April 1, 2026 • 43 mins
For years, Becca Pearce measured her worth by titles, performance, and external validation as defined by corporate America. The former CEO of the Maryland Health Benefit Exchange), Becca’s world was rocked by a brain tumor diagnosis coupled with the loss of her high-powered job. Becca to re-revaluate her life. She realized that she had been chasing achievement for the wrong reasons at the expense of self-love. She shares her story and insights in her book, You Don’t Have to Achieve to Be Loved.
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Fearless Fabulous You is broadcast live Wednesdays at 12 Noon ET on W4WN Radio - Women 4 Women Network (www.w4wn.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com).
Fearless Fabulous You Podcast is also available on Talk 4 Media (www.talk4media.com), Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:20):
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Speaker 2 (00:42):
Hello and welcome to Fearless Fabulous You.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
I am your host, Melanie Young, and Happy April First,
no fooland it's spring at least where I love in
New Orleans And no Fooland did you know that April
is Stress Awareness Month? Now, if you're like me and
many many other people out there, stress Awareness Month doesn't
need to.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Be a month. It's a three hundred and sixty five
day situation.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
But we're going to talk about how to tackle it
and how to reclaim your life because it matters. It
matters to you, It matters to your health, it manas
to your family, it matters to everything that you tackle
stress and It incorporates itself into our lives in so
many ways.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
You turn on TV. That's stressful. You read the news,
that's stressful.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
You worry about how you're going to pay for four
dollars a gallon gas, Now that's stressful.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Food's expensive, that's stressful. You're trying to make ends meet.
If you're lucky enough to have plenty of money, and
you can still be stressed because you're gonna worry about
how you're gonna lose it all. You know, stress comes
in many forms.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
I before I bring on my guests, I lived a
life of chronic stress for many, many years as the
owner of a New York City public relations a special
events firm. I was chronically but guys, you're always worrying
about getting into a client, losing a client, getting a placement,
losing a placement, having a crisis happened, making payroll.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
New York is stressful. Although I loved it, but it
did eat at me.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
And then I had parents who expected me to be successful,
and I couldn't go home to Tennessee without having a
list of all my accomplishments. So I had I was
basically born to be successful, and when I wasn't. It
was stressful. It was also stressful to be successful. Needless
to say, it took a healthcare for me to realize
(02:37):
that life had to change. Well, the same thing happened
and also a very public come down which I have
shared publicly in my blog and Melanie Fabulous, Well my
guests had the same thing happened to her. For years,
Becka Peers measured her worth by her titles befomance, an
(03:00):
external validation based on what Corporate America expects. As the
former CEO of Maryland Health Benefit Exchange, a major player
among state run health insurance marketplaces created under the Affordable
Care Act, and a senior executive at other healthcare organizations
and companies including care First, Kaiser, Permanity, Blue Shield. She
(03:23):
lived in a culture where success equals self worth and
she believed it and she owned it. However, as the
case with many of us, including people I love and
a hole close to my heart, life can change with
a pink slip and or we don't need you anymore,
(03:45):
or we're downsizing, or we're going in a new direction.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
We've all heard those lines. I have, and Becka's case
and she'll share it.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
She was out of work. But that wasn't it that
Really that was horrible. It was a public it was
a public firing, and she'll talk about it. But then
she was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Well, that really
spends your life around. And I have a lot of
friends who are facing that right now or have faced it,
(04:14):
and it could be stressful. But Becca has owned her situation,
reclaimed your life, and now she is a very successful
coach helping others, and she is author of a really
really terrific book called you Don't Have to Achieve to
Be Loved, and it's also the basis of her inspirational talks.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Well, I think it's a great.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Title because so many of us, you know, by the
time we fought for the rights to be successful in
our careers, we then had to achieve to feel like
we were accepted and loved and defined by our work,
where before we used to be defined by you know,
how many kids we had, did we keep a nice home.
We're always having to be defined by other people's terms.
(04:59):
And I talk about that a lot here on the show,
and how you need to create terms that you can
live by and you accept for yourself. Well, we're going
to talk about that and waste a lawyer stress with
Becka Peers, who joins me today on Fearless Fabulous You so,
beck Of Peers, welcome to the show.
Speaker 4 (05:14):
Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate
being here.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Well, it's my pleasure. I you know, feel for you
because you went through a lot.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
But let's take it back to who is Becka Peers?
Tell us a little bit about who you are? Who
are your people from?
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Who was the young girl who, like many of us,
maybe didn't have a dollar and a dream and we're
trying to figure out what they were going to do.
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
It depends on how you were brought up. I was
brought up where I didn't have an option but to
be successful.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
How were you brought up?
Speaker 4 (05:44):
I think, and I same exact thing. My father. I
live in Baltimore, Maryland. My father was a doctor at
Johns Hopkins. My mother worked at Johns Hopkins University. It
was never a question in anybody's mind that you went
to college and you became successful. I have three older brothers,
and so therefore I am the youngest of four and
the only girl, and so there was extra pressure on
(06:07):
me there to succeed in a different way. And I
just remember, you know the entire my entire upbringing was
about this, you know this expectation. And I think I
have a personal belief that it may be generational that
I was raised by a woman of the silent generation,
and she she had a different expectation on herself, just
(06:30):
like you said, like maybe her definition of success was different.
Did she stay married, did she have a clean house?
Did she do this? But then the expectation was, no,
you I want you to do something different than I did.
And so that expectation became aligned with you can do anything.
You can be president of the United States. Excuse me,
you can have it all if you just work hard enough.
(06:52):
And so that was where I was praised as well.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
So did you know what you wanted to be when
you grew up?
Speaker 4 (07:00):
I did not, And I will tell you that nobody
wakes up and says, oh, I want to be in
health insurance when I wake when I.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
And yet it's so important. I wanted to be a writer.
I went around interviewing people to pen somehow I ended
up doing it by way of public relations. So I
made it sort of But you're right, and yet health
insurance is on everyone's mind right now. I'm helping my
husband right now with it.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
And it's so important, and you obviously had a very
successful career in it. And to be asked to help
launch what reallysly was the state run Affordable Care Act
Division of Maryland is a must have been a math
of honor.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
I mean, the Affordable Care Act was you know.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Wow, you know I remember when it came out because
it was right around when I was diagnose a breast
cancer and I was like, you know, it's a big deal.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
What was that like?
Speaker 4 (07:55):
It was absolutely the greatest honor at the time of
my life. I just remember thinking, wow, like I get
to change, I get to fundamentally change the way healthcare
is delivered in the state of Maryland. Like I could
not have believed more in what we were doing. Was
I felt as if it was a calling at the time,
and for those two years I was doing it, it
(08:16):
actually became my identity. It was so important for me.
So what happened, so it did not turn on quite
the way it was supposed to on day one. I
will say that at the end of open enrollment that year,
we did and we had enrolled three hundred thousand people
who were previously uninsured. I had gotten three state agencies
to get along, which was part of this whole process
(08:38):
that nobody thought about. I had created an exchange where
all of the insurers were actually playing, which is the
number one reason exchange had failed in the past. And
so I see all of these and I had built
an organization from zero or one, from me to one hundred.
So there were a lot of things that were successful.
But because it didn't turn on the way it was
supposed to, it was seen as a public failure and
(08:59):
I lost my job above the fold with the picture
on the news at five six and eleven.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
You know, I have friends who went through that and
and in many ways I went through it without my
face on the cover.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
But I lost my role. My company lost the role
in running the James Beer Foundation Awards because of a
scandal that I had nothing to do with. But you know,
everybody had to go, you know, and it's just awful.
You are angry, you were also embarrassed.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
You're trying to figure out how you're explaining it. How
did you handle it? What were your stages of what
really is grief?
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Anger? Grief? You know, yes, and welcoming acceptance.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
Yeah. My immediate response was I actually so. I submitted
my air Quote resignation at three o'clock in the afternoon,
and at ten o'clock my husband called me. I was
still at the office and he's like, Beck, it's time
to come home. They fired him, and I was like
wait no, Like so there was just this immediate like
I'm not done. I need to kind of keep moving
(10:00):
and I need to make sure everybody. Everybody's okay. And
I was my biggest fear was people thought I would
give up. I had given up on it, and I really,
I don't give up on things. This is my old EMM.
I don't give up. This is who I am, and
immediately went into this truly anger phase and this victim phase.
How did this happen to me? Why am I an escapegoat?
(10:21):
You know a lot of people around me knew that
it wasn't me, and I actually had three job offers
within three weeks because they're the ones who knew, like
other people knew I it wasn't my fault, but I
couldn't listen to them at the time. I was in
this phase of you say, embarrassed, I think I might
have even been ashamed because I was sure that everybody
(10:44):
knew that this, that I had failed right, and I
had done nothing but work on this for two years.
So it really was this immediate shock into anger, into shame,
and then into a depression phase. And it wasn't until
a mine came over to the house and said, listen,
like I need you, I want you to work with me,
(11:05):
and that I started to hear that other people didn't
see in me what I saw in myself, and that's
what allowed me to start to come out.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Well, you know a lot of people go this. I
just read a really your book is called you Don't
have to be Achieved to be Loved. We'll show a
clip up in the lower corner. Escape the lies you've
been sold to design the life you want. I just
also finished reading a book that I picked up at
the public library called All the Cool Girls Get Fired.
I reached out because.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
The authors were big time media people.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
I come from the media world, and everybody's losing their job.
Speaker 5 (11:41):
It's like, you know, everybody I was the big wig
at the magazine or the broadcast, and then they're not,
and it is right, Oh, and then you become what
I call in the book I'm writing the formerlies.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Ah, yes, oh, and how to escape word formally, I beck.
I grappled with this. So what I still kept?
Speaker 3 (12:04):
I mean, I still had a company going when I
lost the James Beird Awards, but that was like such
a big identity for me, and it impacted many other
aspects of my career and my I was angry, like
you and you trying to figure out how to deal
with this, and I hated that word formally, and like you,
I was still doing the work. And my then fiance
(12:25):
eventually husband said, why are you still working so hard?
Speaker 2 (12:28):
There's the book of the why are you still working it?
You don't work with these people anymore. Same thing. So
give us a sense of the timeline of how you
were getting back on your feet from losing your job
and rebuilding what you wanted to do, and then.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
Your diagnosis of a brain tumor, and the time frame
between the two.
Speaker 4 (12:53):
I lost my job in December of twenty thirteen and
I was diagnosed in March of twenty fifteen, so there
was about fourteen months of time frame in there. During
that time, like I said, my friend came over and said,
I need you to come work with me. I landed
on my feet, which in a company that then got bought.
So I found myself as a vice president within a
hospital system in the state of Maryland, which I had
(13:14):
gotten past that glass cliff. I felt so proud of myself,
Like women this formerly thing, right, Women don't come back
after some sort of failure like that. But here I
was as a vice president and I thought I was
back on my track again. I was going to be
a CEO again in short order. At the time, in
about February, I had been losing my hearing for about
(13:34):
two years. Yeah, and I had just ignored it. I
didn't have time. I didn't think about it. Who has time?
Whatever the reason at the time that we all play
with ourselves to say symptoms, to go to the doctor.
And be clear that had I gone to the doctor
when this first happened, all of the outcomes would have
(13:55):
been completely different.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
How long did you wait to go to the dock?
Speaker 4 (13:58):
I waited to three years. I just assumed that I
was going deaf in my left ear. My dad had
gone deaf when he was young, you know. And so
somebody said to me, single sided deafness isn't normal, and
So I finally went to get my hearing checked to
find out I had a brain tumor the size of
a ping pong ball that, because I had waited all
(14:20):
of that time, was now growing into my brainstem and
I needed surgery imminently.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (14:26):
And when I came off that table, my face was paralyzed.
My face was paralyzed for a full year. I'm now
deaf in my left ear because of the surgery. I'm
mostly blind in my left eye because my eye doesn't close.
Like all of these impacts, I had to learn to
walk again. All of these impacts would not have been
as drastic had I gone to the doctor when I
first found out about it.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (14:48):
Yeah, note to self, PSA, please go to the doctor.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Well, I am a big believer in that, and I'm
probably you know you could I go for everything. I mean,
I'm getting my head checked. I'm getting everything done because
I'm like, oh, I don't know, I'm forgetting stuff. It's
my brain. You know. Once you go through it, it's
like I'm with cancer. Sever everybody's like, oh my god,
I'm forgetting everything. Could it be whatever? You go get
stuff checked? It's you're not a hypochondriac.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
Everybody, you're being proactive about your health, and that's really
what you learned. You had to be proactive about your
health first, and then you had to be proactive about
what you wanted your life to look like afterward, because
you don't want to get sick again, right.
Speaker 4 (15:30):
Yes, yes, yes, yes, for sure. And I think that's
the thing. Uh. You know, it's also the doctor's job
to be there for you. You're not wasting their time.
It's you know, you're not, like you said, you're not
a hypochondriact. It's time to go. And once you receive
a diagnosis, then you can figure out what to do
about it.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Right.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
So do you think the stress had anything to do
with it or was it just bad luck?
Speaker 4 (15:55):
You know, I have thought about that a lot. In fact,
I just want to see MYI dot her recently and
we were talking about my book and she said, you know,
she had said that she had seen a lot of women,
high powered women recently, who had gotten cancer because of
the stress, and they believed it was because of the stress. Now,
(16:15):
mine was not cancer, as mine was benign. But who
knows why it began to grow in the first place,
and what stress may have done to create that scenario.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Well, stress is you know, I think stress is like
the flame burns it. You know everybody, Because when I
was doing my research in my book Getting Things Off
my Chest, stress was all and all. My stress was
not a direct link of causing cancer.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
However, it ignited the other issues and the toxicity that
can lead to it. I mean, stress is just it greats.
It wears you down, It wears your resilience and your
body down. And you got get on top of it.
So your work, How long did it take you to
(17:04):
recover from the brain tumor and what were some highs
and lows ahead?
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Did you deal with it?
Speaker 4 (17:12):
So the ultimate recovery I was in the hospital for
a week. The ultimate recovery before I went back to
work was about six months. During that time, I did,
like I said, I had to learn to walk again.
And talk about the introduction of vulnerability people, right, especially
for high achieving women. This is not something that we
talk about lately, right, Like we have spent our lives
(17:34):
putting up our armor and proving to everybody that we
don't cry, we don't do anything, we don't we're ready
to go. And my then seven year old daughter had
to walk me to the bathroom. She caught me falling
down the stairs, like there is just there's no way
to avoid vulnerability. So that recovery was all about learning
(17:54):
physically how to walk again, how to get my brain
to communicate again, how to you know, I with a
paralyzed face. There's a lot of things that are a
problem eat eating, Yeah, and so just learning all of
those things physically, But then mentally, the recovery was really
about understanding that there was all of these things that
(18:15):
I knew before, all of these things that I believe
that if you just try harder, if you just work harder,
you can make it. I had to learn that those
things are not true. Sometimes your body wins, and your
job is to do the best you can to help
your body do what it needs to do.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Yeah, and you have to listen to your body because
everybody's healing healing journey is different. How did your family
handle this?
Speaker 4 (18:41):
So my parents had recently moved back to Baltimore, and
so they were with us constantly. They live fortunately less
than a quarter of a mile away, and so they
were with us constantly. My husband is a duck, you know,
everything rolls off his back and so he just rolled
with every punch that was there, to every doctor's appointment
with me, did everything with me. And my daughter at
(19:03):
the time, like I said, she was seven and she
was very involved in all of that. And about the
time that I started to get better, at six months in,
she started to deteriorate and she ended up with with
severe anxiety because she didn't want us to leave the house.
She was afraid that if Mommy left the house, something
(19:25):
was going to happen again. So she had to be
in therapy for a while. And we really had to
work through that piece because I finally had to say
to her, I've got it. I'm the mommy. I understand
that you needed to help me, but I got it.
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
And so had atsd from this.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
Yeah, exactly. And today she is now a freshman in
college and she's doing wonderfully and she says that she
doesn't remember that time period.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
So yeah, so that's huge.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
It does where you know, for anyone out there, you
have to kind of be even though you were focusing
on healing, you do have to have those sensitivities to
your family. I'm recovering from some a multi part restoration surgery.
That's just been a little hard than I thought. And
I have to remember that I have a husband who's
(20:17):
dealing with it with me, and for everybody out there,
it's illness touches everybody, So does the loss of a job.
I mean everything, adversity set back touch everybody, not just Shoe.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
So you've got to think in the bigger But you
don't need to be a hero to.
Speaker 4 (20:33):
Anybody, right, you're absolutely ready.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
Yeah, So how did you? What was your road to mental.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
Physical, and career recovery When you said I don't want
to be doing this anymore, and I'm doing this anymore,
you started peeling away to find who Becka Pierce was.
Speaker 4 (20:54):
And what was interesting because at the time I assumed
that I was just going to get back on this, right,
this is the train I've always been on. I'm just
this is just a blip. I'm going to get back
on and do it. And I had to prove to myself.
I think a lot of people who have been sick
in some form understand this. Have to prove to myself
that the brain tumor wasn't going to win. And so
(21:15):
I went back to work too in that same role,
and it took me months because I now have other
deficits that are very difficult to but I got to
a point where I could do the job again, and
I was like, yay, I'm doing the job again. And
I had a choice one day, and my choice was
to be at work for an eight o'clock meeting that
(21:36):
was stressful, or to put my daughter on the bus
at eight thirty, right. And it was at that moment
that I said, I'm done. I now know what life
is about. I don't need the stress anymore. I don't
want the stress anymore. Because, as we talk about stress,
there was a time in my life that I thrived
off that stress.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Right.
Speaker 4 (21:53):
I believe that it was the stress that made me better.
And I can handle anything right, But you don't have
to that way. And I then made a choice not
to live that way. Now at the time, I had
already invested in myself. I had already gone back to
coaching school, and so I knew that I now had
a choice to make to be able to fall back
(22:15):
on something I had often been the only woman in
the boardroom. Now I can coach women to be in
a boardroom.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Right.
Speaker 4 (22:21):
There was a direct correlation for me that allowed that
off ramp, and so that was the moment and how
I shifted to the new face.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
Well, that's interesting because that off ramp. I think everybody
needs an off ramp. I think even though you were
incredibly comfortable in whatever you're doing, you need to have
an exit plan, off ramp, whatever you want to call it,
a segue. I know when.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
I came back from going my I worked throughout my cancer,
didn't tell anybody, ran the company.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
I was a hero, yep. And then one day I'm done.
Was years later, and I just suddenly couldn't stand it
any longer. I couldn't take the stress. I had a
meltdown in front of the computer. I didn't feel anything
fitman anywhere. I didn't feel comfortable in the role. It
(23:14):
just itched and I started to itch. I really started
to itch. And I just even though my husband, you know,
you're the best in the business. You should keep going.
This is how you make all your money. But it
felt wrong. It just felt like I was not in
my element anymore. And it was a tough decision to
(23:36):
walk away.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
And I didn't have an off ramp other than I
could write and speak. But it's good you had an
off ramp because I think everybody needs it in this
economy right now.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
I have friends who are losing their job. They don't
have an off ramp. They don't have a game play
then a backup. Unless you have enough money to sit
back for a while and float, you better know what's
going to go next, because unfortunately you still got bills
to pay.
Speaker 4 (24:00):
Yeah, you really do. And I think that that it's
very difficult if you don't think about it prior, you know,
I would suggest you start thinking now about what are
your the skills that you can carry with you, your transferable
skills you are not stuck in the role that you're in.
And if you think about that now, because what happens
is when you when something happens, when you lose your job,
(24:21):
when you know they're downsizing, insert whatever it is, you're
in shock and you don't have the capacity to see
beyond yourself, to see what other people may see in you.
And so yeah, doing that prep work is just self love.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
Yeah, and you need to and it's hard because you
you're down, you hate the word formally. You You're going
to have to figure ot how to reintroduce yourself, yes,
which is really hard. I tried on a couple of
hats in that area and then took a fence when
I think when it all boiled over me, when I
actually took a fence when somebody introduced me as a blogger,
(24:57):
I went ballistic.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
I went ballistic.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
But that becca I realized, was my fault if they
saw me that way. That I need to do some
brush up work on how I'm presenting myself. So you've
got to put together the package you.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
Want people to see in you.
Speaker 4 (25:17):
Yes, and own it and believe in it.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Yeah, and believe in it. And the believing part was
hard because you go from here to here to hear
You get.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
To bounce around a bit. So you have a successful
coaching career. Now, congratulations. Your coaching is a strange business
because I get pitched all the time.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
We've all I've done coaching. It's why did you decide?
And for everybody out.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
There, coach is a big word like consultant. You have
a very specialization. You have a specialization. So in your
elevator pitch, nutshell, paw, would you say your coaching helped people?
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Who is your audience?
Speaker 4 (26:02):
So here's what I say about my coaching. That's different
than other people's coaching, because first of all, I've been
a coach now for ten years, which is rare in
the business because we're the coaching industry is just blown up,
and so a lot of people have been around for
six months or a year over the past ten years.
What I recognize is this is that I bring to
the table the old CEO, what's the bottom line? What
(26:25):
are we doing? What is the impact on your business discussion?
Aligned with the post surgery. Can't we all just sing
kumbah yah, Thank God I'm alive, you know? And so
half the time we're focused on the emotion and half
the time we are truly focused on what is the
impact of that decision and what's keeping you from that?
And so one of the core values that I bring
to the table is kind directness and helping people see
(26:48):
in themselves with they don't see in themselves. And so
I work with high powered women who are trying to
figure out what's next, whether that is they do want
that next career, you know, move up in that next role,
or they're kind of like us, they've kind of woken
up and went I'm done, but I don't know what
to do next. And I help people find that emotional
(27:09):
courage to move on.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
And it is sometimes it's the emotional courage you have,
but you just don't know how to make the next step,
and he gets more daunting. I'm helping somebody right now.
It's daunting because you don't know. The way it works
is different than the way it worked back when you
were doing the other thing. You were doing, absolutely, and
it's getting more complicated right now, particularly when you use
(27:35):
online tools and AI and.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
The process is different.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
Starting a business is always going to have a formula
to it. If you decide to go the entrepreneur way
you do, you got to do an assessment. You've got
to do a swat analysis, you got to do a
business plan. You have to know how you're going to
fund the business. You got to know your down when
you got But if you're looking to transition your career
and you don't want to be an on and you've
(28:01):
got to figure out how to go from I was
successful in this industry, but I want to leave that
industry and go to another one. Right how to translate
those skills and translate the message that you're just as
good in there, even though you don't you know, have
this this is and this because you're going to be
competing against one hundred other people, right for sure.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
And it's harder now because there are a hundred other people.
Speaker 3 (28:23):
I mean, I think about all those under journalists right
now and all those out of work.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Everybody's right now. A lot of people are out of work.
Speaker 4 (28:29):
I'm going to say one hundred. I'd say there's a
thousand other people.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
Well, tens of thousands. I just read, was it oracle?
Just let everybody thirty thousand people go on an email?
You know, emails with post it note.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
I'm like, wow, where are all those thirty thousand people?
Where are all these people finding work? I don't know.
It's just amazing, but I see an opportunity to find
them all and channel them and help them find work.
So you wrote you don't have to achieve to be loved,
escape the lies you've been sold, good point, and design
the life you want.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
Well, I completely agree with that because I grew up
where I had to be a success, whatever it was,
I had to be accessed. I could not come home
for Christmas unless I had, you know, my list of achievements.
So when I lost all a lot of my business
for various reasons. It was kind of like I had
to go home with my tail between my legs and
my parents were embarrassed and that felt bad. So how
(29:25):
did you you know, what is it that you want
top line your readers to get out of the book,
And then we can talk about you know, we talk
about morning, the past and unfortunate awareness and then getting
one foot in front of the other. What do you
want your readers to get out of this? Because you
have a lot of worksheet you know, you have a
(29:45):
lot of tips and worksheets in here.
Speaker 4 (29:47):
So I would say there's two things, and the first
one is, and you hit on it actually in the intro,
that there's a good chance you're living somebody else's definition
of success. So right going back to your parents, you
were trying to achieve their definition of success. If you're wondering,
what is my family going to say? And by that family,
(30:09):
you mean you're saying your parents or your extended family,
you're living somebody else's definition of success and which may
not be your own. And so the number one thing
that I want people to do, because a lot of
people have never done it, is actually write down your
own definition. What does success mean to you? How do
you know, because otherwise you're just moving the goalposts on
(30:29):
yourself every day anyway. So number one, define your own definition.
Number two, time is the only currency that matters. We
are sold that money, that title, the power, that all
of these things matter. But the only thing that matters,
I'm here to tell you without you having to go
through any you know, any situation, any health scare, the
(30:54):
time is the only thing that matters. And if you
learn that now, then maybe it gives you this space
to redefine your definition.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
Right, and you're righty, you know success And first of all,
why do they have to be Let's just start with
why do they have to be successful? Right? I mean,
I'm married to someone who doesn't care about being successful.
It drives me. The success under your person not solid
because I don't know any other way. I'm like a
racehorse is good and weird, but and I don't like
(31:22):
that to being put to pasture.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
So it's a lot of it is how you run
as a person. Like as I said, I'm a racehorse.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
I like to win. I don't want to be put
to pasture. I find other ways. There are some people
who just want to sit around and live life. And
success isn't important to them. And I think that's really
important to underscore. If success, if you define success in
the way that just you just want to be happy
and smell the flowers and bake rye bread or whatever
(31:50):
and whatever that's your.
Speaker 4 (31:53):
Life you want to yes, do.
Speaker 3 (31:55):
It y and that's success. So success does not have
to be, as you said, to money. Many people do career,
getting married, having children, pinnacles. It doesn't have to be
any of it. It can be just living life on
your terms, which is what I always say, you know,
to find your terms and not measure up.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
But it's so hard because there's all that. You know,
social media is the worst, yeah you know, social media magazine.
You know it was. It was always feeding me. So
if that's feeding you in the negative way, get off
and don't try to measure up.
Speaker 5 (32:33):
Right.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
I think that's really important a lot, and I think
it's getting worse sadly, because it's not what is you
talk about it What do you want to do with
your life or who do you want to be? You
got to decide what do you want? That want comes
after the want, right.
Speaker 4 (32:52):
Yeah, you know. And it's interesting because when you talk
about their faith The book also outlines four phases that
everybody goes through when they go through, and it's not
until that one foot in, one foot out phase that
you begin to recognize, I'm not running away from anything anymore.
Now I'm running two. And that's what the new want is.
Speaker 3 (33:13):
Exactly, and it's an acceptance. So what you know there
is part of your past that cannot happen again. You
just the door closed.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Don't beat your.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
Head up trying to open it again. So go open
new doors, accept it, and then decide which ones you
want to go to so that you don't walk into
one and go, I don't really like this room anymore.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
It's not my thing. Go open another door, and you
know you have options. But sometimes you have to do
things along the way just to make ends made, or
maybe you're ill and you can only do so much,
so you have to accept limitations when they come, but
realize they may only be temporary.
Speaker 4 (33:50):
Right right, right, yep.
Speaker 3 (33:52):
I think it's interesting you're a runner, So I want
to talk about how you handle any current stress you have,
because even though your life sounds like you've turned it around,
blah blah blah, you got stress.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
You will always have stress.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
Yes, so, because it is just part of It's like
stress is like hunger, right, you have hunger paints, so
you run.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
How does running help you?
Speaker 4 (34:13):
Running? I'm also a huge introvert, and so running is
the place that my brain goes to decompress. You know,
My greatest days are when I'm just literally running and
my feet just go, like I have no idea where
I'm going, and my feet just go. And what that
does is that allows me to process everything that's creating
(34:35):
the stress in my brain, all of that swirl that,
oh my gosh, this is going to happen, this is
going to happen. All of that swirrel for me comes
out in running. For some people, it's yoga for some people,
it's meditation for some people. But it is that stillness
within the brain somehow. And you can have stillness in
your brain even if you have movement in your body,
(34:56):
but it's giving your brain that space to process it.
So that allows me to move on.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
I try to. I do walking right now. Way to
have stillness is to be still and just wait there
and think I did that this. I did it this morning.
Speaker 3 (35:18):
I was in a reflective mood and I just had
quiet and stillness, and I think that's really important protectarly
when you are someone who has always been on the
fast track, to allow that slow down and be still well.
Speaker 4 (35:33):
And I think especially for overachievers too. It's I'm correlating
kind of overachievers to movement, right, and if you're constantly moving,
then there's some sort of productivity in there, but allowing.
But you don't have to be listening to a book.
You don't have to be you know, lige truly, just
you can still be in movement and still feel like
you can still be cleaning out the drawers in your
house and have stillness within your brain.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
When I was going through chemotherapy speaking of, and my
brain was a smash of uh, just not thinking straight.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
I would organize drawers and that was my.
Speaker 3 (36:07):
Stillness I could, but I could also keep my brain
focus and it was, it was, it was, and I
still do that. I'll go tackle a drawer or a
closet and that's my don't bother me. I'm in my
mode organizing things, which helps me organize in my head.
Speaker 4 (36:23):
Yes, you're absolutely right.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
Yeah, so it's it's really interesting. So you have something
called the face for summary that clearly me summary, How
how do you define? What does that mean? And how
do you define You're clearly you now?
Speaker 4 (36:38):
So okay, so clearly me is the fourth phase of
the process, and this truly is the rest of your life.
This is when you stop apologizing for being this new person.
This is when you wake up and say, for you,
I'm not a blogger, I'm the right you know, like
really defining who you are and owning it and living
that rest of your life. For me, you know, there
(37:02):
are times I think for everybody, and I think it's
important to hear right, like I'm not the coacher's going
to be like I've got it all figured out, right.
There are days that I go back to, you know,
questioning whether I made the right decision and worrying about
money and doing all of the things that I have
worked on to get past, and recognizing that every day
(37:22):
of your life is it's a little bit like yoga,
it's a practice and giving yourself that grace for where
you are that day and saying, oh, well today I'm
maybe I'm a little bit sad that this is happening,
but I'm also there's a part of me that's sad,
and there's also a part of me that's ecstatic about
the fact that I am where I want to be
and I'm moving forward, and so that for me is
(37:44):
my clearly me.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
Well, coaching is a tough business. I mean, you know
I could you know it was. I moved away from
it because of the word funnel and all the marketings.
I'm like, damn, it's going corporate on me.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
I coach some people they love to they became coaches,
and they're stressed out. I coached someone and as she's
a successful coach, whenever I'm talking to her, she sounds
so stressed out.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
I'm like, Okay, that happened.
Speaker 3 (38:09):
You know, she's working all the time because she's a
coach and she you know, she doesn't have a boundary
in terms of off hours on hours. It happens also
in public relations, happens at writing. I mean I have
to get off the compute, social media and content. It
happens with everything. You still got to create your boundaries
so whatever you decide to do doesn't take over your life.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
Yes, for whatever reason, right, Yeah, I mean I think.
Speaker 4 (38:35):
So for me, it was my boundaries are hard and fast.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
And I think, what are they?
Speaker 4 (38:42):
I don't work on weekends, I don't work after six hard,
absolutely hard stop at six o'clock, but usually after five
point thirty. I don't work Monday mornings. I don't work
Friday afternoons, Like I have created this space for me
that and I think it's because I work so many
hours at the Exchange, and I went for two years
without going to my daughter's school, Like I give so
(39:05):
much up. Then that's it's like a complete one eighty
that those boundaries are so hard. But I think it's
really important for people to recognize, like it's okay to
put boundaries in place, Like it's okay to say I'm
not going to respond to email after seven o'clock, or
I'm not going to send an email to my client
or to my clients or my staff after ten o'clock. Right,
(39:25):
Like creating those boundaries is what's going to help you,
even if you're staying where you are now, to find.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
This base to be a different person and you'll manage
your stress.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
I mean, I will admit that's been my one of
my toughest things is to set boundaries because I deal
a lot with Europe, so I had to adjust my
schedule over the years because of Europe.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
But that's okay because I wake up. I don't have
an alarm clock. I wake up. I have my little
morning's routine, and then I'll get Europe out of the way.
I get a lot of things out of the way.
But by full are I'm done. I want to take
a walk. Don't toss to me, you know, so I
don't schedule it. And same with weekends. And I used
to work a lot of weekends because that's when all the.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
Events were so learning to create the boundaries and you enough,
and it could be hard if you're going the entrepreneurial right,
because the business owns you for a while, and that's
very hard.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
That's that's a whole nother ballgame. And you know I've
covered that topic many times.
Speaker 3 (40:28):
But this purpose of this is to explain that, you know,
first of all, you've got to keep boundaries in control
and define who you want to be and your terms
because you don't want to get sick.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
You want to stay. You don't want to lose yourself
and your self worth right right, And I think that's important.
But something you brought up here that and I got
all that out of the book and I totally live it. Myself,
but something you did bring up. I do think it
is where you also have to have that off, yes,
for sure, because yeah, we don't build enough of those,
(41:05):
do we. No.
Speaker 4 (41:06):
I mean I think it's it's easy to get caught
up in the day to day of where you are,
whether you're a business owner, whether you're employee, or wherever
you are in the world. It's easy to get caught
up and Okay, this is what I'm doing and perfecting that.
Doing that well feels really good and is powerful. And
at the same time, recognizing that what you're building can
be transferable to something else. I think that's where people
(41:29):
get stuck. And recognizing what can be transferable to someplace else.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
And nothing lost forever. I mean we're seeing it now
more than well.
Speaker 3 (41:36):
I mean, just has been waves of changes, but no
industry stays the same. I mean even Wall Street ups
and downs.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
I mean I had so many friends lose their job
on Wall Street. I had so many friends lose their
job on the media.
Speaker 3 (41:48):
I had so many jobs of the advertising, you know,
and it was waves and waves and waves.
Speaker 2 (41:52):
You need to have kind of a.
Speaker 3 (41:54):
Plan a place, and you know, the fining one, yes,
but also kind of like you're off round or in
the case of a health thing, what do I want
to do next? So you're not completely caught off guard
and it's hard because you're just living your life.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
Yeah, most people, but I think you've done great. Backup, congratulations.
That was not an easy path. I respect you immensely
for it, and I love what you've been able to
do to rebuild and help others, particularly women, see a
path for it. So congratulations, thank you.
Speaker 4 (42:25):
I mean, I do what I do so other people
don't have to go through the pain and heartache that
sounds like both of us have gone through to get
to the foot are now well.
Speaker 3 (42:35):
I created the show with a labor eli for the
same reason like I. You know, I had a voice
that was silenced for years in public relations because nobody
want to hear from me, and I had something to
say and it started.
Speaker 2 (42:48):
So the book is you don't have to achieve to
be loved, escape the lines you've been sold to design
the life you want. And I see your website is
up Morebeckapeers dot com. Thank you so much, say well.
Speaker 4 (43:01):
Thank you you too. It has been a pleasure here.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
It's been a pleasure.
Speaker 3 (43:05):
And let's stay in touch and for everybody out there,
I hope you've been inspired. Remember April is no stress
to stress awareness month, but the key is to be
aware of your stress all the time and say get the.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
Hell out of here.
Speaker 3 (43:17):
I don't want you in my life stress, I want
to have my life with joy. Remember this, You have
the choice in life to live at how you want,
don't live by terms defined by others. Know when to
get out when you're ready to move on, and then
always choose fearless and fabulous and everything you do.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
Thank you.
The topics and opinions expressed on the following show are
solely those of the hosts and their guests, and not
those of W four WN Radio It's employees or affiliates.
We make no recommendations or endorsements for radio show programs, services,
or products mentioned on air or on our web. No liability,
explicit or implied shall be extended to W four WN
Radio It's employees or affiliates. Any questions or comment should
(00:20):
be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing
W four WN Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Hello and welcome to Fearless Fabulous You.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
I am your host, Melanie Young, and Happy April First,
no fooland it's spring at least where I love in
New Orleans And no Fooland did you know that April
is Stress Awareness Month? Now, if you're like me and
many many other people out there, stress Awareness Month doesn't
need to.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Be a month. It's a three hundred and sixty five
day situation.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
But we're going to talk about how to tackle it
and how to reclaim your life because it matters. It
matters to you, It matters to your health, it manas
to your family, it matters to everything that you tackle
stress and It incorporates itself into our lives in so
many ways.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
You turn on TV. That's stressful. You read the news,
that's stressful.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
You worry about how you're going to pay for four
dollars a gallon gas, Now that's stressful.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Food's expensive, that's stressful. You're trying to make ends meet.
If you're lucky enough to have plenty of money, and
you can still be stressed because you're gonna worry about
how you're gonna lose it all. You know, stress comes
in many forms.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
I before I bring on my guests, I lived a
life of chronic stress for many, many years as the
owner of a New York City public relations a special
events firm. I was chronically but guys, you're always worrying
about getting into a client, losing a client, getting a placement,
losing a placement, having a crisis happened, making payroll.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
New York is stressful. Although I loved it, but it
did eat at me.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
And then I had parents who expected me to be successful,
and I couldn't go home to Tennessee without having a
list of all my accomplishments. So I had I was
basically born to be successful, and when I wasn't. It
was stressful. It was also stressful to be successful. Needless
to say, it took a healthcare for me to realize
(02:37):
that life had to change. Well, the same thing happened
and also a very public come down which I have
shared publicly in my blog and Melanie Fabulous, Well my
guests had the same thing happened to her. For years,
Becka Peers measured her worth by her titles befomance, an
(03:00):
external validation based on what Corporate America expects. As the
former CEO of Maryland Health Benefit Exchange, a major player
among state run health insurance marketplaces created under the Affordable
Care Act, and a senior executive at other healthcare organizations
and companies including care First, Kaiser, Permanity, Blue Shield. She
(03:23):
lived in a culture where success equals self worth and
she believed it and she owned it. However, as the
case with many of us, including people I love and
a hole close to my heart, life can change with
a pink slip and or we don't need you anymore,
(03:45):
or we're downsizing, or we're going in a new direction.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
We've all heard those lines. I have, and Becka's case
and she'll share it.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
She was out of work. But that wasn't it that
Really that was horrible. It was a public it was
a public firing, and she'll talk about it. But then
she was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Well, that really
spends your life around. And I have a lot of
friends who are facing that right now or have faced it,
(04:14):
and it could be stressful. But Becca has owned her situation,
reclaimed your life, and now she is a very successful
coach helping others, and she is author of a really
really terrific book called you Don't Have to Achieve to
Be Loved, and it's also the basis of her inspirational talks.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Well, I think it's a great.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Title because so many of us, you know, by the
time we fought for the rights to be successful in
our careers, we then had to achieve to feel like
we were accepted and loved and defined by our work,
where before we used to be defined by you know,
how many kids we had, did we keep a nice home.
We're always having to be defined by other people's terms.
(04:59):
And I talk about that a lot here on the show,
and how you need to create terms that you can
live by and you accept for yourself. Well, we're going
to talk about that and waste a lawyer stress with
Becka Peers, who joins me today on Fearless Fabulous You so,
beck Of Peers, welcome to the show.
Speaker 4 (05:14):
Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate
being here.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Well, it's my pleasure. I you know, feel for you
because you went through a lot.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
But let's take it back to who is Becka Peers?
Tell us a little bit about who you are? Who
are your people from?
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Who was the young girl who, like many of us,
maybe didn't have a dollar and a dream and we're
trying to figure out what they were going to do.
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
It depends on how you were brought up. I was
brought up where I didn't have an option but to
be successful.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
How were you brought up?
Speaker 4 (05:44):
I think, and I same exact thing. My father. I
live in Baltimore, Maryland. My father was a doctor at
Johns Hopkins. My mother worked at Johns Hopkins University. It
was never a question in anybody's mind that you went
to college and you became successful. I have three older brothers,
and so therefore I am the youngest of four and
the only girl, and so there was extra pressure on
(06:07):
me there to succeed in a different way. And I
just remember, you know the entire my entire upbringing was
about this, you know this expectation. And I think I
have a personal belief that it may be generational that
I was raised by a woman of the silent generation,
and she she had a different expectation on herself, just
(06:30):
like you said, like maybe her definition of success was different.
Did she stay married, did she have a clean house?
Did she do this? But then the expectation was, no,
you I want you to do something different than I did.
And so that expectation became aligned with you can do anything.
You can be president of the United States. Excuse me,
you can have it all if you just work hard enough.
(06:52):
And so that was where I was praised as well.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
So did you know what you wanted to be when
you grew up?
Speaker 4 (07:00):
I did not, And I will tell you that nobody
wakes up and says, oh, I want to be in
health insurance when I wake when I.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
And yet it's so important. I wanted to be a writer.
I went around interviewing people to pen somehow I ended
up doing it by way of public relations. So I
made it sort of But you're right, and yet health
insurance is on everyone's mind right now. I'm helping my
husband right now with it.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
And it's so important, and you obviously had a very
successful career in it. And to be asked to help
launch what reallysly was the state run Affordable Care Act
Division of Maryland is a must have been a math
of honor.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
I mean, the Affordable Care Act was you know.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Wow, you know I remember when it came out because
it was right around when I was diagnose a breast
cancer and I was like, you know, it's a big deal.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
What was that like?
Speaker 4 (07:55):
It was absolutely the greatest honor at the time of
my life. I just remember thinking, wow, like I get
to change, I get to fundamentally change the way healthcare
is delivered in the state of Maryland. Like I could
not have believed more in what we were doing. Was
I felt as if it was a calling at the time,
and for those two years I was doing it, it
(08:16):
actually became my identity. It was so important for me.
So what happened, so it did not turn on quite
the way it was supposed to on day one. I
will say that at the end of open enrollment that year,
we did and we had enrolled three hundred thousand people
who were previously uninsured. I had gotten three state agencies
to get along, which was part of this whole process
(08:38):
that nobody thought about. I had created an exchange where
all of the insurers were actually playing, which is the
number one reason exchange had failed in the past. And
so I see all of these and I had built
an organization from zero or one, from me to one hundred.
So there were a lot of things that were successful.
But because it didn't turn on the way it was
supposed to, it was seen as a public failure and
(08:59):
I lost my job above the fold with the picture
on the news at five six and eleven.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
You know, I have friends who went through that and
and in many ways I went through it without my
face on the cover.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
But I lost my role. My company lost the role
in running the James Beer Foundation Awards because of a
scandal that I had nothing to do with. But you know,
everybody had to go, you know, and it's just awful.
You are angry, you were also embarrassed.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
You're trying to figure out how you're explaining it. How
did you handle it? What were your stages of what
really is grief?
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Anger? Grief? You know, yes, and welcoming acceptance.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
Yeah. My immediate response was I actually so. I submitted
my air Quote resignation at three o'clock in the afternoon,
and at ten o'clock my husband called me. I was
still at the office and he's like, Beck, it's time
to come home. They fired him, and I was like
wait no, Like so there was just this immediate like
I'm not done. I need to kind of keep moving
(10:00):
and I need to make sure everybody. Everybody's okay. And
I was my biggest fear was people thought I would
give up. I had given up on it, and I really,
I don't give up on things. This is my old EMM.
I don't give up. This is who I am, and
immediately went into this truly anger phase and this victim phase.
How did this happen to me? Why am I an escapegoat?
(10:21):
You know a lot of people around me knew that
it wasn't me, and I actually had three job offers
within three weeks because they're the ones who knew, like
other people knew I it wasn't my fault, but I
couldn't listen to them at the time. I was in
this phase of you say, embarrassed, I think I might
have even been ashamed because I was sure that everybody
(10:44):
knew that this, that I had failed right, and I
had done nothing but work on this for two years.
So it really was this immediate shock into anger, into shame,
and then into a depression phase. And it wasn't until
a mine came over to the house and said, listen,
like I need you, I want you to work with me,
(11:05):
and that I started to hear that other people didn't
see in me what I saw in myself, and that's
what allowed me to start to come out.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Well, you know a lot of people go this. I
just read a really your book is called you Don't
have to be Achieved to be Loved. We'll show a
clip up in the lower corner. Escape the lies you've
been sold to design the life you want. I just
also finished reading a book that I picked up at
the public library called All the Cool Girls Get Fired.
I reached out because.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
The authors were big time media people.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
I come from the media world, and everybody's losing their job.
Speaker 5 (11:41):
It's like, you know, everybody I was the big wig
at the magazine or the broadcast, and then they're not,
and it is right, Oh, and then you become what
I call in the book I'm writing the formerlies.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Ah, yes, oh, and how to escape word formally, I beck.
I grappled with this. So what I still kept?
Speaker 3 (12:04):
I mean, I still had a company going when I
lost the James Beird Awards, but that was like such
a big identity for me, and it impacted many other
aspects of my career and my I was angry, like
you and you trying to figure out how to deal
with this, and I hated that word formally, and like you,
I was still doing the work. And my then fiance
(12:25):
eventually husband said, why are you still working so hard?
Speaker 2 (12:28):
There's the book of the why are you still working it?
You don't work with these people anymore. Same thing. So
give us a sense of the timeline of how you
were getting back on your feet from losing your job
and rebuilding what you wanted to do, and then.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
Your diagnosis of a brain tumor, and the time frame
between the two.
Speaker 4 (12:53):
I lost my job in December of twenty thirteen and
I was diagnosed in March of twenty fifteen, so there
was about fourteen months of time frame in there. During
that time, like I said, my friend came over and said,
I need you to come work with me. I landed
on my feet, which in a company that then got bought.
So I found myself as a vice president within a
hospital system in the state of Maryland, which I had
(13:14):
gotten past that glass cliff. I felt so proud of myself,
Like women this formerly thing, right, Women don't come back
after some sort of failure like that. But here I
was as a vice president and I thought I was
back on my track again. I was going to be
a CEO again in short order. At the time, in
about February, I had been losing my hearing for about
(13:34):
two years. Yeah, and I had just ignored it. I
didn't have time. I didn't think about it. Who has time?
Whatever the reason at the time that we all play
with ourselves to say symptoms, to go to the doctor.
And be clear that had I gone to the doctor
when this first happened, all of the outcomes would have
(13:55):
been completely different.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
How long did you wait to go to the dock?
Speaker 4 (13:58):
I waited to three years. I just assumed that I
was going deaf in my left ear. My dad had
gone deaf when he was young, you know. And so
somebody said to me, single sided deafness isn't normal, and
So I finally went to get my hearing checked to
find out I had a brain tumor the size of
a ping pong ball that, because I had waited all
(14:20):
of that time, was now growing into my brainstem and
I needed surgery imminently.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (14:26):
And when I came off that table, my face was paralyzed.
My face was paralyzed for a full year. I'm now
deaf in my left ear because of the surgery. I'm
mostly blind in my left eye because my eye doesn't close.
Like all of these impacts, I had to learn to
walk again. All of these impacts would not have been
as drastic had I gone to the doctor when I
first found out about it.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (14:48):
Yeah, note to self, PSA, please go to the doctor.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Well, I am a big believer in that, and I'm
probably you know you could I go for everything. I mean,
I'm getting my head checked. I'm getting everything done because
I'm like, oh, I don't know, I'm forgetting stuff. It's
my brain. You know. Once you go through it, it's
like I'm with cancer. Sever everybody's like, oh my god,
I'm forgetting everything. Could it be whatever? You go get
stuff checked? It's you're not a hypochondriac.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
Everybody, you're being proactive about your health, and that's really
what you learned. You had to be proactive about your
health first, and then you had to be proactive about
what you wanted your life to look like afterward, because
you don't want to get sick again, right.
Speaker 4 (15:30):
Yes, yes, yes, yes, for sure. And I think that's
the thing. Uh. You know, it's also the doctor's job
to be there for you. You're not wasting their time.
It's you know, you're not, like you said, you're not
a hypochondriact. It's time to go. And once you receive
a diagnosis, then you can figure out what to do
about it.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Right.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
So do you think the stress had anything to do
with it or was it just bad luck?
Speaker 4 (15:55):
You know, I have thought about that a lot. In fact,
I just want to see MYI dot her recently and
we were talking about my book and she said, you know,
she had said that she had seen a lot of women,
high powered women recently, who had gotten cancer because of
the stress, and they believed it was because of the stress. Now,
(16:15):
mine was not cancer, as mine was benign. But who
knows why it began to grow in the first place,
and what stress may have done to create that scenario.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Well, stress is you know, I think stress is like
the flame burns it. You know everybody, Because when I
was doing my research in my book Getting Things Off
my Chest, stress was all and all. My stress was
not a direct link of causing cancer.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
However, it ignited the other issues and the toxicity that
can lead to it. I mean, stress is just it greats.
It wears you down, It wears your resilience and your
body down. And you got get on top of it.
So your work, How long did it take you to
(17:04):
recover from the brain tumor and what were some highs
and lows ahead?
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Did you deal with it?
Speaker 4 (17:12):
So the ultimate recovery I was in the hospital for
a week. The ultimate recovery before I went back to
work was about six months. During that time, I did,
like I said, I had to learn to walk again.
And talk about the introduction of vulnerability people, right, especially
for high achieving women. This is not something that we
talk about lately, right, Like we have spent our lives
(17:34):
putting up our armor and proving to everybody that we
don't cry, we don't do anything, we don't we're ready
to go. And my then seven year old daughter had
to walk me to the bathroom. She caught me falling
down the stairs, like there is just there's no way
to avoid vulnerability. So that recovery was all about learning
(17:54):
physically how to walk again, how to get my brain
to communicate again, how to you know, I with a
paralyzed face. There's a lot of things that are a
problem eat eating, Yeah, and so just learning all of
those things physically, But then mentally, the recovery was really
about understanding that there was all of these things that
(18:15):
I knew before, all of these things that I believe
that if you just try harder, if you just work harder,
you can make it. I had to learn that those
things are not true. Sometimes your body wins, and your
job is to do the best you can to help
your body do what it needs to do.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Yeah, and you have to listen to your body because
everybody's healing healing journey is different. How did your family
handle this?
Speaker 4 (18:41):
So my parents had recently moved back to Baltimore, and
so they were with us constantly. They live fortunately less
than a quarter of a mile away, and so they
were with us constantly. My husband is a duck, you know,
everything rolls off his back and so he just rolled
with every punch that was there, to every doctor's appointment
with me, did everything with me. And my daughter at
(19:03):
the time, like I said, she was seven and she
was very involved in all of that. And about the
time that I started to get better, at six months in,
she started to deteriorate and she ended up with with
severe anxiety because she didn't want us to leave the house.
She was afraid that if Mommy left the house, something
(19:25):
was going to happen again. So she had to be
in therapy for a while. And we really had to
work through that piece because I finally had to say
to her, I've got it. I'm the mommy. I understand
that you needed to help me, but I got it.
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
And so had atsd from this.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
Yeah, exactly. And today she is now a freshman in
college and she's doing wonderfully and she says that she
doesn't remember that time period.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
So yeah, so that's huge.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
It does where you know, for anyone out there, you
have to kind of be even though you were focusing
on healing, you do have to have those sensitivities to
your family. I'm recovering from some a multi part restoration surgery.
That's just been a little hard than I thought. And
I have to remember that I have a husband who's
(20:17):
dealing with it with me, and for everybody out there,
it's illness touches everybody, So does the loss of a job.
I mean everything, adversity set back touch everybody, not just Shoe.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
So you've got to think in the bigger But you
don't need to be a hero to.
Speaker 4 (20:33):
Anybody, right, you're absolutely ready.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
Yeah, So how did you? What was your road to mental.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
Physical, and career recovery When you said I don't want
to be doing this anymore, and I'm doing this anymore,
you started peeling away to find who Becka Pierce was.
Speaker 4 (20:54):
And what was interesting because at the time I assumed
that I was just going to get back on this, right,
this is the train I've always been on. I'm just
this is just a blip. I'm going to get back
on and do it. And I had to prove to myself.
I think a lot of people who have been sick
in some form understand this. Have to prove to myself
that the brain tumor wasn't going to win. And so
(21:15):
I went back to work too in that same role,
and it took me months because I now have other
deficits that are very difficult to but I got to
a point where I could do the job again, and
I was like, yay, I'm doing the job again. And
I had a choice one day, and my choice was
to be at work for an eight o'clock meeting that
(21:36):
was stressful, or to put my daughter on the bus
at eight thirty, right. And it was at that moment
that I said, I'm done. I now know what life
is about. I don't need the stress anymore. I don't
want the stress anymore. Because, as we talk about stress,
there was a time in my life that I thrived
off that stress.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Right.
Speaker 4 (21:53):
I believe that it was the stress that made me better.
And I can handle anything right, But you don't have
to that way. And I then made a choice not
to live that way. Now at the time, I had
already invested in myself. I had already gone back to
coaching school, and so I knew that I now had
a choice to make to be able to fall back
(22:15):
on something I had often been the only woman in
the boardroom. Now I can coach women to be in
a boardroom.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Right.
Speaker 4 (22:21):
There was a direct correlation for me that allowed that
off ramp, and so that was the moment and how
I shifted to the new face.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
Well, that's interesting because that off ramp. I think everybody
needs an off ramp. I think even though you were
incredibly comfortable in whatever you're doing, you need to have
an exit plan, off ramp, whatever you want to call it,
a segue. I know when.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
I came back from going my I worked throughout my cancer,
didn't tell anybody, ran the company.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
I was a hero, yep. And then one day I'm done.
Was years later, and I just suddenly couldn't stand it
any longer. I couldn't take the stress. I had a
meltdown in front of the computer. I didn't feel anything
fitman anywhere. I didn't feel comfortable in the role. It
(23:14):
just itched and I started to itch. I really started
to itch. And I just even though my husband, you know,
you're the best in the business. You should keep going.
This is how you make all your money. But it
felt wrong. It just felt like I was not in
my element anymore. And it was a tough decision to
(23:36):
walk away.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
And I didn't have an off ramp other than I
could write and speak. But it's good you had an
off ramp because I think everybody needs it in this
economy right now.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
I have friends who are losing their job. They don't
have an off ramp. They don't have a game play
then a backup. Unless you have enough money to sit
back for a while and float, you better know what's
going to go next, because unfortunately you still got bills
to pay.
Speaker 4 (24:00):
Yeah, you really do. And I think that that it's
very difficult if you don't think about it prior, you know,
I would suggest you start thinking now about what are
your the skills that you can carry with you, your transferable
skills you are not stuck in the role that you're in.
And if you think about that now, because what happens
is when you when something happens, when you lose your job,
(24:21):
when you know they're downsizing, insert whatever it is, you're
in shock and you don't have the capacity to see
beyond yourself, to see what other people may see in you.
And so yeah, doing that prep work is just self love.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
Yeah, and you need to and it's hard because you
you're down, you hate the word formally. You You're going
to have to figure ot how to reintroduce yourself, yes,
which is really hard. I tried on a couple of
hats in that area and then took a fence when
I think when it all boiled over me, when I
actually took a fence when somebody introduced me as a blogger,
(24:57):
I went ballistic.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
I went ballistic.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
But that becca I realized, was my fault if they
saw me that way. That I need to do some
brush up work on how I'm presenting myself. So you've
got to put together the package you.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
Want people to see in you.
Speaker 4 (25:17):
Yes, and own it and believe in it.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Yeah, and believe in it. And the believing part was
hard because you go from here to here to hear
You get.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
To bounce around a bit. So you have a successful
coaching career. Now, congratulations. Your coaching is a strange business
because I get pitched all the time.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
We've all I've done coaching. It's why did you decide?
And for everybody out.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
There, coach is a big word like consultant. You have
a very specialization. You have a specialization. So in your
elevator pitch, nutshell, paw, would you say your coaching helped people?
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Who is your audience?
Speaker 4 (26:02):
So here's what I say about my coaching. That's different
than other people's coaching, because first of all, I've been
a coach now for ten years, which is rare in
the business because we're the coaching industry is just blown up,
and so a lot of people have been around for
six months or a year over the past ten years.
What I recognize is this is that I bring to
the table the old CEO, what's the bottom line? What
(26:25):
are we doing? What is the impact on your business discussion?
Aligned with the post surgery. Can't we all just sing
kumbah yah, Thank God I'm alive, you know? And so
half the time we're focused on the emotion and half
the time we are truly focused on what is the
impact of that decision and what's keeping you from that?
And so one of the core values that I bring
to the table is kind directness and helping people see
(26:48):
in themselves with they don't see in themselves. And so
I work with high powered women who are trying to
figure out what's next, whether that is they do want
that next career, you know, move up in that next role,
or they're kind of like us, they've kind of woken
up and went I'm done, but I don't know what
to do next. And I help people find that emotional
(27:09):
courage to move on.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
And it is sometimes it's the emotional courage you have,
but you just don't know how to make the next step,
and he gets more daunting. I'm helping somebody right now.
It's daunting because you don't know. The way it works
is different than the way it worked back when you
were doing the other thing. You were doing, absolutely, and
it's getting more complicated right now, particularly when you use
(27:35):
online tools and AI and.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
The process is different.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
Starting a business is always going to have a formula
to it. If you decide to go the entrepreneur way
you do, you got to do an assessment. You've got
to do a swat analysis, you got to do a
business plan. You have to know how you're going to
fund the business. You got to know your down when
you got But if you're looking to transition your career
and you don't want to be an on and you've
(28:01):
got to figure out how to go from I was
successful in this industry, but I want to leave that
industry and go to another one. Right how to translate
those skills and translate the message that you're just as
good in there, even though you don't you know, have
this this is and this because you're going to be
competing against one hundred other people, right for sure.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
And it's harder now because there are a hundred other people.
Speaker 3 (28:23):
I mean, I think about all those under journalists right
now and all those out of work.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Everybody's right now. A lot of people are out of work.
Speaker 4 (28:29):
I'm going to say one hundred. I'd say there's a
thousand other people.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
Well, tens of thousands. I just read, was it oracle?
Just let everybody thirty thousand people go on an email?
You know, emails with post it note.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
I'm like, wow, where are all those thirty thousand people?
Where are all these people finding work? I don't know.
It's just amazing, but I see an opportunity to find
them all and channel them and help them find work.
So you wrote you don't have to achieve to be loved,
escape the lies you've been sold, good point, and design
the life you want.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
Well, I completely agree with that because I grew up
where I had to be a success, whatever it was,
I had to be accessed. I could not come home
for Christmas unless I had, you know, my list of achievements.
So when I lost all a lot of my business
for various reasons. It was kind of like I had
to go home with my tail between my legs and
my parents were embarrassed and that felt bad. So how
(29:25):
did you you know, what is it that you want
top line your readers to get out of the book,
And then we can talk about you know, we talk
about morning, the past and unfortunate awareness and then getting
one foot in front of the other. What do you
want your readers to get out of this? Because you
have a lot of worksheet you know, you have a
(29:45):
lot of tips and worksheets in here.
Speaker 4 (29:47):
So I would say there's two things, and the first
one is, and you hit on it actually in the intro,
that there's a good chance you're living somebody else's definition
of success. So right going back to your parents, you
were trying to achieve their definition of success. If you're wondering,
what is my family going to say? And by that family,
(30:09):
you mean you're saying your parents or your extended family,
you're living somebody else's definition of success and which may
not be your own. And so the number one thing
that I want people to do, because a lot of
people have never done it, is actually write down your
own definition. What does success mean to you? How do
you know, because otherwise you're just moving the goalposts on
(30:29):
yourself every day anyway. So number one, define your own definition.
Number two, time is the only currency that matters. We
are sold that money, that title, the power, that all
of these things matter. But the only thing that matters,
I'm here to tell you without you having to go
through any you know, any situation, any health scare, the
(30:54):
time is the only thing that matters. And if you
learn that now, then maybe it gives you this space
to redefine your definition.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
Right, and you're righty, you know success And first of all,
why do they have to be Let's just start with
why do they have to be successful? Right? I mean,
I'm married to someone who doesn't care about being successful.
It drives me. The success under your person not solid
because I don't know any other way. I'm like a
racehorse is good and weird, but and I don't like
(31:22):
that to being put to pasture.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
So it's a lot of it is how you run
as a person. Like as I said, I'm a racehorse.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
I like to win. I don't want to be put
to pasture. I find other ways. There are some people
who just want to sit around and live life. And
success isn't important to them. And I think that's really
important to underscore. If success, if you define success in
the way that just you just want to be happy
and smell the flowers and bake rye bread or whatever
(31:50):
and whatever that's your.
Speaker 4 (31:53):
Life you want to yes, do.
Speaker 3 (31:55):
It y and that's success. So success does not have
to be, as you said, to money. Many people do career,
getting married, having children, pinnacles. It doesn't have to be
any of it. It can be just living life on
your terms, which is what I always say, you know,
to find your terms and not measure up.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
But it's so hard because there's all that. You know,
social media is the worst, yeah you know, social media magazine.
You know it was. It was always feeding me. So
if that's feeding you in the negative way, get off
and don't try to measure up.
Speaker 5 (32:33):
Right.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
I think that's really important a lot, and I think
it's getting worse sadly, because it's not what is you
talk about it What do you want to do with
your life or who do you want to be? You
got to decide what do you want? That want comes
after the want, right.
Speaker 4 (32:52):
Yeah, you know. And it's interesting because when you talk
about their faith The book also outlines four phases that
everybody goes through when they go through, and it's not
until that one foot in, one foot out phase that
you begin to recognize, I'm not running away from anything anymore.
Now I'm running two. And that's what the new want is.
Speaker 3 (33:13):
Exactly, and it's an acceptance. So what you know there
is part of your past that cannot happen again. You
just the door closed.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Don't beat your.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
Head up trying to open it again. So go open
new doors, accept it, and then decide which ones you
want to go to so that you don't walk into
one and go, I don't really like this room anymore.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
It's not my thing. Go open another door, and you
know you have options. But sometimes you have to do
things along the way just to make ends made, or
maybe you're ill and you can only do so much,
so you have to accept limitations when they come, but
realize they may only be temporary.
Speaker 4 (33:50):
Right right, right, yep.
Speaker 3 (33:52):
I think it's interesting you're a runner, So I want
to talk about how you handle any current stress you have,
because even though your life sounds like you've turned it around,
blah blah blah, you got stress.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
You will always have stress.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
Yes, so, because it is just part of It's like
stress is like hunger, right, you have hunger paints, so
you run.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
How does running help you?
Speaker 4 (34:13):
Running? I'm also a huge introvert, and so running is
the place that my brain goes to decompress. You know,
My greatest days are when I'm just literally running and
my feet just go, like I have no idea where
I'm going, and my feet just go. And what that
does is that allows me to process everything that's creating
(34:35):
the stress in my brain, all of that swirl that,
oh my gosh, this is going to happen, this is
going to happen. All of that swirrel for me comes
out in running. For some people, it's yoga for some people,
it's meditation for some people. But it is that stillness
within the brain somehow. And you can have stillness in
your brain even if you have movement in your body,
(34:56):
but it's giving your brain that space to process it.
So that allows me to move on.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
I try to. I do walking right now. Way to
have stillness is to be still and just wait there
and think I did that this. I did it this morning.
Speaker 3 (35:18):
I was in a reflective mood and I just had
quiet and stillness, and I think that's really important protectarly
when you are someone who has always been on the
fast track, to allow that slow down and be still well.
Speaker 4 (35:33):
And I think especially for overachievers too. It's I'm correlating
kind of overachievers to movement, right, and if you're constantly moving,
then there's some sort of productivity in there, but allowing.
But you don't have to be listening to a book.
You don't have to be you know, lige truly, just
you can still be in movement and still feel like
you can still be cleaning out the drawers in your
house and have stillness within your brain.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
When I was going through chemotherapy speaking of, and my
brain was a smash of uh, just not thinking straight.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
I would organize drawers and that was my.
Speaker 3 (36:07):
Stillness I could, but I could also keep my brain
focus and it was, it was, it was, and I
still do that. I'll go tackle a drawer or a
closet and that's my don't bother me. I'm in my
mode organizing things, which helps me organize in my head.
Speaker 4 (36:23):
Yes, you're absolutely right.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
Yeah, so it's it's really interesting. So you have something
called the face for summary that clearly me summary, How
how do you define? What does that mean? And how
do you define You're clearly you now?
Speaker 4 (36:38):
So okay, so clearly me is the fourth phase of
the process, and this truly is the rest of your life.
This is when you stop apologizing for being this new person.
This is when you wake up and say, for you,
I'm not a blogger, I'm the right you know, like
really defining who you are and owning it and living
that rest of your life. For me, you know, there
(37:02):
are times I think for everybody, and I think it's
important to hear right, like I'm not the coacher's going
to be like I've got it all figured out, right.
There are days that I go back to, you know,
questioning whether I made the right decision and worrying about
money and doing all of the things that I have
worked on to get past, and recognizing that every day
(37:22):
of your life is it's a little bit like yoga,
it's a practice and giving yourself that grace for where
you are that day and saying, oh, well today I'm
maybe I'm a little bit sad that this is happening,
but I'm also there's a part of me that's sad,
and there's also a part of me that's ecstatic about
the fact that I am where I want to be
and I'm moving forward, and so that for me is
(37:44):
my clearly me.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
Well, coaching is a tough business. I mean, you know
I could you know it was. I moved away from
it because of the word funnel and all the marketings.
I'm like, damn, it's going corporate on me.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
I coach some people they love to they became coaches,
and they're stressed out. I coached someone and as she's
a successful coach, whenever I'm talking to her, she sounds
so stressed out.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
I'm like, Okay, that happened.
Speaker 3 (38:09):
You know, she's working all the time because she's a
coach and she you know, she doesn't have a boundary
in terms of off hours on hours. It happens also
in public relations, happens at writing. I mean I have
to get off the compute, social media and content. It
happens with everything. You still got to create your boundaries
so whatever you decide to do doesn't take over your life.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
Yes, for whatever reason, right, Yeah, I mean I think.
Speaker 4 (38:35):
So for me, it was my boundaries are hard and fast.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
And I think, what are they?
Speaker 4 (38:42):
I don't work on weekends, I don't work after six hard,
absolutely hard stop at six o'clock, but usually after five
point thirty. I don't work Monday mornings. I don't work
Friday afternoons, Like I have created this space for me
that and I think it's because I work so many
hours at the Exchange, and I went for two years
without going to my daughter's school, Like I give so
(39:05):
much up. Then that's it's like a complete one eighty
that those boundaries are so hard. But I think it's
really important for people to recognize, like it's okay to
put boundaries in place, Like it's okay to say I'm
not going to respond to email after seven o'clock, or
I'm not going to send an email to my client
or to my clients or my staff after ten o'clock. Right,
(39:25):
Like creating those boundaries is what's going to help you,
even if you're staying where you are now, to find.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
This base to be a different person and you'll manage
your stress.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
I mean, I will admit that's been my one of
my toughest things is to set boundaries because I deal
a lot with Europe, so I had to adjust my
schedule over the years because of Europe.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
But that's okay because I wake up. I don't have
an alarm clock. I wake up. I have my little
morning's routine, and then I'll get Europe out of the way.
I get a lot of things out of the way.
But by full are I'm done. I want to take
a walk. Don't toss to me, you know, so I
don't schedule it. And same with weekends. And I used
to work a lot of weekends because that's when all the.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
Events were so learning to create the boundaries and you enough,
and it could be hard if you're going the entrepreneurial right,
because the business owns you for a while, and that's
very hard.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
That's that's a whole nother ballgame. And you know I've
covered that topic many times.
Speaker 3 (40:28):
But this purpose of this is to explain that, you know,
first of all, you've got to keep boundaries in control
and define who you want to be and your terms
because you don't want to get sick.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
You want to stay. You don't want to lose yourself
and your self worth right right, And I think that's important.
But something you brought up here that and I got
all that out of the book and I totally live it. Myself,
but something you did bring up. I do think it
is where you also have to have that off, yes,
for sure, because yeah, we don't build enough of those,
(41:05):
do we. No.
Speaker 4 (41:06):
I mean I think it's it's easy to get caught
up in the day to day of where you are,
whether you're a business owner, whether you're employee, or wherever
you are in the world. It's easy to get caught
up and Okay, this is what I'm doing and perfecting that.
Doing that well feels really good and is powerful. And
at the same time, recognizing that what you're building can
be transferable to something else. I think that's where people
(41:29):
get stuck. And recognizing what can be transferable to someplace else.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
And nothing lost forever. I mean we're seeing it now
more than well.
Speaker 3 (41:36):
I mean, just has been waves of changes, but no
industry stays the same. I mean even Wall Street ups
and downs.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
I mean I had so many friends lose their job
on Wall Street. I had so many friends lose their
job on the media.
Speaker 3 (41:48):
I had so many jobs of the advertising, you know,
and it was waves and waves and waves.
Speaker 2 (41:52):
You need to have kind of a.
Speaker 3 (41:54):
Plan a place, and you know, the fining one, yes,
but also kind of like you're off round or in
the case of a health thing, what do I want
to do next? So you're not completely caught off guard
and it's hard because you're just living your life.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
Yeah, most people, but I think you've done great. Backup, congratulations.
That was not an easy path. I respect you immensely
for it, and I love what you've been able to
do to rebuild and help others, particularly women, see a
path for it. So congratulations, thank you.
Speaker 4 (42:25):
I mean, I do what I do so other people
don't have to go through the pain and heartache that
sounds like both of us have gone through to get
to the foot are now well.
Speaker 3 (42:35):
I created the show with a labor eli for the
same reason like I. You know, I had a voice
that was silenced for years in public relations because nobody
want to hear from me, and I had something to
say and it started.
Speaker 2 (42:48):
So the book is you don't have to achieve to
be loved, escape the lines you've been sold to design
the life you want. And I see your website is
up Morebeckapeers dot com. Thank you so much, say well.
Speaker 4 (43:01):
Thank you you too. It has been a pleasure here.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
It's been a pleasure.
Speaker 3 (43:05):
And let's stay in touch and for everybody out there,
I hope you've been inspired. Remember April is no stress
to stress awareness month, but the key is to be
aware of your stress all the time and say get the.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
Hell out of here.
Speaker 3 (43:17):
I don't want you in my life stress, I want
to have my life with joy. Remember this, You have
the choice in life to live at how you want,
don't live by terms defined by others. Know when to
get out when you're ready to move on, and then
always choose fearless and fabulous and everything you do.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
Thank you.
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