place to wrap up.
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ah So tell me where, if people want to connect with you or follow you, I know you've been
doing quite a bit of writing and sharing on LinkedIn.
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Where can people find you?
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Yeah, I think LinkedIn is the is the best place to find me or if you want to reach out
directly in my emails, Justin dot Shuman at Gmail dot com.
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Okay, so S-H-U-M-A-N, so Justin, J-U-S-T-I-N dot Shuman, S-H-U-M-A-N at Gmail.
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Awesome.
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Well, thank you so much.
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Really appreciated your time today and the conversation and you sharing about this
challenging time in your life.
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Thank you for having me on, Kelly.
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It was a real pleasure.