Episode 50 – Crossing the Threshold

This is Rebecca Clark. Episode 50 Crossing the Threshold This’ll Podcast is for anyone that knows they haven’t yet found and offered up their best work but are compelled to seek it out and do it. Are you ready to move your guests? The hero, the waker of his own soul is himself but the convenient means of his own disillusion by Joseph Campbell, the hero with 1000 faces Hello, my friends. This is the 50th episode, and I’ve chosen to give it meaning because this is a milestone that I would like to honor and use it as a chance to take a look at my journey so far and entrepreneurship. And as I was reflecting on this, I also realize that it was about time that I start learning more about storytelling because I have a ton of stories. I’ve written a lot of journals and blog’s and things over the years, and even though I don’t consider myself a great writer, I’ve still written a lot, and I have a lot of stories, and I’ve avoided trying to learn how to do that well and now I’m realizing that that’s an important part of my growth as I podcast as I blawg as I write sales and marketing copy. And as I create courses, it’s a great time to learn and to refresh old skills in some areas. But I finally looked up and paid attention to information shared about the stages of the hero’s journey. Now the hero’s journey is this all embracing metaphor for the deep inner journey of transformation that he rose in every time and place seemed to share a path that leads them through great movements of separation, descent or deal and return. And that explanation really helped me. That’s from Christopher Vogeler, even though the actual stages of Hero’s journey come from Joseph Campbell. And some of you might recognize his name because he wrote the hero of 1000 with 1000 Faces, the power of myth and the inner reaches of outer space, and George Lucas read a lot of his works. So I wanted to share with you some of my journey in the context of the hero’s journey because as I was learning about the hero’s journey, I realized that I was having difficulty putting my recent experiences into that model. But the active reading and trying to figure it out helped me discern some things about my own journey. To understand where I’m at in it, into know where I’m at in it helps me kind of give myself a little bit more grace in the process because at the start of the journey, we’re in this place considered to be the ordinary world. Now, we’re obviously in many journeys in her life. But I’m gonna count this as my particular journey into entrepreneurship and looking at ourselves in the ordinary world. Or in some cases, you’re looking at someone else like you are. You’re looking at how I’m telling the story of my hero’s journey. It gives us the opportunity to look at that person who they are right now, their character, their drives, their urges and the problems they’re facing which make them unique. And each of these heroes has a problem or what they call a central dramatic question that disrupts the ordinary world. And the hero has to enter a different world which is called the Special World, to solve this problem or answer this question and return the balance. But of course, when the hero starts this journey in the ordinary world. We have to take a look at thes drives and urges and problems. And for me here I have this drive to succeed and to be independent and fulfill the purpose of my creation and to serve while simultaneously I’m dealing with all of these urges that I have to change. And then I have addictions. And along with that I feel like I have these problems I must solve. Do I put off the changes I want to make? Do I let some of them go and not try to change myself and to take a look at why I’m never fully satisfied in the present? And I have all these flaws and just loving what is. And this overarching problem is the realization that I have this cognitive dissonance going between who I am and what I want to be and not quite ever getting there and perhaps settling and saying, you know, why even try to get there if enough is going right? And so this questioning in this problem in ordinary life starts to cause some discomfort inside. As I realize I want to get to this special world, this other place where I’m independent. I have the freedom to create and to do that in a way that honors who I am, who I want to become and don’t feel so confined. And I know that’s just a feeling, but it it’s one of those feelings. It’s persistent and starts to teach you that Perhaps it’s there to help you feel discomfort so that you make changes. And this leads to the next part of the journey the call to adventure because there’s this disruption taking place and this realization that there must be this quest. There must be something undertaken to get to the special world, and this temporarily throws the ordinary world off balance. It also kind of shows you what happens if the challenge is rejected like you don’t. You’ll never experience what you want to become. You’ll kind of settle for what is, And at the end of your life, you will be so disappointed in yourself, right? There’s this kind of thing that’s like, You must go do this even though there so many risks involved and there’s often a lot of conflict at this point because part of views wanting to go on this adventure that this change part of use, realizing what you’d have to give up, and you kind of want to merge it together. Go. How do I make this change while not giving anything up while having less discomfort? And I think for me at this point, my understanding of the call to adventure. I feel like that really happened after I had my child because I’d saved up all this vacation time and I was at home for three months and I was just doing a little bit of online work every week, kind of little Adminis trivia. But otherwise I just remember that time is this very sunny, happy time where I felt more freedom and flexibility, and yet I was getting a lot done. Nice, enjoying time with my child and during that time thinking, Wow, what if I cash in the for a one K and just stay home and start entrepreneurship right now and then The other part of me is like, That’s so not responsible. That’s not what you should do. And then I got this other feeling my boss was moving on to new job, and I just had this feeling that I was the person to lead a particular initiative forward and even though I wasn’t in his role at that time, I felt like that was a role I was going to step into somehow and that I was supposed to play a large part in that and yet part of me didn’t want to do that at all. I wanted to follow this call to adventure and it was interesting to see what happened next as I reflect now, because the next phase in the journey is the refusal of the call where the hero refuses the journey because of the fears and insecurities that have surfaced from the call to adventure and the Euros, not willing to make changes and prefers the safe haven of the ordinary world. And for me, even though it was painful going back toe work and I was actually exposed to the sick buildings and had lots of meetings and had to fight many battles, I knew how to do that. I knew that environment. I kind of refuse the call. But what super interesting looking back is During that time, I also accepted the new position that came about. I accepted the desire to learn more about becoming a chief learning officer, and I enrolled in a certification program for executive chief learning officers. And I got a certification in all of this. And those were two pivotal things for me at the time of going and leading the business end of the learning management systems implementation and getting that chief learning officer certification because it was through those two experiences. That really taught me why I shouldn’t refuse the call to adventure. Because even though I have learned a lot through them, I learned that I didn’t want to do those anymore. I didn’t want to implement another system, at least not for a large organization. And I did not want to pursue becoming a chief learning officer anymore, at least not in the context that I was learning about, and it created pain. It created new pain when I realized Wait a second. Some of these things that I was seeking aren’t going to get me where I want to go. And the pain increased as I realized that I was so busy at work that I could not stick to my top goals and achieve them all. So to re say that I know it’s not popular to say you’re busy nowadays, but you know when you have 5 to 8 meetings a day and then you have work on top of that to finish and you’re not having lunch hours and you feel bad if you stop to talk to someone in the hallway that’s too busy, right? And so I was really trying to execute a much as I could during the work day leave early so I could pick up my child and spend quality time with him for a few hours after work so that when he went to bed, I could go and do more work. I realized this is not what I wanted to do, because if I was really trying to seek entrepreneurship, something would have to give. When I was in the ordinary world before, I didn’t have a child. So I could use those hours beyond work to pursue entrepreneurship, to create online courses, to read books, to take notes to Donny Deutsch with his big idea show. But now I had to make choices. I put my all in at work, and what else was I going to do in the evening? Was I gonna pursue entrepreneurship? Or was I going to spend time with my child because I was tired and I realized I could not fit all of the things in that I felt were important. And so this cognitive dissonance in this pain there was increasing does start to escalate to the point where I realized I actually do have to completely make a decision here. And it doesn’t make sense in so many ways, and different friends and co workers and family members may not have agreed, but I had to accept the call to adventure. I got to the point where I really felt like I can’t bear it anymore. I must heed the call. And what’s really cool is the next step is something I can look back and see how this happened and when it happened. And it’s meeting the mentor. And what’s so interesting is that when I look back in my notes, I can see the actual date that I had a conversation with Deborah Moore and she told me to look up. Brooke cast a Leo, and I didn’t do anything with the name. But what’s interesting to me is it’s right in the same month that I gave notice at work. Now, if you’ve listened any of my other podcasts, you know that between the date I gave notice and between the day I actually left work, it’s probably ended up being about six months. I helped consolidate as much as I could. I helped hire the next person. I tried to do what I could my best effort right to help this transition and help the new person transition into the role for a few weeks before I left. So it’s amazing to see that the name of my mentor would be given to me the same time I actually wrote my resignation letter, but I didn’t do anything like, look, her upper anything for a couple of months until finally Deborah one day said to me, You need to come listen to this podcast with me. I know you’ll like it. This person is for you. And so I listen to that episode and maybe a couple other episodes, and that was it. But every time Deborah shared something with me from this woman, I got more interested. And then I looked at her website and I sign up for email list, and I started to pay attention on how she did her business and realized that this person was doing business in a way that I wanted to do business, that it honored the way that I wanted to be in the special world that I had in mind. And another interesting coming together is that I meet this mentor and start leaving my job at the same time, I realize that I actually need to work with this mentor in some capacity. And so right when I was leaving my job, I signed up to be in her school, and this was not part of my plan before, but it that’s kind of when you get one of those little spiritually nudges or inner inklings that something’s right about this. I don’t understand all the details yet, but I’m gonna go ahead and take action. And so I signed up for the school, and then I quit my job, and I count this looking back as crossing the threshold because this is the point where the hero has finally committed to the journey. It’s prepared to cross the gateway that separates the ordinary world from the special world this can require more than just, you know, accepting your fears and trying to follow a certain path that you think is outlined for you from a mentor, because the hero must confront an event that forces him to commit to entering the special world from which there is no turning back. That’s why I call that the quitting of the job, because that’s when you are officially letting go of the stability that you’ve been used to for over 20 years. At that point, that question comes back to mind. When you’re all of a sudden like Oh, shoot, I’ve actually done this. I am crossing the threshold. What was I seeking again? Why am I seeking that? And you start into this next phase of the story and so you get into this phase of a lot of learning and a lot of growing. But then all of a sudden, all of these trials happen along the way, and you realize, Oh, I’m so glad that I have this mentor along the way to help me, because this crossing the threshold is really humbling and hard and embarrassing and painful. I don’t know all the words to describe it. Because then all of these tests appear the’s tests that have to do with relationships and with money and with health. And all of these have come up. You know, he had crazy thing with the cars and crazy thing with money and with health costs that skyrocketed and then getting pneumonia. And then you’ve got cove it and all these things come up. And at the same time, you start to have these insights about yourself, right? Oh, I didn’t know I was weak in this area because I was able to gloss over it because I was so busy at work every day. And I didn’t have to deal with that or realizing that some of the things that helped you do well and communicate on teams and with leadership and everything on the job don’t work so well. Necessarily at this point of the journey, those will serve me well for later. But maybe not right now. And I know I’ve for gotten that. I know some things I forgot. For a while, I’ve mentioned it that I know how to lead that I know how to manage. And then people start bringing offers to you for opportunities to be on a board or to be it with them working on a contract or to seek out certain job postings. And then this starts this new inner conflict of Are they doing this because they think I’m not going to succeed? Am I really on the right journey like what’s going on? And so you have these little things going on inside. And then, of course, I’m surrounded by a whole slew of very successful people that have done what I’m trying to do. And then you get into that comparison game like, Wow, look at their sleek website. Look how well they talk about the same topics. Look how successful they are so young. They quit their job at 30 and learned. And here I am, closer to 50 and just barely starting on my call to adventure. So all these comparisons and all the stuff comes up, and that’s where I am right now. I’m in that compare and contrast. I’m turning down offers. I’m trying to figure out my niche, my story, my positioning. I am learning the balance of learning enough from mentors. We’re also pulling back and saying, just for a few days. I’m just going to do the work of business and then to have a couple days a week where I’m primarily coaching and to feel the joy of that. And then to have those moments during the week where I’m getting coached and to see how much that helps me to take a look at myself and get back on track to move forward. And I know that I am in this. It’s called tests, allies and enemies part of the journey, but the next part is approaching the innermost cave. I’m making the preparations to approach that innermost cave that leads to the journeys heart or central ideal. So I’m engaging in some of this little self sabotage that can happen at this point, right? You’re getting close to the hard part, and you keep finding other things to do and finding reasons why you should do it differently. Instead of just going, let’s keep stepping into the cave. Let’s go to the place that I know that I need to go in order to ultimately be successful with this process and to remember that this is a point where I’ve been going through all of these tests and trials. And now I’m getting closer to what I think I want. And it recognized, Yes, I’m a little tired and wondering why I haven’t experienced the success I want yet. But knowing that this is a normal part of the journey because approaching that cave also means that the ordeal is coming. The central life or death crisis during which you face your greatest fear, confront the most difficult challenge and experience a death, right? You’re you’re on the brink of failure, you’re going to die and you come out the other end of this a different person. And so you’re really at this point, like I know I’m in that approach to the cave, and I know that the ordeal is there, that realizing I’m letting go of how I operated in the past and I’m letting go of the comfort zone of working only with people I know. And I’m writing this scary marketing copy and getting those pictures taken and starting to offer the products and services and getting the feedback and having failure after failure where you feel like Why am I even doing this when I know I could go have a salary somewhere. But I also know from the tightness that comes to my chest when I think about it, of what that would mean for me, because that would be the ultimate failure of going back to what I was doing when I feel called to this adventure and have felt called to this adventure my whole life. But especially in my thirties and forties, there’s a little part of me that compares this to this point. I had as a missionary where you were supposed to have the sole purpose of teaching, and sometimes you could get comfortable going and talking to the same contacts over and over, even if it became very clear to you that they just like you being there, right? Your it was companionship. They didn’t have any visitors. They love to just sit and talk and to get to a point where you realize I’m not supposed to be sitting here talking to this person right now. They don’t really want me to teach them. They’re just interested in companionship, and I am comfortable. But what it means is that I am then not going and serving those who I’m supposed to be serving like this time that I’m spending. It’s being spent in the wrong place, and that’s a tough shift because you slowly let go of those relationships of that time and you prepare for the people who are prepared toe work with you. And it was easy, I think, as a missionary cause you had a defined purpose. But it’s a little harder and entrepreneurship, right, because some people that you’ve known in the past will be purchasing your products and services. But to remember that on this journey you are not supposed to stick to the comfortable. You are changing yourself. You’re to come out of this ordeal and there’s a reward. That’s the next phase of the journey. The hero survive death and overcome the greatest fear slaying the dragon, or whether the crisis of the heart and now earns the reward that was sought. And for me, that would be a successful business where I feel fulfilled running it. I’m making money doing it. I’m helping people doing it. And then there’s this whole road back, the resurrection and the return with the elixir. But all those things I’ll have to talk about in episode 100 because I’m not there yet. And maybe I don’t even know what the ordeal actually is. Maybe I’m not there yet either. Maybe I’m just approaching that cave. Found all these trials and challenges. I’ve tried these things and approaching the really great part that will get me to the reward. And I’m kind of pushing back and doing all these things, like eating too much, working on things that aren’t related to it, learning something more activities around the house, who knows? But this is where I’m at on the journey. And so I have crossed the threshold. I have gone through the tests and trials. I’m approaching the innermost cave and going to experience the ordeal. And I wanted to share that with you as listeners, especially those that have that desire to heed a call to adventure. It’s not for the faint of heart, but when has something that’s worth pursuing been super easy, super comfortable, safe or secure? Not very often. And we all have different timing for these kinds of things. Like I think I mentioned that I’ve gone through a struggle as I see 30 year olds get to the point that I want to be at a year from now and to realize wow, how lucky that they’ve learned all those things. At the same time, I cannot discount my past journey. There’s so much experience in that. There’s so much growth. There’s so much pain. There’s so much understanding that I can then bring into whatever I offer going forward. And some of that I can still feel when I talk to people and hear them talk about things I’ve been through or when I read my own writing when I shared experiences I was going through years ago, I, ah, suddenly remember. It brings to the forefront all of those experiences and to realize, too, that, like you, I’ve been on lots of heroes journeys already in my life, and I need to remember that I’ve done it and gotten through it, and that this one feels like a big one that maybe a year from now it won’t be, I’ll say as no problem and you’ll say, Listen to Episode 50 that’s not what you said then, right? And that’s why I feel so compelled to share some of the episodes about the point that I’m on in the journey. So that you look beyond what could be a sleek graphic or a podcast with lots of episodes or whatever to go. Oh, there’s some hard stuff going on and it’s OK. That’s expected. That’s the part of the journey. You can’t skip over, and if you try to skip over, it will probably come hit you even harder. Hate. And I think maybe that’s why I was hit with some more stuff is because I was trying to do some things my way because I’m actually better at having blank pieces of paper than I am with following recipes. So this is harder for me than perhaps others who are like Just give me the recipe, Just give me the steps. I’ll do them and I find myself pushing against that stuff. So it’s quite the journey. I love that. I got to learn from Christopher Vogeler Mawr about the journey. I’m glad I’m on it. I am past the point of turning back, and I know that because the feeling I get any time something else has suggested that is off the path, and I’m happy I have the courage to say no, I’m going to do this and the courage to know that I’m still failing at this, but that even in the absence of any evidence, I’m going to still keep pressing and understanding that somehow it’s gonna work out. And the cool thing to learn about the part of the journey that I’m not yet on is in these later steps how it talks about how the hero comes back to the ordinary world, because he has to come back at some point in be this new person in this new you know place and starts helping others on their journey and shares with them what they’ve learned and helps them work through challenges. And when I read that, I’m like, Yes, that’s exactly what I want to dio. I want to help others on their hero’s journey. That’s what the coaching is all about. That’s what all the other parts of the entrepreneurship about for me is going through this knowing it can be done and then helping others do it with whatever it is. And maybe subconsciously, I already knew that before, which is why I called my website. Move your desk, right, that’s all part of it, and it doesn’t matter where you want to move it. How you want to move it? Even if it’s just a little step of change, the whole point is to move to keep going, to keep trying And how important it is to take a look back. Like I have done recently and go, Yeah, I’m on the journey. Yeah, I’m going through these stages. Good for me. I did it. I crossed the threshold. I’m gonna make a little award for myself. Like that’s tough stuff. And I did it. Which means I can do more. I can do hard things. So thanks for listening. Keep going on your journey. The only way you will know what special world is there for you as you keep going. And that picture will get clearer as you go. And the beauty of it is all the people you’ll learn from on that journey. All the people you’ll give to on that journey and everyone will become what they’re seeking to become at some point. That’s how it works. So go be a hero. Get your journey started. Talk to you soon. I am ready to help you move your mind. Move your best. I am a coat If you’d like to work with me, go to move your desk dot com and select the work with me Tab. We can put our minds together and help you offer up your best work.