Grab Rachel's Book: "Butterfly Goo" today!
We’ve all seen the shiny version of transformation online—but what about the gooey part? In this episode, executive coach and author Rachel Burr joins Teresa to talk about the real (and often unfiltered) truth about change. From ditching the linear path to leaving behind old armor, this conversation goes deep into the messy middle of growth, how to know when it’s time to step off the boat, and why play is essential for doing the work that matters.
Whether you’re navigating burnout, feeling stuck, or just trying to bring more whimsy and joy into your everyday life, this one’s for you.
Current Obsessions:
- Butterfly Goo: The Down and Dirty Truth About Transformation
- Films to be Buried With podcast with Brett Goldstein
- Rhino-in-a-bathtub sculpture
- Humor, Seriously: Why Humor Is a Secret Weapon in Business and Life (And how anyone can harness it. Even you.)
- Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul
Connect with Rachel
Website - https://catamentum.com/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/catamentum/
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelmburr/
Connect with Teresa:
@teresaajean | @becomingobsessedpod
👉 Get my FREE email mini-series to BECOMING OBSESSED with your life!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Today we are becoming obsessed with butterflies and
transformation, which is kind ofwhat this podcast is all about.
We don't typically talk about itas this huge moment in time, but
it's those decisions that you make over and over again, Those
moments where you ask yourself what if?
(00:20):
And you think about what life could be if you were really
living it the way you wanted to,which can be a hard place to get
to. And the journey is almost never
linear and always a little messy.
And today's guest knows a lot about that.
Rachel Burr is an executive coach and leadership consultant
(00:41):
with over 20 years of experiencehelping leaders and teams grow
through the messy, complicated parts of leadership.
Because let's be honest, that's where the real magic happens.
Her work blends organizational development, clinical
psychology, and data to help people lead with more clarity,
influence, and authenticity. And she recently released her
(01:04):
book, Butterfly Goo. I am so excited to dig into this
more. Rachel Butterfly Goo, The down
and dirty truth about Transformation.
Rachel is on a mission to make transformation feel more honest,
more human, and way less filtered.
Instead of the pretty curated version we see online.
Think about a butterfly and how its beauty distracts from its
(01:25):
journey. She wants to talk about the goo,
the real, raw, unglamorous middle of change.
Think, play, experimentation, and getting curious with your
own process. Because as she just said to me
that I loved transformation is like a playground.
Rachel, thank you so much for coming on the Becoming Obsessed
(01:47):
podcast. Thank you, Teresa.
I'm so happy to be here and I'm so excited to talk to you about
all the goo today. I really want to dig in to
butterfly goo and really just take me back to the messy middle
of where this idea came from. I almost wanted to say the
beginning, but I know there's almost no beginning for ideas
like this. There is almost no beginning.
(02:10):
And it's funny because I find atdifferent stages of the journey,
including writing the book, thatit's my journey and everything
I've gone through has brought meto where I need to be, to where
I am now. It's what I'm creating going
forward. A lot of people have asked me
how long did it take you? You know, what was your, what
was your impetus for writing this?
(02:30):
And the length is one thing, theimpetus.
I tell people I feel like this book has been trying to write
itself through me for a very long time.
And I finally gave up fighting it.
So yeah, it's the book itself. It took me about a year and a
half to publish the journey up until then and wrestling with
(02:51):
myself that this was the kind ofbook that I wanted to write.
That was like a decade. I just watched this show on
Netflix, this movie called I think Planet Lonely or Lonely
Planet. And it's a group of authors who
go on an author's retreat. And one of the new fresh green
authors says, you know, I dedicated this to my partner
(03:14):
because I couldn't have done it without him.
And one of the like 60-70 year old authors who's well in the
game was like that's BS. It would have came out of you
either way. You can't hold it back.
Love that. You know, and I, I think the
other piece of that too is my brother told me this.
And I'm sure your listeners out there, it's from a book or it's
(03:34):
from literature somewhere. And they probably know this
better than I do, but it really hit me years ago.
In this story, one of the characters walks into this
enormous library, books, floor to ceiling, and you can't even
see the ceiling. And he asks, what is this place?
And the person, the curator says, these are all the stories
that were never written. And I didn't want my story to
(03:57):
end up in that library. Yeah.
Yeah, we tend to hold ourselves back a lot, right?
A lot of people probably feel their stories sitting in that
library. And it sounds like you struggled
with that for, like you said, a decade.
What was this moment where you finally gave yourself
permission? What was that kind of journey,
(04:17):
that thought process to say, youknow what, this is the book and
this is the book I want to write.
Well, and I like to talk about in the book the this idea of
clicks. So think about a combination
lock that the lock springs open and that's often the moment we
look at the Eureka moment, the butterfly coming out of the
cocoon. But we, we don't appreciate all
(04:37):
the little clicks along the way that got you to that place.
So I think 1 I, I decided I wanted to write a book a long
time ago. I thought, oh, I need to write a
business book because this is what I do.
It needs to be a coaching book or it needs to be very serious.
And if you know me, I am not a serious person.
I am very good at serious topics.
But humor to me is fundamental to what we do and how we manage
(05:00):
through life. And you'll see that in the book.
It's very humorous memoir. So if you don't like my sense of
humor, you won't like the book. So just, you know, caveat.
So I sat down and I read a book.It's called Let's Pretend This
Never Happened, a mostly true memoir.
And I'm going to plug Jenny Lawson.
She's the author and she is so raw and vulnerable and funny and
(05:23):
sarcastic and it's a conversation.
You can hear her voice coming through the book.
And I had that moment, that first click or one of the
clicks. I think there are clicks you
don't recognize along. I had a big click.
I was like, I I don't have to sound formal.
I don't have to write it in thisreally kind of stuffy, stiff
way. And to all of you who write
(05:45):
books in a more formal way, thisis not a dig on you.
This is about me finding my voice that I could use my humor.
I could use my sarcasm for good,not evil.
I could, you know, use the way that I talk and think about the
world and the analogies and metaphors.
I'm like, I can write this way. But that wasn't the moment of
(06:06):
just the awakening and the breaking open.
I still let myself question the whole the gremlins that we have
are the inner critics that we have in our head.
It's like, oh, but you know, youcan't write a book.
And even if you did, what could you say that nobody else has
said all of this. And, and one of the things on
that, that I came to terms with that question of that we ask
(06:26):
ourselves as authors or potential authors, well, what
can I say that nobody else has said before?
Probably nothing, like absolutely nothing.
What you can do is you bring your voice to that message.
You bring your perspective to that message.
And as a result, there are goingto be people out there that
resonate with you and your message in a way that maybe
(06:47):
they've never resonated with anyof the other ways they've heard
this told before. And if you can help impact their
life, your voice is worth it. And it's worth it for you to be
able to speak your truth and getit out into the world.
So that was a piece of it. And then I again, going through
the clicks, it's really important to me that we don't
(07:08):
focus on the Eureka moment. The Eureka moment is beautiful
and it's so much fun. That is not the transformation,
that is the result of the transformation.
And it's important to recognize the difference because we go,
like I said, through the goo to get to the butterfly.
So my clicks, my goo as part of this was I read books, I
(07:31):
listened to podcasts on writing,I talked with other writers, I
started writing, I stopped writing.
I hired a coach. I did all of these things.
And then one moment in time thatI don't even remember what was
happening in that moment. I just remember I broke open
from all those little clicks. It broke open and I sat down and
(07:54):
started writing and it just poured out of me.
And that was when I knew that this story had been in me for a
very long time and I had finallyopened the floodgates.
I love the way you describe thatbecause it's so easy.
You mentioned before we hit record, like it's so easy on
social media and the Internet these days to just see the final
(08:17):
and even when somebody's tellingtheir story, I have this kind of
joke with myself that people never talk about failure while
they're in failure. I am.
You don't hear the story until it's wrapped up with a bow.
Even now, it's like we can look back and see those clicks, but
allowing yourself to experience those clicks, even if it means,
(08:38):
oh, I think I finally got it. And then you stop writing for a
while because you're like this. It just isn't.
And then you come back to it andallowing that space and time for
all the little clicks to happen instead of just focusing on when
am I going to have my big Eurekatransformation moment.
Yeah, it is and it is. We say that a lot, that it's
(08:59):
it's steps journey of 1000 miles.
And a lot of times these things become trite.
But I say that because they're true.
So it is a truth that keeps weaving itself through stories,
through our lives. And it is so easy for us to,
like you said, look at curated perfection and feel so
intimidated by it. And of course, it's like there
(09:21):
is that doesn't exist. And so being able to get into
the muck and goo and recognize what it truly is and recognize
that you are going to have starts and stops, that there are
going to be pieces to your journey.
And just because this piece wentwell doesn't mean it's going to
keep going well. In fact, I can guarantee you
it's not. And that's OK.
So Rachel, fill us in a little bit more on what Butterfly Goo
(09:45):
is and the experience of readingthe book and why somebody should
go out and buy it. I know it came out in March.
Congratulations, that's so exciting.
Very exciting. So originally I just had this
idea that came out. It's funny because when people
talk to you about writing a book, they say, oh, you sit down
with an idea and you put together this outline and you
(10:06):
feel that it's not how this happened.
It was kind of like just dumpingon the page, had no idea what I
was doing. Story of my life.
I seem to find myself on this path all the time.
That's the best place to be, somewhere where you have no idea
what you're doing. Oh, and for me, because that's
outside your comfort zone, we only grow outside our comfort
zone. So when I have no idea what I'm
doing, I'm very clearly outside my comfort zone.
(10:27):
So yeah. So at some point, what showed up
for me was the idea of Joseph Campbell's The Hero's Journey.
And for folks who aren't familiar with that, Joseph
Campbell was a writer, philosopher.
And he said that while, yes, allof our journeys are unique,
they're for us. The idea that there are these
stages that we we go through, and I'm not going to go through
(10:51):
all of those. You can, you can read them in
the book. But movies, Grimm's fairy tales,
all of these, they tend to have this arc.
You know, the hero starts on their journey, or rather they're
in their normal life. They hear the call, they resist
the call. Eventually they get their butts
in gear and they break into the unknown.
Then there are these trials and tribulations, and they find
(11:11):
mentors and friends along the way, and they go into the
deepest, darkest cave that they're afraid to enter, and
they conquer their monster. And in the movies, it's
interesting. It's seen as this external force
when really the thing we're conquering is mostly inside
ourselves. So for me, the butterfly has
always resonated. And I have to put a caveat.
(11:32):
I think this is so funny becausemy brother's an entomologist.
OK, So I use butterfly and cocoon because that's what we're
used to. But technically, as he put it,
butterflies come out of a chrysalis.
Moths come out of a cocoon. And I said, yeah, gonna stick
with the butterfly, even though he believes that moths are much
cooler. You know, I have to say I think
(11:55):
moths are underrated, so I can get on board with that.
Well, maybe the next book will be about moths and how they're
and how they're underrated and they're kind of the, you know,
the second class that isn't to the butterfly.
So what I love about the butterfly and as you said we
were talking about earlier that we get so enamored by this
(12:15):
because the butterfly is beautiful and there's this
moment of emergence from the cocoon and that is the Eureka
moment for the butterfly. However, what really happens to
get the butterfly there is obviously we know it starts as a
Caterpillar it we use it's chrysalis cocoon.
And what happens is in that cocoon it dissolves into this
(12:38):
goo like substance, like really dissolves its its current form.
And what I love is that everything that Caterpillar
needs to become a butterfly it brings with it into the cocoon.
So when it dissolves, it is going back down to its
fundamental building blocks. And when those building blocks
(12:59):
are clear, when we understand our building blocks, the
Caterpillar already knows it's building blocks.
We have to discover ours. And then once we understand
that, we can build something new.
We don't have to be caught in the old paradigm, you know, the
old blueprint of our lives. We can construct something new
(13:20):
and that's when we emerge. And so the butterfly coming out
of the cocoon is not transformation, it is the result
of transformation. It is a beautiful result and
everything that Caterpillar was is now in that butterfly.
With what you were saying earlier of like the clicks that
(13:40):
make it so that you actually getto the transformation, the big
moment, but it really is the cliques that are these little
stepping stones to the transformation.
Yep. I love, I always love a good.
I would say this is a metaphor. My aunt was my English teacher,
and if I get that wrong, she's gonna come after me.
But I love this metaphor becauseit gives us something really
(14:03):
tangible to look back on our lives with a little bit more
grace, with a little less pressure.
And I also love how this kind ofcontinues through not only, I
almost want to say there's multiple transformations
throughout life is really what it makes me think of is like
each little click is its own little transformation.
(14:24):
But as you described it, going from the Caterpillar,
Caterpillar to the chrysalis to the butterfly, it's like that's
not one motion. It's like at least three stages
and then all those stages in between.
And then once you're a butterfly, you still have these
huge journeys to go on. I like to say that with each
(14:48):
Caterpillar they only get one journey and 1 butterfly.
But we have infinite journeys. The only end is if we say there
is. And I like that inside every
butterfly is another hungry Caterpillar.
We've talked a little bit about your clicks and transformation
to get to this book. I'm really curious about some of
(15:10):
the early clicks and transformation that got you to
the place in your career of working with so many leaders
that even happened way before you were like, yes, let me put
this into a book. Oh, yes.
Well, that is where the book begins, actually.
I was midway through a PhD program in psychology, and I
(15:32):
loved psychology. I loved the idea of
understanding how we work, how our minds don't work sometimes.
I love studying. I love learning.
And I was miserable because I'd gotten on this path, a path that
wasn't mine to walk, but it was a path that was there.
So I stepped onto it. And I had never considered where
(15:54):
this path was leading me. And I realized it wasn't some
place I wanted to go, but I didn't know any other way.
I didn't know how to get off thepath, and I was stuck in my
comfortable discomfort. I knew I was miserable, but the
idea of stepping into the unknown was big and scary and at
that time very vulnerable to say.
(16:15):
But most of my decisions were based on fear and avoiding
avoiding failure specifically atall costs.
And the problem was I was normally, you know, you're in a
graduate program, you're surrounded by other people who
want to be professors or researchers or or therapists,
whatever they want to do. So the analogy I use, because I
(16:36):
love analogy, is I was on this circus train, this fabulous
train filled with toys and fun, and I hadn't considered where it
was going. And on that train were two types
of groups of people. One was the group, the academics
who were so excited. I have a friend who's a
professor at LSU. She is one of those people.
(16:58):
She loves it. She's great at it.
She could not wait to get to where she was going.
And then there's the other groupwho were stuck like I was, but
they didn't know what else to doeither.
Neither of those groups of people could help me.
Best intentions. People who love that path don't
don't know how to help you get off of it.
People who are stuck don't know how to get themselves off of it.
(17:21):
Yeah. Let alone you.
So. What I said was there are
moments, sometimes tongue in cheek, but that the fear of the
change happens when the fear of the unknown is finally dwarfed
by a looming dread of the scene.Yeah.
And I had this break open moment, and you'll see it more
(17:43):
in the book. I was actually scuba diving in
Bonaire. And I had really resisted going
on this trip because as my gremlins informed me, you don't
know how to scuba dive. Clearly, you don't know how to
learn. Not only could you fail and
drown, but worse, you could lookstupid.
So some clicks happened there that finally something was
pushing me forward. I, I talk about the universe,
(18:05):
you know, however people want toconceive of that.
I also talk about my own subconscious where there's the
me, the true me that was very deep within there that was
trying to get out, was trying totell me something.
So we're on this boat in the middle of the ocean, miles from
shore. I'm certainly not going to be
able to get off the boat and contemplate what could I stay on
(18:26):
the boat and just wait for everybody else to finish.
And I wasn't going to do that one.
It would be humiliating. But again, something was pushing
me, and I finally stepped off the boat.
And once I got under the water, it was just beautiful.
There were fish everywhere, evena Barracuda, which is, you know,
scary. And all of a sudden I laughed
(18:47):
and I had to grab my regulator to keep from drowning because
who laughs in the ocean? And I was filled with this joy.
I was filled with this excitement and this appreciation
for beauty, which I had not feltin a very long time.
And I had convinced myself at that point that we just get to a
(19:08):
point in life where we're not excited anymore, Then we don't
feel joy. We don't do all these things.
And I realized I could feel all of that.
I just didn't feel it about whatI was doing with my life.
And that was kind of the point where I walked, swam across the
threshold before the start of the journey.
(19:29):
That point, there was no turningback.
That's beautiful. Thank you for sharing that.
Because I think a lot of people will see themselves in that and
see their moments of is this what life is?
Maybe life isn't as joyful or like, that's who I really love
to speak to with this podcast aswell, is like that reminder that
(19:52):
you have control to make it a little bit better, even if you
think that's all that's left. Yeah, step off the boat.
And like, if you're already kindof scared and unhappy.
Then you might just be more scared and unhappy in the water.
You might laugh, and that might be scary too, because like you
said, who laughs on in the ocean?
In the ocean, you know, and whenyou say that too, I was talking
(20:14):
to someone the other day that finally had gotten up the
courage. They've been miserable for so
long, and they've gotten up the courage to quit their job.
And they're like, but I'm afraid, you know, they made good
money, the golden handcuffs, allof that.
And they're like, but Rachel, I,I don't think I'll ever find a
job as good as good as this again.
I said, you mean a job that where you're miserable and it's
(20:36):
soul crushing? No, no, I think there are plenty
of jobs out there like that. You could probably, you know,
make even more money by being even more miserable, if that's
your measure. You could do that.
So I think that it's important to watch what our gremlins are
telling us. And, you know, ultimately, our
gremlins are just us. They may be an older version of
us that, you know, long ago thatwas keeping us safe from
(20:59):
something that maybe no longer exists and that doesn't trust
that we are enough to actually overcome that.
But those conversations with ourselves are really good at
lulling us into complacency thatit's OK, that you know, this is
good enough. Anytime you hear yourself say
this, well, this is good enough.That's a red flag.
(21:21):
And we, we love listening to like the the gremlins and we
hate paying attention to the redflags.
And that's, that's the trap. And the trap is that the world
is not keeping us stuck. We are keeping us stuck.
And yes, there are people that have far worse circumstances
than anything I have ever experienced.
(21:45):
I also know people who have had far worse experience than
anything I have experienced and they have made leaps and steps
that are for me absolutely inspirational.
And I watch these people. So as we're on this, I am not
speaking from myself in terms ofbeing able to relate to that
level of struggle, that level ofthe journey and what is set up
(22:09):
against you. I refer to these people that I
know that I have seen that have been able to do that.
And we all have our place. We all start our journeys from
different points and it's not better or worse, but we have to
start from where we are or we'llnever begin.
I love the saying our each individual's person hardest
thing is your hardest thing. And if you can't really compare
(22:34):
what somebody else goes through to what you've gone through,
because as you mentioned, there are people right now going
through things that I will neverbe able to imagine, you know,
praise God. Hopefully we'll never have to
experience and it it again. One, helps us have perspective.
And two, we also have to remind ourselves like our hardest thing
is our hardest thing and it doesn't discount our struggles
(22:56):
and our moments of I don't like my life.
I think it's really easy for a lot of us to feel that pressure
from both sides of seeing peopleonline having this quote UN
quote perfect life or something desirable and then US wanting to
(23:16):
have something different, but atthe same time feeling, oh, but I
should just be grateful. Like I should just say I should
just be grateful. I have food and shelter and
great people around me. Like why?
Why do I get to make a change? Yeah, I don't know about you
remind me, but you are from and live in the Midwest, correct?
I am. I'm from Nebraska, yeah.
(23:38):
And I grew up in Iowa. OK, so I meant to ask you before
we hit record. Yes, absolutely.
And I went to College in Minnesota, grad school in
Missouri, I lived in Wisconsin, Michigan.
So I have pretty much covered the Midwest and that Midwest
humility and need for appreciating what you have is
deeply ingrained in me. And I think I, while I value
(24:01):
that, I value that characteristic, that what I've
been taught, because I do believe we need to be grateful.
Any strength taken too far becomes a weakness.
Yeah. So any, any, anything about,
well, I should just be, I shouldjust be happy with what I have.
Lulls us into complacency that I'm not enough.
Instead of being, you know, having this hubris and, and
(24:22):
being, you know, how fabulous I am, then it becomes I'm not
fabulous. I'm not I, I can't do those
things. So, you know, while all those
values are are important in balance, yes, we have these
moments where we either allow ourselves to stay where we are
because we think we shouldn't want for more and then we don't
(24:43):
believe that we're capable of achieving more.
And those are some of the key pieces that keep us stuck.
This is something I'm really passionate about.
So I live in Omaha and we actually have a huge
entrepreneurship tech startup community.
And it's this big joke that people in Omaha often are like,
(25:04):
there's nothing to do here. Nobody's here, there's no
companies, there's no, and it's just a matter of you need to
look for it. But the other problem there is
we need to be louder. We can still be grateful and be
less humble. And especially as women, women
in tech, women who you know, do want more speaking up and saying
(25:27):
like, yes, I want more talking about money.
This is all things that I'm likevery passionate and like try to
be a force to push, like be louder about you, your
accomplishments. And not even just your
accomplishments, but your desires, what you want, how much
you want to make. And you can be grateful, but you
(25:50):
don't necessarily need to be humble.
And like you said earlier, that taken too far can be a problem.
But I think we're on the low side of the spectrum for
humility where it's like, no, let's let's speak up a little
bit more, be a little louder andshow up for what?
For ourselves and to help other women play more as well.
(26:13):
I think that's a really important piece if we're
uncomfortable with being able tospeak up for ourselves or to be,
you know, because there is a difference between being
arrogant and speaking up and telling our truth and being
proud of ourselves. Yeah, you know, not pride in a
bad way, but we get to be excited about our wins.
We get to be enthusiastic about our goals.
(26:35):
And for some folks out there that that might be initially a
hard step, then reframe it. You are taking that step and
communicating your truth to inspire other people to help
them see, you know, if you know,as a woman, help other women,
young girls see what's possible.Because it's it's like on social
media, the loudest voices are these perfect like worlds.
(26:59):
It's like, how discouraging is that?
So if you're out there and you have your success and you can
share with vulnerability what you are up against all of those
things, then you are modeling and encouraging a whole new
generation of young girls and ofwomen that are already, you
know, in their life full on board.
(27:21):
Maybe they're like halfway through their career and that
they feel stuck too. And they need to know they're
not alone. We all need to know we're not
alone. Yeah, we keep using the word
discomfort. And I wanted to get into this a
little bit more because as you were telling your story leading
up to, you know, being in a PhD program and then that scuba
(27:42):
trip, I was thinking about how I'm almost same but opposite.
Where growing up I was so dead set on being different and
making my life as big as I couldthat I always said, like, I love
discomfort. I'm so good with change, I'm so
(28:02):
good with uncertainty. And I convinced myself of those
things, whether it was true or not, so that I could go out and
make crazy decisions like livingin the Panamanian jungle or
running a marathon in Greece. And like all of these things
that it really propelled me where I was like, I, I thrive
being uncomfortable. Like that's where I want to
(28:24):
spend my time. And kind of like you said, a
strength can be taken too far. And I think that I pushed that
for a long time. It served me well and then I
found myself and now find myselfin that place again of being
like I actually want more comfort in my life.
(28:44):
I want a little bit less of thathardcore all the time
discomfort. This has been a few years of
this now and I think I've gottentoo comfortable in a lot of ways
and work, not necessarily work is very uncomfortable and a lot
of growth there. But for example, I have a 10
mile race on Saturday tomorrow in 2 days that I don't think I'm
(29:06):
going to do because I haven't been training.
And it's this whole kind of I've, I've gone the opposite on
the same kind of roller coaster and started at a different place
of be so uncomfortable. So that I'm growing all the time
and pushing myself and then kindof being like, OK, maybe it's OK
to be comfortable in some areas.And now again, finding my way to
(29:28):
a more intentional, like selection of what, where I want
transformation in my life in this season and where I want to
be uncomfortable and where I need to have a little bit more
comfort so that I can be uncomfortable and, and, you
know, growing in other areas. And I say that because I think
it's so easy for us to go through 1 transformation and
(29:53):
think we're at a landing place and think that landing place and
that growth is the final destination.
And we're sometimes surprised orI know I, I tend to feel a
little shock sometimes when I'm like, wait, I thought I already
did that part. I thought I already grew through
that part. And like what's this next
iteration coming for me now? I love that couple of things
(30:13):
stand out and I have I have a question.
I'm curious because because I I had times in my life where
people thought I was already theperson I am that I needed to
find kind of the braver doing things that my dad would even
say to me. Where did you come from?
Like if you are not like your mother and I, I don't know where
this happened, but even driving ourselves to discomfort for the
(30:35):
sake of driving ourselves to discomfort.
I'm wondering what you weren't comfortable enough with.
Maybe in the comfort or what youknow you were trying to get away
from in that comfort that had you push in ways that maybe or
maybe weren't in service to you.They were just in service to
being different. Yeah, that is such a great
question. And part of it was different for
(30:56):
a different sake, right? Especially growing up and in
high school and college, I saw so many things in the world that
I didn't, did not want. And one of those things that
really I, it's been really cool to like discover in the last
four or five years, one of my driving motivations was to never
let sexism affect me. To never be all these stories
(31:20):
about sexism and mansplaining and all these things and me
being like, I'm going to be so tough and so capable.
It's not that I have to be better than a man, but if a man
ever thinks he's better than me,damn, I'll show you different,
right? And that drove for a long time
not letting sexism affect me. I was like, huh, it affected me
(31:40):
great. Funny.
Like, I'm just like everyone else.
But that really drove this need or craving to go outside the box
to prove myself, prove that I could take care of myself.
And I think the other thing I kind of talk about like tropes
or cliches and people saying, you know, I looked back on my
life and I regretted the things I didn't do more than the things
(32:03):
I did. I just wanted to take extreme
ownership over my life and my happiness.
And there was definitely things with my family that were
uncomfortable that I would. It was so uncomfortable that
nothing else really could be because I have a brother who's
mentally ill. And so like, nothing was ever
going to be worse than that ANYWAYS.
(32:25):
So it wasn't. I also had this thing that like,
nothing else can scare me in life, right?
And he's just like, we're talking about these pieces of
your identity that you hold on to or that you kind of craft for
yourself to build your identity or because you're afraid of
something else or because of theway you're crafting the way you
(32:47):
want to be perceived. I'm an Enneagram 8.
So I just never wanted anybody to perceive me as weak.
And I'll be all. And that's been something that
really the last four years of mylife, I've really deconstructed
to the point where one of my friends a couple weeks ago, I
was like, you know, I don't wantto say you've changed, but I'm
(33:08):
used to you always being this like, tough person who could
handle anything. And I just like want to check
in. You seem really emotional a lot
more often. And I'm like, yes, amazing.
I'm trying to allow that to justcome out and I can still step up
when I need to, but not operating from that level for
the sake of it. Mm hmm.
I love that. And you know it.
(33:30):
It brings up a piece that I talkabout in the book of this idea
that armor, the armor we wear iscustomized to fit.
It is not an off the rack acquisition.
And we build it based on what we're fighting and where we see
our weaknesses. And so we craft this armor and
that isn't all bad. One of the things, to your
(33:52):
point, it's like if you need to go into battle, if you need to
fight for something, armor is absolutely necessary.
I'm not rolling in to battle without tanks and like, you
know, and some good Kevlar or whatever it is.
However, if what we want is connection and closeness to
people, then we need how to figure out how to take off that
(34:14):
armor. That armor has to have like air
quotes, a zipper. It has to have a way that you
can take it on and off. And that's one of the things we
struggle with. Either the world is so raw, we
we feel so raw with the world that we put on the armor and we
never want to take it off. Or we're reacting to something
in a way that we're going out into battle and racing in and we
(34:36):
put our armor on. And the tricky part is being
able to figure out how to get iton when we need it on and how to
take it off when it's too heavy.And it's keeping us from
connecting to people. I'm curious, in the book did you
relate armor to the cocoon or chrysalis?
Because it kind of sounds like this thing we build around us to
(34:58):
protect us, and then again, you have to take it off to flap your
wings. Yes.
So I would say more of. I think that's an excellent
analogy. I didn't use it.
Maybe I'll use it in my next book.
Free to it's yours. So for me, part of Campbell's
then the journey is the trials and tribulations and the things
we're going through. Sometimes we don't even realize
(35:19):
it. And to your point, we have
things in our past I talk about like this kind of switch back to
when I was a kid or to your point, you know, with with your
brother, my mom, my mom was mentally ill.
And so we put on this armor as we go.
And sometimes we don't even realize we're doing it.
And so yes, is it an emergence as part of it?
(35:40):
It is definitely part of the journey.
I, I honestly don't know anybodyout there that doesn't have a
suit of armor, even if not currently on at the ready,
hanging in their closet, you know, whenever battle shows up.
So I think that's part of the and again, there are things
happening outside of us that we,we do protect us.
(36:01):
We want to protect ourselves from the problem is, is that we
are doing that to ourselves, butnot letting go when it's time to
let go. We carry that fear and we feel
the need to protect ourselves from the entire world.
And the problem is, it's pretty lonely in that armor.
Yeah, it's meant to. It's like a wall.
(36:23):
It's meant to keep things out. And for a life that you're
obsessed with, you got to let some things in, even when
they're scary, uncomfortable, especially people, right?
I think that's that's the big one.
Yeah, they're the scariest of all.
Yeah. I want to take us in another
(36:44):
direction before we cap this up because you mentioned a word
that is like one of my favorite words.
My word of 2025 is play. And you mentioned that
transformation is like a playground or you can you can
treat it that way. And I want to hear more about.
This I think it's so important not to take life too seriously.
(37:05):
As I said, it's not that there aren't serious things we have to
go through, and I am not making light of any of that.
But we are so intense and we don't want to give an inch in
terms of how, you know, if we let go, if we laugh for a minute
or if we enjoy ourselves, that somehow we'll lose control.
I think play is extremely important.
And one of the things in the book is at the back I have
(37:27):
what's called a playground. There are exercises you can do,
and like I said, I'm not here totell you that you have to
transform. I'm not even telling you you
have to use the exercises. If all you want to do is read
the book and laugh at my, you know, mistakes and misfortunes,
then do that. Nobody can tell you that.
What I think is important to realize is that play and not
(37:50):
taking things too seriously doesnot mean you're not growing.
It means you're giving yourself permission to experiment, to
fall, to fail, to do all those things, to not feel like I have
to get it perfect every time. And what if life were a game?
And people will say, well, it's not OK, Well, what if it were?
How would you play it? How would you show up?
(38:10):
How would you play with that? And one of the analogies I love,
I don't use it in the book, but when I was a kid, they had
jungle gyms. Do they still have jungle gyms?
They're really safe now. Like if you fall, you kind of
bounce right back up. Yeah, Ours were built over
concrete. Yeah.
No asphalt. No asphalt.
Yeah. So one of the things that always
(38:32):
struck me, and I loved the Jungle gems, is essentially
these things are made out of bars and solder and cement.
You know, cement, at least they're holding it in the
ground, maybe not as the pavement underneath.
But, you know, we all had our challenges.
If you take those same materials, bars, cement,
concrete, you can also make a jail.
(38:53):
It's about how you create the space, how you engage with that
space, that either makes it a prison or it makes it something
absolutely liberating. It's up to you.
Rachel, I have to say I am usingthat.
I am stealing that one. That one is so good.
As soon as you started in on that, I was like this is gold.
(39:14):
I love the idea of a playground and it is no secret.
I tell the story all the time that in 2024 I started to get
really burnt out and it was maybe because my workload, it
was a little higher than I wanted it to be, or there's all
these, you know, maybe it was this, maybe it was that.
And now I'm trying to operate ata really high level running
(39:35):
three companies, like pushing for $1,000,000 companies.
And I'm really cautious again oflike, I need to do more and I
need to continue working at a high level without just do more,
be more mentality. And what's really helped me with
that is treating each company like a playground instead of
(39:56):
this mindset of like, Oh my God,I have to get this right.
I have to get this right. There's no really such thing as
getting it right. And if I just want to, like,
follow one path and get it right, I might get so far, but I
want so much more than that. That doesn't exist yet that my
brain couldn't figure out yet. And the science says that us and
(40:17):
most all other mammals learn by play.
That's how cats and lions like. They play fight with each other
and that's how they learn socialcues and how to engage and how
to provide for themselves. And it's how human kids learn
too, is through play and imagination.
And so I'm really leaning into this concept of treat each
(40:41):
business like a playground. If I start to get a little too
stressed or feel the pressure a little too much, how can I take
a step back and just dream? And like you said about life,
OK, Treat it like a game. If I was playing Monopoly and I
was dead set on winning, I gottafind some stuff in here.
I gotta read the room and see what everyone else is doing and
know who I'm playing against andget a little bit more fun and in
(41:05):
that sense, competitive instead of getting so fearful that like,
Oh my gosh, I'm going to lose, I'm going to fail.
Yeah, you're going to and they'll be another game and
we'll keep going. But that has really helped me in
the last year to be able to not fall into that whole burnout
cycle and work too much. It allows me to take that step
back and say, you know what, I'mnever going to get?
(41:28):
This is never going to go further if I hold on with an
iron class iron grip instead of taking a step back, going and
playing breathing and seeing howI can look at it differently.
I love that and it's your point.It's so resonating in the play.
I just started reading the book play and I can't think of who
the author is right off the top of my head.
We can put that in the show notes and they're saying the
(41:48):
same thing that we it's not evenjust mammals.
But to your point, you know, they find birds play, they find
even kind of lower level animals.
They're, you know, it's how theydefine what play is.
And I do think it's important toopen that up.
And to your point, I've heard you say in other podcasts that
they're kind of measuring it by like, is this a purposeless kind
(42:09):
of activity? And what I love about that is,
and, you know, they talk about in the book that somebody has to
define the purpose that, you know, OK, there's evolutionary
kind of aspects to this. That's great.
We learn how to do this. But fundamentally, we find these
things that just bring us joy. And they it's not specific that
they're getting us to a particular place.
They're not achieving a specificgoal.
(42:31):
And I think that's also why, youknow, we get so locked into that
linear part of our brain. That's why when we go take a
shower, we have these ideas because we've actually backed
off from it. It's when we go take a bike ride
or we go to a trampoline park, which I did.
I love that story. Yeah, that's that's a whole.
That's another story for anotherday.
But trying to do things that youlet go, that jungle gym that
(42:55):
you're opening up, that space that you're not keeping yourself
within, those rigid bars, which are very narrow by the way,
because they're meant to keep you inside.
They're meant to keep you lockedup.
You've built it, but it's meant to keep you locked up and on the
straight and narrow. And you go to the jungle gym,
you go to play and the space opens, opens what's possible.
And then you go back and maybe you bring some of that, maybe
(43:18):
you have inspiration and maybe you don't.
But at least you let go for a while and it re energizes you to
come back into other parts of your life.
And it's what you mentioned in the beginning of this episode,
allowing those little clicks andallowing the time that it takes
instead of trying to force this transformation.
When you're talking about these narrow bars that would be like a
(43:41):
jail cell. That's actually exactly how my
brain feels. I say my brain feels
claustrophobic where it's just like the skull around my brain
is like so much smaller. And this is how I think about it
is when I'm feeling that way, where it's so small, I almost
have no space to even think of anything else.
(44:02):
I know I'm like, I have to get out in big spaces.
I have to get outside where there's no ceiling.
I need to go on a walk. I need to just do anything that
basically it makes my skull feelbigger and like there's more
space for me to just exist and not necessarily think.
And I can't quote the case studyor the science behind this, but
(44:24):
a handful of years ago I read, Idon't know, it might have even
just been a Facebook post telling me that there was a case
study about something. But that there is something to
be said about if you want to do really black and white technical
math problems, be in a really small space with a really low
ceiling because your brain is gonna stay in that space.
And if you wanna go be visionaryand have imagination, get
(44:47):
outside or get where there's really high ceilings because
your brain also will take up that space.
And whether it's true or not, that way of thinking has really
served me. Absolutely.
And I think even to build on that, what I find is when we put
ourselves in different spaces that could be traveling across
the world, it could be going down to the coffee shop.
(45:08):
We as human beings, we habituate, which basically means
we get used to whatever is happening around us and and it
serves us. For example, think about the
clothes and how they feel in your back.
Think about your feet on the floor or your butt on a chair.
Your brain needs to get used to that.
So it's it's not focusing on that all the time and so it can
focus on other things. So it's very helpful for that.
(45:29):
The problem is it also happens on a larger scale where we get
used to the same environment. We get into these routines, we
don't challenge them and they become easy, which is a trap
now. Good, easy when they need to be
easy, but again, taken too far. And so when we take ourselves
out of those situations, by definition we have to be more
(45:50):
present. We have to see what's going on.
I used to love travelling to India for work and the color of
like the clothing and everything.
And I always joke with my colleagues there that in India,
driving is a contact sport. So I did not drive.
It's not a good idea. No, it is.
But even watching traffic and crossing the street and doing
(46:12):
all that, I always felt more present when I was there because
I had to be more vigilant. But it felt so good to be
grounded as opposed to, you know, I'm a Netflix person too.
It's like I, I use some escapism, YouTube, whatever.
And that can't be too much again, taken, taken too far.
So getting out again of the comfort zone, if it's our
(46:32):
office, our house, you know whatwe're doing, it forces us to
think differently. It forces us to be present in a
different way. It we're, we're surrounded by
new information and that may spark new things, you know, get
out, get outside or go someplacelike a trampoline park or other
places, you know, that works foryou.
I, I do love travel. And it doesn't take away from
(46:54):
the fact that sometimes going to, you know, like I said, a new
restaurant or going to a coffee shop, that's new too.
And so all of those things help us break open our mind.
They help us get more creative. It's not a waste of time.
It's about living a fuller life and also living a fuller self in
(47:16):
terms of even what your capacityis for greatness.
I love I'm bringing together like 5 things you said today,
but it's about doing those things that are going to make
you feel grounded and feel alive.
And sometimes that's why we do something uncomfortable or
unusual or go to a new country or a new coffee shop so that you
(47:37):
can, again, be grounded. There's evidence that new
experiences actually slow your brain down.
It has to do with, like, the amount you blink and things.
I'm really not a scientist. My sister got all the science
and data, memory genes. And I just repeat things that I
hear that I'm like, OK, that works for me.
Yeah, I like it. But I love that because it is
(48:00):
when you're feeling, you know, like you felt in that PhD
program of like, OK, I don't really know where I'm going
here. Go somewhere where you don't
know where you're going and justfeel alive a little bit and let
your brain just take in what's around it and feel grounded.
And then maybe it'll start subconsciously to unravel the
rest of things in life. But I was going to say to you
(48:23):
when you do that, because I think going back to the fear of
some people may be sitting out there, it's like, Oh, no, that's
scary, this and this. And yeah, it is scary.
And if you're doing something that feels scary, if you take
the mindset, just play a game with yourself and think about
what would it be? What would this experience look
like if I thought this was fun? If.
I experienced this as fun. What would this look like?
(48:44):
What would I feel like? And imagining yourself that you
know, they talk about envisioning your life, all of
that. And this is in the moment.
Imagine yourself feeling something different and see what
shows up. Yeah, I love that.
I have a few more questions for you.
Sure. I want to know what you're
currently obsessed with. And since we're talking about
(49:05):
play and new things, I want to know what you're obsessed with
when it comes to play. How are you incorporating that
side into your life, into your work these days?
You know, I think what I'm obsessed with most of the time
is this is gonna sound funny, but it is about doing things
that I know I'm never going to get good at.
(49:27):
I have no intention of getting good at.
So I will try something like doing some kind of art I or
which, you know, and, and again,it's not that.
If I were to put in the hours, could I get better?
Of course I could. Am I ever going to be a concert
pianist or am I ever going to be, you know, Picasso?
No, I'm not and I don't want to be.
But watching yourself in those moments, I've, I've picked up
(49:50):
instruments that I, you know, trying to play for a little
while. And there's this weird
experience of when you get to that point where all of a sudden
your hands take off without you.That's fascinating.
And then of course, when you realize that consciously, then
you you screw up. But being in those places where
just trying things and that's that are fun or and knowing that
(50:10):
I have no expectation that I'm ever going to be good at this or
that there's ever a purpose. I just love that.
And I love doing things that are, you know, that other people
think are ridiculous, but that Ipersonally feel really.
So one of the things that I did was I purchased a rhino in a
bathtub. Now I'm like.
(50:32):
At the thrift store. Like where did you find a rhino
in a? Bathtub and I'm gonna forget
these artists names. I should send them to you so we
could also put them in the show notes.
They they create these beautiful, fun, whimsical, they
have these great expressions. They're animals that are, you
know, kind of on the safari, rhinos, hippos, giraffes, all
that kind of thing. But they put them doing very
pedestrian, mundane things like driving a car or taking a bath
(50:55):
or doing all these things. And years ago, I was at a trade
show in Las Vegas with a friend of mine, and we were at the Win.
And we were walking by all thesestores and they had these little
pillars kind of out in the middle.
And on top of each pillar, therewas a little glass case.
And in them would be some jewelry or something the
different stores were selling. So they're like, oh, look at
(51:17):
this buy me. And it's about, about this big.
I mean, that maybe doesn't look on the video.
I for those of you who can't seeit, it's not 2 feet long, 2 feet
long, 2 feet tall. It is not a small rhinoceros.
And I saw him and at the time, I, I just couldn't justify
spending the money for art. And I told my friend, someday
I'm going to write a book and when I do, I'm going to buy that
(51:40):
rhinoceros. I did.
And I, I texted her and I said, and I over the years, I checked
in on him making sure that they were, you know, he might still
be available. And that to me is, I think it's
whimsy. It's whimsy that I am obsessed
with. I love doing little things.
I was trying to look around here.
I've got, I've got stuff all over that just makes me smile
(52:01):
Here, here's vulnerability. I keep him around.
He's a pen. I love it and it makes me smile.
You know, it's funny because we have like different things.
People would call it an eclecticstyle in our house.
And a friend of mine's like, oh,wow, you know, do you,
Pinterest, how do you find this?And I said, no, we find stuff we
like and then we find a place toput it.
(52:22):
So that's what works. Yeah.
So. And I don't remember your second
question. Yeah, no, that covers that
covers the first one. My one of our guests on the
podcast via she I've always loved her home and she recently
moved and is doing something really cool building a artist
commune. So it's only getting cooler and
(52:42):
cooler, but hers was the 1st house I was ever in where I was
like, this is a literal museum. I could spend hours in here and
always find something new every time I come a new book, a new
piece of art. And I love that it especially I,
I went there in the time of social media and like art
minimalism, when that was all going on and everything was
(53:04):
greyish and there's no color on any children anywhere.
And so I think it just puts so much personality and it reminds
you like you can be sitting at work and then look up and be
like, Oh my gosh, I love this pen.
Like, let me just, you know, fidget spinner it for a little
while, get out of my head a little bit, have a little bit
more joy in life. It's like you said, when I when
(53:26):
I describe what play is, I'm trying to find words to really
describe it. And joyful and unproductive is
one way. Since then, I've heard somebody
say unnecessary, it's just unnecessary.
Let me go color because I can. Not because I need to, but
because I'm like, OK, I'd ratherdo that than something else
right now. And that's what I love about the
(53:48):
pin with the furry blue butt andhead that you just showed.
It's so unnecessary and that's what makes it amazing.
Yes. The only criterion for me and so
much of what I do is does it make me laugh?
Does it bring me joy? Is it whimsical?
And everything around me has a story.
There is nothing in this house that I purchased that doesn't or
(54:11):
even that just exists. I mean, other than things like
my washer and dryer, which I'm quite honest, do not bring me
joy. Although you know that compared
to beating it on a rock probablydoes bring me joy that.
One time or one or two times might bring you a lot more joy.
That's true. That might, yeah.
Maybe not the same sense of whimsy that it is.
And you surround yourself by this.
And I love to laugh. And for me it is such everyday.
(54:34):
There's a there's a book, it's called like I'm going to forget
it and I'm sure I have it here, but it's essentially written by
these folks at work at Stanford.One's a full time professor and
the other one came from improv and now teaches and they teach
this idea of, you know, kind of happiness and, and how it
applies in business and in life.And they teach it in the MBA
program. And one of the things they do is
(54:56):
the first, the first day that they do it, they have these
people fill out a sheet and theyask them questions about
happiness, about joy, about laughter.
And then they say, well, when was the last time that you
laughed out loud? And people struggle with this
question. And my thought is, I don't know.
What time is it? Yeah, like 5 minutes ago. 5
minutes ago maybe, You know, half an hour sometime today.
(55:19):
I wasn't keeping track. I have another obsession
question for you and this I feellike is a similar question and
we might go in a similar direction that we just went.
But what is filling your cup andwhat are you learning from?
Like who do you look to? What books, podcast,
entertainment is filling your cup lately?
(55:40):
So I think it's a balance. I think, you know, obviously I
have kind of the work stuff thatis going on in podcasting,
what's going on in coaching or what's going on in general.
And then I go back to humor and there is a podcast.
This is so silly. It's called Films to be Buried
With OK. No, I've never heard of films.
To be buried with So it is by Brett Goldstein, who played in
(56:03):
Ted Lasso. Oh.
My gosh love absolutely obsessedwith him.
Love it. He hosts this and it's like he
could do any podcast about films, but there's a lot of
them. So to distinguish himself, he
has this kind of framework and it's basically his.
His guests come on his show, he tells them they've died, they're
going to heaven. It's filled with the happiest
stuff. Whatever they like, they're
(56:24):
their favorite things. They talk about their favorite
things and then he has a series of questions that the person
gets to tell their life through film.
And what happens as a result is they start talking about just
their life around these pillars.So he starts off with, what's
the first film you ever saw? And then goes to what's the
funniest? What made you cry?
(56:45):
What's your favorite? What's the one you that you love
that nobody else does, but you're, you're committed.
And I, I have a list and I keep reworking my list someday when
he invites me on that, so I am going to be ready.
And it's, it's just, it drops every Wednesday and every
Wednesday I listen to the next episode and it just brings me
(57:05):
joy. I to your point, I love him and
he's a great host. A lot of those comedians I find
and not disparaging them, There are a lot of comedians I really
like, but they're not good interviewers because they're
used to just laughing and, and doing that.
And he does this lovely balance of both.
And so it's, and then at the end, the, the last question he
(57:27):
asks is, OK, there's only room in the casket for, for one
video. What do you take across?
And it's it's just fascinating to watch people's lives unfold
through something so simple as what movies do you like?
That is getting added to my list.
Right now I only have a couple non businessy podcasts that I've
been listening to and lately I feel like I've heard all their
(57:50):
episodes and I'm like, like you said, I'm waiting for them to
drop each week and I need some more silly fun, just joyful
content to throw on in the background.
And so I'm gonna give that one ago.
Good. Excellent.
I could sit here and talk to you.
There's so many more things I want to talk about, but I'm
gonna bring this all home. So, Rachel, how can people buy
(58:14):
your book, connect with you, work with you?
1st, I can go to my website for the book.
It's butterflygoobook.net. And there are links where you
can buy it on Amazon. You can buy it on Barnes and
Noble. The great thing is you can
probably buy it anywhere. Just search for Butterfly goo
book when you go on to Amazon because otherwise you get a
bunch of stuff that really is about butterflies and goo and
(58:36):
other things like that. So if you look at
butterflygoobook.net, so you canfind it.
So yeah, it's it's out there. It's in the world.
Amazing, I cannot wait to read it.
I am like add to cart right now.This has been such a joy.
And the last time I laughed was about 30 seconds ago.
So I think we're doing good on our laugh quota for the day.
(58:58):
Thank you so so much for coming on the Becoming Obsessed
podcast. And if you're still listening
then please let us know. Reach out to Rachel or me.
You can find me at Becoming Obsessed pod on Instagram.
I've been saying this lately, but seriously, send me a voice
note because I want to hear whatyou found that you laughed at in
(59:22):
this episode or what you're currently obsessed with and
what's filling your cup.
Today we are becoming obsessed with butterflies and
transformation, which is kind ofwhat this podcast is all about.
We don't typically talk about itas this huge moment in time, but
it's those decisions that you make over and over again, Those
moments where you ask yourself what if?
(00:20):
And you think about what life could be if you were really
living it the way you wanted to,which can be a hard place to get
to. And the journey is almost never
linear and always a little messy.
And today's guest knows a lot about that.
Rachel Burr is an executive coach and leadership consultant
(00:41):
with over 20 years of experiencehelping leaders and teams grow
through the messy, complicated parts of leadership.
Because let's be honest, that's where the real magic happens.
Her work blends organizational development, clinical
psychology, and data to help people lead with more clarity,
influence, and authenticity. And she recently released her
(01:04):
book, Butterfly Goo. I am so excited to dig into this
more. Rachel Butterfly Goo, The down
and dirty truth about Transformation.
Rachel is on a mission to make transformation feel more honest,
more human, and way less filtered.
Instead of the pretty curated version we see online.
Think about a butterfly and how its beauty distracts from its
(01:25):
journey. She wants to talk about the goo,
the real, raw, unglamorous middle of change.
Think, play, experimentation, and getting curious with your
own process. Because as she just said to me
that I loved transformation is like a playground.
Rachel, thank you so much for coming on the Becoming Obsessed
(01:47):
podcast. Thank you, Teresa.
I'm so happy to be here and I'm so excited to talk to you about
all the goo today. I really want to dig in to
butterfly goo and really just take me back to the messy middle
of where this idea came from. I almost wanted to say the
beginning, but I know there's almost no beginning for ideas
like this. There is almost no beginning.
(02:10):
And it's funny because I find atdifferent stages of the journey,
including writing the book, thatit's my journey and everything
I've gone through has brought meto where I need to be, to where
I am now. It's what I'm creating going
forward. A lot of people have asked me
how long did it take you? You know, what was your, what
was your impetus for writing this?
(02:30):
And the length is one thing, theimpetus.
I tell people I feel like this book has been trying to write
itself through me for a very long time.
And I finally gave up fighting it.
So yeah, it's the book itself. It took me about a year and a
half to publish the journey up until then and wrestling with
(02:51):
myself that this was the kind ofbook that I wanted to write.
That was like a decade. I just watched this show on
Netflix, this movie called I think Planet Lonely or Lonely
Planet. And it's a group of authors who
go on an author's retreat. And one of the new fresh green
authors says, you know, I dedicated this to my partner
(03:14):
because I couldn't have done it without him.
And one of the like 60-70 year old authors who's well in the
game was like that's BS. It would have came out of you
either way. You can't hold it back.
Love that. You know, and I, I think the
other piece of that too is my brother told me this.
And I'm sure your listeners out there, it's from a book or it's
(03:34):
from literature somewhere. And they probably know this
better than I do, but it really hit me years ago.
In this story, one of the characters walks into this
enormous library, books, floor to ceiling, and you can't even
see the ceiling. And he asks, what is this place?
And the person, the curator says, these are all the stories
that were never written. And I didn't want my story to
(03:57):
end up in that library. Yeah.
Yeah, we tend to hold ourselves back a lot, right?
A lot of people probably feel their stories sitting in that
library. And it sounds like you struggled
with that for, like you said, a decade.
What was this moment where you finally gave yourself
permission? What was that kind of journey,
(04:17):
that thought process to say, youknow what, this is the book and
this is the book I want to write.
Well, and I like to talk about in the book the this idea of
clicks. So think about a combination
lock that the lock springs open and that's often the moment we
look at the Eureka moment, the butterfly coming out of the
cocoon. But we, we don't appreciate all
(04:37):
the little clicks along the way that got you to that place.
So I think 1 I, I decided I wanted to write a book a long
time ago. I thought, oh, I need to write a
business book because this is what I do.
It needs to be a coaching book or it needs to be very serious.
And if you know me, I am not a serious person.
I am very good at serious topics.
But humor to me is fundamental to what we do and how we manage
(05:00):
through life. And you'll see that in the book.
It's very humorous memoir. So if you don't like my sense of
humor, you won't like the book. So just, you know, caveat.
So I sat down and I read a book.It's called Let's Pretend This
Never Happened, a mostly true memoir.
And I'm going to plug Jenny Lawson.
She's the author and she is so raw and vulnerable and funny and
(05:23):
sarcastic and it's a conversation.
You can hear her voice coming through the book.
And I had that moment, that first click or one of the
clicks. I think there are clicks you
don't recognize along. I had a big click.
I was like, I I don't have to sound formal.
I don't have to write it in thisreally kind of stuffy, stiff
way. And to all of you who write
(05:45):
books in a more formal way, thisis not a dig on you.
This is about me finding my voice that I could use my humor.
I could use my sarcasm for good,not evil.
I could, you know, use the way that I talk and think about the
world and the analogies and metaphors.
I'm like, I can write this way. But that wasn't the moment of
(06:06):
just the awakening and the breaking open.
I still let myself question the whole the gremlins that we have
are the inner critics that we have in our head.
It's like, oh, but you know, youcan't write a book.
And even if you did, what could you say that nobody else has
said all of this. And, and one of the things on
that, that I came to terms with that question of that we ask
(06:26):
ourselves as authors or potential authors, well, what
can I say that nobody else has said before?
Probably nothing, like absolutely nothing.
What you can do is you bring your voice to that message.
You bring your perspective to that message.
And as a result, there are goingto be people out there that
resonate with you and your message in a way that maybe
(06:47):
they've never resonated with anyof the other ways they've heard
this told before. And if you can help impact their
life, your voice is worth it. And it's worth it for you to be
able to speak your truth and getit out into the world.
So that was a piece of it. And then I again, going through
the clicks, it's really important to me that we don't
(07:08):
focus on the Eureka moment. The Eureka moment is beautiful
and it's so much fun. That is not the transformation,
that is the result of the transformation.
And it's important to recognize the difference because we go,
like I said, through the goo to get to the butterfly.
So my clicks, my goo as part of this was I read books, I
(07:31):
listened to podcasts on writing,I talked with other writers, I
started writing, I stopped writing.
I hired a coach. I did all of these things.
And then one moment in time thatI don't even remember what was
happening in that moment. I just remember I broke open
from all those little clicks. It broke open and I sat down and
(07:54):
started writing and it just poured out of me.
And that was when I knew that this story had been in me for a
very long time and I had finallyopened the floodgates.
I love the way you describe thatbecause it's so easy.
You mentioned before we hit record, like it's so easy on
social media and the Internet these days to just see the final
(08:17):
and even when somebody's tellingtheir story, I have this kind of
joke with myself that people never talk about failure while
they're in failure. I am.
You don't hear the story until it's wrapped up with a bow.
Even now, it's like we can look back and see those clicks, but
allowing yourself to experience those clicks, even if it means,
(08:38):
oh, I think I finally got it. And then you stop writing for a
while because you're like this. It just isn't.
And then you come back to it andallowing that space and time for
all the little clicks to happen instead of just focusing on when
am I going to have my big Eurekatransformation moment.
Yeah, it is and it is. We say that a lot, that it's
(08:59):
it's steps journey of 1000 miles.
And a lot of times these things become trite.
But I say that because they're true.
So it is a truth that keeps weaving itself through stories,
through our lives. And it is so easy for us to,
like you said, look at curated perfection and feel so
intimidated by it. And of course, it's like there
(09:21):
is that doesn't exist. And so being able to get into
the muck and goo and recognize what it truly is and recognize
that you are going to have starts and stops, that there are
going to be pieces to your journey.
And just because this piece wentwell doesn't mean it's going to
keep going well. In fact, I can guarantee you
it's not. And that's OK.
So Rachel, fill us in a little bit more on what Butterfly Goo
(09:45):
is and the experience of readingthe book and why somebody should
go out and buy it. I know it came out in March.
Congratulations, that's so exciting.
Very exciting. So originally I just had this
idea that came out. It's funny because when people
talk to you about writing a book, they say, oh, you sit down
with an idea and you put together this outline and you
(10:06):
feel that it's not how this happened.
It was kind of like just dumpingon the page, had no idea what I
was doing. Story of my life.
I seem to find myself on this path all the time.
That's the best place to be, somewhere where you have no idea
what you're doing. Oh, and for me, because that's
outside your comfort zone, we only grow outside our comfort
zone. So when I have no idea what I'm
doing, I'm very clearly outside my comfort zone.
(10:27):
So yeah. So at some point, what showed up
for me was the idea of Joseph Campbell's The Hero's Journey.
And for folks who aren't familiar with that, Joseph
Campbell was a writer, philosopher.
And he said that while, yes, allof our journeys are unique,
they're for us. The idea that there are these
stages that we we go through, and I'm not going to go through
(10:51):
all of those. You can, you can read them in
the book. But movies, Grimm's fairy tales,
all of these, they tend to have this arc.
You know, the hero starts on their journey, or rather they're
in their normal life. They hear the call, they resist
the call. Eventually they get their butts
in gear and they break into the unknown.
Then there are these trials and tribulations, and they find
(11:11):
mentors and friends along the way, and they go into the
deepest, darkest cave that they're afraid to enter, and
they conquer their monster. And in the movies, it's
interesting. It's seen as this external force
when really the thing we're conquering is mostly inside
ourselves. So for me, the butterfly has
always resonated. And I have to put a caveat.
(11:32):
I think this is so funny becausemy brother's an entomologist.
OK, So I use butterfly and cocoon because that's what we're
used to. But technically, as he put it,
butterflies come out of a chrysalis.
Moths come out of a cocoon. And I said, yeah, gonna stick
with the butterfly, even though he believes that moths are much
cooler. You know, I have to say I think
(11:55):
moths are underrated, so I can get on board with that.
Well, maybe the next book will be about moths and how they're
and how they're underrated and they're kind of the, you know,
the second class that isn't to the butterfly.
So what I love about the butterfly and as you said we
were talking about earlier that we get so enamored by this
(12:15):
because the butterfly is beautiful and there's this
moment of emergence from the cocoon and that is the Eureka
moment for the butterfly. However, what really happens to
get the butterfly there is obviously we know it starts as a
Caterpillar it we use it's chrysalis cocoon.
And what happens is in that cocoon it dissolves into this
(12:38):
goo like substance, like really dissolves its its current form.
And what I love is that everything that Caterpillar
needs to become a butterfly it brings with it into the cocoon.
So when it dissolves, it is going back down to its
fundamental building blocks. And when those building blocks
(12:59):
are clear, when we understand our building blocks, the
Caterpillar already knows it's building blocks.
We have to discover ours. And then once we understand
that, we can build something new.
We don't have to be caught in the old paradigm, you know, the
old blueprint of our lives. We can construct something new
(13:20):
and that's when we emerge. And so the butterfly coming out
of the cocoon is not transformation, it is the result
of transformation. It is a beautiful result and
everything that Caterpillar was is now in that butterfly.
With what you were saying earlier of like the clicks that
(13:40):
make it so that you actually getto the transformation, the big
moment, but it really is the cliques that are these little
stepping stones to the transformation.
Yep. I love, I always love a good.
I would say this is a metaphor. My aunt was my English teacher,
and if I get that wrong, she's gonna come after me.
But I love this metaphor becauseit gives us something really
(14:03):
tangible to look back on our lives with a little bit more
grace, with a little less pressure.
And I also love how this kind ofcontinues through not only, I
almost want to say there's multiple transformations
throughout life is really what it makes me think of is like
each little click is its own little transformation.
(14:24):
But as you described it, going from the Caterpillar,
Caterpillar to the chrysalis to the butterfly, it's like that's
not one motion. It's like at least three stages
and then all those stages in between.
And then once you're a butterfly, you still have these
huge journeys to go on. I like to say that with each
(14:48):
Caterpillar they only get one journey and 1 butterfly.
But we have infinite journeys. The only end is if we say there
is. And I like that inside every
butterfly is another hungry Caterpillar.
We've talked a little bit about your clicks and transformation
to get to this book. I'm really curious about some of
(15:10):
the early clicks and transformation that got you to
the place in your career of working with so many leaders
that even happened way before you were like, yes, let me put
this into a book. Oh, yes.
Well, that is where the book begins, actually.
I was midway through a PhD program in psychology, and I
(15:32):
loved psychology. I loved the idea of
understanding how we work, how our minds don't work sometimes.
I love studying. I love learning.
And I was miserable because I'd gotten on this path, a path that
wasn't mine to walk, but it was a path that was there.
So I stepped onto it. And I had never considered where
(15:54):
this path was leading me. And I realized it wasn't some
place I wanted to go, but I didn't know any other way.
I didn't know how to get off thepath, and I was stuck in my
comfortable discomfort. I knew I was miserable, but the
idea of stepping into the unknown was big and scary and at
that time very vulnerable to say.
(16:15):
But most of my decisions were based on fear and avoiding
avoiding failure specifically atall costs.
And the problem was I was normally, you know, you're in a
graduate program, you're surrounded by other people who
want to be professors or researchers or or therapists,
whatever they want to do. So the analogy I use, because I
(16:36):
love analogy, is I was on this circus train, this fabulous
train filled with toys and fun, and I hadn't considered where it
was going. And on that train were two types
of groups of people. One was the group, the academics
who were so excited. I have a friend who's a
professor at LSU. She is one of those people.
(16:58):
She loves it. She's great at it.
She could not wait to get to where she was going.
And then there's the other groupwho were stuck like I was, but
they didn't know what else to doeither.
Neither of those groups of people could help me.
Best intentions. People who love that path don't
don't know how to help you get off of it.
People who are stuck don't know how to get themselves off of it.
(17:21):
Yeah. Let alone you.
So. What I said was there are
moments, sometimes tongue in cheek, but that the fear of the
change happens when the fear of the unknown is finally dwarfed
by a looming dread of the scene.Yeah.
And I had this break open moment, and you'll see it more
(17:43):
in the book. I was actually scuba diving in
Bonaire. And I had really resisted going
on this trip because as my gremlins informed me, you don't
know how to scuba dive. Clearly, you don't know how to
learn. Not only could you fail and
drown, but worse, you could lookstupid.
So some clicks happened there that finally something was
pushing me forward. I, I talk about the universe,
(18:05):
you know, however people want toconceive of that.
I also talk about my own subconscious where there's the
me, the true me that was very deep within there that was
trying to get out, was trying totell me something.
So we're on this boat in the middle of the ocean, miles from
shore. I'm certainly not going to be
able to get off the boat and contemplate what could I stay on
(18:26):
the boat and just wait for everybody else to finish.
And I wasn't going to do that one.
It would be humiliating. But again, something was pushing
me, and I finally stepped off the boat.
And once I got under the water, it was just beautiful.
There were fish everywhere, evena Barracuda, which is, you know,
scary. And all of a sudden I laughed
(18:47):
and I had to grab my regulator to keep from drowning because
who laughs in the ocean? And I was filled with this joy.
I was filled with this excitement and this appreciation
for beauty, which I had not feltin a very long time.
And I had convinced myself at that point that we just get to a
(19:08):
point in life where we're not excited anymore, Then we don't
feel joy. We don't do all these things.
And I realized I could feel all of that.
I just didn't feel it about whatI was doing with my life.
And that was kind of the point where I walked, swam across the
threshold before the start of the journey.
(19:29):
That point, there was no turningback.
That's beautiful. Thank you for sharing that.
Because I think a lot of people will see themselves in that and
see their moments of is this what life is?
Maybe life isn't as joyful or like, that's who I really love
to speak to with this podcast aswell, is like that reminder that
(19:52):
you have control to make it a little bit better, even if you
think that's all that's left. Yeah, step off the boat.
And like, if you're already kindof scared and unhappy.
Then you might just be more scared and unhappy in the water.
You might laugh, and that might be scary too, because like you
said, who laughs on in the ocean?
In the ocean, you know, and whenyou say that too, I was talking
(20:14):
to someone the other day that finally had gotten up the
courage. They've been miserable for so
long, and they've gotten up the courage to quit their job.
And they're like, but I'm afraid, you know, they made good
money, the golden handcuffs, allof that.
And they're like, but Rachel, I,I don't think I'll ever find a
job as good as good as this again.
I said, you mean a job that where you're miserable and it's
(20:36):
soul crushing? No, no, I think there are plenty
of jobs out there like that. You could probably, you know,
make even more money by being even more miserable, if that's
your measure. You could do that.
So I think that it's important to watch what our gremlins are
telling us. And, you know, ultimately, our
gremlins are just us. They may be an older version of
us that, you know, long ago thatwas keeping us safe from
(20:59):
something that maybe no longer exists and that doesn't trust
that we are enough to actually overcome that.
But those conversations with ourselves are really good at
lulling us into complacency thatit's OK, that you know, this is
good enough. Anytime you hear yourself say
this, well, this is good enough.That's a red flag.
(21:21):
And we, we love listening to like the the gremlins and we
hate paying attention to the redflags.
And that's, that's the trap. And the trap is that the world
is not keeping us stuck. We are keeping us stuck.
And yes, there are people that have far worse circumstances
than anything I have ever experienced.
(21:45):
I also know people who have had far worse experience than
anything I have experienced and they have made leaps and steps
that are for me absolutely inspirational.
And I watch these people. So as we're on this, I am not
speaking from myself in terms ofbeing able to relate to that
level of struggle, that level ofthe journey and what is set up
(22:09):
against you. I refer to these people that I
know that I have seen that have been able to do that.
And we all have our place. We all start our journeys from
different points and it's not better or worse, but we have to
start from where we are or we'llnever begin.
I love the saying our each individual's person hardest
thing is your hardest thing. And if you can't really compare
(22:34):
what somebody else goes through to what you've gone through,
because as you mentioned, there are people right now going
through things that I will neverbe able to imagine, you know,
praise God. Hopefully we'll never have to
experience and it it again. One, helps us have perspective.
And two, we also have to remind ourselves like our hardest thing
is our hardest thing and it doesn't discount our struggles
(22:56):
and our moments of I don't like my life.
I think it's really easy for a lot of us to feel that pressure
from both sides of seeing peopleonline having this quote UN
quote perfect life or something desirable and then US wanting to
(23:16):
have something different, but atthe same time feeling, oh, but I
should just be grateful. Like I should just say I should
just be grateful. I have food and shelter and
great people around me. Like why?
Why do I get to make a change? Yeah, I don't know about you
remind me, but you are from and live in the Midwest, correct?
I am. I'm from Nebraska, yeah.
(23:38):
And I grew up in Iowa. OK, so I meant to ask you before
we hit record. Yes, absolutely.
And I went to College in Minnesota, grad school in
Missouri, I lived in Wisconsin, Michigan.
So I have pretty much covered the Midwest and that Midwest
humility and need for appreciating what you have is
deeply ingrained in me. And I think I, while I value
(24:01):
that, I value that characteristic, that what I've
been taught, because I do believe we need to be grateful.
Any strength taken too far becomes a weakness.
Yeah. So any, any, anything about,
well, I should just be, I shouldjust be happy with what I have.
Lulls us into complacency that I'm not enough.
Instead of being, you know, having this hubris and, and
(24:22):
being, you know, how fabulous I am, then it becomes I'm not
fabulous. I'm not I, I can't do those
things. So, you know, while all those
values are are important in balance, yes, we have these
moments where we either allow ourselves to stay where we are
because we think we shouldn't want for more and then we don't
(24:43):
believe that we're capable of achieving more.
And those are some of the key pieces that keep us stuck.
This is something I'm really passionate about.
So I live in Omaha and we actually have a huge
entrepreneurship tech startup community.
And it's this big joke that people in Omaha often are like,
(25:04):
there's nothing to do here. Nobody's here, there's no
companies, there's no, and it's just a matter of you need to
look for it. But the other problem there is
we need to be louder. We can still be grateful and be
less humble. And especially as women, women
in tech, women who you know, do want more speaking up and saying
(25:27):
like, yes, I want more talking about money.
This is all things that I'm likevery passionate and like try to
be a force to push, like be louder about you, your
accomplishments. And not even just your
accomplishments, but your desires, what you want, how much
you want to make. And you can be grateful, but you
(25:50):
don't necessarily need to be humble.
And like you said earlier, that taken too far can be a problem.
But I think we're on the low side of the spectrum for
humility where it's like, no, let's let's speak up a little
bit more, be a little louder andshow up for what?
For ourselves and to help other women play more as well.
(26:13):
I think that's a really important piece if we're
uncomfortable with being able tospeak up for ourselves or to be,
you know, because there is a difference between being
arrogant and speaking up and telling our truth and being
proud of ourselves. Yeah, you know, not pride in a
bad way, but we get to be excited about our wins.
We get to be enthusiastic about our goals.
(26:35):
And for some folks out there that that might be initially a
hard step, then reframe it. You are taking that step and
communicating your truth to inspire other people to help
them see, you know, if you know,as a woman, help other women,
young girls see what's possible.Because it's it's like on social
media, the loudest voices are these perfect like worlds.
(26:59):
It's like, how discouraging is that?
So if you're out there and you have your success and you can
share with vulnerability what you are up against all of those
things, then you are modeling and encouraging a whole new
generation of young girls and ofwomen that are already, you
know, in their life full on board.
(27:21):
Maybe they're like halfway through their career and that
they feel stuck too. And they need to know they're
not alone. We all need to know we're not
alone. Yeah, we keep using the word
discomfort. And I wanted to get into this a
little bit more because as you were telling your story leading
up to, you know, being in a PhD program and then that scuba
(27:42):
trip, I was thinking about how I'm almost same but opposite.
Where growing up I was so dead set on being different and
making my life as big as I couldthat I always said, like, I love
discomfort. I'm so good with change, I'm so
(28:02):
good with uncertainty. And I convinced myself of those
things, whether it was true or not, so that I could go out and
make crazy decisions like livingin the Panamanian jungle or
running a marathon in Greece. And like all of these things
that it really propelled me where I was like, I, I thrive
being uncomfortable. Like that's where I want to
(28:24):
spend my time. And kind of like you said, a
strength can be taken too far. And I think that I pushed that
for a long time. It served me well and then I
found myself and now find myselfin that place again of being
like I actually want more comfort in my life.
(28:44):
I want a little bit less of thathardcore all the time
discomfort. This has been a few years of
this now and I think I've gottentoo comfortable in a lot of ways
and work, not necessarily work is very uncomfortable and a lot
of growth there. But for example, I have a 10
mile race on Saturday tomorrow in 2 days that I don't think I'm
(29:06):
going to do because I haven't been training.
And it's this whole kind of I've, I've gone the opposite on
the same kind of roller coaster and started at a different place
of be so uncomfortable. So that I'm growing all the time
and pushing myself and then kindof being like, OK, maybe it's OK
to be comfortable in some areas.And now again, finding my way to
(29:28):
a more intentional, like selection of what, where I want
transformation in my life in this season and where I want to
be uncomfortable and where I need to have a little bit more
comfort so that I can be uncomfortable and, and, you
know, growing in other areas. And I say that because I think
it's so easy for us to go through 1 transformation and
(29:53):
think we're at a landing place and think that landing place and
that growth is the final destination.
And we're sometimes surprised orI know I, I tend to feel a
little shock sometimes when I'm like, wait, I thought I already
did that part. I thought I already grew through
that part. And like what's this next
iteration coming for me now? I love that couple of things
(30:13):
stand out and I have I have a question.
I'm curious because because I I had times in my life where
people thought I was already theperson I am that I needed to
find kind of the braver doing things that my dad would even
say to me. Where did you come from?
Like if you are not like your mother and I, I don't know where
this happened, but even driving ourselves to discomfort for the
(30:35):
sake of driving ourselves to discomfort.
I'm wondering what you weren't comfortable enough with.
Maybe in the comfort or what youknow you were trying to get away
from in that comfort that had you push in ways that maybe or
maybe weren't in service to you.They were just in service to
being different. Yeah, that is such a great
question. And part of it was different for
(30:56):
a different sake, right? Especially growing up and in
high school and college, I saw so many things in the world that
I didn't, did not want. And one of those things that
really I, it's been really cool to like discover in the last
four or five years, one of my driving motivations was to never
let sexism affect me. To never be all these stories
(31:20):
about sexism and mansplaining and all these things and me
being like, I'm going to be so tough and so capable.
It's not that I have to be better than a man, but if a man
ever thinks he's better than me,damn, I'll show you different,
right? And that drove for a long time
not letting sexism affect me. I was like, huh, it affected me
(31:40):
great. Funny.
Like, I'm just like everyone else.
But that really drove this need or craving to go outside the box
to prove myself, prove that I could take care of myself.
And I think the other thing I kind of talk about like tropes
or cliches and people saying, you know, I looked back on my
life and I regretted the things I didn't do more than the things
(32:03):
I did. I just wanted to take extreme
ownership over my life and my happiness.
And there was definitely things with my family that were
uncomfortable that I would. It was so uncomfortable that
nothing else really could be because I have a brother who's
mentally ill. And so like, nothing was ever
going to be worse than that ANYWAYS.
(32:25):
So it wasn't. I also had this thing that like,
nothing else can scare me in life, right?
And he's just like, we're talking about these pieces of
your identity that you hold on to or that you kind of craft for
yourself to build your identity or because you're afraid of
something else or because of theway you're crafting the way you
(32:47):
want to be perceived. I'm an Enneagram 8.
So I just never wanted anybody to perceive me as weak.
And I'll be all. And that's been something that
really the last four years of mylife, I've really deconstructed
to the point where one of my friends a couple weeks ago, I
was like, you know, I don't wantto say you've changed, but I'm
(33:08):
used to you always being this like, tough person who could
handle anything. And I just like want to check
in. You seem really emotional a lot
more often. And I'm like, yes, amazing.
I'm trying to allow that to justcome out and I can still step up
when I need to, but not operating from that level for
the sake of it. Mm hmm.
I love that. And you know it.
(33:30):
It brings up a piece that I talkabout in the book of this idea
that armor, the armor we wear iscustomized to fit.
It is not an off the rack acquisition.
And we build it based on what we're fighting and where we see
our weaknesses. And so we craft this armor and
that isn't all bad. One of the things, to your
(33:52):
point, it's like if you need to go into battle, if you need to
fight for something, armor is absolutely necessary.
I'm not rolling in to battle without tanks and like, you
know, and some good Kevlar or whatever it is.
However, if what we want is connection and closeness to
people, then we need how to figure out how to take off that
(34:14):
armor. That armor has to have like air
quotes, a zipper. It has to have a way that you
can take it on and off. And that's one of the things we
struggle with. Either the world is so raw, we
we feel so raw with the world that we put on the armor and we
never want to take it off. Or we're reacting to something
in a way that we're going out into battle and racing in and we
(34:36):
put our armor on. And the tricky part is being
able to figure out how to get iton when we need it on and how to
take it off when it's too heavy.And it's keeping us from
connecting to people. I'm curious, in the book did you
relate armor to the cocoon or chrysalis?
Because it kind of sounds like this thing we build around us to
(34:58):
protect us, and then again, you have to take it off to flap your
wings. Yes.
So I would say more of. I think that's an excellent
analogy. I didn't use it.
Maybe I'll use it in my next book.
Free to it's yours. So for me, part of Campbell's
then the journey is the trials and tribulations and the things
we're going through. Sometimes we don't even realize
(35:19):
it. And to your point, we have
things in our past I talk about like this kind of switch back to
when I was a kid or to your point, you know, with with your
brother, my mom, my mom was mentally ill.
And so we put on this armor as we go.
And sometimes we don't even realize we're doing it.
And so yes, is it an emergence as part of it?
(35:40):
It is definitely part of the journey.
I, I honestly don't know anybodyout there that doesn't have a
suit of armor, even if not currently on at the ready,
hanging in their closet, you know, whenever battle shows up.
So I think that's part of the and again, there are things
happening outside of us that we,we do protect us.
(36:01):
We want to protect ourselves from the problem is, is that we
are doing that to ourselves, butnot letting go when it's time to
let go. We carry that fear and we feel
the need to protect ourselves from the entire world.
And the problem is, it's pretty lonely in that armor.
Yeah, it's meant to. It's like a wall.
(36:23):
It's meant to keep things out. And for a life that you're
obsessed with, you got to let some things in, even when
they're scary, uncomfortable, especially people, right?
I think that's that's the big one.
Yeah, they're the scariest of all.
Yeah. I want to take us in another
(36:44):
direction before we cap this up because you mentioned a word
that is like one of my favorite words.
My word of 2025 is play. And you mentioned that
transformation is like a playground or you can you can
treat it that way. And I want to hear more about.
This I think it's so important not to take life too seriously.
(37:05):
As I said, it's not that there aren't serious things we have to
go through, and I am not making light of any of that.
But we are so intense and we don't want to give an inch in
terms of how, you know, if we let go, if we laugh for a minute
or if we enjoy ourselves, that somehow we'll lose control.
I think play is extremely important.
And one of the things in the book is at the back I have
(37:27):
what's called a playground. There are exercises you can do,
and like I said, I'm not here totell you that you have to
transform. I'm not even telling you you
have to use the exercises. If all you want to do is read
the book and laugh at my, you know, mistakes and misfortunes,
then do that. Nobody can tell you that.
What I think is important to realize is that play and not
(37:50):
taking things too seriously doesnot mean you're not growing.
It means you're giving yourself permission to experiment, to
fall, to fail, to do all those things, to not feel like I have
to get it perfect every time. And what if life were a game?
And people will say, well, it's not OK, Well, what if it were?
How would you play it? How would you show up?
(38:10):
How would you play with that? And one of the analogies I love,
I don't use it in the book, but when I was a kid, they had
jungle gyms. Do they still have jungle gyms?
They're really safe now. Like if you fall, you kind of
bounce right back up. Yeah, Ours were built over
concrete. Yeah.
No asphalt. No asphalt.
Yeah. So one of the things that always
(38:32):
struck me, and I loved the Jungle gems, is essentially
these things are made out of bars and solder and cement.
You know, cement, at least they're holding it in the
ground, maybe not as the pavement underneath.
But, you know, we all had our challenges.
If you take those same materials, bars, cement,
concrete, you can also make a jail.
(38:53):
It's about how you create the space, how you engage with that
space, that either makes it a prison or it makes it something
absolutely liberating. It's up to you.
Rachel, I have to say I am usingthat.
I am stealing that one. That one is so good.
As soon as you started in on that, I was like this is gold.
(39:14):
I love the idea of a playground and it is no secret.
I tell the story all the time that in 2024 I started to get
really burnt out and it was maybe because my workload, it
was a little higher than I wanted it to be, or there's all
these, you know, maybe it was this, maybe it was that.
And now I'm trying to operate ata really high level running
(39:35):
three companies, like pushing for $1,000,000 companies.
And I'm really cautious again oflike, I need to do more and I
need to continue working at a high level without just do more,
be more mentality. And what's really helped me with
that is treating each company like a playground instead of
(39:56):
this mindset of like, Oh my God,I have to get this right.
I have to get this right. There's no really such thing as
getting it right. And if I just want to, like,
follow one path and get it right, I might get so far, but I
want so much more than that. That doesn't exist yet that my
brain couldn't figure out yet. And the science says that us and
(40:17):
most all other mammals learn by play.
That's how cats and lions like. They play fight with each other
and that's how they learn socialcues and how to engage and how
to provide for themselves. And it's how human kids learn
too, is through play and imagination.
And so I'm really leaning into this concept of treat each
(40:41):
business like a playground. If I start to get a little too
stressed or feel the pressure a little too much, how can I take
a step back and just dream? And like you said about life,
OK, Treat it like a game. If I was playing Monopoly and I
was dead set on winning, I gottafind some stuff in here.
I gotta read the room and see what everyone else is doing and
know who I'm playing against andget a little bit more fun and in
(41:05):
that sense, competitive instead of getting so fearful that like,
Oh my gosh, I'm going to lose, I'm going to fail.
Yeah, you're going to and they'll be another game and
we'll keep going. But that has really helped me in
the last year to be able to not fall into that whole burnout
cycle and work too much. It allows me to take that step
back and say, you know what, I'mnever going to get?
(41:28):
This is never going to go further if I hold on with an
iron class iron grip instead of taking a step back, going and
playing breathing and seeing howI can look at it differently.
I love that and it's your point.It's so resonating in the play.
I just started reading the book play and I can't think of who
the author is right off the top of my head.
We can put that in the show notes and they're saying the
(41:48):
same thing that we it's not evenjust mammals.
But to your point, you know, they find birds play, they find
even kind of lower level animals.
They're, you know, it's how theydefine what play is.
And I do think it's important toopen that up.
And to your point, I've heard you say in other podcasts that
they're kind of measuring it by like, is this a purposeless kind
(42:09):
of activity? And what I love about that is,
and, you know, they talk about in the book that somebody has to
define the purpose that, you know, OK, there's evolutionary
kind of aspects to this. That's great.
We learn how to do this. But fundamentally, we find these
things that just bring us joy. And they it's not specific that
they're getting us to a particular place.
They're not achieving a specificgoal.
(42:31):
And I think that's also why, youknow, we get so locked into that
linear part of our brain. That's why when we go take a
shower, we have these ideas because we've actually backed
off from it. It's when we go take a bike ride
or we go to a trampoline park, which I did.
I love that story. Yeah, that's that's a whole.
That's another story for anotherday.
But trying to do things that youlet go, that jungle gym that
(42:55):
you're opening up, that space that you're not keeping yourself
within, those rigid bars, which are very narrow by the way,
because they're meant to keep you inside.
They're meant to keep you lockedup.
You've built it, but it's meant to keep you locked up and on the
straight and narrow. And you go to the jungle gym,
you go to play and the space opens, opens what's possible.
And then you go back and maybe you bring some of that, maybe
(43:18):
you have inspiration and maybe you don't.
But at least you let go for a while and it re energizes you to
come back into other parts of your life.
And it's what you mentioned in the beginning of this episode,
allowing those little clicks andallowing the time that it takes
instead of trying to force this transformation.
When you're talking about these narrow bars that would be like a
(43:41):
jail cell. That's actually exactly how my
brain feels. I say my brain feels
claustrophobic where it's just like the skull around my brain
is like so much smaller. And this is how I think about it
is when I'm feeling that way, where it's so small, I almost
have no space to even think of anything else.
(44:02):
I know I'm like, I have to get out in big spaces.
I have to get outside where there's no ceiling.
I need to go on a walk. I need to just do anything that
basically it makes my skull feelbigger and like there's more
space for me to just exist and not necessarily think.
And I can't quote the case studyor the science behind this, but
(44:24):
a handful of years ago I read, Idon't know, it might have even
just been a Facebook post telling me that there was a case
study about something. But that there is something to
be said about if you want to do really black and white technical
math problems, be in a really small space with a really low
ceiling because your brain is gonna stay in that space.
And if you wanna go be visionaryand have imagination, get
(44:47):
outside or get where there's really high ceilings because
your brain also will take up that space.
And whether it's true or not, that way of thinking has really
served me. Absolutely.
And I think even to build on that, what I find is when we put
ourselves in different spaces that could be traveling across
the world, it could be going down to the coffee shop.
(45:08):
We as human beings, we habituate, which basically means
we get used to whatever is happening around us and and it
serves us. For example, think about the
clothes and how they feel in your back.
Think about your feet on the floor or your butt on a chair.
Your brain needs to get used to that.
So it's it's not focusing on that all the time and so it can
focus on other things. So it's very helpful for that.
(45:29):
The problem is it also happens on a larger scale where we get
used to the same environment. We get into these routines, we
don't challenge them and they become easy, which is a trap
now. Good, easy when they need to be
easy, but again, taken too far. And so when we take ourselves
out of those situations, by definition we have to be more
(45:50):
present. We have to see what's going on.
I used to love travelling to India for work and the color of
like the clothing and everything.
And I always joke with my colleagues there that in India,
driving is a contact sport. So I did not drive.
It's not a good idea. No, it is.
But even watching traffic and crossing the street and doing
(46:12):
all that, I always felt more present when I was there because
I had to be more vigilant. But it felt so good to be
grounded as opposed to, you know, I'm a Netflix person too.
It's like I, I use some escapism, YouTube, whatever.
And that can't be too much again, taken, taken too far.
So getting out again of the comfort zone, if it's our
(46:32):
office, our house, you know whatwe're doing, it forces us to
think differently. It forces us to be present in a
different way. It we're, we're surrounded by
new information and that may spark new things, you know, get
out, get outside or go someplacelike a trampoline park or other
places, you know, that works foryou.
I, I do love travel. And it doesn't take away from
(46:54):
the fact that sometimes going to, you know, like I said, a new
restaurant or going to a coffee shop, that's new too.
And so all of those things help us break open our mind.
They help us get more creative. It's not a waste of time.
It's about living a fuller life and also living a fuller self in
(47:16):
terms of even what your capacityis for greatness.
I love I'm bringing together like 5 things you said today,
but it's about doing those things that are going to make
you feel grounded and feel alive.
And sometimes that's why we do something uncomfortable or
unusual or go to a new country or a new coffee shop so that you
(47:37):
can, again, be grounded. There's evidence that new
experiences actually slow your brain down.
It has to do with, like, the amount you blink and things.
I'm really not a scientist. My sister got all the science
and data, memory genes. And I just repeat things that I
hear that I'm like, OK, that works for me.
Yeah, I like it. But I love that because it is
(48:00):
when you're feeling, you know, like you felt in that PhD
program of like, OK, I don't really know where I'm going
here. Go somewhere where you don't
know where you're going and justfeel alive a little bit and let
your brain just take in what's around it and feel grounded.
And then maybe it'll start subconsciously to unravel the
rest of things in life. But I was going to say to you
(48:23):
when you do that, because I think going back to the fear of
some people may be sitting out there, it's like, Oh, no, that's
scary, this and this. And yeah, it is scary.
And if you're doing something that feels scary, if you take
the mindset, just play a game with yourself and think about
what would it be? What would this experience look
like if I thought this was fun? If.
I experienced this as fun. What would this look like?
(48:44):
What would I feel like? And imagining yourself that you
know, they talk about envisioning your life, all of
that. And this is in the moment.
Imagine yourself feeling something different and see what
shows up. Yeah, I love that.
I have a few more questions for you.
Sure. I want to know what you're
currently obsessed with. And since we're talking about
(49:05):
play and new things, I want to know what you're obsessed with
when it comes to play. How are you incorporating that
side into your life, into your work these days?
You know, I think what I'm obsessed with most of the time
is this is gonna sound funny, but it is about doing things
that I know I'm never going to get good at.
(49:27):
I have no intention of getting good at.
So I will try something like doing some kind of art I or
which, you know, and, and again,it's not that.
If I were to put in the hours, could I get better?
Of course I could. Am I ever going to be a concert
pianist or am I ever going to be, you know, Picasso?
No, I'm not and I don't want to be.
But watching yourself in those moments, I've, I've picked up
(49:50):
instruments that I, you know, trying to play for a little
while. And there's this weird
experience of when you get to that point where all of a sudden
your hands take off without you.That's fascinating.
And then of course, when you realize that consciously, then
you you screw up. But being in those places where
just trying things and that's that are fun or and knowing that
(50:10):
I have no expectation that I'm ever going to be good at this or
that there's ever a purpose. I just love that.
And I love doing things that are, you know, that other people
think are ridiculous, but that Ipersonally feel really.
So one of the things that I did was I purchased a rhino in a
bathtub. Now I'm like.
(50:32):
At the thrift store. Like where did you find a rhino
in a? Bathtub and I'm gonna forget
these artists names. I should send them to you so we
could also put them in the show notes.
They they create these beautiful, fun, whimsical, they
have these great expressions. They're animals that are, you
know, kind of on the safari, rhinos, hippos, giraffes, all
that kind of thing. But they put them doing very
pedestrian, mundane things like driving a car or taking a bath
(50:55):
or doing all these things. And years ago, I was at a trade
show in Las Vegas with a friend of mine, and we were at the Win.
And we were walking by all thesestores and they had these little
pillars kind of out in the middle.
And on top of each pillar, therewas a little glass case.
And in them would be some jewelry or something the
different stores were selling. So they're like, oh, look at
(51:17):
this buy me. And it's about, about this big.
I mean, that maybe doesn't look on the video.
I for those of you who can't seeit, it's not 2 feet long, 2 feet
long, 2 feet tall. It is not a small rhinoceros.
And I saw him and at the time, I, I just couldn't justify
spending the money for art. And I told my friend, someday
I'm going to write a book and when I do, I'm going to buy that
(51:40):
rhinoceros. I did.
And I, I texted her and I said, and I over the years, I checked
in on him making sure that they were, you know, he might still
be available. And that to me is, I think it's
whimsy. It's whimsy that I am obsessed
with. I love doing little things.
I was trying to look around here.
I've got, I've got stuff all over that just makes me smile
(52:01):
Here, here's vulnerability. I keep him around.
He's a pen. I love it and it makes me smile.
You know, it's funny because we have like different things.
People would call it an eclecticstyle in our house.
And a friend of mine's like, oh,wow, you know, do you,
Pinterest, how do you find this?And I said, no, we find stuff we
like and then we find a place toput it.
(52:22):
So that's what works. Yeah.
So. And I don't remember your second
question. Yeah, no, that covers that
covers the first one. My one of our guests on the
podcast via she I've always loved her home and she recently
moved and is doing something really cool building a artist
commune. So it's only getting cooler and
(52:42):
cooler, but hers was the 1st house I was ever in where I was
like, this is a literal museum. I could spend hours in here and
always find something new every time I come a new book, a new
piece of art. And I love that it especially I,
I went there in the time of social media and like art
minimalism, when that was all going on and everything was
(53:04):
greyish and there's no color on any children anywhere.
And so I think it just puts so much personality and it reminds
you like you can be sitting at work and then look up and be
like, Oh my gosh, I love this pen.
Like, let me just, you know, fidget spinner it for a little
while, get out of my head a little bit, have a little bit
more joy in life. It's like you said, when I when
(53:26):
I describe what play is, I'm trying to find words to really
describe it. And joyful and unproductive is
one way. Since then, I've heard somebody
say unnecessary, it's just unnecessary.
Let me go color because I can. Not because I need to, but
because I'm like, OK, I'd ratherdo that than something else
right now. And that's what I love about the
(53:48):
pin with the furry blue butt andhead that you just showed.
It's so unnecessary and that's what makes it amazing.
Yes. The only criterion for me and so
much of what I do is does it make me laugh?
Does it bring me joy? Is it whimsical?
And everything around me has a story.
There is nothing in this house that I purchased that doesn't or
(54:11):
even that just exists. I mean, other than things like
my washer and dryer, which I'm quite honest, do not bring me
joy. Although you know that compared
to beating it on a rock probablydoes bring me joy that.
One time or one or two times might bring you a lot more joy.
That's true. That might, yeah.
Maybe not the same sense of whimsy that it is.
And you surround yourself by this.
And I love to laugh. And for me it is such everyday.
(54:34):
There's a there's a book, it's called like I'm going to forget
it and I'm sure I have it here, but it's essentially written by
these folks at work at Stanford.One's a full time professor and
the other one came from improv and now teaches and they teach
this idea of, you know, kind of happiness and, and how it
applies in business and in life.And they teach it in the MBA
program. And one of the things they do is
(54:56):
the first, the first day that they do it, they have these
people fill out a sheet and theyask them questions about
happiness, about joy, about laughter.
And then they say, well, when was the last time that you
laughed out loud? And people struggle with this
question. And my thought is, I don't know.
What time is it? Yeah, like 5 minutes ago. 5
minutes ago maybe, You know, half an hour sometime today.
(55:19):
I wasn't keeping track. I have another obsession
question for you and this I feellike is a similar question and
we might go in a similar direction that we just went.
But what is filling your cup andwhat are you learning from?
Like who do you look to? What books, podcast,
entertainment is filling your cup lately?
(55:40):
So I think it's a balance. I think, you know, obviously I
have kind of the work stuff thatis going on in podcasting,
what's going on in coaching or what's going on in general.
And then I go back to humor and there is a podcast.
This is so silly. It's called Films to be Buried
With OK. No, I've never heard of films.
To be buried with So it is by Brett Goldstein, who played in
(56:03):
Ted Lasso. Oh.
My gosh love absolutely obsessedwith him.
Love it. He hosts this and it's like he
could do any podcast about films, but there's a lot of
them. So to distinguish himself, he
has this kind of framework and it's basically his.
His guests come on his show, he tells them they've died, they're
going to heaven. It's filled with the happiest
stuff. Whatever they like, they're
(56:24):
their favorite things. They talk about their favorite
things and then he has a series of questions that the person
gets to tell their life through film.
And what happens as a result is they start talking about just
their life around these pillars.So he starts off with, what's
the first film you ever saw? And then goes to what's the
funniest? What made you cry?
(56:45):
What's your favorite? What's the one you that you love
that nobody else does, but you're, you're committed.
And I, I have a list and I keep reworking my list someday when
he invites me on that, so I am going to be ready.
And it's, it's just, it drops every Wednesday and every
Wednesday I listen to the next episode and it just brings me
(57:05):
joy. I to your point, I love him and
he's a great host. A lot of those comedians I find
and not disparaging them, There are a lot of comedians I really
like, but they're not good interviewers because they're
used to just laughing and, and doing that.
And he does this lovely balance of both.
And so it's, and then at the end, the, the last question he
(57:27):
asks is, OK, there's only room in the casket for, for one
video. What do you take across?
And it's it's just fascinating to watch people's lives unfold
through something so simple as what movies do you like?
That is getting added to my list.
Right now I only have a couple non businessy podcasts that I've
been listening to and lately I feel like I've heard all their
(57:50):
episodes and I'm like, like you said, I'm waiting for them to
drop each week and I need some more silly fun, just joyful
content to throw on in the background.
And so I'm gonna give that one ago.
Good. Excellent.
I could sit here and talk to you.
There's so many more things I want to talk about, but I'm
gonna bring this all home. So, Rachel, how can people buy
(58:14):
your book, connect with you, work with you?
1st, I can go to my website for the book.
It's butterflygoobook.net. And there are links where you
can buy it on Amazon. You can buy it on Barnes and
Noble. The great thing is you can
probably buy it anywhere. Just search for Butterfly goo
book when you go on to Amazon because otherwise you get a
bunch of stuff that really is about butterflies and goo and
(58:36):
other things like that. So if you look at
butterflygoobook.net, so you canfind it.
So yeah, it's it's out there. It's in the world.
Amazing, I cannot wait to read it.
I am like add to cart right now.This has been such a joy.
And the last time I laughed was about 30 seconds ago.
So I think we're doing good on our laugh quota for the day.
(58:58):
Thank you so so much for coming on the Becoming Obsessed
podcast. And if you're still listening
then please let us know. Reach out to Rachel or me.
You can find me at Becoming Obsessed pod on Instagram.
I've been saying this lately, but seriously, send me a voice
note because I want to hear whatyou found that you laughed at in
(59:22):
this episode or what you're currently obsessed with and
what's filling your cup.
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