April 5, 2024 • 30 mins
In this empowering episode, Gia interviews Cherylanne Skolnicki, an authority on well-being, work-life balance, and human potential.
Cherylanne shares her journey from a successful corporate career to entrepreneurship, emphasizing the importance of addressing the whole person at the intersection of personal and professional lives. The conversation delves into redefining success as freedom and the power of choice in shaping one's path. Cherylanne also provides insights on reframing self-care as "taking care of yourself" and the significance of daily habits that energize and restore. The episode concludes with a call to action for listeners to embrace the power of pause and consider reimagining their lives for positive change. Tune in to gain valuable insights and inspiration for stepping into your next chapter with authenticity and confidence.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Welcome to Your Future Starts Now, the go-to podcast for
extraordinary women who are ready to step into their next chapter with
authentic confidence. I'm your host, Gia Lacqua, empowerment coach,
motivational speaker, children's book author, and girl mom. Whether
you're a corporate powerhouse or an entrepreneur, this show is
designed for you. Your Future Starts Now is more than
(00:20):
just a podcast. It's a movement, a movement towards rewriting
the rules of success for high-achieving women. Are you ready
to get unstuck and step into your next chapter? If
so, you are exactly where you need to be. Your future starts
now. Welcome to Your Future Starts Now. I'm
your host, Gia Lacqua. Thanks for tuning in. Today, we are
(00:42):
welcoming Cherylanne Skolnicki. Cherylanne is
an authority on well-being, work-life balance, and human potential.
She grew up wanting to be a Fortune 500 CEO and started
her career at Procter& Gamble, where she worked for 15 years
before founding the brilliant Balance Company. As
a beloved speaker, she delivers energizing keynotes for companies, conferences,
(01:04):
events, and organizations that are committed to helping professionals reach
their full potential at work and at home. Cheryl
Anne hosts the top rated Brilliant Balance podcast, which
reaches thousands of listeners each week. She's a trusted coach to
a roster of hundreds of private clients and is a well-respected advisor
to corporate leaders. Cheryl Anne, thanks for being here today. Welcome to
(01:27):
Oh, thanks for having me. I'm happy to do this. It's a fun way to
Awesome. So tell us a little bit about your background and
Sure. So I think you did a good job with the bio of like giving
people a little bit of the How did we get to where we are?
It really is an important part of my story that I spent
(01:50):
15 years working in corporate life, and this is something we share,
right? I never, ever, ever thought I
would be an entrepreneur. I mean, I started a little business in high school
and it was fun, but it was not my lifelong aspiration. I
didn't know any entrepreneurs. It never was something
that crossed my mind. And so I really thought
(02:11):
I would spend my life climbing a corporate ladder and
reaching as high as I possibly could on that, put all
my preparation and education into my ability to
do that. And it was fun while it lasted. You know, 15 years, I
had a lot of really great adventures. I
worked at Procter& Gamble, as you said. I got to run really big businesses, like
(02:32):
a billion-dollar brand. And I
learned a ton about the mechanics of
running a business. What I also saw while
I was there were a lot of people whose lives
were, you know, a little broken, like twisted in
some way that all they could really think about
(02:54):
was the work. And I had some aha moments
where like I was leading a team and I would come into a
conference room and I learned to start meetings with this
question, like, tell me the biggest thing that's on your mind in terms of
work and tell me the biggest thing that's on your mind or heart at home. as
we would like open a meeting. And I'm telling you, if you are sitting in a corporate environment
(03:14):
and listening to this today, you're welcome. Like steal that idea and
take it into your next team meeting because what opened
was like Pandora's box, right? I mean, if you follow
what happened on X recently with Elmo, it's like he asked the question and
the world, it was very akin to that. It was my own little experience of
just, oh my goodness. Everyone in this room
(03:35):
is carrying something beyond this project that
I'm expecting an update on or this budget that I need them to, you
know, reduce by 20% or whatever. So that
little flicker of an insight sort of led ultimately to
the career I have today, which is like, how do we really address the whole
person? And I love to work with women at the intersection of
(03:58):
their personal and professional lives. That
is my sweet spot. And so Brilliant Balance really is about
that. It's about honoring the entire human
and kind of helping them find more ease, more lightness
in their life in all the pieces and
(04:18):
I love that. So powerful because I think, you know,
years ago when I started in corporate, you
know, it was sort of you have a professional life
and you have a personal life and they didn't cross over.
But that's just not the reality, right? So
I feel like we've come a long way, but I feel like to your point, there's probably still a long way
(04:39):
to go. I think there's more recognition for holistic
wellness now. I read an article just this morning,
very tragic story about a pharmacist who had a heart attack behind
the counter in 2021. So during COVID, but
I'm assuming that's the reason that CVS now closes
their pharmacy for lunch breaks. Right. So I mean, it's
(05:02):
it talks about obviously, she had health issues, but talks about corporate culture,
the culture with the organization, you know, stress
and burnout and how she was waiting for somebody to relieve her so
that she could go to the ER. So Very tragic, very
scary, but it puts things in perspective when you're
able to take that step back and say, you know, what are we doing
(05:24):
with this whole hustle culture, right? How is it serving us?
And what do we need to shift for ourselves and for
the next generation? So one of the things you talk about is
lightening things up for women. And I love how you
described the intersection of the personal and professional because
there's so much there, right? Talk to us a
(05:46):
little bit about what that means and, you know, how
Yes. Well, I think, you know, if you're listening today and
you just ask yourself, like, does my life feel light or heavy, right?
If you're a woman and you are anywhere in midlife, let's
say 30s to 50s, It is pretty rare that
the answer is it feels light. I think there is
(06:09):
a lot of heavy, and we've all read the same articles and
lived the same experience about the mental load that
we're carrying, sort of being the primary person in
charge of all the things at home. The professional demands
in that chapter of life are ratcheting up or running bigger businesses or
we're ascending various kinds of ladders that carry more
(06:30):
responsibility. We're often starting to bump into aging
parents and if we're lucky enough to still have them, the
responsibilities are shifting a bit. We've got pets and houses and
cars and all the things that we're trying to take care of. And I think
it lands like sometimes a really heavy weight
on our shoulders. And often when I ask people
(06:51):
first like what feels heavy, they'll list all those things I just did because they're top
of mind. They're the things that are taking up headspace. But
what I learned when I started double-clicking on this problem is
that the heaviest thing we're carrying is really the
weight of expectations. It's the rules that we've
assigned or collected about how we're supposed to execute
(07:12):
all of these roles. The roles themselves are one thing, but
the way we think we're supposed to do it to do it well, that's
the heaviest part. It blocks us
from being able to let go of some of those responsibilities or
manage them differently because we're such good girls,
like we've been so conditioned to do it the way we think we
(07:34):
were taught. And sometimes it wasn't even
intentional teaching. It's like we absorbed it from the ether and we're
carrying it around with us. So that's a big part of my work is
figuring out what it is that's making it feel heavy
You know, it's not like we're going to give back our kids, right? That's probably
not practical. So we're going to have to figure out how do we parent in
(08:00):
Yeah, no, that makes so much sense. And I love how you describe that, because
it often is the day to day routine that
we get really bogged down by. Yes. And
we don't afford ourselves, I don't think, the time and the space to
step back. and evaluate, right? Where are those
pain points? What is really taking
(08:21):
a toll on us? And so I think that's such a powerful
way to look at it. And to your point around the expectations, some
of them are internal, right? Some of them are external. And
so being able to discern which is which and how
And importantly, Gia, some of them are invisible. I think
(08:43):
when you really start to get into this conversation through that lens, some
of them we just don't even know that that's the problem until
we really start making the invisible visible. And
nobody has time. So they're just so busy doing, they're not really ever thinking about
No, it's a great point. Because, you know, as you mentioned earlier, some of
them becoming green, nobody explicitly told us, you
(09:07):
have to write, drive the
carpool and do the laundry and make dinner, right.
But that may be something that we learned or an expectation that
we put on ourselves. And so to sort of take a
look at that and say, Well, wait a minute, what can I do differently here,
I think, you know, is really powerful. So
(09:28):
Let me give you an example from the home world and we can talk
about them in our professional lives as well. But often when
we talk about the work of keeping a home in order, right,
like clean and organized and kind of clutter-free, women
will say, I can't get my partner to help with
this. Or when I ask my kids to help me, they
(09:49):
push back or they whine about it or they frustrate. And you
might think that I would then launch into like, oh, well, okay, how
do we get them to help you? But I actually go back a step and
say, why is the frame we're in that they're helping
you? Right? What's the underlying assumption? The underlying assumption
that is it's my job and therefore I'm struggling.
(10:11):
It's too much. It's heavy and burned out and I'm going to have to ask for help, which by
the way, we usually hate doing. So the changing that entire narrative
instead to say, Why is the belief that it's
your job and people are helping you? Five people live in my house. I
have three teenage children and a husband, right?
And a dog and two cats and apartments and a pear tree. But the
(10:32):
five people living in this house all share the responsibility of
running our household, of laundry getting done and dishes
getting put away and you know, the light
bulbs getting changed. It's not my job that I'm asking for
help with. That's what I mean by we can get freedom when
we start rethinking expectations versus just
(10:53):
looking at like, how can I learn to ask for help, which is pretty much
Yeah, absolutely. Definitely. And I think the the
asking for help is another piece of it, where we
sort of believe that asking for help is a sign of weakness, right? So
reaching out asking for someone to help us with something or reaching out for support
(11:14):
or, you know, to resources can be really tricky. I'm curious, how did
you when you pivoted from your corporate career into entrepreneurship?
I know, you mentioned it wasn't something that was sort of in the in your plans. And
same here. I mean, I definitely had not, you know, wasn't something that
was in that I had aspired to do. It just sort of
organically happened. What was the hardest part
(11:36):
I think
there were two. So I was 15 years in and
I was pregnant with my third child. So if we kind of
set the stage, she's now 13 and a half. So
it was about 14 years ago when I was making that decision. The
hardest thing for me, twofold, one was making zero
(11:58):
money. So, you know, I went from a very healthy
income and profit sharing and bonus structure and whatever to like literally
zero. of my own volition, I
made that decision. It didn't stay there, right? Thank God. But
that was terrifying for a hot minute. Now, I
had a plan and I knew what we were going to do financially in our
(12:19):
household to kind of navigate that chapter. But just being
totally transparent, I think that was really hard. A lot of my self-worth was
tied up in being a high earner and that was hard. Second
thing was everyone treated this
decision like I had a new hobby. People
in my personal life who would like, oh, I hear you started a little
(12:41):
business. What is that? That is not
the narrative that we put men in, right? Men get called startup founders.
This whole thing of you started a little bit was so deeply
humiliating to me, frustrating and humiliating. I was very
angry about it. And I
(13:01):
understood it because I understood that they were trying to wrap their head around – it
didn't look like this big corporate global thing that I had
been doing. But I was so
much more excited about this vision. So that was really hard and I had
to recenter myself to like I know what I'm building
and I know what's happening here and the external impression
(13:22):
of it is going to take a minute. to catch
up. I think people's view of it's pretty different today than it was then, but it was, but
that was a tough transition from kind
of, I implicitly had the respect of other people when
I would say I would introduce myself by my title and company. And
then this, they just didn't know what to do with it. Yeah.
(13:43):
And I hear that a lot, honestly, from women who had um, prestigious
corporate jobs who went into this, like we don't know what to
even call ourselves to be. And if you want the answer, startup
founder works like that's the answer. If you say, Oh, I founded a startup. They're like,
Oh, that's the new version of what, you know, I didn't know
Yeah. And I think to your point, people even
(14:05):
ask you like, well, why? Why would you do that? It
makes no sense. It makes no sense. And
so it is so interesting. You touched upon the
financial aspect, which is no doubt a very real
concern, right? Yeah. And then there's the identity piece. And I want
to dig into that a little bit, right? Sure. I think we
(14:27):
can be so attached to our jobs and our careers, and
that becomes such a huge part of our identity. Of
course. Like I know for me, stepping out of that identity was
hard, right? Because it was core to who I was. And
it took a lot of work. But, you know, it helped
me to realize that I'm more than my job, right? So
(14:50):
we wear this hat as, you know, career woman, businesswoman, and then we
have where perhaps a wife or a spouse or mother, right? Talk
to us a little bit about the identity piece and sort of
Well, I think your word at the end there is
really the right word. This reinvention or
(15:11):
maybe reimagining of who
you are. I will often say that freedom is
on the other side of a perspective shift. It
really is. It's just language. It's
just the inner narrative. I'm making
this motion with my hands that people won't be able to see, but it just turns on
(15:32):
a dime. It's like the slightest edge of
better language, different language, and you feel so much freer.
So when it comes to identity, there's this reimagining You
know, who am I? We're so accustomed to introducing ourselves
by our title in this culture. My
husband went to a retreat one time in which they were not allowed to use
(15:55):
their titles or their last names to identify
themselves, right? It was kind of a first name only. And just imagine
if you walked into a room and met people that you'd never seen
before and you only got to know them by their first name
or pieces of their story. You really can't tell work-related stories.
The connection is we get out of the hierarchy, we get out
(16:17):
of the pecking order. you're just human to
human. And I think that's the invitation in this is to
reconnect to something that's really much deeper. My faith life is
super important to me. I think it put me back in
like I have worth because I am, not because of
what I do. And then also the
(16:38):
creative freedom to choose what I
do. What is the work I want to put in the world? What's the dent I want to put in
the universe? What's the change I want to see in people? I
felt like I had the opportunity to make that matter a lot more than
I was when someone else was in charge of my day-by-day objectives
(16:59):
It just took a minute, you know? A minute or
two. No, it is beautiful. And I love that you recognize you
have the power of choice, right? Because so many of us
get stuck in, well, this is just the way it is. This
is the way it's supposed to be. This is what I signed up for. And
so the power to step back from that and see
(17:21):
that you have agency to really guide
your journey and guide your path is incredible. incredibly, incredibly
powerful. And also, you know, you mentioned that the reconnecting with
yourself or rediscovering yourself, getting back to the core of
who you are as a person, not based on to your point, your title, your
salary, right, what kind of car you drive. And it's
(17:43):
really about that inner self worth. And how do you define yourself?
And I don't think that it's an either
or. I think that where this could get dangerous for people who
maybe are sitting in a corporate job dancing with, is this a
path that I would take? I mean, there
(18:04):
can be a dip and that you have to know how to weather.
But I don't think you have to say like, I have to choose purpose-driven
work where I have a lot of like divine compensation. I
feel an intrinsic sense of reward for the
change that I'm making in people's lives or the suffering that I'm eradicating, or
(18:25):
I can make money and drive a nice car and have a nice house. I
really believe strongly in the both and approach
of what would have to be true for you to have both because
it has killed more dreams than I can count to watch people
say, but I would have to give up all of this. How
do you know? Have you even turned over the rocks to
(18:48):
see? What might be on the other side? Is there another highly
lucrative paid job that feels better and has, you know, I think
that's that core question. What would have to be true is one that
I ask every client until they want to throw something at
me, you know, just because it, it, it implies maneuverability,
right? It's not a brick wall. There's a way under, around, over, through
(19:09):
that thing. Like what would have to be true for you to have
your cake and eat it too. And, and I think that's a really important piece
of this is it's, we don't want to set it up as a false dichotomy. It's
Yeah, that's a great point. And I love that question of what
would have to be true, I think. And that's the beauty of coaching too, right?
Is exploring the what if scenarios and the possibilities and
(19:32):
the potentials that we often don't allow ourselves to
explore because it's either too scary or we
Right? Right. See, I think I did not get given
that chip at birth. I think that willingness to explore
is just innate in me, but my husband reminds me of that all the
time. He's like, honey, it is scary for
(19:54):
people to really think about. I'm like, why don't people think about
this? He has to remind me. It's because There's so much fear
of what we might uncover and then what we have to confront, right?
Because if we get to a place where we uncover possibility, we
have to confront that we haven't yet pursued that or
explored it. And that can be grief. That can be loss if it's been
(20:15):
a while, right? So I think that's a really important point that there can be
fear of what might I find on the other side. What might I have to go do or change?
And your reminder that choice sits at the center
of this entire model is so important for the
listener to take away that I
think almost everything is a choice. Almost everything.
(20:37):
And it's not always the big choices, right? Like, oh,
I had these children. I have no choice. Now I have them. Yes.
But there are a thousand choices within how we
will spend our time and parent them and educate them and all
of the things, right? that create degrees of freedom,
you know? So whenever you hear yourself saying, it
(20:58):
is what it is, I have no choice, that's an invitation to
say, but do you? Is there some piece
of this that a different choice would sort of turn the trajectory of how it's
Absolutely. Such a great point. Charlene, talk to us a little bit about
success for you and how you define success
today and how that definition has evolved for
(21:22):
Yeah. So I think the
word that comes to mind immediately when I think about success today is freedom. They're
just inextricably tied, right? Time freedom, financial freedom,
the freedom to think about the things I want to think about,
to create the work I want to create. I
(21:43):
am so deeply grateful for that, that that's sort of
how my life works these days. I really don't take it for granted
for one second. And the places that feel like I don't
have freedom are the invitation to choice. It's
the invitation back again to say, okay, if that's what I'm really seeking is
freedom. Now, the freedom is I get to use it wherever I
(22:05):
want. I can use it to be of service. I can use it to say, I'm going to put my
own needs to the side and do this thing that's really
of service to someone else. But having that choice Um,
is huge. I we've, I've navigated some really big
ups and downs in our personal life over the last four or five years.
And that was something that was the guiding principle that
(22:26):
got me through it was like, yeah, but I have freedom to make
the choices that are important for my family, for myself, for, you
know, for my business through that chapter. Um, as so many
Yeah, I love that. And, you
know, along with freedom, I think, and for so
(22:48):
many high achieving women, Recognizing
that it's important to care for ourselves is something I think
we all kind of grapple with at some point. Sure. And
making sure that we are taking care of ourselves, no matter what our situation
is career-wise or at home. I want to just touch upon self-care.
(23:09):
Yes. Which is not a term that I love. And I know some
people have a really like visceral reaction, right?
Yeah. Yes. But unfortunately, I haven't come up with
a better one yet. But I want to
just touch upon, for those of us who feel like self-care isn't
for me, I don't have time, I don't
(23:34):
even know what that looks like, all the excuses we come
up with in our heads, let's just touch upon
what is self-care How can we reframe that for
people? It's something I hear a lot. Yeah. Can
Yeah. I think you started to do it. You hit on my favorite phrase in
your intro, which is taking care of yourself. I think that's a very, it's
(23:56):
a very subtle shift, but it really lands better for me. And
I actually have started using it in my inner dialogue. So
I think back up a half step, a lot of us have the belief that
we have no control over our inner dialogue. we
can manipulate the inner dialogue. And the
phrase, I am taking care of myself, I
(24:18):
am taking good care of myself is a very tender phrase,
right? We take care of other people. We can take
care of ourselves. Something about that feels different than self-care, which
I think has been co-opted by the Instagram world as like long
baths and I don't know what, things I don't do a lot of. So
So what does it mean to take care of ourselves? Okay, here's
(24:40):
my framework for this. It starts with understanding what
makes us feel healthy and whole and human. What are
the big collection of behaviors, practices that really
kind of put us out into the world feeling like we're whole?
And more of those is how we take care of ourselves. Now,
(25:00):
those are not just down-energy things. They're not
down-regulating. Some of them are up-regulating. Some of them are like, hey, I need a
little pep in my step, and that's how I take care of myself. Some of them are,
I need to soothe myself, and what are the ways I do that that don't
have negative side effects? So taking good care of yourself
is having an awareness all the time, like
(25:20):
sort of a constant check-in on what
do I need? what would be good for
me right now that kind of brings me back to my center. And
so I think what I've learned from
for me personally is important is I tend to spin out
versus, versus get like, I
(25:41):
tend to work anxiety versus depression. Let's put it that way. I don't, I'm not diagnosed with either,
but I tend to run hot and kind of spin out versus cuddle
up and curl up in a ball. So because of that, a
lot of my practices to take care of myself are about downregulating. How
do I bring myself back to center? If you're listening and
you're someone who's like, boy, I tend to go into retreat and curl up in a
(26:03):
ball, then you may need practices that are like the way you
take care of yourself or to bring that life force back. Knowing that
edge for yourself is really important. And so here's
why it matters. Because everything looks better when
you're doing it, right? Your perspective is clearer when
you're in a rhythm with those practices. And so I
(26:24):
have a handful of them that I do regularly that just I know
If I start to feel not right, I got to check in with myself and say,
um, which of these things that, you know, are good for you? Are you not
doing, you know, how's your sleep? Did you drink any water today?
Did you get outside? Did you go for a walk? Did like the
things that just, when I'm doing them with consistency. Um, and
(26:46):
the surprising one for me that I'll share is time alone. Yeah.
You know, I'm an only child. I grew up with a lot of quiet time. And
I now live in this crazy household with a lot of people. I
need time alone. It's very restorative. And so whether that's
a quick 20 minute walk outside or tucking myself in
a room that nobody else is in, going to HomeGoods and walking around
(27:08):
the aisles, like 20 minutes ish or more of
no one needs me is like a reset button. Sacred.
Yes. I don't have to be in a bubble bath for it to work. And
so I think that's where the edge around Self-care
versus taking care of yourself matters. Sometimes just turning down an
invitation and saying, that's not for me today, is
(27:31):
taking care of myself. And it erases the guilt when
For sure. Very, very powerful. I think, you know, to your point, the
daily habits, what, you know, the daily habits that energize us,
refuel us, what are the, you know, habits that also calm
and restore us? I think so important to recognize which is which.
(27:53):
What is one thing, Cheryl Anne, that you want our listeners to
consider doing differently after listening to this
So let's go with the power of pause, right?
Like the double click that I was talking about before. I think if the
one thing you changed was, instead of repeating, this
(28:13):
part of my life is not working or I don't like this thing about my life, however those
words come out, if you use that as an invitation to say, what
if, right? To bravely sort of consider what
might be on the other side of a change. What would have to be true for me
to like this part of my life? And the invitation to
do that independently or with support, they can call you, they can call
(28:35):
me. There is so much power
in re-imagining what might be on the other side and having the
courage to explore even the smallest of
Love that. Powerful pause. Where can our listeners learn
The simplest jumping off point is the website. So we're
(28:58):
at brilliant-balance.com. And
there, you can get to the podcast from there. You can get to some free downloads.
You can explore tens of years, back years of content to
And Cherylanne I just want to thank you for being here today, for sharing your story, your
insights, and your expertise. This is so powerful
(29:21):
and life-changing for So many people the work that you do
so inspiring. And of course, you can visit my website at gialacqua.com
reach out on Instagram at gialacqua on the homepage of my website, you
can download your complimentary copy of from chaos to clarity a
30 day journal for self discovery and healing. This is Gia signing
off with gratitude for your time and energy our mic drops but the movement
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continues until next time. Your next chapter is waiting.
Take care That concludes another empowering episode of
Your Future Starts Now. Before we wrap up, I want to thank this
incredible community of high-achieving women. Your energy, resilience,
and commitment to growth are the driving force behind what we do.
If you enjoyed today's episode, please rate it, leave a review, and don't forget
(30:04):
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(30:24):
GiaLacqua. I encourage you to carry the energy of this conversation
into your day and keep on supporting the incredible women around you.
Welcome to Your Future Starts Now, the go-to podcast for
extraordinary women who are ready to step into their next chapter with
authentic confidence. I'm your host, Gia Lacqua, empowerment coach,
motivational speaker, children's book author, and girl mom. Whether
you're a corporate powerhouse or an entrepreneur, this show is
designed for you. Your Future Starts Now is more than
(00:20):
just a podcast. It's a movement, a movement towards rewriting
the rules of success for high-achieving women. Are you ready
to get unstuck and step into your next chapter? If
so, you are exactly where you need to be. Your future starts
now. Welcome to Your Future Starts Now. I'm
your host, Gia Lacqua. Thanks for tuning in. Today, we are
(00:42):
welcoming Cherylanne Skolnicki. Cherylanne is
an authority on well-being, work-life balance, and human potential.
She grew up wanting to be a Fortune 500 CEO and started
her career at Procter& Gamble, where she worked for 15 years
before founding the brilliant Balance Company. As
a beloved speaker, she delivers energizing keynotes for companies, conferences,
(01:04):
events, and organizations that are committed to helping professionals reach
their full potential at work and at home. Cheryl
Anne hosts the top rated Brilliant Balance podcast, which
reaches thousands of listeners each week. She's a trusted coach to
a roster of hundreds of private clients and is a well-respected advisor
to corporate leaders. Cheryl Anne, thanks for being here today. Welcome to
(01:27):
Oh, thanks for having me. I'm happy to do this. It's a fun way to
Awesome. So tell us a little bit about your background and
Sure. So I think you did a good job with the bio of like giving
people a little bit of the How did we get to where we are?
It really is an important part of my story that I spent
(01:50):
15 years working in corporate life, and this is something we share,
right? I never, ever, ever thought I
would be an entrepreneur. I mean, I started a little business in high school
and it was fun, but it was not my lifelong aspiration. I
didn't know any entrepreneurs. It never was something
that crossed my mind. And so I really thought
(02:11):
I would spend my life climbing a corporate ladder and
reaching as high as I possibly could on that, put all
my preparation and education into my ability to
do that. And it was fun while it lasted. You know, 15 years, I
had a lot of really great adventures. I
worked at Procter& Gamble, as you said. I got to run really big businesses, like
(02:32):
a billion-dollar brand. And I
learned a ton about the mechanics of
running a business. What I also saw while
I was there were a lot of people whose lives
were, you know, a little broken, like twisted in
some way that all they could really think about
(02:54):
was the work. And I had some aha moments
where like I was leading a team and I would come into a
conference room and I learned to start meetings with this
question, like, tell me the biggest thing that's on your mind in terms of
work and tell me the biggest thing that's on your mind or heart at home. as
we would like open a meeting. And I'm telling you, if you are sitting in a corporate environment
(03:14):
and listening to this today, you're welcome. Like steal that idea and
take it into your next team meeting because what opened
was like Pandora's box, right? I mean, if you follow
what happened on X recently with Elmo, it's like he asked the question and
the world, it was very akin to that. It was my own little experience of
just, oh my goodness. Everyone in this room
(03:35):
is carrying something beyond this project that
I'm expecting an update on or this budget that I need them to, you
know, reduce by 20% or whatever. So that
little flicker of an insight sort of led ultimately to
the career I have today, which is like, how do we really address the whole
person? And I love to work with women at the intersection of
(03:58):
their personal and professional lives. That
is my sweet spot. And so Brilliant Balance really is about
that. It's about honoring the entire human
and kind of helping them find more ease, more lightness
in their life in all the pieces and
(04:18):
I love that. So powerful because I think, you know,
years ago when I started in corporate, you
know, it was sort of you have a professional life
and you have a personal life and they didn't cross over.
But that's just not the reality, right? So
I feel like we've come a long way, but I feel like to your point, there's probably still a long way
(04:39):
to go. I think there's more recognition for holistic
wellness now. I read an article just this morning,
very tragic story about a pharmacist who had a heart attack behind
the counter in 2021. So during COVID, but
I'm assuming that's the reason that CVS now closes
their pharmacy for lunch breaks. Right. So I mean, it's
(05:02):
it talks about obviously, she had health issues, but talks about corporate culture,
the culture with the organization, you know, stress
and burnout and how she was waiting for somebody to relieve her so
that she could go to the ER. So Very tragic, very
scary, but it puts things in perspective when you're
able to take that step back and say, you know, what are we doing
(05:24):
with this whole hustle culture, right? How is it serving us?
And what do we need to shift for ourselves and for
the next generation? So one of the things you talk about is
lightening things up for women. And I love how you
described the intersection of the personal and professional because
there's so much there, right? Talk to us a
(05:46):
little bit about what that means and, you know, how
Yes. Well, I think, you know, if you're listening today and
you just ask yourself, like, does my life feel light or heavy, right?
If you're a woman and you are anywhere in midlife, let's
say 30s to 50s, It is pretty rare that
the answer is it feels light. I think there is
(06:09):
a lot of heavy, and we've all read the same articles and
lived the same experience about the mental load that
we're carrying, sort of being the primary person in
charge of all the things at home. The professional demands
in that chapter of life are ratcheting up or running bigger businesses or
we're ascending various kinds of ladders that carry more
(06:30):
responsibility. We're often starting to bump into aging
parents and if we're lucky enough to still have them, the
responsibilities are shifting a bit. We've got pets and houses and
cars and all the things that we're trying to take care of. And I think
it lands like sometimes a really heavy weight
on our shoulders. And often when I ask people
(06:51):
first like what feels heavy, they'll list all those things I just did because they're top
of mind. They're the things that are taking up headspace. But
what I learned when I started double-clicking on this problem is
that the heaviest thing we're carrying is really the
weight of expectations. It's the rules that we've
assigned or collected about how we're supposed to execute
(07:12):
all of these roles. The roles themselves are one thing, but
the way we think we're supposed to do it to do it well, that's
the heaviest part. It blocks us
from being able to let go of some of those responsibilities or
manage them differently because we're such good girls,
like we've been so conditioned to do it the way we think we
(07:34):
were taught. And sometimes it wasn't even
intentional teaching. It's like we absorbed it from the ether and we're
carrying it around with us. So that's a big part of my work is
figuring out what it is that's making it feel heavy
You know, it's not like we're going to give back our kids, right? That's probably
not practical. So we're going to have to figure out how do we parent in
(08:00):
Yeah, no, that makes so much sense. And I love how you describe that, because
it often is the day to day routine that
we get really bogged down by. Yes. And
we don't afford ourselves, I don't think, the time and the space to
step back. and evaluate, right? Where are those
pain points? What is really taking
(08:21):
a toll on us? And so I think that's such a powerful
way to look at it. And to your point around the expectations, some
of them are internal, right? Some of them are external. And
so being able to discern which is which and how
And importantly, Gia, some of them are invisible. I think
(08:43):
when you really start to get into this conversation through that lens, some
of them we just don't even know that that's the problem until
we really start making the invisible visible. And
nobody has time. So they're just so busy doing, they're not really ever thinking about
No, it's a great point. Because, you know, as you mentioned earlier, some of
them becoming green, nobody explicitly told us, you
(09:07):
have to write, drive the
carpool and do the laundry and make dinner, right.
But that may be something that we learned or an expectation that
we put on ourselves. And so to sort of take a
look at that and say, Well, wait a minute, what can I do differently here,
I think, you know, is really powerful. So
(09:28):
Let me give you an example from the home world and we can talk
about them in our professional lives as well. But often when
we talk about the work of keeping a home in order, right,
like clean and organized and kind of clutter-free, women
will say, I can't get my partner to help with
this. Or when I ask my kids to help me, they
(09:49):
push back or they whine about it or they frustrate. And you
might think that I would then launch into like, oh, well, okay, how
do we get them to help you? But I actually go back a step and
say, why is the frame we're in that they're helping
you? Right? What's the underlying assumption? The underlying assumption
that is it's my job and therefore I'm struggling.
(10:11):
It's too much. It's heavy and burned out and I'm going to have to ask for help, which by
the way, we usually hate doing. So the changing that entire narrative
instead to say, Why is the belief that it's
your job and people are helping you? Five people live in my house. I
have three teenage children and a husband, right?
And a dog and two cats and apartments and a pear tree. But the
(10:32):
five people living in this house all share the responsibility of
running our household, of laundry getting done and dishes
getting put away and you know, the light
bulbs getting changed. It's not my job that I'm asking for
help with. That's what I mean by we can get freedom when
we start rethinking expectations versus just
(10:53):
looking at like, how can I learn to ask for help, which is pretty much
Yeah, absolutely. Definitely. And I think the the
asking for help is another piece of it, where we
sort of believe that asking for help is a sign of weakness, right? So
reaching out asking for someone to help us with something or reaching out for support
(11:14):
or, you know, to resources can be really tricky. I'm curious, how did
you when you pivoted from your corporate career into entrepreneurship?
I know, you mentioned it wasn't something that was sort of in the in your plans. And
same here. I mean, I definitely had not, you know, wasn't something that
was in that I had aspired to do. It just sort of
organically happened. What was the hardest part
(11:36):
I think
there were two. So I was 15 years in and
I was pregnant with my third child. So if we kind of
set the stage, she's now 13 and a half. So
it was about 14 years ago when I was making that decision. The
hardest thing for me, twofold, one was making zero
(11:58):
money. So, you know, I went from a very healthy
income and profit sharing and bonus structure and whatever to like literally
zero. of my own volition, I
made that decision. It didn't stay there, right? Thank God. But
that was terrifying for a hot minute. Now, I
had a plan and I knew what we were going to do financially in our
(12:19):
household to kind of navigate that chapter. But just being
totally transparent, I think that was really hard. A lot of my self-worth was
tied up in being a high earner and that was hard. Second
thing was everyone treated this
decision like I had a new hobby. People
in my personal life who would like, oh, I hear you started a little
(12:41):
business. What is that? That is not
the narrative that we put men in, right? Men get called startup founders.
This whole thing of you started a little bit was so deeply
humiliating to me, frustrating and humiliating. I was very
angry about it. And I
(13:01):
understood it because I understood that they were trying to wrap their head around – it
didn't look like this big corporate global thing that I had
been doing. But I was so
much more excited about this vision. So that was really hard and I had
to recenter myself to like I know what I'm building
and I know what's happening here and the external impression
(13:22):
of it is going to take a minute. to catch
up. I think people's view of it's pretty different today than it was then, but it was, but
that was a tough transition from kind
of, I implicitly had the respect of other people when
I would say I would introduce myself by my title and company. And
then this, they just didn't know what to do with it. Yeah.
(13:43):
And I hear that a lot, honestly, from women who had um, prestigious
corporate jobs who went into this, like we don't know what to
even call ourselves to be. And if you want the answer, startup
founder works like that's the answer. If you say, Oh, I founded a startup. They're like,
Oh, that's the new version of what, you know, I didn't know
Yeah. And I think to your point, people even
(14:05):
ask you like, well, why? Why would you do that? It
makes no sense. It makes no sense. And
so it is so interesting. You touched upon the
financial aspect, which is no doubt a very real
concern, right? Yeah. And then there's the identity piece. And I want
to dig into that a little bit, right? Sure. I think we
(14:27):
can be so attached to our jobs and our careers, and
that becomes such a huge part of our identity. Of
course. Like I know for me, stepping out of that identity was
hard, right? Because it was core to who I was. And
it took a lot of work. But, you know, it helped
me to realize that I'm more than my job, right? So
(14:50):
we wear this hat as, you know, career woman, businesswoman, and then we
have where perhaps a wife or a spouse or mother, right? Talk
to us a little bit about the identity piece and sort of
Well, I think your word at the end there is
really the right word. This reinvention or
(15:11):
maybe reimagining of who
you are. I will often say that freedom is
on the other side of a perspective shift. It
really is. It's just language. It's
just the inner narrative. I'm making
this motion with my hands that people won't be able to see, but it just turns on
(15:32):
a dime. It's like the slightest edge of
better language, different language, and you feel so much freer.
So when it comes to identity, there's this reimagining You
know, who am I? We're so accustomed to introducing ourselves
by our title in this culture. My
husband went to a retreat one time in which they were not allowed to use
(15:55):
their titles or their last names to identify
themselves, right? It was kind of a first name only. And just imagine
if you walked into a room and met people that you'd never seen
before and you only got to know them by their first name
or pieces of their story. You really can't tell work-related stories.
The connection is we get out of the hierarchy, we get out
(16:17):
of the pecking order. you're just human to
human. And I think that's the invitation in this is to
reconnect to something that's really much deeper. My faith life is
super important to me. I think it put me back in
like I have worth because I am, not because of
what I do. And then also the
(16:38):
creative freedom to choose what I
do. What is the work I want to put in the world? What's the dent I want to put in
the universe? What's the change I want to see in people? I
felt like I had the opportunity to make that matter a lot more than
I was when someone else was in charge of my day-by-day objectives
(16:59):
It just took a minute, you know? A minute or
two. No, it is beautiful. And I love that you recognize you
have the power of choice, right? Because so many of us
get stuck in, well, this is just the way it is. This
is the way it's supposed to be. This is what I signed up for. And
so the power to step back from that and see
(17:21):
that you have agency to really guide
your journey and guide your path is incredible. incredibly, incredibly
powerful. And also, you know, you mentioned that the reconnecting with
yourself or rediscovering yourself, getting back to the core of
who you are as a person, not based on to your point, your title, your
salary, right, what kind of car you drive. And it's
(17:43):
really about that inner self worth. And how do you define yourself?
And I don't think that it's an either
or. I think that where this could get dangerous for people who
maybe are sitting in a corporate job dancing with, is this a
path that I would take? I mean, there
(18:04):
can be a dip and that you have to know how to weather.
But I don't think you have to say like, I have to choose purpose-driven
work where I have a lot of like divine compensation. I
feel an intrinsic sense of reward for the
change that I'm making in people's lives or the suffering that I'm eradicating, or
(18:25):
I can make money and drive a nice car and have a nice house. I
really believe strongly in the both and approach
of what would have to be true for you to have both because
it has killed more dreams than I can count to watch people
say, but I would have to give up all of this. How
do you know? Have you even turned over the rocks to
(18:48):
see? What might be on the other side? Is there another highly
lucrative paid job that feels better and has, you know, I think
that's that core question. What would have to be true is one that
I ask every client until they want to throw something at
me, you know, just because it, it, it implies maneuverability,
right? It's not a brick wall. There's a way under, around, over, through
(19:09):
that thing. Like what would have to be true for you to have
your cake and eat it too. And, and I think that's a really important piece
of this is it's, we don't want to set it up as a false dichotomy. It's
Yeah, that's a great point. And I love that question of what
would have to be true, I think. And that's the beauty of coaching too, right?
Is exploring the what if scenarios and the possibilities and
(19:32):
the potentials that we often don't allow ourselves to
explore because it's either too scary or we
Right? Right. See, I think I did not get given
that chip at birth. I think that willingness to explore
is just innate in me, but my husband reminds me of that all the
time. He's like, honey, it is scary for
(19:54):
people to really think about. I'm like, why don't people think about
this? He has to remind me. It's because There's so much fear
of what we might uncover and then what we have to confront, right?
Because if we get to a place where we uncover possibility, we
have to confront that we haven't yet pursued that or
explored it. And that can be grief. That can be loss if it's been
(20:15):
a while, right? So I think that's a really important point that there can be
fear of what might I find on the other side. What might I have to go do or change?
And your reminder that choice sits at the center
of this entire model is so important for the
listener to take away that I
think almost everything is a choice. Almost everything.
(20:37):
And it's not always the big choices, right? Like, oh,
I had these children. I have no choice. Now I have them. Yes.
But there are a thousand choices within how we
will spend our time and parent them and educate them and all
of the things, right? that create degrees of freedom,
you know? So whenever you hear yourself saying, it
(20:58):
is what it is, I have no choice, that's an invitation to
say, but do you? Is there some piece
of this that a different choice would sort of turn the trajectory of how it's
Absolutely. Such a great point. Charlene, talk to us a little bit about
success for you and how you define success
today and how that definition has evolved for
(21:22):
Yeah. So I think the
word that comes to mind immediately when I think about success today is freedom. They're
just inextricably tied, right? Time freedom, financial freedom,
the freedom to think about the things I want to think about,
to create the work I want to create. I
(21:43):
am so deeply grateful for that, that that's sort of
how my life works these days. I really don't take it for granted
for one second. And the places that feel like I don't
have freedom are the invitation to choice. It's
the invitation back again to say, okay, if that's what I'm really seeking is
freedom. Now, the freedom is I get to use it wherever I
(22:05):
want. I can use it to be of service. I can use it to say, I'm going to put my
own needs to the side and do this thing that's really
of service to someone else. But having that choice Um,
is huge. I we've, I've navigated some really big
ups and downs in our personal life over the last four or five years.
And that was something that was the guiding principle that
(22:26):
got me through it was like, yeah, but I have freedom to make
the choices that are important for my family, for myself, for, you
know, for my business through that chapter. Um, as so many
Yeah, I love that. And, you
know, along with freedom, I think, and for so
(22:48):
many high achieving women, Recognizing
that it's important to care for ourselves is something I think
we all kind of grapple with at some point. Sure. And
making sure that we are taking care of ourselves, no matter what our situation
is career-wise or at home. I want to just touch upon self-care.
(23:09):
Yes. Which is not a term that I love. And I know some
people have a really like visceral reaction, right?
Yeah. Yes. But unfortunately, I haven't come up with
a better one yet. But I want to
just touch upon, for those of us who feel like self-care isn't
for me, I don't have time, I don't
(23:34):
even know what that looks like, all the excuses we come
up with in our heads, let's just touch upon
what is self-care How can we reframe that for
people? It's something I hear a lot. Yeah. Can
Yeah. I think you started to do it. You hit on my favorite phrase in
your intro, which is taking care of yourself. I think that's a very, it's
(23:56):
a very subtle shift, but it really lands better for me. And
I actually have started using it in my inner dialogue. So
I think back up a half step, a lot of us have the belief that
we have no control over our inner dialogue. we
can manipulate the inner dialogue. And the
phrase, I am taking care of myself, I
(24:18):
am taking good care of myself is a very tender phrase,
right? We take care of other people. We can take
care of ourselves. Something about that feels different than self-care, which
I think has been co-opted by the Instagram world as like long
baths and I don't know what, things I don't do a lot of. So
So what does it mean to take care of ourselves? Okay, here's
(24:40):
my framework for this. It starts with understanding what
makes us feel healthy and whole and human. What are
the big collection of behaviors, practices that really
kind of put us out into the world feeling like we're whole?
And more of those is how we take care of ourselves. Now,
(25:00):
those are not just down-energy things. They're not
down-regulating. Some of them are up-regulating. Some of them are like, hey, I need a
little pep in my step, and that's how I take care of myself. Some of them are,
I need to soothe myself, and what are the ways I do that that don't
have negative side effects? So taking good care of yourself
is having an awareness all the time, like
(25:20):
sort of a constant check-in on what
do I need? what would be good for
me right now that kind of brings me back to my center. And
so I think what I've learned from
for me personally is important is I tend to spin out
versus, versus get like, I
(25:41):
tend to work anxiety versus depression. Let's put it that way. I don't, I'm not diagnosed with either,
but I tend to run hot and kind of spin out versus cuddle
up and curl up in a ball. So because of that, a
lot of my practices to take care of myself are about downregulating. How
do I bring myself back to center? If you're listening and
you're someone who's like, boy, I tend to go into retreat and curl up in a
(26:03):
ball, then you may need practices that are like the way you
take care of yourself or to bring that life force back. Knowing that
edge for yourself is really important. And so here's
why it matters. Because everything looks better when
you're doing it, right? Your perspective is clearer when
you're in a rhythm with those practices. And so I
(26:24):
have a handful of them that I do regularly that just I know
If I start to feel not right, I got to check in with myself and say,
um, which of these things that, you know, are good for you? Are you not
doing, you know, how's your sleep? Did you drink any water today?
Did you get outside? Did you go for a walk? Did like the
things that just, when I'm doing them with consistency. Um, and
(26:46):
the surprising one for me that I'll share is time alone. Yeah.
You know, I'm an only child. I grew up with a lot of quiet time. And
I now live in this crazy household with a lot of people. I
need time alone. It's very restorative. And so whether that's
a quick 20 minute walk outside or tucking myself in
a room that nobody else is in, going to HomeGoods and walking around
(27:08):
the aisles, like 20 minutes ish or more of
no one needs me is like a reset button. Sacred.
Yes. I don't have to be in a bubble bath for it to work. And
so I think that's where the edge around Self-care
versus taking care of yourself matters. Sometimes just turning down an
invitation and saying, that's not for me today, is
(27:31):
taking care of myself. And it erases the guilt when
For sure. Very, very powerful. I think, you know, to your point, the
daily habits, what, you know, the daily habits that energize us,
refuel us, what are the, you know, habits that also calm
and restore us? I think so important to recognize which is which.
(27:53):
What is one thing, Cheryl Anne, that you want our listeners to
consider doing differently after listening to this
So let's go with the power of pause, right?
Like the double click that I was talking about before. I think if the
one thing you changed was, instead of repeating, this
(28:13):
part of my life is not working or I don't like this thing about my life, however those
words come out, if you use that as an invitation to say, what
if, right? To bravely sort of consider what
might be on the other side of a change. What would have to be true for me
to like this part of my life? And the invitation to
do that independently or with support, they can call you, they can call
(28:35):
me. There is so much power
in re-imagining what might be on the other side and having the
courage to explore even the smallest of
Love that. Powerful pause. Where can our listeners learn
The simplest jumping off point is the website. So we're
(28:58):
at brilliant-balance.com. And
there, you can get to the podcast from there. You can get to some free downloads.
You can explore tens of years, back years of content to
And Cherylanne I just want to thank you for being here today, for sharing your story, your
insights, and your expertise. This is so powerful
(29:21):
and life-changing for So many people the work that you do
so inspiring. And of course, you can visit my website at gialacqua.com
reach out on Instagram at gialacqua on the homepage of my website, you
can download your complimentary copy of from chaos to clarity a
30 day journal for self discovery and healing. This is Gia signing
off with gratitude for your time and energy our mic drops but the movement
(29:43):
continues until next time. Your next chapter is waiting.
Take care That concludes another empowering episode of
Your Future Starts Now. Before we wrap up, I want to thank this
incredible community of high-achieving women. Your energy, resilience,
and commitment to growth are the driving force behind what we do.
If you enjoyed today's episode, please rate it, leave a review, and don't forget
(30:04):
to subscribe so you never miss an episode. Your feedback fuels our
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