When I first became a career coach and I told people I would only work with women & AFAB folx, the most common question was “Why?”
A simple question that I honestly couldn't answer when I was starting out. I knew that it was something I needed to do but I couldn’t vocalize ‘why.’
As my work progressed and as I thought about what pissed me off in the world and what energized me to do the work that I was doing, it became very clear to me that the reason I needed to do what I was doing was because women & folx controlling their careers and in turn controlling their money and their lives... was and still is a radical act.
My practice is based on a few principles:
That you should make money doing what you want and you should do what you want with that money!
That finding and doing your thing means you will make more money.
Folx making money doing something they enjoy is a radical act.
When you make money doing what you actually want to do, not what societal or familial forces expects you to do, you become your most you. You act in a truly holistic way that honors all of you. When you approach anything that way you come at it with expansive energy (conversely if you do something you don't enjoy that's all about contracting energy).
This isn't some woo-woo nonsense - you know that's not my style - and you can name it however you want, but I know you know that your body and mind feel different when you're doing something you enjoy and your stomach and head feel like crap when you're doing something you don't.
When you feel good and all your energy is behind it that's where the success comes. For your career, that's where the money and growth come from. It's simple math: you enjoy it + your pump energy into it = you make more money/are more successful.
And what do you get to do with that money? You get to use it to support your values. You want to support organizations, foundations, candidates, family members, your community, causes....? go. to. town. The more money you make - the more you can support.
But why is that radical?
Because our system is not set up for non-cis-straight-white-males to succeed. And that's exactly WHY you should do it. Because you're not supposed to. Because the more you enjoy what you do, the more money you make, the more you use it to support your values, the more societal change you effect.
It’s the mid-2020’s and folx owning how they make money is still considered radical and outside of the norm. Standing up and saying ‘I want to be in a place of workplace power and I want to make money doing it’ is still seen as outside of the expected (and perceived as ‘bitchy’), whereas we all know for a cis-hetero-white male to stand up and say that is completely and totally acceptable.
I love watching these folx have their A-HA moments, come into their power, own what it is they want to do, who they want to be, all while doing it and writing their own futures. It is a radical act and I want to foster that.
I want to see that continue - to see how folx treat their work and treat themselves until it is no longer a radical act. Until it is the norm. Until it is expected.
This work comes to me in a lot of different ways. Now, many of the folx that I work with aren't at this “radical” stage that I am at yet. They just come to me knowing they are unhappy in their current position, their current career, their current role, but they're not at the point of “I'm angry and pissed off and I want to own this as an act!” … yet.
They do come to me as “I'm unhappy and I need to be not unhappy.” (Which in itself is no small thing!) For so long we were told, and it was just expected, that we would take what we “could get” in the corporate world and that we should be thankful.
The clients who've come to me saying “I'm dissatisfied and I want to change,” may not be at the radical edge of “I am making this a declarative statement” but they truly are doing something that is outside the norm they are stepping up by saying “I deserve to be happy, I deserve to feel that I'm making a difference I deserve to spend money on things I feel are important and not apologize for that.” That. Is. BIG.
I've had women come to me from the very top levels of corporatehood and their big challenge is learning how to “balance” life, family and work in a way that has never been expected of their male peers and they are truly struggling to succeed in their career in the ways they previously defined while also succeeding as mothers and family members in a way that society has defined for them.
I work with folx to define success for themselves.
All of these people are strong, smart, capable, forward-thinking, amazingly talented folx who are held back by the traditional patriarchal systems put in place. Many times they’re not even aware that these are the systems that are creating their blocks.
They feel (because they’ve been told) that they have personal failings that are keeping them from reaching their definition of success and it often times takes shining a light on where and how they have been societally blocked - due to race, due to gender, due to sex, due to all of the ism's that we are used to dealing with - and showing them that just because that has been the system does it mean that it has to be the system.
We are redefining the rules each and every day we are creating our own definitions - we are creating our paths and making our own money. Challenging these norms and these systems is not something to apologize for, but something to own and celebrate.
Now, as my practice has grown I choose to have clients of ALL types because I don’t believe that anyone should feel they have to choose between happiness and success.
So, Find Your Thing. Do your thing. Make all the money. Spend that cash supporting what you value.
Sound like a plan? Great. Get to it!!
Yours in radical career goodness-
EBS
P.S. If you don’t even know where to start figuring out what work will make you happy, start here.
