3 Steps to Building Self-Support In Your Work with Miriam Raquel Sands

3 steps to building self-support in your work is essential for anyone experiencing any level of career instability. Whether you're questioning your path and considering a career change, dealing with layoffs, or feeling the strain of unclear goals and shifting expectations, these practices can provide a supportive space to discern your next step. Cultivating your ability to check in with yourself and make aligned choices empowers a sense of resilience even in an ever-changing professional landscape. You deserve to know what you need and to take up space in asking for it – even if it’s just the space to make an intentional decision.

In this episode of Mindset Unlimited, I invited Miriam Raquel Sands to join me in a conversation about engaging 3 steps to building self-support in your work and beyond.

Some of what we talk about in this episode includes:

• The tension between stability and self-discovery in work.
• Unpacking career as identity and the emotional charge of non-linear careers
• Finding your way through self-reflection and aligning actions with values—not just external expectations.
• Creating a support structure with awareness of whether your environment truly supports your well-being

LINKS TO REFERENCES MADE IN THIS EPISODE:

The Second Brain by Michael Gershon

Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything by Bj Fogg

Strozzi Institute

Resilience Through Unexpected Career Shifts

Leaning Into a Mid-Life Career Change

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This podcast was produced by Valerie Friedlander Coaching

Proud member of the Feminist Podcasters Collective

Transcript

Valerie Friedlander: 0:00

Valerie, Hello, my friends, and welcome to another episode of Mindset Unlimited - Mindset tips, tools and inspiration for women in a time of change. I'm your host, Valerie Friedlander, ICF certified coach, sociologist, intersectional feminist artist, mom, and nerd. And today we are talking about three steps to building self support in work, primarily, but also just generally. And we really need this right now, both in the work front, in the career focal point, but also in the ways that our career and our life and all the things that are going on in the world right now can feel at odds with one another, and there's a challenge. I know I'm feeling it, even as a self employed person who has a fair amount of flexibility in what I choose to focus on. In some ways, I feel like that's even more challenging, because it is a choice of what to focus on, and there are some really weighty, big, big things happening all around us. And at the same time, I truly believe that how we show up and how we move in the world matters, and it matters not just in our life, but the small ways that it impacts around us. So today, we are focusing on work, and I know that's a big part of the things that are getting impacted with everything going on and a lot of instability and upheaval. So I brought on Miriam Raquel Sands, who is a Career Strategist, communications specialist and host of Career Clarity now and a day in the life two podcasts helping burnt out millennials and Gen Z rebuild their work careers and self worth from the inside out with a background in corporate comms, somatic healing and yoga philosophy. Raquel helps people reclaim clarity, softness and sovereignty without selling their souls to the system. And you know, I love a good alliteration That was beautiful. Today we are talking about the tension between stability and self discovery in work, unpacking career as identity and the emotional charge of non linear careers, especially in a society that defines you by what you do, finding your way through self reflection and aligning actions with values, not just external expectations, and creating a support structure with awareness of whether your environment truly supports your well being. When we talk about self support, one of the words you're going to hear us use a lot is scaffolding, and we'll explain that in there, but essentially it is that structure by which both we support ourselves through our own internal scaffolding, but also we can assess the scaffolding of the environments around us so that we know what level of scaffolding we need to create within us. The tips and insights in this episode are designed to do just that, and I know you're gonna love it. So now, without further ado, let's get started. Welcome Raquel. I'm so excited to have you on Mindset Unlimited.

Raquel Sands: 3:37

Yay. I'm so excited to be here. Thank you for having me.

Valerie Friedlander: 3:39

I am really looking forward to this conversation, because I think there's so many aspects of what we've been talking about that like really tie into the dynamics that we're all very much experiencing in the world, even as entrepreneurs, but especially those who are in the job search area. So before we dive in, I would love for you to share just a little bit about you

Raquel Sands: 4:01

Sure. I am Miriam Raquel Sands. I love to go by my middle name Raquel, and I don't like the word career coach, so I call Career Clarity Coach, or Self Trust Guide, or Wayfinder, any other thing, because I feel like career, at least here in the United States, people define themselves with their titles or their job. It's so job centric. And I'm not necessarily trying to help people to climb the ladder or fit in a box. I just really want people to find their path, whatever that looks like to them. It could be building a business, or it could be going back to nine to five. It could be doing both. It could be juggling multiple part times. So segueing to my path, how I started, I've been in the business building career building space for about three, four years, but I've been what I lovingly say, a professional job Hopper for. For 11 years. I did not know that that would be my path, but my background is in English. That's where I have my Bachelor's, and graduated 11 years ago with that and trying to do government contracting here in Washington, DC, it didn't work out. I quickly realized it was just not for me. And so the question became, well, how am I supposed to pay off student debt? How am I supposed to sustain myself? I'm an only child. It's just my mom and I and do life with a degree. So I started freelancing soon after, and just kept doing that, and really enjoyed that I didn't have to commit to a certain commute, I didn't have to commit to a certain company, and I could kind of create things as I went. So four years ago, I formalized my LLC, and I'm like, I wanted to help others create their own thing. And then here we are.

Valerie Friedlander: 5:56

Yeah, we are so much less inclined to step into unknown spaces when we felt something that feels like stability, and especially when we have the pressure of feeling like we are responsible for creating stability for others. And what that means, there's so much that goes into that sense of stability, and that's something that I know we want to we want to talk a little bit about, too, is so much of these things have created the illusion of stability, right? Change is the only constant in life.

Raquel Sands: 6:33

Exactly.

Valerie Friedlander: 6:34

And I've always admired people who set out and try new things. I think I did a little bit, but I was very much stability seeking, like, right out of college, stability seeking, like, how do I create stability? Very, very, what I would have identified as, like, risk averse. And then once I had kids, and kind of, you know, built all the things that you were quote, unquote supposed to build, I went, Wow, what did I Where did I go wrong? And felt even less availability to step into unknown spaces and try different things, because I have responsibilities now that mean that I have to have stability there. So I love that to that before we go further, because I that's very much to the point of what we were going to talk about... What is a limit that you took for granted that you have since unlearned?

Raquel Sands: 7:30

So the thing I lovingly call professional Job Hopper, I used to really have a lot of shame with that, because all my family are immigrants, me and maybe a handful of cousins, were the first generation born here in the States. So there's a lot of code switching in our family, linguistically, emotionally, and so there's this expectation of like we've sacrificed, and you have to maybe not be a doctor. They didn't put that on me, but you have to do something, and you have to make it worthwhile, and you have to go farther than we even thought. Like I didn't even know that you had that for me. Like, thank you, and no, thank you, because I don't even know. So with this feeling of, oh my God, I don't know how to support myself. And on top of that, that sense of safety stability, not coming from me, but my parents, my culture, my whatever it is, and thankfully, I've never had to financially support them, but they're looking at me as this anchor and like she is the beacon. So there was a lot of shame that I didn't realize in the moment. I was internalizing about what's wrong with me? Why can't I commit to something? Why do I always change job after a year or a couple months, or I go wherever the wind takes me, or whatever it is, and I and because the media and I think here in the Global North, in the US, maybe parts of Europe, I don't know, it's very much an identity of what do you do? Not, who are you? Not? How are you doing, but what do you do? What is your day to day? And immediately we start to associate, oh, an accountant does this, or a lawyer does that, and that becomes the image of the person. And I was like, if I introduce myself, how will people know me? People don't know me. I don't even know myself. And there was so much shame and guilt on top of the debt. There was just an emotional debt, and so the unlearning or the healing, I think it's just constant. I still sometimes have that, but I'm I would like to say that I am in a much better place, that I kind of wear it as a badge of honor now. And now when my mom, she's gonna retire this year, and she has seen me through all of my seasons, and she's like, Oh my god, Rico, I'm actually so glad you're not part of the government now, and I'm so glad you're doing all these things. And I'm like, You see, Mom, you just you. You have to trust me, like you raised as much as you could a good, you know, strong response, like whatever it is, and and I've been able to see through it, like trust in in yourself and that you did good. And I have to trust in me, and it's still evolving. But yeah, so I'm a happy Job Hopper, helping other job hoppers or people who would like to hop around and find themselves?

Valerie Friedlander: 10:26

Yeah, I love that. I also really love the term that you used, Wayfinder. I know that is a more commonly used term in the more spiritual realms and whatnot, and it speaks so much to that experience of seeking yes that we don't put a lot of value on Yeah. I'm curious what helped you step into that or own that space of the journey.

Raquel Sands: 11:03

Yeah, I mean, I think I will say I was brought up Christian, I was brought up Baptist, but I didn't resonate with that. And so I think in my early teens, high school, I started to explore yoga. We moved up from southern Florida, and I was like, Okay, I like this. I like the openness. I like the breath work, the embodying, the sense that you have to feel it in your body. It's not just a conceptual thing. And I think that kind of led it was like a seed planted that I started to do all these different self assessments. I did astrology and like anagram and Myers Briggs and I took a class in college that did strength finder, and it was all about finding, not necessarily what makes you tick, but like, what are the things that we all have, strengths and weaknesses and skills. And so, yeah, it just took me on this journey. And so I think wanting to figure out myself in the eyes of the world in like, Okay, I need to have some sort of identity. Like, I turned the question and, well, who am I to myself first, because I can't know. And also having the cultural piece of, I'm not from Central America and I'm not from here, like that, I think always served as a foundation of like, okay. I think I will always be in some sort of ambiguity, like I'm and both, and so that having ambiguity has been helpful, in the sense of like, even if I never land in something, I am creating something. And I don't have to land somewhere, even though we would like to, like, I think that's part of the Western cultures. Like you have to do you have to have a goal? You have to, you know, and there's this pressure. So.

Valerie Friedlander: 12:45

Oh, it's so much pressure, and it's so confusing. When, generationally, I know that you have working with, especially like millennials and Gen X, like I work with so many people who are going, they call it like the midlife career crisis, where they're coming and going, I've been building this thing, and now have to change something, to change everything, and it's confusing, and it's additionally confusing when We're talking about living in a time of collapse, creating in a time of collapse, building something in a time of collapse, and knowing who am I is so key, and it speaks to something that has also come up a lot with people that I work with, which has a lot to do with being perceived.

Raquel Sands: 13:46

Yeah, yeah.

Valerie Friedlander: 13:48

As we do work around showing up in the world, and owning who you are in the world and and building from who you are, there's the dynamic that the resistance that comes into place for a lot of people around being perceived so when you were talking about that idea of who am I supposed to be, what do people see me as? How do I introduce myself so that people see me versus see the career that I've chosen

Raquel Sands: 14:19

100% yes.

Valerie Friedlander: 14:21

And I'm curious what you run into working with people, especially in this time when they're talking about their career, what are the things that you tend to notice related to that?

Raquel Sands: 14:33

Yeah, I feel like I work with the spectrum. I work with white guys, I work with immigrant women who are from Middle East, like it's a spectrum, and I think the commonality is a lot of insecurity or uncertainty. Like there's fear. The fear comes from different places. So from, I think people who don't come from a diaspora, or aren't immigrants, or whatever it is, I. Think that that fear in particular is like, okay, is now the time for me to change my identity. So I had a client who's environmentalist and very happy working with nonprofits, doing grant work, and he wants to do a homestead. He wants to create his own thing and live off the land and create, but there's this fear of having that traditional structure and creating his own thing. And what does that look like, and is it going to be wanted, needed? Who is this other white guy doing this? And like, there's that perception, I have another client. She's from the Middle East. Has a Masters. She loves the environment, another environmentalist. I guess that's a trend, and the environmental industry is at risk now because here in the United States, the political climate and for her, it's not so much of an identity. It's just where will she get money so she she doesn't have other resources. She's not trying to build a homestead. She's just trying to take care of her family in in other places, she is a caretaker. So the fear is different. It's like, Who do I want to be, or what can I afford to be? What do I have access to, that I can step into? So I think that the this question of the Who am I is important because it's, it's always evolving, and I think it's, it lands us in the present, like, who am I in this moment, not five years from now? Like, who can plan five years from now? But it's like, I mean, we tried, they tried to tell us that we can't.

Valerie Friedlander: 16:37

No, not really.

Raquel Sands: 16:38

No, really. Exactly. And then you add kids in the house. So my client, she lives in Maryland, and mortgage the housing market, like there's so many things that, even if she wanted to answer clearly, oh yeah, this is who I want to be, there are things, the structure, the lack of scaffolding, to kind of foreshadow what we'll talk about. Aren't there for her. So it's like, okay, what can she do feasibly? And that's where it's like, okay, well, it's not who I want to be. It's like, who can I be? Or what makes sense now, what part of me? And it's it's hard, because even when people are starting their careers, that's what happens when we interview is we're not showing all of ourselves. We have to, like, act and perform. And so I think unfortunately, people who want to stay, or have to stay in a nine to five, there's this performative that we just, I don't want to say, have to, but we get accustomed to. And I think the same thing kind of shows up if we decide to be entrepreneurs, or, like, whatever choice it's like, there's the pros and cons, like, are we willing and able, with our integrity and with our accessibility to do this in this moment? Does it make sense? Can we sustain this? And that's like, all feeding into the Who am I, which is a lot, because this system doesn't support us.

Valerie Friedlander: 17:58

Yeah, when you mentioned working with people who are in fields that are being devalued, yes, and shifting. I just spoke to a group of federal workers, and that was one of the things that I engaged, was when you you had this stable system for decades, and we can debate all of the things about that stable system, yeah, yeah. And when you talk about having a stable system, and now it's gone, yeah, and now we understand ourselves in relation to each other, yes, and how we show up and how we're expected to show up, because that creates some stability, whether we like it or not, that we know this is what is expected, and then we get to go, Okay, well, this is what's expected, so this is what I'm willing to compromise, yes, about myself, whether and again, whether or not we should or shouldn't. This is what I'm willing to compromise. This is what I'm not willing to compromise. How much can I push and still take care of myself and my family, if I have one? And those are really, really big questions. You mentioned the word scaffolding, and that is something that we wanted to talk about, because it relates to those structures. Would you first explain what that word means in a job context?

Raquel Sands: 19:27

Yeah, the way I interpret is, like, I envision people in construction who have some sort of temporary structure, or it could be permanent that supports what will be the thing. So I'm thinking of, if the house is being built, it's the pillars of wood. It doesn't have bricks yet. It doesn't have cement, but it's just kind of the skeleton. So it's the bones. And so some systems, some countries, cultures, have more bones than others, depending on the families we come from, we might have. More resilience and support, emotionally, mentally. So I think scaffolding in the corporate space, I think traditionally, has been HR, or people have thought of it as HR. I hope that it has been debunked, because HR is not there for us. It is there for company reasons. And I think this is why, for people who are still in the space, making sure that everything is written, making sure that we have another witness here, I don't use this personally, but I've been told that some states you are allowed to record conversations. And I'm not trying to put fear, but I just think that when there isn't the bones, the structure, figuring out what we can reasonably use to support ourselves and defend ourselves. While there's so much dismantling happening.

Valerie Friedlander: 20:51

What I'm hearing in that is like also just knowing, is the structure a support structure? Is it a cage?

Raquel Sands: 20:58

Yes, yeah. Thank you. Exactly. Yeah, and that's what it becomes, I think, is, you know, we think that, or people, at least, I thought I'll talk about myself, because I don't want to speak for others. But I thought that having a company, committing to a place was going to be a scaffolding, was going to be a ladder and a structure of support, and I think it ends up being a cage, especially for people who focus on certain industries like unfortunately, this is something I talk about with my client, that now she's at a place where, how can we focus on the skills and not the industry, Not necessarily the specific projects? Because now, if the scaffolding, if the bones, is under attack, then then what do we have? Then you need to relocate, unfortunately, then you need to migrate. Then you need to move, be agile, and especially in an environment when we're not taught to do that. Nobody teaches us. What is your risk tolerance? You know, how open are you to trying new things and putting yourself out there that I never was taught. I don't remember seeing people. I think because YouTube and this influencers things Gen Z other, younger generation had the resources to put themselves, but I don't think like I'm a 92 baby, I'm a millennial, and my cousins and like boomers, we didn't have that. We were taught do this. The scaffolding, the structure will support you, climb it, and now it's, it's just gone. And so we're, we're having to learn to go back to the creating. When things are collapsing. It's unfortunate. I mean, people can turn it half glass half full. It's like, okay, this is an opportunity. You know, we can choose to see it that way, or it's like, I'm being forced, and I was fine, and now I have no choice. And that's, I think, that's the reckoning that's really hard.

Valerie Friedlander: 22:56

Yeah, the choice piece the agency. Did I choose this? Yes, and that's, I think that is a big difference of whether I feel like I was an agent of this change, or whether I'm being forced into that change, how, how I feel about it. And even for people who are like, yeah, burn it down. It's it is a cage. It's all a cage. Burn it down, there's a difference between theoretically saying that and actually living through that and navigating through that, yeah, and we live in an unethical society and to survive, there are certain compromises that we make. And while we might be like, I don't want to make any compromises, okay, and what does that mean, when you choose that, and a lot of people, when it comes down to actually choosing it, aren't like they're not going to choose that. So I'm curious, you had mentioned about building your own scaffolding, to support your own agency.

Raquel Sands: 23:59

Yes.

Valerie Friedlander: 24:00

What does that look like? Because I'm betting that there are people listening to this who are like, okay, yes. And what do I do now?

Raquel Sands: 24:07

I know, I know, I know, and I will. This is 100% disclaimer. It won't be an overnight thing like and this is something we can talk about it in fitness, because that's a whole other but it's like, the principle is the same, whatever we start with, it's not going to be an immediate thing. Like, I will say in a personal note, I it's taken me three months to get into running, and I used to hate and I it was a mental thing. I was just like, why am I going to do that to myself? But now I have found it because I mentally reframed it okay, if I walk, I walk. If I run, I run. But I'm just going to put one front, in front of the other, and make it my own thing. And I mean, it takes time so, so that's my disclaimer, because I don't want to set people up that like, okay, Raquel said this, and things are going to be hopping.

Valerie Friedlander: 24:57

When we are doing what we know is the right thing, it doesn't always feel good. I think that's a really important disclaimer to be like, so often people are like, if I'm doing the right thing, then I'll know, because it'll feel good. And it's like, actually, that's not how that works.

Raquel Sands: 25:12

No, exactly, exactly, and it's hard, like, the discomfort piece is so real. So the first thing I'll say is the emotions. So what has helped me is I have a daily reminder where any changes. So I'm not saying every day at the same time, but five minutes, and especially if you're in a work environment like I'm still contracting. So I still work for someone else, nine to five at home, and then I built my business. And there are moments where I in my mind, I'm like, Okay, I have to practice what I preach, because I'm telling people as a Career Clarity coach, this is how you show up. I have to show up in this way. And so there are sometimes tough conversations I need to have, but I can have those because I have checked in with myself. What is it that I need to say to the director or this person? And this is part of the scaffolding. We don't know what the structure is if we haven't asked the question, like, I don't, I don't know how much water I need in a day, if I haven't just even gotten the water bottle or gotten a sense of my cues. So number one thing is having some sort of reminder calendar check in with yourself, five minutes, 10 minutes. And this is the second thing you have the space, but then really, really brutally honest with yourself. What are you feeling? Because I think we will have conversations with ourselves, like it's not a big deal, or we can throw that under the rug, bypassing ourselves, bypassing Yeah, and it's like, well, how are we gonna, like, think, Okay, we gotta step outside of ourselves a little bit. How are we gonna create the support for ourselves if we're not really being honest or showing up with ourselves, and it's so hard. It's like the walking thing, like, okay, in theory, one foot in front of the other, but when it's in the moment and you have to do it in the rain and you have to do it in the snow, it's gonna suck. So the honesty is so important, because sometimes I know I want to say something to a C level executive chief. I'm just doing their website, and I need to have a conversation knowing that they're above my pay grade, knowing that they probably don't value me because I'm a contractor. It's a white dominant space. Here I am, petite, curly haired Latina, and so holding all of that for myself gets easier, because I'm already recognizing, like, Okay, this is what needs to happen, and this is what needs to happen for me. So how can we create this bridge? Because they're not going to recognize that for me. I mean, DEI is wonderful, but it's not enough. Like we have to DEI ourselves, like we have to advocate ourselves, so the check in once a day, being honest, showing up for that time, and then the third step is actually acting on it. Does this look like a script that I say to x person? Does this mean I need to block calendar so that my lunch time is my time, so that at 4:30 no more emails, no more nothing. And that's hard because we were taught to climb the ladder, but not necessarily to be assertive once we're in the spaces. So what does it look like? Sometimes one of my jobs, they will just say, Okay, do this thing. Well, what time by when who needs to be included in all this? And I told them I had the conversation last week. I said, I can't work unless you give me the template and all these resources. And I will tell you little Raquel was freaking out, like, who am I? Not in a degrading way, but like, I was never taught to speak up to a man, to my supervisor, to a C level executive, being a contractor, like being whatever it is. And so I had a template. I have a script, respectfully, you know, thank you for your time. This, this, this, this, this, and so, and then the muscle memory. Once we do these 123, things, we just repeat, and we're not it's not going to be perfect always, and maybe sometimes we don't act on it. We trust ourselves. But that's, I think the muscle that we start to build is like, okay, next time I don't even need a script. I already have it memorized, or whatever it is.

Valerie Friedlander: 29:39

Yeah. So that scaffolding of creating the support structures within yourself. And as you get started knowing, okay, these are the supports that I need temporarily, the check in part is so key. And then in order to stay aligned with that check in, these are the support structures. I need a script to help me stay aligned with that, or I need to make sure that I take some afternoon off so that I can rest and regulate my nervous system, because that really threw me off, because I don't do this,

Raquel Sands: 30:11

Yeah.

Valerie Friedlander: 30:12

Having those supports is so important.

Raquel Sands: 30:16

Yes, and then we can, like, build a whole system. I remember I started doing this when I was completely full time. I wasn't contracting and building business on the side, I had in my OneNote or notion, or whatever scripts templates I was like at this time, just copy and paste this into the email and I automated it. And so there are books like that. I think there's one called the Second Brain. There's another one, Tiny Habits, like, there's a lot of these self help books. But I think without the emotional piece, it's just systems. It's just mental stuff that goes way above us. We have to, going back to my yoga days, embody it. We have to, like, sit with it. And that's why I say, create the space, but then be in that space for yourself. Because who wants to be in discomfort like nobody wants to sit with the ugly, the fearful feelings, but that's where we get okay, this is what I'm afraid of, or this is what's coming up. So let's gently right, peel the onion and Okay, so this is what I need in this moment, maybe not always, but this conversation will hopefully be a right step for whatever. And then after you act and you see how they respond, it's like, okay, now I have another signal. Now I know what is happening. And now you're kind of diagnosing your environment as you're diagnosing yourself, you're diagnosing the environment. And it doesn't happen overnight, like I say, but it's, it's a routine that we build because HR won't do this for you. A work friend won't do this for you. Maybe the director, manager, who you think is an ally, your advocate, they might not do because at the end of the day, people I think are in and not in a in a mean way, but we're all have been taught to survive. And so it gets to that place of like, Is it him or me? Is it she or I? And so it's like, I need to be honest with my feelings and myself, so that I can show up with integrity and ferocity and strength and peace and and then send them, you know, with my as we say, in spirituality, with love and light, we send them with good vibes as much as we can. And then we do what we need to do, because that's the scaffolding, not out there, but in here.

Valerie Friedlander: 32:35

Yeah. Well, the important part for folks who might be managers to be able to attend to if we want to build something different, if we want to build a scaffolding that's actually supportive and not a cage. And that implies to not just other people, but to ourselves too. Because when we build scaffolding, it's systemic scaffolding that is a cage, and it applies to other people, we are still we are still in the cage too. We are still part of it, and so to be able to to diagnose something, we have to show up with curiosity. Yes, you know, showing up with that openness and curiosity and then allowing ourselves to learn something different and receive information that might be uncomfortable, and have that ability to digest it and to build from it, because it's all information about what's going on with us.

Raquel Sands: 33:27

Exactly. And it's not good or bad. And I think we're quick to label, but it's like, Okay, in this moment, like the Who am I in this moment? I mean, I can only speak to now. I can try to say, Oh, I would love Raquel of tomorrow to be this, but I actually don't know, like The Job Hopper thing. I had no idea that I was gonna, 11 years later, do a business built off of that, and I was still gonna be job hopping in my 30s. And it was actually I laughingly but lovingly say, like, I'm really glad I built those muscles because now I literally don't. I mean very grateful, very grateful, but I don't, I haven't attached myself to an industry. So when I get clients and like, help me with my resume, help me with my LinkedIn profile, it's branding. How do you tell your story in a way that positions you to get jobs, period, regardless of the industry or the group or whatever. We're all handymen. To a certain extent, we're just trying to flex skills. And I think the emotional, mental skills don't get spoken of as much as they need to be. But like, it's all part of that. And so it's unfortunate that most people now are forced to engage with this, but, I mean, I don't know. In the bright side, it's like, okay, maybe it's setting you up for for who knows what's next, because you really, we don't know what could be next on the

Valerie Friedlander: 34:53

that you're going to put on a resume, but corner. they're certainly the skills that we need to be. Able to build something different, yes, exactly, and to build something new that's more supportive. We need to actually know what is supportive, and not just what creates the structures that we think. You know. Oh, well, this is what a house should look like, well, but is it? Is that house supportive for the people who need to live in it, like, what kind of dynamics are we building when we build in the way that we think we're supposed to build? And is that really what I need? And like, to your point, earlier, and I can't remember if we talked about this before we started or in this conversation, but, you know, to the our fixation are on goals and getting to a certain end point, I will frequently remind and because I was the same way, I very much this like, this is where you're supposed to go. This is what success looks like. To be able to step back and go, Well, do I want to be the do I want to be the person who does the things to get that right. I mean, I was just talking with somebody who was like, Yeah, you know, habits. And it was a networking thing, habits, you know, be a millionaire, blah, blah. And I was like, yeah. But the question is, like, you might think that you want that, but do you want to be the person who does the things to get that? Is that actually what you want? Because in this society, to be a billionaire, you have to step on people, you have to extract you have like, the ways you have to be, to be that

Raquel Sands: 36:32

Right.

Valerie Friedlander: 36:32

Do you really want to be that?

Raquel Sands: 36:34

That's right.

Valerie Friedlander: 36:36

Or is that a conditioned thing that we've been told to dream of and want, for me, the answer is, no.

Raquel Sands: 36:43

Same.

Valerie Friedlander: 36:44

Would I like financial stability? Absolutely. Yes, yes. But I don't want to harm other people in the process of getting it. And I, and lots of people, do lots of mental gymnastics around, oh, justifying this and oh, just when I get here, then I'll be this person. No, no, you're gonna be the same person that you're being. On the way to getting there. You have to decide is that the person that you want to be. Yeah, yeah. Would you share those three

Raquel Sands: 37:07

That's right, that's right, exactly. And that's another skill that isn't taught, is the reverse engineering. Like, okay, you have this goal. And I love your question, because it's like, we all theoretically could do x, y, z, but is it something that comes from us, or is it this something that we're completely trying to change ourselves, like the running thing? I tried it before, and I was like, okay, you know what? I reframed it, but it I didn't change myself to accommodate the running. I take it at my pace. I take it as a moving meditation. I do my thing. 10 minutes, 20 minutes, whatever it is. So it's like what I love the what does it take to get there? Who are we becoming when we get there? Are we changing ourselves? Because that's all part of how we define, I think, agency and scaffolding and and I love that when we check in with ourselves, we can, in real time, figure out, like, Okay, this doesn't feel right up, let me take a step back. Let me assess again. Oh, and there's not this pressure of, go for it, even if you're suffering and in pain, endure like, No, I remember I quit a job four or five years ago. I was really committed to this job, the most committed I think I had ever been in any job, because of the stability. And I was paying off a car, and it was fine. And I remember, here in the United States, we only get two weeks paid time off that doesn't include sick leave, some places do more and mat leave, maternity leave, all these other things. I mean thinking about that two weeks in a whole year, first of all, but second of all, we usually plan around holidays and try to squeeze every little bit. So my husband, I had just gotten married a couple months prior to that, and we're like, we're gonna do something two weeks in the middle because he couldn't take that much time off. I couldn't take that much time. So we're using our whole allotted time for the year it was announced. People knew about it in my job, the day comes, and unexpectedly, my boss, at the time, schedules a meeting one hour before I leave for my two week vacation, and my gut is already like, Oh no, what is this? Right before I leave, I go in and she wants to give me what's called a performance improvement plan, a pip. I had been at this job a year and a half. I had converted from contractor to full time employee, new manager, from the person who hired me initially, and I literally cried. There's always this perception, don't cry at work. I cried. I bawled. I was taken so back we had done my annual review, and she's my age. She was one two years older than me, and I was like, Why? Why? That was the question that I kept. Why is this necessary? Why now you knew that I had this time allotted. You knew. That I was leaving at this time, so it felt like a plot right before I left for my first in my whole career. Two weeks now, I get this big atomic bomb, nuclear thing on me, and it turned out that the PIP was because of some steps of the formatting that they didn't like that I wasn't doing certain periods or grammar things. And I was like, but you could have covered this in the annual review, and also, is this so serious that you're going to give me this PIP performance improvement plan? And I quit, and I quit that day. I didn't have a plan for a job. I had maybe $5,000 savings. I still talking the thing. So yeah, and then had car debt, nothing lined up and we were going to go on this trip, and it was the most or one of the most humbling moments, I think, because in that moment, I had to make a decision, stay and endure and knowing that I was very uncomfortable and very distraught, or honor myself, honor my sense of pride, integrity, whatever. And I chose the latter. I was like, No, I don't want to stay part of an agency, a team under a person that has no interest of creating any sorts of scaffolding, regardless of what I could do. And this is like, okay, no, no return. Point of no return here and yeah and I left, and I've been contracting, continued contracting, but I say that because the checking in was so important. If I hadn't, in that moment, made that decision, for better or worse, I made an emotionally educated decision that I just refuse because there was no more scaffolding that I tried. We try to make it as much as we can, and then we have to make that decision who we want to be or what is coming out of us in that moment. It's not easy, but still find work. Still do the thing may not look like how we want it to look, but if we're open enough, I think then things work out. rinse, recycle, repeat.

Valerie Friedlander: 42:56

Yeah, all right, well, and also, we know that a lot of these things are really hard to do and hard to initiate on your own, especially as you're navigating these dynamics, and especially if you're navigating what is unfortunately true in a lot of workspaces, which is the lack of psychological safety and people who will drop bombs on you Without creating the structure for a supportive conversation for growth. Yes, you know and that we need supportive structures. We need scaffolding for those kinds of conversations that are focused on our growing and improving versus what ends up feeling punitive and all the other awfulness that that sounds like it was.

Raquel Sands: 43:40

Oh my gosh, traumatic ptsd from work!

Valerie Friedlander: 43:43

Yeah, absolutely, well, and we do carry those things forward. So having that, we do know that it really helps, especially if you're new to that kind of self connection and discernment, and you would like Wayfinder support. Where can people find you?

Raquel Sands: 43:58

Oh, yay. Well, my website, MiriamRaquelSands.com, has my podcast, my blog, on the blog I have tips and tricks like this. Everything is free because I think having access is so important. If you would like to work with me, you can check out the services. I have a 90 minute call where, if you don't know where you are, we will figure it out together. You don't have to come to me and figure this out, knowing this is what I want. It's totally fine. But if you do want something specific for career, I help with portfolios, all the tangible stuff to get people positioned. So yeah, everything on my website, and I also have a podcast. So if you want tips like this that are kind of Woo, kind of strategic, a bit of all the things, then it's Career Clarity Now.

Valerie Friedlander: 44:44

Awesome! All right. And finally, as we wrap up, what does it mean to you to be unlimited?

Raquel Sands: 44:50

I thought I knew. I thought I knew, but I think two different answers come up. The first one for me is being emotionally attuned, because I think. And the sense of unlimited is just this expansiveness for me, and emotions are just wide and depth and all the things. And it's not enough to just say I'm sad or I'm feeling anger. We could be people who watch Pixar the inside out like you could be sad and happy and all the things at the same time. So I think that expansiveness is so beautiful and important to unlimited. So the emotional attunement, I would say,

Valerie Friedlander: 45:28

Yeah. And when you want to evoke that unlimited feeling, what do you listen to?

Raquel Sands: 45:35

Okay, this one, I know. The song is Girl On Fire by Alicia Keys. And if I may a quick, quick story? The reason why is because when I was in college, I did this leadership retreat called School of Embodied Leadership. You can see a trend with embodiment here. And if people are interested, it's Strozzi Institute out of California. He does the guy, Strozzi something, I forget his first name, but his last name is Strozzi spelled s, t, r, o, z, z, i, and he brings a lot of Japanese Aikido, martial art philosophy into leadership training. And so I had the opportunity to do one week, but I did it twice for two years. So it turned out to be two weeks of one week immersion, because you have to address kind of like in yoga, your body, your mind, your spirit, to kind of peel back What are you feeling? What are the traumas and the things? And then we come up with a mantra, an I am statement, I am this, in the hopes that we either become that or we strive for it and we throw it away, or whatever it is. So in one of the trainings, somebody gave that song to me. I said they gave it because they're like, this is you, Raquel. And I've kept it with me ever since. So that's why I love that song.

Valerie Friedlander: 46:53

Awesome. Well, thank you, Raquel, for joining me on Mindset Unlimited. It's been a real pleasure having this conversation with you.

Raquel Sands: 47:00

Yay. No, thank you for having me. It's been awesome.

Valerie Friedlander: 47:03

I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, I would love it if you would share it with a friend, share it on social, share it so that other people can have these tools and support as well. And if you would find it helpful to have some examples to listen to of some non-linear career journeys, I have two other podcast episodes you might want to check out. One of them is called Resilience Through Unexpected Career Shifts, where I interview my dad and we talk about his very non-linear career journey. And the other is Leaning Into a Midlife Career Change, which is an episode of me coaching someone around a big shift in their career, which really isn't that uncommon, and it wasn't uncommon even before this massive upheaval that we are currently experiencing with jobs. So check those out and reach out. If you have any questions, reach out to Raquel. Reach out to myself. There are links in the show notes for those episodes, for everything referenced in the podcast, as well as a form to send me a message, ask a question, something you'd like me to cover on the podcast. Whatever it is, I always love to hear from you, and stay tuned. I've got a couple episodes that are still in the works, that are coming soon, around empathy and AI. I'm excited to bring those to you soon, and I will talk to you all next time.