The Best Parts | Work That Fits with Louise Neil

Tune in this week as we talk to our resident Career Engagement and Pivot Planner, Louise Neil where she shares the importance of finding work you love. She works with introverted entrepreneurs and business leaders to empower and instill courage, partnering with them to overcome the blocks that hold them back from living their best lives.  She’ll share a tip with you on how to easily track if your work lights you up.

 

You can find Louise here:

louiseneil.com on the web

@mylif.project on Instagram

LouiseNeil on LinkedIn

 

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[00:00:00] Laura: Boy, I wish I had known you four years ago.

[00:00:02] Louise: I'm 50 shades of grey.

[00:00:04] Nikki: Walk towards my voice.

[00:00:05] Kim: I just have to say that right now all I want to do is renovate my kitchen.

[00:00:08] Sara: I wanted to date Nancy Drew, not be her.

[00:00:17] Laura: Hi, I'm Laura.

[00:00:18] Sara: Hi, I'm Sara.

[00:00:20] Kim: And I'm Kim.

[00:00:21] Nikki: This is Nikki.

[00:00:22] Louise: And I'm Louise.

[00:00:24] Kim: Hi, and welcome to The Best Parts Podcast, where we invite you to pull up a chair and think about your best parts, which are all your parts.

[00:00:34] Nikki: Hello, everyone. And welcome to episode three of The Best Parts. This is Nikki and today we'll be talking to the awesome, the fabulous, the amazing Louise Neil about finding work that fits. Hi Louise.

[00:00:46] Louise: Hi, Nikki.

[00:00:47] Nikki: Louise is talking to us from the party and the cool apartment known as Canada. Eh? She is a workshop creator, NLP practitioner, and speaker. She is also a transformational life and career coach working with introverted entrepreneurs and business leaders to empower and instill courage, partnering with them to overcome the blocks that hold them back from living their best lives. Sometimes she even gets some sleep and I don't think she's ever bored.

[00:01:13] Louise: Never.

[00:01:14] Nikki: Never, ever. What I want you to know about Louise is that she is intelligent, thoughtful, very wise, incredibly kind and says the word "process" funny. And she says that word a lot and I'm still trying to figure out if it happens naturally or Louise do you just do that to entertain us?

[00:01:30] Louise: Yes, especially Sara.

[00:01:34] Nikki: So, let's start talking about work that fits.

[00:01:37] Louise: Let's go.

[00:01:38] Nikki: So, Louise, what got you interested in helping people figure out how to discover the work that lights them up?

[00:01:43] Louise: Doing something that's really exciting and meaningful to me, is really my driver. It's that thing that stretches me in ways that I never imagined. And working in an environment where I didn't feel like that was my primary objective, being able to be connected to people and help them be their very best selves. And for me, stepping into career and life coaching, I just want to share it all with everyone so that they can step into work that feels good. We spend so much time at our jobs, right? Over 90,000 hours of our lives we spend at our jobs.  And if we're disconnected, or we're not feeling like our whole selves, like our best selves, then that carries throughout our whole lives. It just becomes gooey and it just spreads everywhere.

[00:02:36] Nikki: I'm stuck on 90,000 hours at the gooey and the spread.

[00:02:40] Kim: Can I just say the 90,000 hours made my heart stop? I was like, what?

[00:02:45] Nikki: Yeah.

[00:02:45] Laura: I'm grateful I was muted when she said 90,000 hours, ‘cause I said a word.

[00:02:53] Louise: Yeah, isn't that incredible? And, and, and often times, and I don't know about you guys, but for me, I was in a place where I wasn't sure even how I got there. It was that autopilot, that commute, that drive to work that got me there. And you know, all of a sudden, you're in the parking lot at work and you wonder how you got there.

[00:03:12] Louise: Did you drive safely? Did you speed through that school zone? You don't know, but I feel for me, that's what happened in my whole career. I did some amazing things, really proud of some of the things that I did, but I got to a point where it's like, how did I end up here? How did I end up feeling small at work?

[00:03:33] Louise: How did I end up dreading work Sunday night, before Monday morning even came around? How was it that by Tuesday, I couldn't wait for the weekend?  Like, I don't want to live my life like that. And it was that process, I don't want to say that I hit a wall, but I felt like I woke up on my drive to work one day and I was like, "Where am I?"

[00:03:55] Kim: Louise, I feel like you were just speaking to my soul because I went through the exact same thing. That was amazing to hear it coming out of somebody else's mouth.

[00:04:03] Nikki: Yeah.

[00:04:03] Louise: So, Kim, what was it like for you? Was it a wall? Was it a realization? What happens when it needs to be different?

[00:04:12] Kim: I feel like it was an awakening for me. It was all of a sudden, I woke up and went, wait, this is life?? No life is more than this. So, I really felt like it was an awakening moment. Like my eyes were suddenly open.

[00:04:28] Laura: Mine was more like I hit a brick wall. I was thinking, as you were talking, "I hit a brick wall!"

[00:04:34] Nikki: Smacked right into her, huh?

[00:04:36] Laura: I did!

[00:04:38] Sara: I feel like I had a very different experience with my career.

[00:04:41] Nikki: I did too.

[00:04:41] Sara: Maybe I just feel maybe fortunate. I've always wanted to be in the game of golf. And I think mine was more of a stepping through a door when I left being a golf pro into being a college coach. That's when I realized that I wasn't truly happy being a golf pro. But I, but I wasn't in that space where like, "What am I doing?"  I really enjoyed being a golf pro, but I loved coaching so much more. So, I think it can be a little subtle too. It's not that brick wall. I didn't have that feeling

[00:05:12] Nikki: Well, and I have always just gone where I want to go. I have done marketing. I have done HR. I was a flight attendant. I've done office management and membership recruitment.

[00:05:22] Nikki:  So I've had a very vast experience because I'm like, "what am I interested in now?" And kind of move through that. And then it always kind of trickles down slowly into, "Okay. It's time to move on the energy of what I need now is changing." So, it's been very, very different for me.

[00:05:38] Louise: See, and I think though that's the key, Nikki and Sara, you guys had this, maybe it was a realization before it was the wall or before it was a big awakening.  Sara, you, you even said that you were doing something, and you realized you weren't, you weren't truly happy.

[00:05:54] Sara:] Yeah. I didn't realize that in the moment until I got to something so much better when I realized, "Oh, this is where I'm supposed to be."

[00:06:03] Nikki: It's kind of hitting that critical mass of dissatisfaction. Sometimes it's like a hard wall and sometimes it builds and builds until you get to that point where you say, “Something needs to change because of this is not okay anymore."

[00:06:16] Louise: Yeah, we get deficient on fulfillment and, and, and then, and then we start searching for it. And then sometimes too, then, then we get all confused.

[00:06:26] Louise: I hate oftentimes it's like, can I really leave a job? Can I really do something else? Is there really something more if there's rent to pay or mortgage, there's kids, there's family, there's obligations. There's health care and pensions and benefits. There's all kinds of stuff that somehow weave itself into your life.

[00:06:46] Louise: And is all of that more important than being really fulfilled? How do you figure that out? There's a balance. There's a flow. But oftentimes we just get so stuck. We're so busy paying the bills, doing what we're "supposed to be." They're air quotes, they're doing what we're supposed to be doing.

[00:07:08] Kim: Louise, I love that comment of "deficiency of fulfillment", because I think I recognized that deficiency long before I had that moment of awakening or maybe, I don't know. I don't know how it happened, but it was, I definitely recognized that deficiency. Maybe the deficiency is what caused the awakening.

[00:07:28] Kim: Because all of a sudden it was like, wait a minute. I'm not, I'm not actually fulfilled. And Oh, by the way, this is my life. And I get to make that choice.

[00:07:36] Nikki: And well it's interesting too, because something has to be uncomfortable for you to initiate change. (yeah) Sometimes it has to build up for it to be uncomfortable. It's not the first strip of water on your forehead. It might be the 10th or the 100th, but eventually even if you're asleep, you're going to roll over out of the way of the drip of water. So, it's that discomfort that sometimes just needs to just build up.

[00:07:58] Laura: Yes. I'll tell you my hitting the wall story. I actually loved my career. I came into a career very early on. I always wanted to be Nancy Drew when I was a kid.

[00:08:07] Nikki: Oh, hear, hear, me too.

[00:08:10] Sara: I wanted to date Nancy Drew, not be her.

[00:08:10]All:

[00:08:14] Laura: And I ended up doing out of college, worked in a fraud detection unit for credit card companies.  Over time, I moved around and moved all over the country. And then I moved into e-commerce fraud detection. Trying to stop online order fraud. I'd moved somewhere for a job, and then they would close the division down. And that happened to me three or four times. Probably people at some point were afraid to see me coming, because that meant that the office was going to close down.

[00:08:40] Laura: Finally, the last time it happened, I was like, I am out.  I am not doing this again. I cannot stay here. And I hadn't realized that I wasn't satisfied in the job.  Though all of the markers were there. And it's interesting, Kim, what you just said about, "Oh, I don't have to do this". And it was like, hitting a wall or a cold bucket of water to realize, you know what, I don't have to do this anymore. I don't have to do this. I can find something else to do. And it was scary as hell too, but yeah, that was my hit the wall moment.

[00:09:12] Nikki: I know Louise has some thoughts about the, the word pivot. I would love to hear your reflection on that and your thoughts on the magic of the pivot or when to not pivot even.

[00:09:23] Louise: You're merrily going down this road and we're going to just veer off to the left and we do something slightly different or that kind of fits, but it's not too big of a change. And then maybe we can go a little bit farther. And then we veer off to the right now and we weave our way, we make these small changes.

[00:09:41] Louise: But what happens when we get to a point where it's more than a change? What if it's more than a turn that we want to take? What if it's a leap? How do we leap when, what we feel, that fulfillment that we desire feels like a really big stretch?

[00:10:00] Nikki: Well, and even more than a stretch, like you said, it's a leap almost from one path to another and you might not be able to see the path quite yet that you're going to land on.

[00:10:09] Louise: Yeah. It's like I imagined for myself, I envision myself, I'm trying to cross a stream and there's some rocks and you weave your way and you get into the middle of the stream and all of a sudden it's well, where's my next step? You see this rock out in front of you. Can I do that? What if I do that, what if it's slippery? What if I fall? That's a really big leap or is it, can I step there? To go through all of these things. But in the meantime, here you are, you're stuck. You've stopped moving.

[00:10:38] Nikki: Well and to kind of continue this analogy with a bit of a career renovation, focus, you're in a job and you're on that rock and you see a lot of options in front of you. Some of them, you may not even see because they're just below the surface of the water, but what are some of the options for people to help them make that decision?

[00:10:58] Louise: Yeah. And I mean, really, it's being open to that sometimes we don't even know what we don't know, and the possibilities could be endless. But digging into that, what is it that I don't know? How do you get to know that and really connecting with your insides? Because I think that's what the goal is. How do I match who I am on the inside with what I do on the outside? So, I don't feel like I'm an imposter. So, I feel like I belong. So, I can show up in a place where I can fully be me. So, I can put all of my best parts out on display and be okay with that.

[00:11:38] Louise: Sometimes we find ourselves in a place where we can't be ourselves. For me, I'm an introvert, finding myself in a very extroverted organization in a very extroverted place. I kept feeling like who I was, was wrong. Because I didn't know how to show up. I didn't know how to be an extrovert.

[00:11:58] Nikki: I know one of the gifts of what you do is to help people recognize they don't have to change who they are, how they are, what they like, to show up in their job for that 90,000 hours of your life. You are excited to help people find work that fits like a glove.

[00:12:18] Louise: Yeah. Just imagine how exhausting, like how maybe you don't even have to imagine how exhausting is it to be someone different for 90,000 hours of your life?

[00:12:30] Nikki: To try to fit in somewhere. Oh my gosh. I want to nap right now just thinking about that.

[00:12:37] Sara: Ugh. Yeah. 90,000 hours of not being satisfied in a job. I've seen people go through that and I feel like I've been fortunate. I have maybe 20% of the time I feel that way. So, I can't imagine.

[00:12:48] Laura: I'm thinking about how much easier it would have been to have made that transition if I'd have had a guide. So. Yeah. Wow.

[00:12:56] Sara: Louise, when you said "taking the leap" my heart kind of fluttered a little bit. So, you have a client coming to you that wants to take that leap, but they're stuck on the ground. How do you guide that client?

[00:13:07] Louise: Well, I think with any opportunity, the fact that you're stuck, the fact that you are you're here at a place now that you're like, okay, what's next? What's more? It's why I'm a career renovation specialist. I link it to this idea of, you know, before you renovate a room or a place in your house, that's how I grew up. There was always renovations going on.  Before, you know, maybe what you want, you know this room needs to change. You know, that you have this dream of the dream kitchen. I don't know about you guys, but it's always about the kitchen.

[00:13:41] Nikki: It's the heart of the home.

[00:13:43] Sara: And it has to have a big island in the middle of it.

[00:13:46] Louise: So, you start to dream, and you start to imagine. Well, before you get started into a renovation, it's really about let's reveal what we have. What are the bones, what are we going to keep?

[00:13:57] Louise: What do we need? You tear into a wall and do you need to replace all the plumbing or, or maybe the electrical is still good, but you need to be able to take stock of what you have and be connected with what it is that you want. You want a kitchen with a big island, but what do you have? So, if you don't know what you have, how do you know what you need?

[00:14:18] Louise: So, it's like this reveal process and assessing what it is you're starting with. And then start designing what your career looks like. What does it really need? What do you need in a career to be fully yourself? So that you don't have to be someone else? And once you design it much, like you have your beautiful kitchen, you gotta consider all of those things.

[00:14:44] Louise: You got to consider your budget. You've got to consider your countertop, your flooring. You've gotta consider all of those things, the timing. But once you get through that now, what do you do now? Now comes the fun part. Now you get to start to rebuild. You take action. You start to accomplish great things.

[00:15:03] Louise: And sometimes you get started on your renovation and then you're like, "Hey, I really need a farmhouse sink in my design." And you make those changes. You are flexible, you adapt, but you're still are moving forward. But you're moving forward now with this awareness of what it is that you need, because you've taken the time to take stock.

[00:15:28] Laura: I have a skeptical part that wants to know, do you really think anybody can find a job that resonates with them?

[00:15:35] Louise: Absolutely.

[00:15:35] Laura: Oh boy. I wish I had known you four years ago, sister.

[00:15:39] Louise: I really do. And sometimes it's not big renovations, right? Sometimes you walk into the kitchen and go, all I need right now is a fresh coat of paint. And man, is it going to look amazing.  But if you, if you're not looking, if you're not taking stock, if you're not in that place, then how do you know? Sometimes we're doing the right thing in the wrong company. Or maybe we're doing the wrong thing at the right company or the right thing at the wrong, whatever that is.

[00:16:09] Louise: Sometimes we need to make a big, big change. Sometimes we say this company culture, it's not for me. But I really love what I do. I'm going to go do it somewhere else.

[00:16:19] Kim: So, how do you identify whether it's the wrong company or the wrong thing that you're doing?

[00:16:26] Louise: You have to ask those hard questions. What is it that brings light into your day? Before I left my corporate job, I walked around with a stack of index cards, stuffed into my portfolio that I'd carry around meeting to meeting. And I wrote out those things that lit me up. And on the other side of the index card I wrote the things that crushed my heart. Why was I in the bathroom crying? What happened to put me here? What don't I love about my job?

[00:16:57] Nikki: And that kind of the beginning of your curiosity of who am I at work? What do I love? How can I change to align with who I am? And then what does that look like?

[00:17:10] Louise: Yeah, absolutely. Because maybe there are so many things that you love about what you do. Maybe it's a really tough conversation that you want to have with your leader to say, Hey, this is where I want to be. Or this is something I'm really interested in. Can, can we make it work? Can we bring more of that into my life, into my job? Sometimes those are tough conversations to have, but sometimes that's the coat of paint that you need.

[00:17:37] Nikki: I think also sometimes there are things that come easily to people that they don't even consider as a possibility for a career.

[00:17:46] Louise: Well, yeah, because I don't know about you, but growing up for me, my folks worked very hard. All my parents, blue collar workers worked very, very hard.  Left in the morning, worked hard, came home, exhausted. Work is hard. Work is hard. But is it? If there's something that you really love to do, is it hard? And so those easy things, sometimes we don't even consider being an avenue or a path for work or as a career because we have this story about work being hard.

[00:18:20] Laura: That's right. I was just thinking that, as you said that Louise, is we do. We have a story. This is what we, this is what we learned, or most of us may have learned is that work has to be hard. Nobody likes their job and that's just life. But it doesn't have to be that way.

[00:18:36] Nikki: Well, and I love, I think I'm going to be crediting this to Louise, but I'm not a hundred percent sure "that to work hard doesn't mean work is hard." You can put your head down and work hard at something you really love, and it's not hard to do.

[00:18:52] Louise: Absolutely.

[00:18:53] Sara: I totally agree with that because I was just thinking about my job. And I'm like, there's things that are very difficult in my job and I love tackling those difficult things. And that's how I know I'm in the right career because --

[00:19:07] Louise: Right.

[00:19:09] Sara: Work can be difficult, but it's not like, the harder I work. I've definitely had those parents, Louise where, you know, my dad worked really hard. And my mom, the same. She was a nurse and would come home with stories and I would see them. I don't think they were fully satisfied in their jobs per se.

[00:19:27] Sara: And I agree with you. I think that's what we're grown up seeing. And this is a story and you know; how do you break that story?

[00:19:34] Kim: Well, it's so interesting. Cause I had, I here's where I had a different experience was when I was Izzy's age, when I was 10, my mom went back to school. She had been a high school teacher and she went back to school and got her MBA went into the corporate world and loved it, loved the work she was doing.

[00:19:51] Kim: And then she redefined herself again because she had been in HR and then she moved out to HR and to consult.  And like all of this amazing growth. And so, for me, I'm on my fifth iteration of self in terms of what my career is. Because I find it, although I, you know, I spoke earlier about that awakening moment.

[00:20:12] Kim: That was about a job that I had, not necessarily about what it is that I want to do, because I think that I know what I want to move on to long before I have that awakening moment. And it's happened so many times in my life.  But I didn't have, you know, I didn't.  My dad had the same, he was a college professor and he loved his work and it was never work for him.

[00:20:32] Kim: And that was very, very clear for me. So, I just had a different story where you find what you love. And I think the more challenging side for me and why I was interested, and I love that idea of just the simple act of a note card, of writing what lights you up and what brings you pain. Just so you can recognize that because I think for me, it's, it's the, where do I get lit up?

[00:20:55] Kim: And where is that excitement going to be coming from that I sit in for much longer than I need to, because I am willing to take the leap and move forward.

[00:21:04] Nikki: Well, and it's just a bunch of ideas until you see like, "Oh, I have five note cards full of things that make me cry. And one of things that light me up at work."

[00:21:14] Nikki: Maybe we need to look more at that because if it's just in your head, it's hard to recognize that there is a huge list of items or vice versa. Like, "Wow, there's actually a lot of things I really enjoy about what I'm doing right now. And there are hard things. How can I adapt them to work for me?"

[00:21:32] Louise: Yeah, getting them out if we are working towards matching who you are on the inside with what you do on the outside, then you got to get the inside out.

[00:21:43] Nikki: Right?

[00:21:45] Sara: I love that. And I'm going to go buy note cards this week. I love the idea though, Louise. I love that you went through that and I'm sure that's something that you bring to your clients to say, this is something that I've gone through and it helped me get to where I want to go. And I just think that's just those small tools can really have that big awakening. And I just thank you for sharing that.

[00:22:10] Nikki: One of the gifts of coaching is looking at people and saying, "I've been where you are. And I know a way out.  It's not the only way but let me support you as you find your way."

[00:22:21] Louise: Sometimes I think coaching is just yelling into a dark room: "Keep moving!"

[00:22:26] Nikki: "Walk towards my voice."

[00:22:28] Louise: “There's a light switch on the wall, so I can't help you turn it on, but it's like, you're you're okay. “Just take a step. See, what's just beyond your reach.

[00:22:41] Laura: That's really interesting that you say that because one of the things that I noticed or during my rocky transition, because I didn't have Louise, was taking that one step.

[00:22:52] Laura: Just keep moving. And just keep moving and that's an amazing, action makes, action is the magic, I think. Action is the magic, just keep moving.

[00:23:04] Sara: And what a similar thing that we talked about last week was if you want to walk for a hundred minutes, you start with the first minute, the first five minutes, right?

[00:23:13] Kim: We will probably hear that so many different times with each of us, is that it is all about taking that first step. And it is one step at a time. I wish it wasn't. I wish it was like we had magic fairy dust, and everything would be fine. But you have to take every step one step at a time. And it's just, it's very cool to see how it plays out in all these different areas of our life.

[00:23:36] Nikki: I think it's the, the first step, you know, it starts the motion, it starts the action. It starts the momentum, and sometimes there's big leaping steps and sometimes you're shuffling your feet hoping you're moving along. But it's that once that momentum is created, if you can continue it, that is where you're going to be moving into that new place you want to go.

[00:23:59] Sara: I was thinking too, though, you know, sometimes Nikki, you were talking about like a baby step than a giant leap, and sometimes you're stepping backwards to then step forward again. And that's something, I think maybe Louise, I don't know if you want to speak to that, where maybe a client gets starts forward and then all of a sudden, they feel like they've taken three steps back and then what?

[00:24:17] Nikki: Or they need to take three steps back because they're going down the wrong path.

[00:24:21] Louise: Well, and, and also there's also option Q or whatever we are at. But what if I just need to be, what if I, what if I need to be here? What if I just need to be still? So, what if I need to lick my wounds for a moment? What if you get fired from a job? You're, you're not running down the street well, maybe you are running down the street, skipping and shouting, but, but sometimes it really hurts, right? Sometimes it really hurts. And sometimes because we attach who we are with what we do in our jobs so much that sometimes those, those wounds just need to be licked and we just need to take a breath, but we do it intentionally.

[00:25:05] Louise:  I think when you stop and have a look around that's different than being stuck. Intention. It all comes down to intention and it maybe it is, I don't even, I don't know if it is a step back because it is a step. It can be in any direction and, and, and it's still, it's still movement. It's still being curious. And we all bring that to our coaching: "What would happen if…?"

[00:25:33] Kim: Yeah, I love that. I talk a lot about intentional stillness in the work that I do with my clients. And I don't think we give enough space to that. And I love that, that you think about that as well. That stillness is still a step. It's still a choice. And, sometimes we really need that before we can move forward. And I'm pretty sure I had that job loss where I was skipping down the road, at least once in my life.

[00:26:04] Nikki: Well, and I love that too, because I think it's the intentionality that is actually the movement. Where if you just stop and okay, "I'm stuck" that sticks your feet to the ground. And if you say, "I am stopping because I need you to evaluate what's going on." There is still momentum and action and movement in that intentionality. It is not a stuckness. It is a mindful, slow, energetic motion as opposed to a physical moving forward motion.

[00:26:37] Kim: Intentional sloth-mode.

[00:26:42] Nikki: Aw, that sounds nice for this afternoon.

[00:26:43] Kim: Right? We all need a little intentional sloth-mode.

[00:26:48] Sara: I've got a sloth as my spirit animal.

[00:26:52] Kim: Why does that not surprise me?

[00:26:55] Sara: Think about it? All you do is cuddle, poop and that's it.

 [00:27:00] Louise: Eat.

[00:27:00] Laura: Eat.

[00:27:01] Kim: Food. Food is involved.

[00:27:03] Sara: All the good things.

[00:27:04] Kim: And I'm sure there's some sort of procreating, although can you imagine? Never mind.

[00:27:09] Nikki: Yeah, very slow. motion, very slow motion. See mine is the Otter, the playfulness, the floating, holding hands and just having a good time.

[00:27:18] Kim: I see that too.

[00:27:21] Nikki: Is there anything else you would like to speak into the space, Louise before I have you tell all the places that we can find you.

[00:27:27] Louise: No. I, I love our conversation today, right? We do. We all come from different backgrounds.  And we all have found ourselves, in whatever direction it was, jump, leap, crawl, whatever we needed to do. We found ourselves here at this moment, doing something that absolutely lights us all up. We've all been able to find work that fits like a glove.

[00:27:54] Louise: Are we going to be doing the same thing five years from now? Probably not I hope we're still doing the podcast, but other than that, like, we're, we're all going to be evolving. We're going to find our way through this.  Again, and again and again. We're going to become masters at reinvention, I think. And it's either big reinventions or just these small little tweaks, and we're going to keep moving forward from where we are just staying connected with who we are.

[00:28:25] Nikki: And that's the gift of knowing who you are. That as you were growing and evolving in what you do, you know how to adapt that or change that or move through that because you know who you are and you know how you want to show up for those 90,000 hours. I still can't get over that number. I just can't.

[00:28:45] Laura: I do want to say that I love what you just said, Louise, about reinventing yourself. And I'm getting used to that. I'm getting used to reinventing because what I thought I wanted to do two years ago is evolving on a monthly basis. And it is fun. It's fabulous because you get to create something new as needed. And as the world needs it. And so, I think it's, I love that you pointed that out.  That's a new behavior for me to be comfortable in shifting my focus. I think that's definitely a value and a gift that you and the rest of us can bring to the world.

[00:29:23] Nikki: I love what you said there, Laura, about like, you, you feel ready for whatever's coming next because of that. Even if you might not know it, but because you know who you are and you're solid in that now you're like, "Okay, let's go."

[00:29:35] Laura: Yeah.

[00:29:36] Sara: I feel like a lot of people are in very different places in their careers at different times. But we all have a path that, I don't know, I just feel like you don't have to have some big overhaul of a career. Maybe a small little shift is going to make you happier. And that's something I'm hearing from Louise today is sometimes I just need to paint the walls and I'm going to feel so much better.

[00:29:56] Sara: And other times it's knock that shit down and let's put in a huge island. Like, I'm pivoting over here. I, I think that's a cool thing to hear, right? It's not like one or the, I mean, you don't have to have some major thing, but maybe you do. I just think it's nice for people to understand that it doesn't have to be huge.

[00:30:15] Kim: It's not one size fits all.

[00:30:17] Sara: Yeah.

[00:30:18] Nikki: Yeah. You don't have to overhaul everything. Maybe you don't even need a contractor. You just need a painter to come and help you get everything done.

[00:30:25] Kim: You know, I just have to say that right now all I want to do is renovate my kitchen. Yeah. Seriously, (laughter) this conversation's making me go downstairs and be like, “Okay, honey, we're home we're both home. Let's tear down the walls.”

[00:30:36] Louise: Exactly.

[00:30:36] Laura: Right?

[00:30:38] Kim: Thanks for that, folks.

[00:30:42] Laura: Thanks.

[00:30:44] Nikki: Well, Louise is a career renovation specialist. So, if you need help with that, Louise, I would love for you to tell the people, all the places they can find you and whatever you have coming up that you'd like to share.

[00:30:55] Louise: I can be found online at LouiseNeil.com. I'm most active on LinkedIn. So, look me up there and please connect.

[00:31:05] Louise: I'm also on Instagram at mylife.project And what else? Oh, coming up one of the things that is really that I'm really connected and passionate about is finding our way together. So, I am launching a group in the fall where we can all together, go through our career renovation and look at what it is.  How do we assess? How do we design? How do we accomplish? And together supporting each other in a group. So that's coming up in the fall. I'll also have some workshops coming up in the fall. So, the best way is to connect with me on LinkedIn and through my website so that you don't miss out on some of the great things I have coming up.

[00:31:51] Nikki: Awesome. Alright, you ready for the Lightning Round?

[00:31:53] Louise: Oh yeah.

[00:31:57] Nikki: Bring it on, huh? Alright, here we go. We're going to start easy coffee or tea?

[00:32:02] Louise: Coffee, like right now I'm drinking coffee.

[00:32:08] Nikki: The way you said that word ‘coffee’ stirred something up in me. Now that I want coffee. After hearing you say that word.

[00:32:14] Laura: Was that a pun?  It 'stirred' something up in me.

[00:32:19] Nikki: It was an unintentional pun, but yes.

[00:32:22] Laura: (wa-wa) I'm here all week.

[00:32:27] Nikki: Right. And because I know you have both dog or cat?

[00:32:31] Louise: Uh, that's like picking children, like who's your favorite? I will have to say dog, I guess, because I don't own a cat. So, my dog has a cat.

[00:32:45] Nikki: So, you picked the dog and he picked the cat?

[00:32:51] Louise: Yes. And, and really at the end of the day, and Laura, you will probably agree, cats don't have owners, so right? They have people.

[00:32:59] Laura: They own us, yes.

[00:33:01] Nikki: All right. Black and white or shades of grey?

[00:33:04] Louise: (laughter) Yeah. I'm 50 shades of grey.

[00:33:07] Nikki: Oh, it's your question. You answer it your way.

[00:33:12] Louise: Or is that for our Best Parts After Dark Podcast?

[00:33:16] Nikki: I mean, it is now. You still have to answer the question.

[00:33:24] Louise: I think I did, didn't I?

[00:33:27] Nikki: There are 50 shades of grey to be continued later. (laughter) Okay. Upside down or inside out?

[00:33:35] Louise: Ooh, inside out.

[00:33:37] Nikki: And "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" or "I Am the Walrus"?

[00:33:43] Louise: "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds."

[00:33:45] Kim: Yeah.

[00:33:48] Laura: Sorry, what was that?

[00:33:52] Louise: Yeah!

[00:33:55] Nikki: That was Kim.

[00:33:56] Laura: I know, I know, but I wasn't sure if that was an affirmative or a negative response.

[00:34:01] Nikki: I couldn't tell either. I couldn't tell either.

[00:34:03] Kim: Now I have it in my head and I'm dancing around, "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds."

[00:34:07] Nikki: Was that a good sound?

[00:34:08] Kim: It's a good sound. I love that song.

[00:34:10] Nikki: Okay. When I always hear "I Am the Walrus" when Bono did it Across the Universe. So that's why that's my favorite one, because I love his version of it. Okay. This brings us to the end of our third episode.

[00:34:22] Nikki: Thank you everyone for pulling up a chair and joining us today. Until next time remember all the parts are the best parts. Goodbye for now.