Women Like Me Stories & Business

Rachel Burr - Embracing Change: The Messy Path to Transformation

• Julie Fairhurst • Episode 106

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Transformation involves facing the gooey challenges of change, requiring resilience and vulnerability. Rachel Burr emphasizes the importance of sharing personal stories and building supportive networks to empower women navigating their journeys.

• Embracing the messiness of transformation 
• Women often play small due to societal pressures 
• Imposter syndrome affects many, leading to self-doubt 
• Building a supportive network is crucial for empowerment 
• Understanding and challenging personal beliefs are key 
• Sharing personal stories can catalyze growth and healing 
• Transformation requires confronting vulnerabilities and fears

Rachel Burr is an executive coach, leadership consultant, and people expert with over 20 years of experience helping leaders and teams thrive in complex environments. She specializes in coaching leaders advancing to new levels, those needing help with the "people" aspects of leadership, and those building stronger people strategies. 

Rachel partners with leaders to unlock their potential and achieve results by improving collaboration and influence. Her approach blends insights from her master's degrees in organizational development and clinical psychology with practical action and a touch of humor. 

She helps leaders examine their strengths, weaknesses, and values to develop authentic leadership, coaching individuals and teams while facilitating workshops and offsite.

Here are a few ways you can reach out to Rachel:

Linkedin:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelmburr/

Email: Rachel@Catamentum.com

Website: https://catamentum.com/ 

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Who is Julie Fairhurst?
Julie Fairhurst – Speaker, Author, and Founder of Women Like Me

Julie Fairhurst is a champion for women’s empowerment and the founder of the Women Like Me Book Program. Since 2019, she has published 30 books and 300+ true-life stories—at no cost to the writers—giving women a platform to heal, inspire, and reclaim their power. Dedicated to breaking generational trauma one story at a time, Julie’s mission is to uplift women emotionally and financially, helping them create better lives for themselves and their families.


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Speaker 1:

Well, hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Women Like Me conversations with women in business and stories. I am your host, julie Fairhurst, and I'm so excited about our guests that we have today. We have Rachel Burr, from California that is going to be helping us out with all sorts of different issues and strategies that can help women in business. So, rachel, thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate it.

Speaker 2:

Oh, thank you, Julie. Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, do you want to tell us a little bit about yourself?

Speaker 2:

Sure. So my first love obviously is I'm an executive coach and leadership consultant. I've been doing that for quite a while on my own this summer It'll be seven years and before that, navigating my way through corporate environments, and I recently published a book, in January. It is called Butterfly Goo the Down and Dirty Truth of Transformation. It is called Butterfly Goo the Down and Dirty Truth of Transformation. It's not specifically for leaders or for people. Even in business it absolutely applies. It also for me was an opportunity to speak to a broader audience. So it's a combination of a humorous memoir and with some self-help-ish aspects.

Speaker 1:

Oh, perfect. Well, I saw that on there. Can I just ask you, before we move on to other things, I just want to ask you about the title. It's such a fantastic title. How did you come up with it, or why did you? Why is that the title of your book? I love it.

Speaker 2:

Yes, I love the title myself. The entire book really is focused on transformation and debunking the myth of transformation. And I love the butterfly because it's always been ideal. When people think transformation, they think about the butterfly emerging from the cocoon and this perfection, essentially. And that beauty is not only enticing but it distracts us from the real nature of transformation and how difficult it can be. So it's setting us up for these very unrealistic expectations and therefore making transformation more intimidating and less accessible. So the reality is even for the little caterpillar. The caterpillar goes into the cocoon, spins itself in and it essentially dissolves into a gelatinous goo and it will rebuild itself into the butterfly. What I love about that is that the caterpillar takes everything it needs into that cocoon to become a butterfly. It is not turning itself into something it's not. It is taking its fundamental building blocks and it's building something new. It's building the best that it can be. It's building what it wants to be next and where it wants to go next.

Speaker 1:

Well, I have to be honest with you. When I knew we were going to do this podcast together and I was very excited about it, of course I had a look at what you've been up to and I saw the butterfly goo and I thought to myself I had no, I had no idea that butterflies went gooey before they became a butterfly. I had to, I had to Google it and I thought that I just thought it was a brilliant, brilliant name for a book. Oh, thank you. But, as I said I I I had to Google it because I had no idea that that, that that they really did go gooey in it, and I think're so right. It makes sense, because we all, you know, we, we, we change, we grow, we become different, which we're meant to do throughout our lives, of course, but sometimes we have to go through the gooey stuff yeah, in fact it's absolutely critical to transformation that without the challenging slog essentially through the goo, there is no growth.

Speaker 2:

Our safety zone is our comfort zone and as long as we're safe we stay small or we stay smaller than we could be. So a lot of the goo is facing our fears getting out there, understanding that it will be messy, it will be challenging sometimes, and I don't say that to discourage people. I say that so that when you hit that murky, swampy, sticky part of your journey you'll say, oh yeah, rachel told me this would happen. All right, let's just, you know, jump in there. I would say, strap on the hip waders and head into the swamp so I can get to the other side.

Speaker 2:

My goal with this is to take that myth of transformation and through my own journey it's a humorous memoir, as I told you, with self-help aspects in the back but to really break it down into manageable chunks and look at it realistically so that if we make it more understandable we can make it more actionable and therefore we can make it more accessible and achievable to people. And for me, if people walk away, the point of the book is it's not forcing transformation. Nobody has to If all you want to do is read the book and just laugh at my mistakes. Great, do that. If you want to start to dip your toe in, I put a playground exercise area in the back, so it's just. I like the word play because it's there's no expectation, no forcing. It's just a way to start playing around, experimenting with what you might want to do and see where it takes you.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, thank you for that. That was a great. That's a great explanation. And, and out of that, I you know you mentioned playing small. Why do you think we, as women, play small? What is it about us that that keeps us small? I?

Speaker 2:

think. Well, I would say I think it's not even gender specific. I think for us as women, there are different reasons that we will play small a lot of times. We have a lot of, obviously, how we've been socialized in terms of being nice versus being assertive or going after what we want, and we have to balance all of that. And it's not fair, it's not. We don't like it and it's, but it is the game we're playing.

Speaker 2:

And I say game not as meaning that it's not important or that it's even manipulative. I don't mean it that way. I mean it's looking at life as okay. How do we step in and play with it? How do we recognize the stories we're telling ourselves? Are we telling ourselves that we're not good enough? Are we telling ourselves that, oh, I really need to have that 95% level of you know kind of resume in order to apply for this job, where men might say, oh, I have 40%, yeah, I'll apply for this job.

Speaker 2:

So we're really, I think, conscious of managing that, that perception and also the fear of failure or looking like we're not competent. We suffer a lot of times from imposter syndrome and for those of you who know what that is, it's the idea that we may look very successful, competent, et cetera on the outside, but inside we think we're a fraud and we're afraid to push ourselves out into situations where that might be exposed. Now I will say I work with a lot of men as leaders and it's amazing the level in organizations and the titles that people have and they still experience that. I don't know if it's worse for women. My sense of it is it can be. I do know that it is a very prevalent experience when I talk to groups of women, the idea that you know, I I'm not really as good as people think I am, so I'm going to pretend that or I'm going to keep myself small so that I'm not putting myself into situations where that might be exposed. And I talk about that in the book and I've done that too.

Speaker 1:

I think that's, that's a big one. That's a big one, yeah, because then it's almost a fear of success, because if I'm successful, well that then there's going to be certain things that are going to be expected of me or people are going to look at me differently. It's yes, yeah, and very, yeah, very interesting. Do you work mainly with teams or do you work with individuals as well?

Speaker 2:

I work, I would say I actually work primarily with individuals and then I'll work with their teams. Sometimes I will be brought in to do teams first and then I'll end up working with the leaders one-on-one. As a result, I really love working with individual leaders. I love working with teams too, but I think coaching is a great way to create a space for them to just you know, I don't bounce off the walls just be in this very safe space, however you want to think about it. But when they're in their organizations or if you're a solopreneur, for example, you a lot of times don't have someone to just bounce ideas off of. So they say leadership is lonely at the top, and it's trite because it's true that we really need someone, especially outside the organization, that can give a different perspective and really be there just for you.

Speaker 1:

Yes, oh, absolutely, and I think that I belong to quite a few women's networking groups, and so I think that there's a lot of value there as well. But I agree, I think having that one person that they're able to come to and say, you know, I'm experiencing this, or I am feeling like an imposter, or I't I want to try to not try. I want to put myself out there more, I want to be more successful, to have that person to be able to help them.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely, and I do not think it's an either or, etc. I'm a huge fan of building your village. Yeah, for me, villages can be coaches, mentors, peers. They can be people just in so many aspects of your life that are there to support you and cheer you on and being very intentional about building that village for who you are and where you want to go.

Speaker 1:

Rachel, when I was sort of snooping around looking at your stuff, I of the couple of things jumped out at me and you're a clinical psychologist.

Speaker 2:

I have a master's degree in psychology. I am not a certified psychologist. That's part of the book. Actually, I left about midway through in order to take a completely different direction with my life.

Speaker 1:

I have to get your book. So what I was interested in is when you talk about. I was looking on your website and you help people with their mindset problems, so I know certainly imposter syndrome is a big one and feeling small. But what other things? What things are happening with people's mindsets these days and how do we overcome that?

Speaker 2:

Well, we are psychological beings first and foremost, and it's people confuse it sometimes with therapy and it's not therapy. Therapy is really looking, you know, backwards and kind of why you are where you're now, and very valuable. Coaching is really about where you are now and where you want to go. And we I don't have the statistics, but I would say the vast majority of a lot of the challenges we face are really about our own mindset, our perception of self, our perception of others, the disconnect between our intent and how we're showing up and others perception of us.

Speaker 2:

I use that quite a bit, that we're not objective about ourselves, we're not objective about anything. So it's about really trying to understand what's working for us and where things aren't working. How do we start to look at what's me, what's the environment, how do I bring me the core of me to that environment differently and without really understanding the mindset or what we're bringing in to that experiment, that conversation? Then it's all operating in the background and we can't impact it. So it's really important to understand how we think about things, ourselves, the world, the people we're with as a foundation for doing the rest of the work.

Speaker 1:

What do you think of belief systems then? You know, we grow up in families and and and over the generations. Sometimes we just accept the beliefs. We don't even know why we believe what we believe, but we just do unless we one day sort of challenge that. So what would you say to someone who has some troubles with their belief system then?

Speaker 2:

Well, and I think it's multi-layered. I think we have the beliefs that we recognize. I think we have the beliefs that are implicit and if you asked us about them, we could recognize. And then we have belief systems that may be operating completely out of our self-awareness. All of those feed into how we show up. And you're right. First of all, it's easier to challenge something that you're aware of. It doesn't mean that if it's deeply rooted in your values, that it's difficult to challenge. A lot of things that we don't even understand are operating underneath.

Speaker 2:

When I work with clients, a lot of times we'll do a 360 or we'll do a different kind of assessment, and what shows up sometimes are these ideas of derailers or things that when we're bored, stressed, you know, in difficult situations, these things come out in us and in my experience, these things are very old. They are belief systems. They're things that have shown up for us when we were very young and we're moving forward. My sense is that one of the best places to start is where is something that's not working for you and where are you willing to examine your beliefs around that situation? Are you willing to examine the fact that my belief is that I have to respect authority that I have to go after, whatever the next title is, because that's what success means.

Speaker 2:

That happens a lot. You know, people climb ladders because they're there, not because they necessarily want to go there. So you're starting to examine those belief systems and one of the best ways to do that is where are your pain points? What's happening that's not working? What's happening where there's friction? There could be a lot of things going on to your point belief systems and how they're showing up in there, and especially going back to how they're keeping us small or how they're keeping us limited or we're putting ourselves in a little box. That's a really good place to start looking at it, because we have so many belief systems that are operating at so many levels. So where do you start? Let's start where things aren't working.

Speaker 1:

Ah, that that is great advice. Thank you for that. That is, yeah, that is absolutely great advice. The other thing that sort of tweaked my curiosity was when you say you work with personalities or you help people to understand personalities. Can you explain that a little?

Speaker 2:

bit. I think that really still goes back to the core of who we are and personalities, what personalities really are and how we even figure them out. I'll do different personality assessments and I'm air quotes for folks who aren't able to see me, and what I tell people is and I'm really opposed to this idea of boxes, the idea that we put ourselves in these little categories and our brains are set up to do that, because it makes it easier to go into the world and say, okay, yes, no, you're this, I'm that, blah, blah, blah. But the problem is the world is so multifaceted that that doesn't actually work. So when we're putting ourselves into boxes, it's really about understanding. Okay, let's stop that, let's go back to the core of who we are and let's examine that. And yes, part of that can be seen as personality, but assessments tend to put us into boxes of personality as opposed to thinking about continua and how we show up and when we show up. So I always like to say any of those assessments, they are not meant to put you in a box, they're meant to be the start of a conversation.

Speaker 2:

So what's showing up for you? What do you resonate with? What do you not resonate with how might this be showing up for other people and you may not be recognizing it. So I always I'm a little careful with personality, because so much of what our personality is is we think it's defined by us. A lot of it is defined by how other people see us. But I think when we're looking about patterns of behavior and how we're engaging, then that's something that's actionable. If how we're engaging, then that's that's something that's actionable. If how we're engaging isn't working, then how do we recognize what's showing up for us and how do we change that?

Speaker 2:

And it changes a lot of what we're talking about?

Speaker 1:

Oh no, absolutely, I love it. Thank you for that explanation, for sure. I wanted to ask you about women and empowerment how can we empower ourselves more? I think a lot of women hear the word power and they think men or they think do you know what I mean? Like that masculinity or or, as some people say, the bitch out, you know, but what is what is like? How can we empower ourselves?

Speaker 2:

You know, and it's interesting, you know, to promote somebody else's book, I'm not being paid, but I am reading this. I think it's fabulous and it's called the Likeable Badass by Alison. I think it's Fragale, I'm not sure how you say it.

Speaker 2:

Likeable Badass. That's a good title. Yes, so I'm promoting. So if you know, allison, you're out there, I'm promoting you. So how women get the success they deserve.

Speaker 2:

And what I like about this is she talks about power and status, but status meaning respect, and I had not thought about it this way before.

Speaker 2:

We spend so much time thinking about power and whatever that equates to it and whatever that equates to it. But she says that if we start with respect, gaining that, people respecting our opinions, respecting our ideas that it's with that respect that's where we'll get resources, that's where people will invest in us, and so being able to approach situations. And she talks about with this combination of warmth and assertiveness and yes, there are rules of the game that we have to play and, again, not that they're fair, but they're there. And understanding it's not about being, you know, kind of passive and letting people, you know, kind of the bitch and feeling like we have to armor up and be ready I use that term a lot that we are all wearing this armor, but first of all, being authentic to who we are and then understanding how do we step into that assertiveness in a way that makes sense for us and it connects with the people around us, so I really like this book.

Speaker 1:

I never, ever put respect and power together, but I think you're absolutely right. If you think about people in the world that we respect, we also see them as somewhat powerful in different ways.

Speaker 2:

Not a bad thing, but powerful in their I just want I was going to say power like anything, it's interesting. Power is neutral, right. It's about how you use it, that it be there becomes positive or a force for good, or it can be, you know, negative and very destructive. So I think sometimes, as women too, we shy away from the idea of power, or that it's somehow, as women too, we shy away from the idea of power, or that it's somehow, you know, it's it, is this bad thing, like it, it it's not, it's not helpful, it's not good. And again, that's part of the story we're telling ourselves, as opposed to stepping into this idea of respect and therefore power in a way that we can have a positive impact on our organizations, our families, our world.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, wow, can you share some strategies with us? Just maybe around. Well, let's, let's. Let's go into my realm a little bit for a moment. Let's go into stories. So we all have these stories. Now, some of these stories are true. Some of these stories are perception, because, of course, they happen at different times in our life and maybe we're not seeing them as clearly as they are. But what strategies would you suggest to women who are allowing their stories to hold them back?

Speaker 2:

I'd like to ask you a question first, when you work with women about stories, what's your sense? How aware are they of the stories they're telling themselves? Are they aware? Let's start with that. What's your sense of that?

Speaker 1:

So I think that the majority of the women are aware. I find that the more mature the women are, the more aware they are. I find the younger ladies that I work with are not always as aware that they're part of that story.

Speaker 1:

And you know, I always say, if I'm, if I'm, if I'm having conflict with 10 people, I'm the common denominator, I'm probably the one with the problem. So I think that's a big, a big difference there that I see a lot with sort of some of my younger writers versus my mature writers. But I do feel that. So what I do is I help them to figure out what story about their life is holding them back. And then let's tell it, let's put it in a book and let's put it out to the world, because guess what, once it's out there, you can't be sad anymore about it, you can't feel shameful about it anymore and and they, they see the light on the other side. Does that help answer?

Speaker 2:

Oh, absolutely. And and it just brought up to me, I was listening to a podcast with Josh Gad for those who don't know it, he played Olaf in the movie and I think he just wrote a book. I'm promoting everybody's book but mine and he talked about writing a book as doing therapy in a mirror. When you start digging into your own story and you have to confront certain parts of it in a way that maybe you've kind of skimmed over in the past, really sitting down and, to your point, working with your clients to dig into that and really process it, I think so many different facets come up.

Speaker 2:

I think I was talking to a woman yesterday about her story and she helping, wanting to help other people with their story, and so she was going to share her story and at the end she said, well, and I just quit, I quit this and that's what I don't want them to do. And I'm like did you quit? Like what's the story you're telling yourself around that? It's like let's look at like what do you mean quit? And then look at like, well, where didn't you quit? Like what, almost taking devil's advocate position for yourself, but really being able to explore that and a lot of it is letting go of ego, letting go of fear and being able to dive down and, I will say, writing my book. I had days where I could. I was plugging along, everything was going great, and then I hit this messy, gooey part of even the writing process and I'm like I need a break because this is a lot for me to take in. So let me just pause. Get myself, you know, a cup of coffee. Maybe even come back to it tomorrow, cause it.

Speaker 2:

It's real emotional work. If you're talking about stories you're telling yourself that are there, are challenging or they're not helping you step into the full potential of yourself, you're going to have to confront some stuff and in the book my book it follows Joseph Campbell's journey. For those of you who aren't familiar, the idea is that all our stories are unique, but he proposed that we may follow certain patterns and a lot of the Greek myths and everything are built on that. Star Wars. He consulted for that and with the story, at some point there is what he calls the darkest cave, the abyss, the place where we have to go, where I like to say you know, here there be monsters, and when we go into that, it's where we confront the things that are the hardest for us, the things maybe we've been avoiding, and the only way to get past those monsters is to confront them and being able to defeat them. To get to the other side, oh, oh, I'm using that.

Speaker 1:

I'm still for it, rachel. I'm still for it. That is so good. Oh, soon as we're done, I'm writing that down in the ball. That was really good, oh my goodness. Yeah, because I agree. That's exactly what happens to us, and I find, as as I do the work that I do with women, that a lot of their stories are not as big as what they've made it out to be, and once it's out there, it's almost a pride of ownership now, and I think that's fabulous because they're fabulous and without that story, that story is a part of what's happened to them.

Speaker 1:

It might not be a nice thing that happened to them, but it happened and they're beautiful, and they're fabulous and and you know, and they're, and they're, yeah, it just everything makes us who we are, everything in our past.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely, and to your point, if it was a nice thing that happened to us, why would we care about sharing it? That's not usually the stuff that holds us back. And you know, we talk about gremlins, we talk about, you know, inner critic. We talk about all of that stuff and the problem is, and first of all, we like to think, oh no, we don't have, we all have those, we all have these little voices and it's funny, I'll say monologue versus, I'll say dialogue versus monologue, because you're having a conversation with them in your head. Yeah, and the problem is we.

Speaker 2:

That goes back to the imposter syndrome. It goes back to not sharing things that have been very difficult, even traumatic. It feels very vulnerable to admit that this happened to us. And the problem is, the gremlins love it when we keep stuff inside because they thrive in the dark and as long as we don't shine light on it, oh my gosh, it really feels like the movie from the 1980s. As long as we don't shine light on it, then they can thrive and they can keep us small. And when we explore that and we start to open up about it, whether it's to one person, a trusted friend or in the case of a book, apparently we put it out for the world. Yes, it can be hard and yes, it's vulnerable and yes, we are taking a chance. And it's also liberating, because if we keep that inside, it's possible that it will just eat us alive.

Speaker 1:

Yes, yes, that it will just eat us alive. Yes, yes. And I find for myself, as I've gotten older, that you know, all that stuff I was stuffing down for years, well, there's no more room. Yes, that pulls up. And now, yes, because you deal with it, or yeah, or you're just really unhappy yeah, or it leaks, is what you know.

Speaker 2:

So I've heard. It's like you know, especially in stressful situations you're trying to hold it all in and all of a sudden, like it leaks out and, and therefore because it's linking out, we don't have control a lot of times when that happens, or we don't have a good management of the control, because we've pushed it down, we've pushed it so far away to your we have no idea how much might be under there, and so we're not actively managing it. It's managing us.

Speaker 1:

Yes, yes, wow, well, thank you so much for touching on that. I will be watching this back and making notes to share with my ladies, because it was, it was, um, it was fabulous, rachel, I have a few questions I would like to ask you. They're fun questions, questions about getting to know you a little bit better so do you mind if I ask you they're just five.

Speaker 1:

No, yeah, absolutely sounds fun, okay, so, uh, the first one I'd like to ask you is what is your favorite book that inspires you in your business or in your life?

Speaker 2:

So this is a little different than the you know, the traditional business book. There is a book by an author called Jenny Lawson and it's called it's her memoir, humorous memoir, and it's called let's Pretend this Never Happened A mostly true memoir. And talk about vulnerable. She is, she's sarcastic and witty and vulnerable and raw and she shares these situations in a way that is, you know it is, it is just a very real perspective and I I love it.

Speaker 2:

And why that's important to me is I I have been playing small in a lot of areas of my life and that's why I feel like this book that I'm writing is not a pedestal, it's not academic. I was slogging through this I still slog through this and I kept telling myself oh, I should write a book about coaching, I should write a book about business. It should be very serious. And, by the way, anytime those shoulds come up, those are red flags. Just pay attention to where that's showing up.

Speaker 2:

And I read her book and you can hear her voice through every page, through every story, and I thought I can do that, I can be me, I can show up with my humor, my sarcasm, hopefully my little bits of wisdom, and I can put it out there in a way that might help others. And reading her book, that's one of the clicks of things that started to change and I've emailed her this and so she knows this and she's got this great. It's the blog, scom, she's. She does this blog, she's a writer, she's brilliant, and she is very open about things like you know, even mental illness that she suffered from and the other pieces of her life. So that's been a huge influence on me.

Speaker 1:

Wow, well, thank you for that. That's great, okay, so if you could have dinner with any woman woman in history who would that be?

Speaker 2:

I think it has to be Eleanor Roosevelt, and I think you know for her day and age and and I I want to dig more, I want to, you know, read more about her, but I think she was so strong and so very grounded in herself and I think she was a great role model. And I think there are a lot of fabulous women throughout history and I think it's interesting to look at her and look at other women like her in times where they are so they are so outside the box and they are not only willing to go there but they are standing proud as people who want to inspire and catalyze change for all women and as all women, therefore, the world.

Speaker 1:

Yes, oh, beautiful. Yes, I use a lot of her quotes in my book, so I haven't read anything about her, but she's a very strong woman, very strong woman, yeah. So what's your favorite way to unwind after a busy day?

Speaker 2:

Oh well, my husband's French, so we have a lot of wine in the house. So you know, red wine, white wine, rosé, champagne, I'm not, you know, I don't discriminate, I'm a lover of all kinds, but I, I do think, just sitting back glass of wine. Uh, scott Bradley, jukebox is a. I don't know if you're familiar with them, the music. They take popular songs now and they turn them into kind of the 40s style of music. Oh my goodness, no, oh yeah, scott Bradley, yeah, postmodern jukebox. So yeah, sitting there playing some cards with my husband, just relaxing, hanging out with our cats, that is the perfect evening.

Speaker 1:

That sounds. That sounds lovely. That sounds lovely. Okay, so do you have a favorite motivational quote that keeps you going? You?

Speaker 2:

going. You know I've had quotes in the past. Obviously, things like a journey, you know, of a thousand steps and things like that, and I do not mean any hubris by this, but one of the quotes is is my quote and I write it over and over again, and it's if you want a different life, you have to live a different life. And I keep reminding myself because if we keep doing the same things and expecting different results, then we're going to be disappointed. And so, looking at, what do I have to do differently now? What do I have to live differently now to achieve the life I want?

Speaker 1:

I always say my mother had a lot of trouble in her life. She's passed on now, but I always say she lived the same 30 days. She lived the same six months, she lived the same year, she lived the same five years, over and over and over again. And it's so important to realize that we're in that pattern because there is more for us, there is better for us, but you're right. Until we're willing to step into that and start living that, we will just continue on that pattern. Yeah, yeah, okay, my last question getting to know you. So if you could travel anywhere in the world tomorrow, where would you go?

Speaker 2:

Oh, that's such a big question. My husband and I actually do a lot of travel. I love it, I think right now top of my bucket list, although some friends and I are going on safari to South Africa later this year, so that's awesome that is so exciting it's so exciting.

Speaker 2:

I think Japan is really high on my list. I started trying to learn Japanese, and I say trying, I should say I was starting. That being said, I speak a little French. All my in-laws are French. I speak a little Spanish because, as any good person from the US, their second language is usually Spanish, if they have one, and I feel like I really need to get those mastered first before I throw in another one. But I think the language is fascinating. It's beautiful. Just the idea of the kanji or the symbols connected with they actually have two alphabets or their phonemes. Technically this is too much detail, but the food, the culture, the history. When you look at Japan and China and a lot of these places, they have such a deep history and in the US, our country is still so young by comparison and being able to understand the layers and, at some level, not being able to truly appreciate all the layers because not having grown up in it, not being there. But I think it's fascinating, it's beautiful.

Speaker 1:

I can't wait to know well, you're my first person to say Japan, so yes, and I loved how you explained why, and good for you. It's a. That's a. That's quite a challenging language to learn, so so, no, good for you. Well, rachel, I have really enjoyed this. I have really enjoyed this. This has been a fabulous conversation. There's going to be so many people that are going to get so much out of it. What would you like to say in closing to anybody that's watching on YouTube or listening to the podcast?

Speaker 2:

I would say, I think summarizing a lot of what we've talked about and even what goes through my book. People will say, oh, I'm strong, I'm confident, I know what I'm capable of, and that sounds empowering. Take a different look at this. You have no idea what you're capable of. You haven't even begun to explore so even I'm capable of. X is a box. Never feel like you have to limit yourself by what you don't even know you're capable of.

Speaker 1:

Oh, beautiful. Oh, that is so good. Thank you so much for that. Well, everyone, I really appreciate you all being here watching the pod or listening to the podcast, or watching on YouTube, and and and thank you. Thank you, rachel, for giving us your, your valuable time. We appreciate that and we will see you all again next time. Bye, bye.

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