Lessons - Redefining Success Through Fulfillment Over Ambition | Erin Blaskie - Fractional CMO & TedX Speaker

In this lessons episode, you'll explore the challenges of non-linear career paths. From entrepreneurship to structured roles, it highlights the impact of burnout, the importance of self-care, and making career choices based on personal fulfillment, rather than societal expectations. Discover how redefining success can lead to a more balanced, fulfilling life. Let's dive into some of the history, because the history definitely queues up, like what you're working on. So non-linear career path is one of the things that you've definitely lived. Why did you, let's just figure out why after making 250K, did you ever want to work with somebody, 25K, you know, in your own business? Why would you work for somebody again? What were the benefits? What were the lessons learned? What was it difficult? Let's talk about just pivoting, because I think people think the opposite of what you do, right? They want to escape the nine to five. They want to escape the company, right? Yeah, well, I mean, here's the thing, like when you, when people start businesses, and like if they at all have this vision in mind that they're escaping a nine to five, I mean, like park that, that is, you know, that is just absolutely 1,000% not true. In fact, you're going to work more than the nine to five if you start your own thing. And a lot of what you do, you're not getting paid for, you know? So you have to do a lot of the business calls and the accounting and the bookkeeping. And even if you're not, like even if you outsource that stuff, you still have to facilitate it and organize it. And, you know, so there's a lot of stuff that you do when you're self-employed that you're just not getting paid for. And you don't get the luxury all the time of just closing up the laptop at the end of the day. And then, you know, not looking at it again until you go back. So for me personally, what ended up kind of happening for me is that in, in about 2015, 2014, 2015, somewhere in there, I ended up hitting a pretty significant wall of burnout. And that burnout led to, like I've always been predisposed to depression my whole life, like I've dealt with it from the time I was probably 14. But I really was like impacted greatly inside of my business. I was, you know, I was going through a divorce. I was like, you know, kind of managing a lot of different things, obviously learning how to be a single parent, starting to figure out like, how am I going to sustain this business? And this, you know, raised my daughter and also do this all on my own. And there was just a lot going on. And then at the same time, I had a subcontractor that we were working on a lot of web development projects. He ended up bailing on me out of the blue, which is the complete risk you run when you don't have employees and you have freelancers and subcontractors. And it was kind of like everything came to a head for me. And I just realized how trapped I felt like I had this enormous amount of, you know, burnout. And I really couldn't function. And but at the same time, I had no choice, you know. And I think it was in that moment that I really had to look at, you know, everything in my life. Like, what was I doing? How had I structured this business? Was this actually set up in a way that could sustain my life and could sustain the ups and downs? And the answer was no. You know, the answer was absolutely. It was not set up that way. So I spent the next year after that, after I actually came out of that burnout and that depression and, you know, worked really hard to get through that. I spent the next year restructuring everything and really like evaluating what was important to me. And when the, when I started consulting with Elspark, the accelerator, I honestly, in that moment, I love the team there. Like, I still do. They're still amazing. And I loved what they were doing. It was very similar to what I was doing, but inside of four walls, right? And there was like team support. And there was people and the founders were all in there. And it was a co-working space. So it was dynamic and interesting. And I had spent 14 years working by myself in a home office, just like this. You know, and so for me, it was like, because I had had that experience and begin, really began evaluating like what was important. And it just bit, you know, and the moment was just right for me. And it checked a lot of the kind of the boxes that I was after. So I decided, you know, I'm very much a gut person. Like, I will listen to my gut all the time. And for me, it was just like, this is right. And so when they sat me down over lunch and asked me one day, like, hey, would you ever consider coming on board full time? I didn't hesitate. I was like, yeah, let's do it. Let's do it. I don't care what it looks like. Let's do it. You know, and then I closed up shop essentially and took a job. So for me, it was right in the moment. You know, it was it was the perfect job in terms of like what I needed at that time, the community involvement, the the level of, you know, just like deep appreciation that the team had for each other was exactly what my heart and soul kind of needed. And yeah. And then I mean, of course, we can talk about like any lessons learned going into like the next kind of phase like next full time company. But that that was just like the perfect thing, you know, that my soul needed at the time. I do want to unpack some of those lessons. I just want to highlight something that resonated with me from that. And it's something that I see hurting a lot of people in their career or entrepreneurs. And it's that they feel like pivoting into something else. It could be in in their own business or going into or going from entrepreneurship back to working for somebody. Or even if they are in a role and they feel like they're burning out in that role in the company, there seems to be this stigma against changing or taking care of yourself or doing something that perhaps to some people may be less impressive or less. And I'm not saying what you did was less impressive. But for example, if you're in a role, it's burning out. I use this example a lot and say you're a VP level or a director level at a startup. And it's not going well and you just hate every single day. And you don't want to take a role at a larger company that perhaps could be a better suited role. You'd have more resources, more support because it's a different job title or something like that. Like just you you're afraid of changing because of what people will think of you. What you know, I don't know. It just seems like that's something that we should champion more and make okay more because there is no right way to do life or do a career or do entrepreneurship. And we have we think that like, oh, we've achieved this certain status level. That's where we have to stay or up or bust, right? And you've proven you're you're you're living proof that you can pivot and do different things and take a step back and refresh and then look at where you're at now, which is a much better version, a much better iteration of where you were, you know, I guess two, three years ago. So it's just something to take a note of because I don't think it's talked about enough that taking step back just gets forward. And honestly, I think like one of the best things I think I've ever done in my life is is completely ditched societal success. Meaning like, you know, the typical version of what success looks like in society. I've taken that and like literally thrown it out. It, you know, because for for some, that's very motivating and it's very, you know, it's very aspirational to drive towards all of the things we think are successful. And to your point, a lot of those things are upward trajectories, right? It's like you got to earn more. You have to have the bigger title. You have to have the bigger house and the better car and like none of that none of that has mattered to me for over a decade. And I think that has literally been, I think the biggest driving fat, like driving kind of forced for me to be able to make these decisions is I really don't care what anyone else thinks. I know people say that I actually don't care what anyone else thinks of like my career and like what my choices are because at the end of the day, I'm making them based on, you know, fulfilling the needs that I have. And I was just actually talking to someone this morning and they were talking about goals and like setting goals for your life. And I was saying like I'm in this weird spot right now because I actually feel so content with my life and like what I have and I'm so grateful for what I have that I actually don't have a lot of like those traditional goals that people have like I'm not striving for, you know, a million dollar business. I'm not like trying to have the BMW in the driveway. Like I've had those things and they literally made my life zero percent better. Like, you know, they didn't because like at the end of the day, I wasn't listening to like what was actually in my heart in terms of like what would make me feel truly successful. And what I've realized is for me personally again, this is a very personal thing. For me personally, it's like I just want to be financially secure. Like I want to be able to pay my bills without worrying about it. I want to be able to buy myself something every once in a while. You know, I want to have free time though. Like I want to be able to get out and hike and kayak and you know, do the outdoor adventure stuff I love. I want to have time to spend with my daughter, you know, she's 10 now and she's at this beautiful age where she's like cool to hang out with, you know, like we can hang out and do stuff. And like as long as I have those things and I have like a house over in my head and food on the table, I'm good. Like I'm actually good and I don't really want for anything. Which, you know, is kind of it's a great place to arrive at but it takes really throwing out the comparison, you know, game that you might do with other people or any of that. Like I don't have any of that anymore. And how did you arrive at that? Was it the burnout and just a two-part question. I hate doing this but it's important to the add-on. How would you recommend somebody try and come to peace with what they have without having to go as far as you did? Yeah, that's a great, I actually really like how you freeze that kind of thing because I don't recommend that any would do it the way that I did it. You know, I actually did a lot of therapy. Like I've done a lot of personal work on myself with the help of professionals like I've done, you know, psychotherapy, I've done like a lot of different things that were very helpful to allow me to really start to unpack like what was important. And I've also done a lot of like work on my own like I'm constantly reading, I'm constantly you know, learning about other people's experiences and I feel like the more that I expose myself to the experiences of others and like, you know, the experiences in the world, it's very easy when you do that to then have a lot of gratitude for what you have because you realize that this isn't like, you know, the norm, right? And I also, I honestly do attribute a lot to my humble beginnings like I didn't grow up with a lot. In fact, like at times we were, you know, very poor and that that humbles you, you know, in a way because I don't take anything I have for granted or at least I try really hard not to. And so I think if folks are kind of struggling with it, I think, you know, realizing that stuff in your life is not going to fill the void that you might have and chasing things, it won't necessarily bring you ultimate happiness. I think you is really doing some, you know, introspection on that, trying to figure out like what do you really want in life if you actually put aside a lot of those materialistic things. And that's not to say, by the way, that I judge anyone if they have like more materialistic goals like that's that's again, it's a very personal thing and that can be completely motivating for some people. But I do think that there's some value in doing the work, you know, that's required. And honestly, there's no real shortcut to it. I think you have to just do the work. But honestly, therapy is great. On like, yeah, totally great. No, I was going to say it's, by the way, you mentioned some point about, about not, you know, if people have material goals, it's fine. But I do believe that there are far more people that speak about the hustle culture, the, you know, the achieving material wealth through perhaps entrepreneurship for otherwise. There's too many people waited on that side of the discussion and not enough people waited on the side of the discussion that you're, are there lens that you're sort of looking at entrepreneurship in life is success through, which is you can be successful, you can, you can achieve, but understand what that success comes with as well, right? Yeah, and it also in those founders succeed and get, you know, the the million dollar plus assets. I've seen them, you know, get on the other side of that and they're miserable because like, they, you know, they don't know what to do with themselves and they're not fulfilled. And, and I think if you don't do the work to figure out like what does success actually look like for you beyond those materialistic things, you're going to arrive at those moments and you're still going to be unhappy, you know? And for me, like, that's why I spend a lot of time really asking myself, you know, what, what, what do I want this to feel like? Look, what do I want my life to feel like? And as long as it feels right and the work I'm doing feels fulfilling and, you know, I have that security that I'm sort of makes me feel very comfortable. The rest of it, like, yeah, for me personally, again, it's a very personal thing, but it just doesn't really matter. Check out the links in the description to watch the full episode. See you in the next one.