April 3, 2025 • 53 mins
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Kasey Lee shares her transformative journey from small-town English teacher to Director of Training and Development for the city of Chicago. Her story reveals how professional disappointment became the catalyst for complete reinvention, challenging limiting beliefs and embracing uncertainty.
• Moving from a town of 3,000 to a city of 3.6 million after being passed over for a promotion
• Overcoming the "bitter seed" of rejection by making a radical life change
• Applying to nearly 100 positions before landing the first city job
• Progressing through three job changes in three years, each representing career advancement
• Navigating hypersomnia (chronic sleepiness) while building a successful career
• Finding unexpected benefits in city living and community connection
• Recognizing that moving through limiting beliefs often requires taking action despite fear
Listen to yourself, trust your instincts, and don't be afraid to make changes even when they seem terrifying. As Kasey says, "I know I can do it because I did it."
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Mary (00:05):
Welcome to No Shrinking Violets.
I'm your host, Mary Rothwell,licensed therapist and certified
integrative mental healthpractitioner.
I've created a space where wecelebrate the intuition and
power of women who want to breakfree from limiting narratives.
We'll explore all realms ofwellness, what it means to take
up space unapologetically, andhow your essential nature is key
(00:28):
to living life on your terms.
It's time to own your space,trust your nature and flourish.
Let's dive in.
Hi and welcome to the show.
What would you do if you knewyou could not fail?
You've probably heard thatbefore.
(00:48):
Or life begins at the edge ofyour comfort zone, or a ship in
the harbor is safe, but that'snot what ships were built for.
Of course, that last one has awicked sentence structure, but
you get the point.
We should not be afraid to pushourselves.
Often, when we decide to takeup our space, it involves
discomfort.
While the catchy, inspirationalsayings are great to drop into
(01:10):
a social media post, they can beeye rollers when we are
actually pushing throughsomething tough to get to the
other side.
Even when we know something isright, we have that sense of
internal congruence.
It is rarely, if ever, easy togrow into our true selves.
Internal congruence, by the way, is when we just feel a little
(01:31):
click, when something we thinkor want to do seems to slide
into place in our hearts, whenhow we act is aligned with what
we feel, even if it's scary.
And that's what can beconfusing.
When we actually do want tostep past our comfort zone or
sail into uncharted waters, wecan feel scared, heck, terrified
(01:53):
.
But that doesn't mean weshouldn't do it.
Our brains are wired to alertus to danger, but the difficult
part of having our powerful,developed human brain is that
many times it sends a falsealarm.
Any change involves risk, right,but growth is change, and
plants because y'all know Ialways go to plant examples get
(02:17):
stronger when they need towithstand challenges as they
grow, as they grow.
For example, if you plant atray of tomato seeds, you need
to put those little seedlingsoutside for a week or so to
experience the real world beforeyou plant them in the ground.
This is called hardening off,and it gives them the best
chance to thrive.
You should even gently brushyour hand across them often, so
(02:39):
they get used to yielding andbouncing back.
And did you ever notice?
It's the big, hard-trunkedtrees that blow over in the
storm Saplings.
Baby trees have trunks that aremuch more bendy so that they
can withstand winds and rain asthey grow.
Being resilient is the oppositeof being rigid and, by the way,
(03:02):
fear is usually a liar.
So the key to making a changeis to listen to your essential
nature.
What do you truly want for you?
Not what makes sense to yourbest friend, susie, or what gets
the most likes on socials, orespecially what is the safest.
It's your dang life, and onlyyou know what you're truly
(03:25):
capable of and what you wantinside.
So let's get to our episode fortoday, which is all about
change and taking up your space,even when you are scared or
part of you is whispering.
But what if I can't do it?
Today I'm going to talk to myfriend, Kasey Lee, one of the
kindest, most genuine humans Iknow.
I'm privileged to have her inmy life.
(03:48):
I met Kasey when we enrolled inthe same PhD program.
Little did we know then that wegrew up less than half a mile
from one another.
As I got to know her, I wasinspired by her sense of justice
and care for humanity, herability to see what was right
and act on it, and not gonna lieher amazing baking ability.
(04:10):
Kasey also loves both opera andwomen's pro sports, and she
shares my passion for themes ofgender socialization and support
of women living fully andtaking up their space in the
world.
She has truly been one of mymost supportive friends in my
own life journey.
On a more professional note,casey has a degree in
(04:30):
communications and two master'sdegrees.
To give you an idea of herfunky, cool mind, her master's
thesis was on the uniquelanguage register of Central
Pennsylvania race car drivers.
Kasey, someday I must ask youhow you came up with that.
She is currently a PhDcandidate working on her
dissertation on male allyshipbehaviors in the workplace.
(04:53):
She was born and raised in thesame small town as me and moved
to Chicago, illinois, in 2021,where she currently resides with
her husband, her cat Daisy andher dog Ollie.
Just for the record, our littlehometown currently has fewer
than 3,000 people.
Chicago has a population ofover 3.6 million.
(05:14):
Talk about change.
Anyway, within three years ofmaking the move to Chicago,
Kasey changed jobs three timesall promotions and is currently
the Director of Training andDevelopment for the entire city
of Chicago.
That means that she overseestraining for 10 times the number
of people that make up theentire town where we grew up.
(05:35):
Today, we're going to talkabout her journey and how she
successfully overcame limitingnarratives and false beliefs to
cultivate a mindset ofpossibility and abundance.
Welcome to No Shrinking Violets, Kasey.
I've so been looking forward toour talk today,
Kasey (05:51):
Thank you, Mary.
I'm so excited to talk with youtoo.
Mary (05:56):
So I wanted to talk to you today because, first, let's be
honest you moved to Chicago andI miss your face.
But beyond that selfish reason,as I said in the intro, I
really want people to hear yourstory.
So many of us don't think ourstory is remarkable, but when we
take a step back and thinkabout what we've accomplished, I
(06:16):
think it really is remarkable.
So first give us an idea whatwas happening in your life that
created this fertile ground forthe decision you made over the
past few years?
Kasey (06:28):
Sure.
So so much of my life is sodifferent now than what it was
in 2021 and even in the fewyears leading up to 2021.
And a lot of things just put mein the right place, I guess, to
(07:21):
make this-risk girls that metbefore school once a week I want
to say in 2017 or 2018.
I can't remember.
It's been a while and I startedthat program with the idea that
I was on my way to becoming anadministrator for my school
district, and that would be, youknow, the next step in my
(07:41):
career path.
I always wanted to have a PhD,always.
I didn't always want to be ateacher that's something I just
sort of fell into but I didalways want a PhD, and so I
wanted to make sure thatwhatever I studied was bigger
than education, and so that'swhy I chose the administration
(08:03):
and leadership studies program.
But all of that to say that'swhat was happening in my life.
When COVID happened, I was inthe PhD program, wrapping up my
coursework, and work had alreadybeen so challenging, being an
English teacher who taught a lotof writing, intensive courses.
(08:25):
I taught a course that gotcollege credit for students at
the local community college, andI was constantly grading.
I felt like it was myresponsibility to make sure that
I was giving students a ton ofwriting feedback and always
updating my lesson plans andalways doing creative new thing,
and it was draining me quite abit.
(08:47):
So once COVID happened, it justmade things even harder and I
just thought I think I'm readyto move into an administrator
role where I could do more goodand try to make teachers' lives
better so that they didn't feelso stressed.
(09:08):
And at the end of 2020, at theend of that school year, 2020,
so summertime, june, july itbecame clear that there was
going to be a position for adean of students that opened up
in my district and I was readyto apply for that role.
(09:29):
I felt I was the right person.
I already have I already had atthe time, my administrator
certification.
I had a master's degree in Iforget the exact title of it
leadership for teaching andlearning or something like that,
but a master's of educationthat you would take if you were
going to be a schooladministrator.
So I felt you know, verycompetent and ready for this
(09:51):
role obviously in a PhD programat the same time and I applied
for that position and I thoughtyou know I was the right person
for the job.
I was not selected for thatposition.
There were two other people whohad applied for that role and
(10:14):
one of the other candidates forthat position was another woman
in my department who also wasgoing through a principal
program to get her certificationBrilliant, high-functioning,
type A personality, a lot likeme.
And the third applicant was amale teacher who also happened
(10:34):
to be my best friend, but Iwouldn't necessarily call him
the most qualified person forthe job.
Job, but he did get thatposition.
That experience devastated me.
I knew my capability as Englishdepartment chair for seven
years.
I knew what value I brought tothat district and to the school
(10:58):
and I knew the capability of theother two teachers in the
running and it just shook mycore.
It was hard to navigate betweenknowing in my heart that I was
the most qualified person forthe job and then feeling like,
well, I must not be because theydidn't pick me.
(11:19):
But at the same time I was justbeginning my journey for my
dissertation which, as you know,is on male allyship behaviors
in the workplace, and I read somuch about so many women being
denied positions or, you know,not being able to move up.
And it had been an intellectualpursuit up until then, and then
(11:42):
, at that moment, it became myreality and so it was very hard
not to assume or not to startbelieving.
It must be that I'm not goodenough.
Like why?
Why didn't I show them I wasgood enough?
So it kind of planted.
I describe it as my bitter seed.
It planted a bitter seed andthe school year started.
(12:07):
The 2020-2021 school yearstarted and just walking into
the building, I was a differentperson and I told my husband
like I can't work here anymore.
I cannot walk down the hall andfeel this way.
And you know, I always told mystudents like you could do, you
(12:27):
can always change your mind LikeI taught seniors.
For the most part, I loveteaching seniors.
They're at like the precipiceof a new part of their lives and
they're so excited.
And many of them are veryworried about choosing a major
and picking a college or pickinga tech school or what job
they're going to do, and theyhave this limiting belief that,
(12:47):
well, whatever I pick right now,when I'm 18 years old, that's
what I'm going to be until I die.
And I would always tell themlike you can change your mind
there's no rule, like no one isholding you to what you thought
you wanted to be when you were18 years old.
That's crazy.
So, but I wasn't giving myselfthat same space to say I could
(13:10):
change my mind.
Um, and there was a.
It's funny that you startedthis episode saying the what if?
What would you do if you knewyou couldn't fail?
That year there was a like treethat somebody had painted on
the glass in the cafeteria andpeople put different like
(13:30):
inspirational quotes on leavesthat they stuck all over this
tree and I had lunch duty and Iwould stare at this tree and one
of the leaves was like whatwould you do if you couldn't
fail?
And I would be like not be here, I would leave, I would leave
this and I would look at itevery day.
It's like, like you said, it'ssuch a corny, inspirational
(13:52):
quote, but I would look at itevery day at lunch duty and be
like, what am I doing?
I have to do something else.
So I did talk to my husbandabout like I've got to go, but
how can I look for another job?
I'm working myself to deathteaching and grading, and then
I've got my PhD work when I gethome from work and it was 2020
(14:18):
to 2021, my school district wasopen every day.
Students could choose to learnfrom home, but we were in person
, and so everything I did I hadto rework to figure out how to
teach hybrid synchronously.
So I had students that werecalling in and they installed
cameras in our classroom so thatwe could do like live video
(14:40):
feeds to the kids that didn'tcome in, while also teaching the
live students who were in frontof us, and so I was also
rewriting all of my plant.
I was like there's no way Icould possibly look for another
job while I'm doing all of this,and my husband was struggling
at work with some personalitydifferences, with some of his
colleagues as well, and hethought, okay, I'll look for a
(15:03):
job.
And so we started out by saying, well, where do we want to go?
And I said, I don't care, itcan be anywhere.
Pick a place.
And so that's sort of the firstimpetus that led to being in
Chicago today.
Mary (15:24):
Yeah, wow, you know, it's funny because that feeling of
knowing that you are the bestperson for a job and not getting
it, I can really relate.
And it's funny because I canalso relate to the feeling of
like, in retrospect, many timesI think, thank goodness I didn't
(15:48):
get that, absolutely yeah.
And at the time though, it canbe so demoralizing, time though
it can be so demoralizing.
And I think the thing that somepeople really believe is that
success is linear.
And it's totally not linear.
And when we have things thathappen where it really like I
(16:13):
can't remember your exact words,but it shook you a lot to
recognize that the person thatwas awarded the job wasn't the
best person.
And it's interesting too,because I talked recently to
somebody who was struggling witha college decision decision and
(16:33):
I said you understand thatcollege admission decisions have
a very large kind of chunk ofsubjectivity.
You know, I think when we givesomeone else the power to make a
decision for our future, itreally is.
We can really believe that, oh,I guess I wasn't the best and
(16:54):
that's just patently false a lotof times.
So you really had to move pastwhat happened, because knowing
where you ended up now it's like, oh my gosh, look what happened
(17:35):
.
Because you didn't get what youwanted at the time, and I love
that story.
And I love that story.
And you know the other thingthey have almost 100% of the job
, the parts of the job they needto feel like I can do 100% of
this job, and I think for menit's typically like 65%.
(17:55):
So we set a higher bar, I think, going in.
And so, yes, that was obviouslya very pivotal moment for you.
So when you got to the pointwhere you were like, all right,
let's pull up stakes, I don'tcare where we go, how did you
settle on Chicago?
Kasey (18:13):
I think really having that bitter seed growing allowed
me to say like I don't care.
I'm definitely the kind ofperson when someone has hurt me
or harmed me, I probably go toofar in my reaction to like, well
, I'll show them, I'll spitethem, and that's not a healthy.
(18:37):
I would not necessarily tellyour listeners to embrace that
attitude, but that's where I wasat the time.
I wouldn't say I'm there todayas my husband started looking
around for positions around thecountry.
I said you know, I don't carewhere we live really what had
(19:12):
happened a few years leading upto this moment.
So many people in my family hadmoved away, first after he
graduated from college, and thensome years went by and after we
got married, my husband'sfamily moved to Vermont and then
to South Carolina.
Then only my parents were leftin my small town, right as you
(19:32):
were saying that.
We grew up in and they movedaway to Alabama.
I ended up moving back into thehouse I grew up in and they
moved away to Alabama.
I ended up moving back into myhouse.
I grew up in and lived therewith my husband until we moved.
But we were the last people andso there wasn't anything
keeping me there.
But there wasn't any particularplace to go either, because my
family was all over the country,as was my husband, so it was
(19:52):
like take your pick.
As was my husband, so it waslike take your pick.
So he applied to all kinds ofplaces.
He had job offers in a numberof places, as well as being near
the end of the process where itseemed like he was going to get
a job offer, but he hadn'theard anything yet.
We had New York, delaware,atlanta and Chicago were sort of
(20:15):
like the four big finalists.
Now we're offering himpositions, and so we were just
sort of waiting to see, like,well, I guess we'll pick the one
that offers the most money.
And as he was going throughthat process, it turned out that
most of them offered the sameamount of money and it was like,
well, what's a cool place tolive?
I guess Chicago.
(20:36):
I think the job interested hima little more.
It seemed more interesting andI was happy to go wherever.
So my very first time in Chicagowas the day we drove out here
to find an apartment.
So we had already decided wewere moving here, sight unseen,
(20:57):
um, and I was terrified.
I mean terrified.
I wanted to move, don't get mewrong.
I was excited to start this newthing and to leave this part
that had hurt me behind.
But coming here to look forapartments and knowing no one
and just showing up was so scaryand we knew wherever we were
(21:24):
going to be was going to be asmall apartment and we had a
whole house and a lifetimetogether of stuff collected, and
so we sold a lot, we threw alot away, we downsized to hardly
anything, and that was veryemotional.
And then, coming out here tolook for an apartment.
We drove out on a long weekendI think it was Easter weekend
(21:46):
2021.
And the very first thing we didwhen we got here I wanted to
see Lake Michigan.
I'd never seen any of the GreatLakes before and, like standing
there and looking out at LakeMichigan, I was like, oh, it's
beautiful, I can be here, I cando this.
(22:06):
It was cold I mean, it was theend of April and it was cold
still in Chicago and I thought,well, that's going to be
different.
But the trees were starting tobud and the lake was the
prettiest color of aqua blue I'dever seen.
And, yeah, we said, okay, thiswill be our place.
And then, after we looked atsome apartments with some
(22:30):
realtor I just picked, you know,randomly off the internet to
take us around and look atplaces.
You know, we chose an apartment.
Our first apartment was in theneighborhood called West Loop.
We sat in a park after lookingat all of the different places
and said, okay, well, which onedo we want?
And we chose our apartment andthen drove all the way back home
(22:50):
in a whirlwind weekend tour ofChicago.
Mary (22:53):
Oh, my, oh, my gosh.
That's a that is a great story.
I knew parts of that.
I never heard all the details,but it's funny because getting
to know you through the PhDprogram, where you know you're
together for hours at a time andyou really you know I think you
get to know each other in adifferent way than if you just
(23:16):
like meet socially or in a jobsituation, because you're
learning and you figure outpeople's strengths and their
weaknesses.
And one of the things thatstruck me is how hard you work
and, having gotten a teachingdegree in English, that's how I
started my whole career.
I never I only student taught,I never actually had my own
(23:38):
classroom.
But you're right, when youreally want people to improve
something like writing, you feellike you have to give a lot of
feedback and to do the job ofteaching well.
It's very, very difficult and,casey, you don't do anything, as
my dad used to say, half-assed,I mean.
I feel like you show up and Icould tell you were exhausted.
(24:03):
And so I have this theory thatwhen life feels like you should
be making a change, it starts bytapping you on the shoulder and
then it might like nudge youwith its elbow and then
eventually it like smacks youacross the head and I think for
you, I think that job situationbecause you're also very loyal.
So you were teaching in thesame district where you grew up.
(24:24):
You know small town, and Ithink you needed to have
something.
That was that difficult, almostlike a betrayal right.
Kasey (24:34):
Yes, yes.
Mary (24:36):
And I think you needed something like that to say, okay
, that it's enough's enough,let's just do it.
And I'm glad you said you wereterrified because you know have
I saw you a little bit andpeople.
She also gave me a lot of freestuff.
I have her dining room table,by the way, in my house right
now, but you know watching youon that part of your journey.
(24:59):
So we grew up in kind of arural area.
You had a yard, you know,pretty quiet, and when you
talked about your apartment andyou have, you know you have your
dog, ollie, and I'm like howare they going to do this?
But never having really a doubtthat you were going to do it,
but you changed pretty muchevery single thing that could be
(25:21):
changed with this move.
I think it's interesting.
Of course we have you and Ihave friends in common and
there's one that I see a lothere back here in Pennsylvania
and when we were talking aboutthis promotion which, by the way
, is so totally cool I rememberweirdly feeling like, well, of
course, casey became director oftraining and development for
(25:43):
the entire city of Chicago acouple years after she moved
there.
But then the other part of mybrain was like wait, like our
Casey is director of trainingand development for the entire
city of Chicago, of training anddevelopment for the entire city
of Chicago, and I really had toremind myself that that's an
amazing accomplishment in theoverall scheme of life.
Because you know, when I thinkof it with you, of course, that
(26:08):
would happen Like I had no doubt.
But you know, we always havepeople in our lives.
I think that we expect toachieve really cool things and
you're one of those people.
But when I look at it to meit's like, yeah, I can see
totally why that would happen soquickly for you, but in that
whole process, did you have toovercome something like a
(26:31):
limiting belief in yourself tobe able to inhabit this space ?
Absolutely, You'reYes, when we first moved here,
well, first of all, obviously,my husband had the job.
(26:53):
I didn't have a job.
I finished teaching.
I think my last day at work wasJune 9th.
We drove to Chicago on June10th, of course you did, and so
I had no job.
I'm very near to the end of theschool year.
I threw out a couple ofapplications from Pennsylvania
(27:14):
to Chicago, but I wasn'tsearching seriously because I
was still teaching and, you know, wrapping up my life in that
part of the country, and so whenwe first moved, my job was to
find a job.
I had a little cushion becauseI was teaching.
You could choose.
I don't know if people knowthis, but if you're a teacher,
you can choose to either be paidthe year, the months that you
(27:35):
work so 10 months a year you getpaid or you can choose to have
it spread out to 12 months.
I always chose the 12 monthoption to make it easier to
budget things, and so I knew,even though I my last day at
work was June 9th.
I would continue to get paidthrough the end of August.
So I was like, okay, I have tofind a job by the end of August
(27:58):
or things are going to be alittle tight.
I would say, moving here withmy husband having a job, it was
a good paying job, but it wasnot a great paying job.
We were moving here because itwas a change, not because it was
going to make us millions.
It was not like that.
I was going to need to findwork, no doubt.
And Kasey, it's much more expensive to live there, I would
(28:20):
guess, right.
Kasey (28:20):
Yes, though in some ways it's cheaper and I'll get to
that.
But I'll tell you about theselimiting beliefs first.
So when I arrived here, all Idid was apply to jobs.
I knew I wanted to stay inpublic service or nonprofit work
.
It's just in my heart.
I did not want to go back toteaching unless I absolutely had
(28:41):
to.
That was going to be the lastthing that I would do.
I really wanted to work for theChicago Park District or I
really wanted to work for theArt Institute of Chicago.
There's so many universitieshere with research centers.
So I was like I will doresearch for University of
(29:02):
Chicago, for University ofIllinois at Chicago, for
Northwestern I don't care, Iwill do these things and it
doesn't have to pay a lot.
I just want to do work thatmatters.
That I feel like is important.
And in June, July and August Iapplied to nearly 100 positions
and I was not getting any calls.
It started to feel like maybethe people back home who didn't
(29:26):
promote me were right.
Maybe I'm not as smart orcompetent or as good as I
thought I was, and I won't lie.
I started to feel depressed.
I was so happy to be in Chicago.
I loved the city.
I loved being here, but the dayto day I was just like, what am
(29:47):
I going to do?
I have to contribute, I can'tlive like this.
I mean, I wasn't waking upuntil noon one in the afternoon.
If it weren't for the dog, ifit weren't for having to take
Ollie out for a walk, I don'tknow that I would have gotten up
and taken a shower some daysbecause I was just so depressed
and telling myself you're not assmart as you thought you were.
(30:09):
I guess You're not as good asyou thought you were.
And in August I finally got aninterview with the city of
Chicago's Office of InspectorGeneral.
For listeners who don't knowwhat inspector generals do, it's
a really important job.
They look for waste, fraud andcorruption in government in sort
of two ways you haveinvestigators who do the
(30:32):
tracking, the bad guys typestuff, and then you have
auditors who you know, look atprograms and finances and things
.
And in the PhD program that wehad started together, I took
courses in program evaluation,which looks at the you know
qualities of programs andwhether or not those programs
are meeting what they claim todo.
Well, that's auditing work.
(30:53):
So that's the position I'dapplied for and I had an
interview and I got a secondround interview where I
interviewed with the inspectorgeneral himself and they hired
me to be an auditor.
The title was program analyst orperformance analyst for the
city of Chicago.
This is like an entry-level jobin that department, but I was
(31:17):
thrilled.
I was thrilled to just havework and work that I thought was
really important and meaningful.
And as I was there, it becameclear to me relatively quickly
that this is an entry-levelposition and I can do more,
which is not to discount.
I worked with amazing peoplethere who also they all could do
more.
They're choosing to do thiswork, which is not to discount.
(31:37):
I worked with amazing peoplethere who also they all could do
more.
They're choosing to do thiswork because they care about it
and I have a lot of respect forthem.
But I had done that already.
I spent 14 years of my lifesaying I'm going to do this
because it's important to me andI care about helping my
community.
And now it was time to say Ithink I can do more.
(31:57):
I'm not going to wait right fora promotion that doesn't come
Now.
I did get promoted while I wasthere to senior performance
analyst.
I was there a little under twoyears I want to say a year and a
half maybe and there was aposition for a professional
development manager at theChicago Park District.
(32:18):
And from when I first learnedabout Chicago and what kind of
jobs were here, I thought thepark district was a really cool
place to be.
They do a lot of programmingfor young people very similar to
education in some ways.
You know the city of Chicagoreally cares about parks.
There are over 600 parklocations in the city of Chicago
.
All of the lakefront land ispublic land owned by the park
(32:42):
district.
So I applied for that positionand got that position and there
same thing I kind of started outjust doing the work every day.
So as a professionaldevelopment manager I oversaw
training and professionaldevelopment for the staff there.
But I wasn't the head of thatdepartment, right?
I had a boss that I reported toand it became clear to me
(33:03):
anyway that I was like I couldprobably be doing what my boss
is doing.
Then I had big ideas aboutthings, but I don't know how
long I would have had to wait tobe promoted, to move up in that
department and, like I said, Iwas kind of feeling like I
didn't want to wait anymore.
I had waited, I had done mywaiting and now was my time to
(33:25):
climb up the ladder to aposition where I felt like I
belonged.
And so I feel like I have movedthrough those feelings right.
I started my Chicago feelinglike like I couldn't do anything
, but I moved through it bydoing it right, like I did the
work, and then that's theevidence to yourself that you
can do it, because you're doingit.
(33:45):
I was at parks about a year andthree months before I saw the
position for the city needingthe director of training and
development.
So I have a team now and Ioversee the training, the
compliance training right, likethose you know once a year don't
sexually harass people, kind ofstuff.
But then also we're doing workwith professional development to
(34:06):
help people become bettermanagers and leaders, developing
a lot of new things I'm reallyexcited about and it feels
really great, you know, to wakeup every morning and I have my
city hall ID badge and I takethe train downtown and check in
with police officers thatsupport the building and protect
the building and take theelevator up to the 11th floor
(34:27):
and go into my office and thinklike look what you're doing,
you're doing it right, I know Ican do it because I did it.
So I think that's really thelesson for a lot of people who
get stuck in limiting beliefs orimposter syndrome.
Right, it's like just do it,and that's the evidence to
yourself that you can do it.
And I think that both my husbandand my mother would always say
(34:51):
you should just apply for thething.
They have always encouraged meto take on things that I thought
were bigger than or that Iwasn't ready for yet.
Maybe I should have listened tothat sooner in my life.
But, yeah, just apply for thething.
You'll know when you tap outthey call it the Peter principle
or something when you rise toyour level of your incompetence.
I don't think I don't want togo that far, but I'm very happy
(35:14):
with the, with where I am nowand the.
You know the difference that Ican make with my team.
It's pretty great.
Mary (35:22):
Yeah Well, there's so many cool themes in just that answer
you gave.
So the one thing that strikesme is you are open to whatever
and I know it started withdiscouragement.
You know, when you said, hey,we're just pulling up stakes, I
don't care where we go, it waskind of like that throwing up
your hands and, you know,crossing your arms and stomping
(35:44):
your foot and saying I'm notputting up with this.
You know which?
I love that mental image.
But I think when you're growing, I think being open to whatever
happens is where the fertileground is.
There's a lot of beauty in thatopenness and you know, you have
obviously a very supportivepartnership with your husband
(36:08):
and that's a source of strengthand I think you support each
other.
But I think within that, you hadto do your own work and sharing
that level of depression.
Again, it's very natural whenyou want to create change in the
world and I think you are achange agent I think doing work
(36:29):
that impacts people is veryimportant to you and when you
don't have a sense ofcontribution, you know you want
to do this work.
That's important and again,anytime it's like a job
situation you're a little bitdependent on other people to
select that resume and give youa chance.
(36:50):
And I want to normalize feelingthat sense of discouragement.
You can go in with, you know,the best mood in the world and
the most optimism and whenthings don't go according to
your time schedule, for onething, but also you wanted to be
contributing right financiallyto your marriage and your life
(37:14):
situation.
So it can get very heavy andyou know that sense of purpose
can sort of flicker, you know,like a bad light bulb.
But once you are put on a trackand you were put on a track and
you took that opportunity evenif you knew well, this might not
(37:35):
quite be up to the level of myreal skill, but again you got on
the track and then you startedto build back that, I think,
sense of confidence, because Inever worked with you in a work
environment, but I'm pretty surethat people would recognize
your competence pretty quickly.
Work environment, but I'mpretty sure that people would
(37:56):
recognize your competence prettyquickly.
So normalizing all of that,that being open, you know you're
going to have setbacks andfiguring out.
You know how do you pushthrough that and for you partly
it was the dog, and I know thatwas a joke, but it's not really
a joke, right, because someone'scounting on you.
So all of those are such reallycool themes and I was going to
ask you more about thedissertation, like getting into
(38:18):
that whole thing.
But I feel like you answered alot of that and so I'm going to
take a little bit of a side roadhere.
We're going to go kind of veerinto a different aspect of your
life and the accomplishmentsthat you've had.
I had an episode recently whereI talked to another close friend
of mine about her journey withautoimmune disease, and I know
(38:41):
that you have a health issuethat severely affects your
ability to get restful sleep,which you know.
For me, as somebody in menopause, I can totally relate.
But also I know that thissituation for you is much, much
different, and I'm bringing thisup for a couple reasons.
And first it's because I knowmyself I am so impatient with my
(39:03):
own body when I experience anyissue that keeps me from doing
what I want when I want, and Ihave so much respect and I
honestly a bit of all for anyonewho finds a way to navigate
something that is chronic.
And I feel like for you yougive this appearance of an
indomitable spirit and I knowthat you know that doesn't mean
(39:26):
that behind the scenes it'salways easy, but I don't think
that you factor this situationfor you into the impressiveness
of your accomplishments, andthat's not surprising.
But I think it's important forpeople to hear this part of your
story because I think so oftenwe can find reasons to not do
(39:48):
something right.
There's always a reason not to,and then we can feel safe,
right, and we can feel maybe alittle relieved.
But we might, and often do,eventually wonder what.
If so, can you share a littlebit about how dealing with this
challenge for you has impactedmaybe this journey or just
(40:08):
generally your sense ofaccomplishment or purpose?
Kasey (40:13):
Sure.
So I have something calledhypersomnia, which just means
that you're really sleepy allthe time, is basically the
outcome of it.
You know they do the sleeptests and they can see your
brain waves and all that kind ofstuff.
But for your listeners I'lljust generally say it means
you're very sleepy all the timeand it's not improved by well.
(40:34):
If you just get a betternight's sleep, then when you
wake up you wouldn't be sosleepy.
No, it doesn't fix it, soyou're just tired a lot.
There's a couple of ways that Ithink it's sort of impacted my
life and how I've dealt with it.
Certainly when I was young it'salways been there, right, so I
don't really know any other wayof existing.
When I wake up in the morning,I am exhausted.
(40:58):
I could immediately go back tosleep.
This morning I set the alarmfor 6.30.
It went off at 6.30.
I turned it off and I got up at6.45, and I turned it off and
it went off at 7, and I turnedit off and finally I got in the
shower at like 7.20 because I'moff of work today and I needed
to take the cat to the vet at 8.
(41:18):
And I was like what's the lastpossible moment that I could do
that.
So for a lot of my life I wasresetting the alarm over and
over and over again andsometimes sleeping through it,
missing things because of that.
So I can say today, you know,I'm very thankful that I have a
husband who is very supportiveand makes sure that I get out of
(41:41):
bed in the morning, that Idon't, you know, lose my job
because I overslept.
So that makes a huge differencein my life.
But growing up I didn't know Ihad this.
I was not diagnosed with ituntil I was like 32 or something
.
I didn't know I had this.
I was not diagnosed with ituntil I was like 32 or something
.
So for most of my life, when Iwas lazing about, the assumption
(42:03):
was either well, you're beinglazy or you're just being a kid,
right, like teenagers alreadysleep late, etc.
It was not really a concern.
But my family, my parents, justhad the expectation that you do
what needs to be done.
They were not cruel by anymeans.
They were very supportiveparents.
But the way that I was raisedwas like it doesn't matter
(42:24):
what's going on, you have to getthe thing done right.
If you're sick or whatever'shappening, well, you have
homework that's due whenever youhave to get it done.
If you have to go to work, youhave to go to work.
The expectation was you do whatneeds to be done, and so I
didn't even know it was thething I had.
I was just like, well, I'mtired, but you got to do the
thing you have to do.
(42:47):
And well, like I said, I wasstruggling to the point where,
if I were not married to someonewho made sure I got up, I'm not
sure that I would get up.
Like I had had a few cases whenI was single where I overslept
and I just didn't go into work.
Like I would wake up at 11 andbe like, oh my God, what
(43:08):
happened.
There were some times when Istarted driving to the beginning
of the PhD program after school, after work.
At school, I mean, I would getin the car to drive to our
classes and I would have to pullover on the side of the road
and take a nap.
I had had that before.
(43:29):
I had dated someone that livedin Maryland.
I lived in Pennsylvania.
It was like an hour and a halfto two hours to drive to see him
and when I was driving there Iwould have to stop and take a
nap, or I would have to call himand be like you have to talk to
me on the phone or I'm going tocrash my car.
But I never pieced together thatthis was a disorder.
I just thought like, well, Ineed to get better sleep next
(43:50):
time, I guess.
So once I had the diagnosis, itmade a huge difference.
I don't take anything for it.
There's not a lot they can dofor it.
They can prescribe things likeRitalin, but I currently don't
take anything for it.
But one thing that my doctor atthe time said was like you need
to give yourself permission tojust do what you need to do to
(44:12):
get through.
Like you need to give yourselfpermission to just do what you
need to do to get through.
So I would carry a lot of guiltand shame about needing to nap
and I felt terrible about it andthat kind of gave me the space
to be like nope, I have to takea nap because this is a
diagnosed disorder.
That's not just me being lazy.
The doctor says I have to takea nap, so I'm going to take one.
(44:35):
So just kind of having thepermission to take care of what
I needed to take care of hashelped a lot and I know I said
it a bunch of times now but alsojust having someone that makes
sure that I get up, you know,those two things make it happen.
You, just you do what needs tobe done.
Mary (44:56):
Yeah Well, and I never heard you.
First of all, let me stop.
I never knew that you had totake a nap on the way to class
and I mean, I was exhausted, Ididn't have that to sit through
those night, those eveningclasses.
Sometimes it's like, oh my God,but I never knew that you
needed to do that.
I never heard you make excusesor complain.
It was just sort of this is theway it is.
I'm not surprised about thatsense of shame, because I've
(45:22):
said this often, especially withwomen, we have this idea of we
should be able to push throughbecause, look, everybody else is
doing it.
And so part of my point here isit's to me it was like Casey's
doing it, like I didn't know youwere dealing with that, and I
think we need to normalize,first of all, that you rest when
(45:44):
you need to, even without adiagnosis, and I think that,
again, that isn't that sort ofthe typical thing.
Okay, well, now I'm validated,right, it validates my needs.
That's sort of the typicalthing, okay well now I'm
validated.
Right, it validates my needs andI actually did.
I think it was episode threemaybe, and the whole thing was
about rest, because I talk sooften about nature and you know,
(46:07):
I started this episode talkingabout trees and right now, you
know, I'm in Pennsylvania, thereare no leaves on the trees
because, guess what, they'reresting and we don't look at the
trees and be like, oh my God,they're so lazy, they like drop
their leaves.
And you know, and anything youknow, I talked about bears
hibernating.
We don't never think of bearsas being lazy because they sleep
for several months.
We all need to rest and youknow, for you it just it makes
(46:32):
things it sounds like that muchharder because we need to be
rested and alert to do a lot ofthings during the day.
So the reason one of thereasons again that I wanted
people to hear that part of yourstory is I know that you and
you and I initially talked aboutthis.
You dismissed it.
You're like I don't reallythink that's an important thread
(46:53):
here, talked about this, youdismissed it.
You're like I don't reallythink that's an important thread
here and it's like, oh, but itis because you know that's kind
of the whole thing, you're like,well, that's not really
important, I just deal with it.
Yeah, you do.
And that's where thatimportance comes in that if
someone achieves something andthey're looking at everybody
else and like, well, I should bedoing better, but I'm actually
(47:15):
happy where I am, that's okay.
If you have a friend that hasfour children and you just want
one child, that's okay.
You know, whatever we decide todo and we feel comfortable, and
not that we're ascribing to alimiting belief, but just truly,
this is the life that I want.
This is where I feelcomfortable, that's okay.
(47:36):
And I think that that for youto validate just that part of
your story that you didn't say,well, I'm never going to be able
to do this high level jobbecause I'm just tired all the
time, you just like put thatthere as part of the story, but
that's only one part of thestory, it is not a main plot
(47:57):
line.
Does that make sense?
Kasey (48:06):
That made me think of the fact that so much about
American pop culture, television, advertising, whatever there's
like.
Well, you have to have a housewith a yard, you know, and two
(48:29):
cars and a picket fence and allthat stuff, and I had that.
My husband and I have lived inthree houses together, I think,
all of which had yards and twocars and the like standard
suburban looking living thoughwe were a little more rural, I
guess, and moving to Chicago,and, yes, things like the rent,
you know, and we did eventuallybuy a condo, right, that costs
(48:50):
more than it did in small townPennsylvania, but we have one
car and I never drive it, wetake the train or the bus, uh,
so that's cheaper, right?
Um, everybody in my condobuilding we all pay in together
to have wi-fi for the wholebuilding, so it's cheaper.
(49:12):
Like there's just all thesekinds of things that make city
living different and and kind ofnice that you don't see,
because that's not what's likesold to you by television and
pop culture and everything, andI've really come to enjoy that
and I feel like man, more peopleneed to know.
(49:32):
I mean, most people live incities, right, like, if you look
at, you know, populationcenters, that's where people
live, but that's not the culture, doesn't reflect that, it
doesn't celebrate it the way itdoes to say like, well, I have a
house in my own land and all ofthis stuff and I've really
enjoyed getting the experienceof living in the city.
(49:53):
It reminds me of growing up andwatching Sesame Street I'm sure
you know.
I love that image.
That's great.
That show was designed forchildren that lived in cities.
Right, they wanted to give cityliving children the experience
of what preschool was like ifthey didn't have the opportunity
to go to preschool.
And so everybody grows upwatching Sesame Street.
(50:15):
But it takes place in a cityand you knew everybody on your
block and you went to the samemarket and you know all the
different things on SesameStreet.
And now that's my experience.
Everything I need is likewithin a block of my house.
And what's not to love aboutthat?
You know I go to the samecoffee shop to get an iced tea
(50:35):
pretty much every day and theyknow who I am.
That's very predictable.
I think if I didn't go for aweek, they'd probably call the
police and be like we don't knowwhere she is.
Yeah, so it's just interesting.
I guess I was thinking as youwere talking about.
You know what the expectationsare for ourselves.
The expectation of how we aresupposed to live our lives isn't
(50:57):
necessarily true either.
There are lots of ways to liveyour life.
Mary (51:01):
I think that's a great reframe of city living, because
it is especially to somebodythat grew up in a very rural
area, like us.
Oh, it's the scary city andit's dirty and it's noisy and we
tend to focus on the things wewouldn't want in that situation.
But this goes, this sort ofgoes back to your being open.
(51:21):
You know you didn't put thosebarriers up like, oh, you know,
I don't know, I'm not.
I mean, I'm sure you had a few,maybe, yeah, like, maybe
worried about having somemisgivings, but you still had
that, you know, sense of beingopen to it.
And those are great points.
And you know the other thingthat you and I have talked about
, which I'm not going to liewhere I live now, very jealous
(51:44):
of the fact that you can havesuch a buffet of cuisines.
You're so lucky I have, like,pizza and, you know, a sub and
whatever, but no, I think that'sa great reframe.
So I'm glad that you circledback on that and kind of looking
at the clock, of course we'vetalked for almost an hour and I
have loved our time and I wantto thank you so much for taking
(52:08):
the time today to talk with me.
Kasey (52:11):
My pleasure.
Thank you for having me.
Mary (52:14):
Yes, it's been great and I want to thank everybody for
listening.
I would love if you would do areview or follow the show to
make sure you don't miss a thing, and I would also love to hear
your thoughts.
So if you have anything youwant to comment about, or you
can actually text me directlythere's a link above the show
notes and until next time, goout and be the amazing,
(52:36):
resilient, vibrant violet thatyou are.
Thank you.
Welcome to No Shrinking Violets.
I'm your host, Mary Rothwell,licensed therapist and certified
integrative mental healthpractitioner.
I've created a space where wecelebrate the intuition and
power of women who want to breakfree from limiting narratives.
We'll explore all realms ofwellness, what it means to take
up space unapologetically, andhow your essential nature is key
(00:28):
to living life on your terms.
It's time to own your space,trust your nature and flourish.
Let's dive in.
Hi and welcome to the show.
What would you do if you knewyou could not fail?
You've probably heard thatbefore.
(00:48):
Or life begins at the edge ofyour comfort zone, or a ship in
the harbor is safe, but that'snot what ships were built for.
Of course, that last one has awicked sentence structure, but
you get the point.
We should not be afraid to pushourselves.
Often, when we decide to takeup our space, it involves
discomfort.
While the catchy, inspirationalsayings are great to drop into
(01:10):
a social media post, they can beeye rollers when we are
actually pushing throughsomething tough to get to the
other side.
Even when we know something isright, we have that sense of
internal congruence.
It is rarely, if ever, easy togrow into our true selves.
Internal congruence, by the way, is when we just feel a little
(01:31):
click, when something we thinkor want to do seems to slide
into place in our hearts, whenhow we act is aligned with what
we feel, even if it's scary.
And that's what can beconfusing.
When we actually do want tostep past our comfort zone or
sail into uncharted waters, wecan feel scared, heck, terrified
(01:53):
.
But that doesn't mean weshouldn't do it.
Our brains are wired to alertus to danger, but the difficult
part of having our powerful,developed human brain is that
many times it sends a falsealarm.
Any change involves risk, right,but growth is change, and
plants because y'all know Ialways go to plant examples get
(02:17):
stronger when they need towithstand challenges as they
grow, as they grow.
For example, if you plant atray of tomato seeds, you need
to put those little seedlingsoutside for a week or so to
experience the real world beforeyou plant them in the ground.
This is called hardening off,and it gives them the best
chance to thrive.
You should even gently brushyour hand across them often, so
(02:39):
they get used to yielding andbouncing back.
And did you ever notice?
It's the big, hard-trunkedtrees that blow over in the
storm Saplings.
Baby trees have trunks that aremuch more bendy so that they
can withstand winds and rain asthey grow.
Being resilient is the oppositeof being rigid and, by the way,
(03:02):
fear is usually a liar.
So the key to making a changeis to listen to your essential
nature.
What do you truly want for you?
Not what makes sense to yourbest friend, susie, or what gets
the most likes on socials, orespecially what is the safest.
It's your dang life, and onlyyou know what you're truly
(03:25):
capable of and what you wantinside.
So let's get to our episode fortoday, which is all about
change and taking up your space,even when you are scared or
part of you is whispering.
But what if I can't do it?
Today I'm going to talk to myfriend, Kasey Lee, one of the
kindest, most genuine humans Iknow.
I'm privileged to have her inmy life.
(03:48):
I met Kasey when we enrolled inthe same PhD program.
Little did we know then that wegrew up less than half a mile
from one another.
As I got to know her, I wasinspired by her sense of justice
and care for humanity, herability to see what was right
and act on it, and not gonna lieher amazing baking ability.
(04:10):
Kasey also loves both opera andwomen's pro sports, and she
shares my passion for themes ofgender socialization and support
of women living fully andtaking up their space in the
world.
She has truly been one of mymost supportive friends in my
own life journey.
On a more professional note,casey has a degree in
(04:30):
communications and two master'sdegrees.
To give you an idea of herfunky, cool mind, her master's
thesis was on the uniquelanguage register of Central
Pennsylvania race car drivers.
Kasey, someday I must ask youhow you came up with that.
She is currently a PhDcandidate working on her
dissertation on male allyshipbehaviors in the workplace.
(04:53):
She was born and raised in thesame small town as me and moved
to Chicago, illinois, in 2021,where she currently resides with
her husband, her cat Daisy andher dog Ollie.
Just for the record, our littlehometown currently has fewer
than 3,000 people.
Chicago has a population ofover 3.6 million.
(05:14):
Talk about change.
Anyway, within three years ofmaking the move to Chicago,
Kasey changed jobs three timesall promotions and is currently
the Director of Training andDevelopment for the entire city
of Chicago.
That means that she overseestraining for 10 times the number
of people that make up theentire town where we grew up.
(05:35):
Today, we're going to talkabout her journey and how she
successfully overcame limitingnarratives and false beliefs to
cultivate a mindset ofpossibility and abundance.
Welcome to No Shrinking Violets, Kasey.
I've so been looking forward toour talk today,
Kasey (05:51):
Thank you, Mary.
I'm so excited to talk with youtoo.
Mary (05:56):
So I wanted to talk to you today because, first, let's be
honest you moved to Chicago andI miss your face.
But beyond that selfish reason,as I said in the intro, I
really want people to hear yourstory.
So many of us don't think ourstory is remarkable, but when we
take a step back and thinkabout what we've accomplished, I
(06:16):
think it really is remarkable.
So first give us an idea whatwas happening in your life that
created this fertile ground forthe decision you made over the
past few years?
Kasey (06:28):
Sure.
So so much of my life is sodifferent now than what it was
in 2021 and even in the fewyears leading up to 2021.
And a lot of things just put mein the right place, I guess, to
(07:21):
make this-risk girls that metbefore school once a week I want
to say in 2017 or 2018.
I can't remember.
It's been a while and I startedthat program with the idea that
I was on my way to becoming anadministrator for my school
district, and that would be, youknow, the next step in my
(07:41):
career path.
I always wanted to have a PhD,always.
I didn't always want to be ateacher that's something I just
sort of fell into but I didalways want a PhD, and so I
wanted to make sure thatwhatever I studied was bigger
than education, and so that'swhy I chose the administration
(08:03):
and leadership studies program.
But all of that to say that'swhat was happening in my life.
When COVID happened, I was inthe PhD program, wrapping up my
coursework, and work had alreadybeen so challenging, being an
English teacher who taught a lotof writing, intensive courses.
(08:25):
I taught a course that gotcollege credit for students at
the local community college, andI was constantly grading.
I felt like it was myresponsibility to make sure that
I was giving students a ton ofwriting feedback and always
updating my lesson plans andalways doing creative new thing,
and it was draining me quite abit.
(08:47):
So once COVID happened, it justmade things even harder and I
just thought I think I'm readyto move into an administrator
role where I could do more goodand try to make teachers' lives
better so that they didn't feelso stressed.
(09:08):
And at the end of 2020, at theend of that school year, 2020,
so summertime, june, july itbecame clear that there was
going to be a position for adean of students that opened up
in my district and I was readyto apply for that role.
(09:29):
I felt I was the right person.
I already have I already had atthe time, my administrator
certification.
I had a master's degree in Iforget the exact title of it
leadership for teaching andlearning or something like that,
but a master's of educationthat you would take if you were
going to be a schooladministrator.
So I felt you know, verycompetent and ready for this
(09:51):
role obviously in a PhD programat the same time and I applied
for that position and I thoughtyou know I was the right person
for the job.
I was not selected for thatposition.
There were two other people whohad applied for that role and
(10:14):
one of the other candidates forthat position was another woman
in my department who also wasgoing through a principal
program to get her certificationBrilliant, high-functioning,
type A personality, a lot likeme.
And the third applicant was amale teacher who also happened
(10:34):
to be my best friend, but Iwouldn't necessarily call him
the most qualified person forthe job.
Job, but he did get thatposition.
That experience devastated me.
I knew my capability as Englishdepartment chair for seven
years.
I knew what value I brought tothat district and to the school
(10:58):
and I knew the capability of theother two teachers in the
running and it just shook mycore.
It was hard to navigate betweenknowing in my heart that I was
the most qualified person forthe job and then feeling like,
well, I must not be because theydidn't pick me.
(11:19):
But at the same time I was justbeginning my journey for my
dissertation which, as you know,is on male allyship behaviors
in the workplace, and I read somuch about so many women being
denied positions or, you know,not being able to move up.
And it had been an intellectualpursuit up until then, and then
(11:42):
, at that moment, it became myreality and so it was very hard
not to assume or not to startbelieving.
It must be that I'm not goodenough.
Like why?
Why didn't I show them I wasgood enough?
So it kind of planted.
I describe it as my bitter seed.
It planted a bitter seed andthe school year started.
(12:07):
The 2020-2021 school yearstarted and just walking into
the building, I was a differentperson and I told my husband
like I can't work here anymore.
I cannot walk down the hall andfeel this way.
And you know, I always told mystudents like you could do, you
(12:27):
can always change your mind LikeI taught seniors.
For the most part, I loveteaching seniors.
They're at like the precipiceof a new part of their lives and
they're so excited.
And many of them are veryworried about choosing a major
and picking a college or pickinga tech school or what job
they're going to do, and theyhave this limiting belief that,
(12:47):
well, whatever I pick right now,when I'm 18 years old, that's
what I'm going to be until I die.
And I would always tell themlike you can change your mind
there's no rule, like no one isholding you to what you thought
you wanted to be when you were18 years old.
That's crazy.
So, but I wasn't giving myselfthat same space to say I could
(13:10):
change my mind.
Um, and there was a.
It's funny that you startedthis episode saying the what if?
What would you do if you knewyou couldn't fail?
That year there was a like treethat somebody had painted on
the glass in the cafeteria andpeople put different like
(13:30):
inspirational quotes on leavesthat they stuck all over this
tree and I had lunch duty and Iwould stare at this tree and one
of the leaves was like whatwould you do if you couldn't
fail?
And I would be like not be here, I would leave, I would leave
this and I would look at itevery day.
It's like, like you said, it'ssuch a corny, inspirational
(13:52):
quote, but I would look at itevery day at lunch duty and be
like, what am I doing?
I have to do something else.
So I did talk to my husbandabout like I've got to go, but
how can I look for another job?
I'm working myself to deathteaching and grading, and then
I've got my PhD work when I gethome from work and it was 2020
(14:18):
to 2021, my school district wasopen every day.
Students could choose to learnfrom home, but we were in person
, and so everything I did I hadto rework to figure out how to
teach hybrid synchronously.
So I had students that werecalling in and they installed
cameras in our classroom so thatwe could do like live video
(14:40):
feeds to the kids that didn'tcome in, while also teaching the
live students who were in frontof us, and so I was also
rewriting all of my plant.
I was like there's no way Icould possibly look for another
job while I'm doing all of this,and my husband was struggling
at work with some personalitydifferences, with some of his
colleagues as well, and hethought, okay, I'll look for a
(15:03):
job.
And so we started out by saying, well, where do we want to go?
And I said, I don't care, itcan be anywhere.
Pick a place.
And so that's sort of the firstimpetus that led to being in
Chicago today.
Mary (15:24):
Yeah, wow, you know, it's funny because that feeling of
knowing that you are the bestperson for a job and not getting
it, I can really relate.
And it's funny because I canalso relate to the feeling of
like, in retrospect, many timesI think, thank goodness I didn't
(15:48):
get that, absolutely yeah.
And at the time though, it canbe so demoralizing, time though
it can be so demoralizing.
And I think the thing that somepeople really believe is that
success is linear.
And it's totally not linear.
And when we have things thathappen where it really like I
(16:13):
can't remember your exact words,but it shook you a lot to
recognize that the person thatwas awarded the job wasn't the
best person.
And it's interesting too,because I talked recently to
somebody who was struggling witha college decision decision and
(16:33):
I said you understand thatcollege admission decisions have
a very large kind of chunk ofsubjectivity.
You know, I think when we givesomeone else the power to make a
decision for our future, itreally is.
We can really believe that, oh,I guess I wasn't the best and
(16:54):
that's just patently false a lotof times.
So you really had to move pastwhat happened, because knowing
where you ended up now it's like, oh my gosh, look what happened
(17:35):
.
Because you didn't get what youwanted at the time, and I love
that story.
And I love that story.
And you know the other thingthey have almost 100% of the job
, the parts of the job they needto feel like I can do 100% of
this job, and I think for menit's typically like 65%.
(17:55):
So we set a higher bar, I think, going in.
And so, yes, that was obviouslya very pivotal moment for you.
So when you got to the pointwhere you were like, all right,
let's pull up stakes, I don'tcare where we go, how did you
settle on Chicago?
Kasey (18:13):
I think really having that bitter seed growing allowed
me to say like I don't care.
I'm definitely the kind ofperson when someone has hurt me
or harmed me, I probably go toofar in my reaction to like, well
, I'll show them, I'll spitethem, and that's not a healthy.
(18:37):
I would not necessarily tellyour listeners to embrace that
attitude, but that's where I wasat the time.
I wouldn't say I'm there todayas my husband started looking
around for positions around thecountry.
I said you know, I don't carewhere we live really what had
(19:12):
happened a few years leading upto this moment.
So many people in my family hadmoved away, first after he
graduated from college, and thensome years went by and after we
got married, my husband'sfamily moved to Vermont and then
to South Carolina.
Then only my parents were leftin my small town, right as you
(19:32):
were saying that.
We grew up in and they movedaway to Alabama.
I ended up moving back into thehouse I grew up in and they
moved away to Alabama.
I ended up moving back into myhouse.
I grew up in and lived therewith my husband until we moved.
But we were the last people andso there wasn't anything
keeping me there.
But there wasn't any particularplace to go either, because my
family was all over the country,as was my husband, so it was
(19:52):
like take your pick.
As was my husband, so it waslike take your pick.
So he applied to all kinds ofplaces.
He had job offers in a numberof places, as well as being near
the end of the process where itseemed like he was going to get
a job offer, but he hadn'theard anything yet.
We had New York, delaware,atlanta and Chicago were sort of
(20:15):
like the four big finalists.
Now we're offering himpositions, and so we were just
sort of waiting to see, like,well, I guess we'll pick the one
that offers the most money.
And as he was going throughthat process, it turned out that
most of them offered the sameamount of money and it was like,
well, what's a cool place tolive?
I guess Chicago.
(20:36):
I think the job interested hima little more.
It seemed more interesting andI was happy to go wherever.
So my very first time in Chicagowas the day we drove out here
to find an apartment.
So we had already decided wewere moving here, sight unseen,
(20:57):
um, and I was terrified.
I mean terrified.
I wanted to move, don't get mewrong.
I was excited to start this newthing and to leave this part
that had hurt me behind.
But coming here to look forapartments and knowing no one
and just showing up was so scaryand we knew wherever we were
(21:24):
going to be was going to be asmall apartment and we had a
whole house and a lifetimetogether of stuff collected, and
so we sold a lot, we threw alot away, we downsized to hardly
anything, and that was veryemotional.
And then, coming out here tolook for an apartment.
We drove out on a long weekendI think it was Easter weekend
(21:46):
2021.
And the very first thing we didwhen we got here I wanted to
see Lake Michigan.
I'd never seen any of the GreatLakes before and, like standing
there and looking out at LakeMichigan, I was like, oh, it's
beautiful, I can be here, I cando this.
(22:06):
It was cold I mean, it was theend of April and it was cold
still in Chicago and I thought,well, that's going to be
different.
But the trees were starting tobud and the lake was the
prettiest color of aqua blue I'dever seen.
And, yeah, we said, okay, thiswill be our place.
And then, after we looked atsome apartments with some
(22:30):
realtor I just picked, you know,randomly off the internet to
take us around and look atplaces.
You know, we chose an apartment.
Our first apartment was in theneighborhood called West Loop.
We sat in a park after lookingat all of the different places
and said, okay, well, which onedo we want?
And we chose our apartment andthen drove all the way back home
(22:50):
in a whirlwind weekend tour ofChicago.
Mary (22:53):
Oh, my, oh, my gosh.
That's a that is a great story.
I knew parts of that.
I never heard all the details,but it's funny because getting
to know you through the PhDprogram, where you know you're
together for hours at a time andyou really you know I think you
get to know each other in adifferent way than if you just
(23:16):
like meet socially or in a jobsituation, because you're
learning and you figure outpeople's strengths and their
weaknesses.
And one of the things thatstruck me is how hard you work
and, having gotten a teachingdegree in English, that's how I
started my whole career.
I never I only student taught,I never actually had my own
(23:38):
classroom.
But you're right, when youreally want people to improve
something like writing, you feellike you have to give a lot of
feedback and to do the job ofteaching well.
It's very, very difficult and,casey, you don't do anything, as
my dad used to say, half-assed,I mean.
I feel like you show up and Icould tell you were exhausted.
(24:03):
And so I have this theory thatwhen life feels like you should
be making a change, it starts bytapping you on the shoulder and
then it might like nudge youwith its elbow and then
eventually it like smacks youacross the head and I think for
you, I think that job situationbecause you're also very loyal.
So you were teaching in thesame district where you grew up.
(24:24):
You know small town, and Ithink you needed to have
something.
That was that difficult, almostlike a betrayal right.
Kasey (24:34):
Yes, yes.
Mary (24:36):
And I think you needed something like that to say, okay
, that it's enough's enough,let's just do it.
And I'm glad you said you wereterrified because you know have
I saw you a little bit andpeople.
She also gave me a lot of freestuff.
I have her dining room table,by the way, in my house right
now, but you know watching youon that part of your journey.
(24:59):
So we grew up in kind of arural area.
You had a yard, you know,pretty quiet, and when you
talked about your apartment andyou have, you know you have your
dog, ollie, and I'm like howare they going to do this?
But never having really a doubtthat you were going to do it,
but you changed pretty muchevery single thing that could be
(25:21):
changed with this move.
I think it's interesting.
Of course we have you and Ihave friends in common and
there's one that I see a lothere back here in Pennsylvania
and when we were talking aboutthis promotion which, by the way
, is so totally cool I rememberweirdly feeling like, well, of
course, casey became director oftraining and development for
(25:43):
the entire city of Chicago acouple years after she moved
there.
But then the other part of mybrain was like wait, like our
Casey is director of trainingand development for the entire
city of Chicago, of training anddevelopment for the entire city
of Chicago, and I really had toremind myself that that's an
amazing accomplishment in theoverall scheme of life.
Because you know, when I thinkof it with you, of course, that
(26:08):
would happen Like I had no doubt.
But you know, we always havepeople in our lives.
I think that we expect toachieve really cool things and
you're one of those people.
But when I look at it to meit's like, yeah, I can see
totally why that would happen soquickly for you, but in that
whole process, did you have toovercome something like a
(26:31):
limiting belief in yourself tobe able to inhabit this space ?
Absolutely, You'reYes, when we first moved here,
well, first of all, obviously,my husband had the job.
(26:53):
I didn't have a job.
I finished teaching.
I think my last day at work wasJune 9th.
We drove to Chicago on June10th, of course you did, and so
I had no job.
I'm very near to the end of theschool year.
I threw out a couple ofapplications from Pennsylvania
(27:14):
to Chicago, but I wasn'tsearching seriously because I
was still teaching and, you know, wrapping up my life in that
part of the country, and so whenwe first moved, my job was to
find a job.
I had a little cushion becauseI was teaching.
You could choose.
I don't know if people knowthis, but if you're a teacher,
you can choose to either be paidthe year, the months that you
(27:35):
work so 10 months a year you getpaid or you can choose to have
it spread out to 12 months.
I always chose the 12 monthoption to make it easier to
budget things, and so I knew,even though I my last day at
work was June 9th.
I would continue to get paidthrough the end of August.
So I was like, okay, I have tofind a job by the end of August
(27:58):
or things are going to be alittle tight.
I would say, moving here withmy husband having a job, it was
a good paying job, but it wasnot a great paying job.
We were moving here because itwas a change, not because it was
going to make us millions.
It was not like that.
I was going to need to findwork, no doubt.
And Kasey, it's much more expensive to live there, I would
(28:20):
guess, right.
Kasey (28:20):
Yes, though in some ways it's cheaper and I'll get to
that.
But I'll tell you about theselimiting beliefs first.
So when I arrived here, all Idid was apply to jobs.
I knew I wanted to stay inpublic service or nonprofit work
.
It's just in my heart.
I did not want to go back toteaching unless I absolutely had
(28:41):
to.
That was going to be the lastthing that I would do.
I really wanted to work for theChicago Park District or I
really wanted to work for theArt Institute of Chicago.
There's so many universitieshere with research centers.
So I was like I will doresearch for University of
(29:02):
Chicago, for University ofIllinois at Chicago, for
Northwestern I don't care, Iwill do these things and it
doesn't have to pay a lot.
I just want to do work thatmatters.
That I feel like is important.
And in June, July and August Iapplied to nearly 100 positions
and I was not getting any calls.
It started to feel like maybethe people back home who didn't
(29:26):
promote me were right.
Maybe I'm not as smart orcompetent or as good as I
thought I was, and I won't lie.
I started to feel depressed.
I was so happy to be in Chicago.
I loved the city.
I loved being here, but the dayto day I was just like, what am
(29:47):
I going to do?
I have to contribute, I can'tlive like this.
I mean, I wasn't waking upuntil noon one in the afternoon.
If it weren't for the dog, ifit weren't for having to take
Ollie out for a walk, I don'tknow that I would have gotten up
and taken a shower some daysbecause I was just so depressed
and telling myself you're not assmart as you thought you were.
(30:09):
I guess You're not as good asyou thought you were.
And in August I finally got aninterview with the city of
Chicago's Office of InspectorGeneral.
For listeners who don't knowwhat inspector generals do, it's
a really important job.
They look for waste, fraud andcorruption in government in sort
of two ways you haveinvestigators who do the
(30:32):
tracking, the bad guys typestuff, and then you have
auditors who you know, look atprograms and finances and things
.
And in the PhD program that wehad started together, I took
courses in program evaluation,which looks at the you know
qualities of programs andwhether or not those programs
are meeting what they claim todo.
Well, that's auditing work.
(30:53):
So that's the position I'dapplied for and I had an
interview and I got a secondround interview where I
interviewed with the inspectorgeneral himself and they hired
me to be an auditor.
The title was program analyst orperformance analyst for the
city of Chicago.
This is like an entry-level jobin that department, but I was
(31:17):
thrilled.
I was thrilled to just havework and work that I thought was
really important and meaningful.
And as I was there, it becameclear to me relatively quickly
that this is an entry-levelposition and I can do more,
which is not to discount.
I worked with amazing peoplethere who also they all could do
more.
They're choosing to do thiswork, which is not to discount.
(31:37):
I worked with amazing peoplethere who also they all could do
more.
They're choosing to do thiswork because they care about it
and I have a lot of respect forthem.
But I had done that already.
I spent 14 years of my lifesaying I'm going to do this
because it's important to me andI care about helping my
community.
And now it was time to say Ithink I can do more.
(31:57):
I'm not going to wait right fora promotion that doesn't come
Now.
I did get promoted while I wasthere to senior performance
analyst.
I was there a little under twoyears I want to say a year and a
half maybe and there was aposition for a professional
development manager at theChicago Park District.
(32:18):
And from when I first learnedabout Chicago and what kind of
jobs were here, I thought thepark district was a really cool
place to be.
They do a lot of programmingfor young people very similar to
education in some ways.
You know the city of Chicagoreally cares about parks.
There are over 600 parklocations in the city of Chicago
.
All of the lakefront land ispublic land owned by the park
(32:42):
district.
So I applied for that positionand got that position and there
same thing I kind of started outjust doing the work every day.
So as a professionaldevelopment manager I oversaw
training and professionaldevelopment for the staff there.
But I wasn't the head of thatdepartment, right?
I had a boss that I reported toand it became clear to me
(33:03):
anyway that I was like I couldprobably be doing what my boss
is doing.
Then I had big ideas aboutthings, but I don't know how
long I would have had to wait tobe promoted, to move up in that
department and, like I said, Iwas kind of feeling like I
didn't want to wait anymore.
I had waited, I had done mywaiting and now was my time to
(33:25):
climb up the ladder to aposition where I felt like I
belonged.
And so I feel like I have movedthrough those feelings right.
I started my Chicago feelinglike like I couldn't do anything
, but I moved through it bydoing it right, like I did the
work, and then that's theevidence to yourself that you
can do it, because you're doingit.
(33:45):
I was at parks about a year andthree months before I saw the
position for the city needingthe director of training and
development.
So I have a team now and Ioversee the training, the
compliance training right, likethose you know once a year don't
sexually harass people, kind ofstuff.
But then also we're doing workwith professional development to
(34:06):
help people become bettermanagers and leaders, developing
a lot of new things I'm reallyexcited about and it feels
really great, you know, to wakeup every morning and I have my
city hall ID badge and I takethe train downtown and check in
with police officers thatsupport the building and protect
the building and take theelevator up to the 11th floor
(34:27):
and go into my office and thinklike look what you're doing,
you're doing it right, I know Ican do it because I did it.
So I think that's really thelesson for a lot of people who
get stuck in limiting beliefs orimposter syndrome.
Right, it's like just do it,and that's the evidence to
yourself that you can do it.
And I think that both my husbandand my mother would always say
(34:51):
you should just apply for thething.
They have always encouraged meto take on things that I thought
were bigger than or that Iwasn't ready for yet.
Maybe I should have listened tothat sooner in my life.
But, yeah, just apply for thething.
You'll know when you tap outthey call it the Peter principle
or something when you rise toyour level of your incompetence.
I don't think I don't want togo that far, but I'm very happy
(35:14):
with the, with where I am nowand the.
You know the difference that Ican make with my team.
It's pretty great.
Mary (35:22):
Yeah Well, there's so many cool themes in just that answer
you gave.
So the one thing that strikesme is you are open to whatever
and I know it started withdiscouragement.
You know, when you said, hey,we're just pulling up stakes, I
don't care where we go, it waskind of like that throwing up
your hands and, you know,crossing your arms and stomping
(35:44):
your foot and saying I'm notputting up with this.
You know which?
I love that mental image.
But I think when you're growing, I think being open to whatever
happens is where the fertileground is.
There's a lot of beauty in thatopenness and you know, you have
obviously a very supportivepartnership with your husband
(36:08):
and that's a source of strengthand I think you support each
other.
But I think within that, you hadto do your own work and sharing
that level of depression.
Again, it's very natural whenyou want to create change in the
world and I think you are achange agent I think doing work
(36:29):
that impacts people is veryimportant to you and when you
don't have a sense ofcontribution, you know you want
to do this work.
That's important and again,anytime it's like a job
situation you're a little bitdependent on other people to
select that resume and give youa chance.
(36:50):
And I want to normalize feelingthat sense of discouragement.
You can go in with, you know,the best mood in the world and
the most optimism and whenthings don't go according to
your time schedule, for onething, but also you wanted to be
contributing right financiallyto your marriage and your life
(37:14):
situation.
So it can get very heavy andyou know that sense of purpose
can sort of flicker, you know,like a bad light bulb.
But once you are put on a trackand you were put on a track and
you took that opportunity evenif you knew well, this might not
(37:35):
quite be up to the level of myreal skill, but again you got on
the track and then you startedto build back that, I think,
sense of confidence, because Inever worked with you in a work
environment, but I'm pretty surethat people would recognize
your competence pretty quickly.
Work environment, but I'mpretty sure that people would
(37:56):
recognize your competence prettyquickly.
So normalizing all of that,that being open, you know you're
going to have setbacks andfiguring out.
You know how do you pushthrough that and for you partly
it was the dog, and I know thatwas a joke, but it's not really
a joke, right, because someone'scounting on you.
So all of those are such reallycool themes and I was going to
ask you more about thedissertation, like getting into
(38:18):
that whole thing.
But I feel like you answered alot of that and so I'm going to
take a little bit of a side roadhere.
We're going to go kind of veerinto a different aspect of your
life and the accomplishmentsthat you've had.
I had an episode recently whereI talked to another close friend
of mine about her journey withautoimmune disease, and I know
(38:41):
that you have a health issuethat severely affects your
ability to get restful sleep,which you know.
For me, as somebody in menopause, I can totally relate.
But also I know that thissituation for you is much, much
different, and I'm bringing thisup for a couple reasons.
And first it's because I knowmyself I am so impatient with my
(39:03):
own body when I experience anyissue that keeps me from doing
what I want when I want, and Ihave so much respect and I
honestly a bit of all for anyonewho finds a way to navigate
something that is chronic.
And I feel like for you yougive this appearance of an
indomitable spirit and I knowthat you know that doesn't mean
(39:26):
that behind the scenes it'salways easy, but I don't think
that you factor this situationfor you into the impressiveness
of your accomplishments, andthat's not surprising.
But I think it's important forpeople to hear this part of your
story because I think so oftenwe can find reasons to not do
(39:48):
something right.
There's always a reason not to,and then we can feel safe,
right, and we can feel maybe alittle relieved.
But we might, and often do,eventually wonder what.
If so, can you share a littlebit about how dealing with this
challenge for you has impactedmaybe this journey or just
(40:08):
generally your sense ofaccomplishment or purpose?
Kasey (40:13):
Sure.
So I have something calledhypersomnia, which just means
that you're really sleepy allthe time, is basically the
outcome of it.
You know they do the sleeptests and they can see your
brain waves and all that kind ofstuff.
But for your listeners I'lljust generally say it means
you're very sleepy all the timeand it's not improved by well.
(40:34):
If you just get a betternight's sleep, then when you
wake up you wouldn't be sosleepy.
No, it doesn't fix it, soyou're just tired a lot.
There's a couple of ways that Ithink it's sort of impacted my
life and how I've dealt with it.
Certainly when I was young it'salways been there, right, so I
don't really know any other wayof existing.
When I wake up in the morning,I am exhausted.
(40:58):
I could immediately go back tosleep.
This morning I set the alarmfor 6.30.
It went off at 6.30.
I turned it off and I got up at6.45, and I turned it off and
it went off at 7, and I turnedit off and finally I got in the
shower at like 7.20 because I'moff of work today and I needed
to take the cat to the vet at 8.
(41:18):
And I was like what's the lastpossible moment that I could do
that.
So for a lot of my life I wasresetting the alarm over and
over and over again andsometimes sleeping through it,
missing things because of that.
So I can say today, you know,I'm very thankful that I have a
husband who is very supportiveand makes sure that I get out of
(41:41):
bed in the morning, that Idon't, you know, lose my job
because I overslept.
So that makes a huge differencein my life.
But growing up I didn't know Ihad this.
I was not diagnosed with ituntil I was like 32 or something
.
I didn't know I had this.
I was not diagnosed with ituntil I was like 32 or something
.
So for most of my life, when Iwas lazing about, the assumption
(42:03):
was either well, you're beinglazy or you're just being a kid,
right, like teenagers alreadysleep late, etc.
It was not really a concern.
But my family, my parents, justhad the expectation that you do
what needs to be done.
They were not cruel by anymeans.
They were very supportiveparents.
But the way that I was raisedwas like it doesn't matter
(42:24):
what's going on, you have to getthe thing done right.
If you're sick or whatever'shappening, well, you have
homework that's due whenever youhave to get it done.
If you have to go to work, youhave to go to work.
The expectation was you do whatneeds to be done, and so I
didn't even know it was thething I had.
I was just like, well, I'mtired, but you got to do the
thing you have to do.
(42:47):
And well, like I said, I wasstruggling to the point where,
if I were not married to someonewho made sure I got up, I'm not
sure that I would get up.
Like I had had a few cases whenI was single where I overslept
and I just didn't go into work.
Like I would wake up at 11 andbe like, oh my God, what
(43:08):
happened.
There were some times when Istarted driving to the beginning
of the PhD program after school, after work.
At school, I mean, I would getin the car to drive to our
classes and I would have to pullover on the side of the road
and take a nap.
I had had that before.
(43:29):
I had dated someone that livedin Maryland.
I lived in Pennsylvania.
It was like an hour and a halfto two hours to drive to see him
and when I was driving there Iwould have to stop and take a
nap, or I would have to call himand be like you have to talk to
me on the phone or I'm going tocrash my car.
But I never pieced together thatthis was a disorder.
I just thought like, well, Ineed to get better sleep next
(43:50):
time, I guess.
So once I had the diagnosis, itmade a huge difference.
I don't take anything for it.
There's not a lot they can dofor it.
They can prescribe things likeRitalin, but I currently don't
take anything for it.
But one thing that my doctor atthe time said was like you need
to give yourself permission tojust do what you need to do to
(44:12):
get through.
Like you need to give yourselfpermission to just do what you
need to do to get through.
So I would carry a lot of guiltand shame about needing to nap
and I felt terrible about it andthat kind of gave me the space
to be like nope, I have to takea nap because this is a
diagnosed disorder.
That's not just me being lazy.
The doctor says I have to takea nap, so I'm going to take one.
(44:35):
So just kind of having thepermission to take care of what
I needed to take care of hashelped a lot and I know I said
it a bunch of times now but alsojust having someone that makes
sure that I get up, you know,those two things make it happen.
You, just you do what needs tobe done.
Mary (44:56):
Yeah Well, and I never heard you.
First of all, let me stop.
I never knew that you had totake a nap on the way to class
and I mean, I was exhausted, Ididn't have that to sit through
those night, those eveningclasses.
Sometimes it's like, oh my God,but I never knew that you
needed to do that.
I never heard you make excusesor complain.
It was just sort of this is theway it is.
I'm not surprised about thatsense of shame, because I've
(45:22):
said this often, especially withwomen, we have this idea of we
should be able to push throughbecause, look, everybody else is
doing it.
And so part of my point here isit's to me it was like Casey's
doing it, like I didn't know youwere dealing with that, and I
think we need to normalize,first of all, that you rest when
(45:44):
you need to, even without adiagnosis, and I think that,
again, that isn't that sort ofthe typical thing.
Okay, well, now I'm validated,right, it validates my needs.
That's sort of the typicalthing, okay well now I'm
validated.
Right, it validates my needs andI actually did.
I think it was episode threemaybe, and the whole thing was
about rest, because I talk sooften about nature and you know,
(46:07):
I started this episode talkingabout trees and right now, you
know, I'm in Pennsylvania, thereare no leaves on the trees
because, guess what, they'reresting and we don't look at the
trees and be like, oh my God,they're so lazy, they like drop
their leaves.
And you know, and anything youknow, I talked about bears
hibernating.
We don't never think of bearsas being lazy because they sleep
for several months.
We all need to rest and youknow, for you it just it makes
(46:32):
things it sounds like that muchharder because we need to be
rested and alert to do a lot ofthings during the day.
So the reason one of thereasons again that I wanted
people to hear that part of yourstory is I know that you and
you and I initially talked aboutthis.
You dismissed it.
You're like I don't reallythink that's an important thread
(46:53):
here, talked about this, youdismissed it.
You're like I don't reallythink that's an important thread
here and it's like, oh, but itis because you know that's kind
of the whole thing, you're like,well, that's not really
important, I just deal with it.
Yeah, you do.
And that's where thatimportance comes in that if
someone achieves something andthey're looking at everybody
else and like, well, I should bedoing better, but I'm actually
(47:15):
happy where I am, that's okay.
If you have a friend that hasfour children and you just want
one child, that's okay.
You know, whatever we decide todo and we feel comfortable, and
not that we're ascribing to alimiting belief, but just truly,
this is the life that I want.
This is where I feelcomfortable, that's okay.
(47:36):
And I think that that for youto validate just that part of
your story that you didn't say,well, I'm never going to be able
to do this high level jobbecause I'm just tired all the
time, you just like put thatthere as part of the story, but
that's only one part of thestory, it is not a main plot
(47:57):
line.
Does that make sense?
Kasey (48:06):
That made me think of the fact that so much about
American pop culture, television, advertising, whatever there's
like.
Well, you have to have a housewith a yard, you know, and two
(48:29):
cars and a picket fence and allthat stuff, and I had that.
My husband and I have lived inthree houses together, I think,
all of which had yards and twocars and the like standard
suburban looking living thoughwe were a little more rural, I
guess, and moving to Chicago,and, yes, things like the rent,
you know, and we did eventuallybuy a condo, right, that costs
(48:50):
more than it did in small townPennsylvania, but we have one
car and I never drive it, wetake the train or the bus, uh,
so that's cheaper, right?
Um, everybody in my condobuilding we all pay in together
to have wi-fi for the wholebuilding, so it's cheaper.
(49:12):
Like there's just all thesekinds of things that make city
living different and and kind ofnice that you don't see,
because that's not what's likesold to you by television and
pop culture and everything, andI've really come to enjoy that
and I feel like man, more peopleneed to know.
(49:32):
I mean, most people live incities, right, like, if you look
at, you know, populationcenters, that's where people
live, but that's not the culture, doesn't reflect that, it
doesn't celebrate it the way itdoes to say like, well, I have a
house in my own land and all ofthis stuff and I've really
enjoyed getting the experienceof living in the city.
(49:53):
It reminds me of growing up andwatching Sesame Street I'm sure
you know.
I love that image.
That's great.
That show was designed forchildren that lived in cities.
Right, they wanted to give cityliving children the experience
of what preschool was like ifthey didn't have the opportunity
to go to preschool.
And so everybody grows upwatching Sesame Street.
(50:15):
But it takes place in a cityand you knew everybody on your
block and you went to the samemarket and you know all the
different things on SesameStreet.
And now that's my experience.
Everything I need is likewithin a block of my house.
And what's not to love aboutthat?
You know I go to the samecoffee shop to get an iced tea
(50:35):
pretty much every day and theyknow who I am.
That's very predictable.
I think if I didn't go for aweek, they'd probably call the
police and be like we don't knowwhere she is.
Yeah, so it's just interesting.
I guess I was thinking as youwere talking about.
You know what the expectationsare for ourselves.
The expectation of how we aresupposed to live our lives isn't
(50:57):
necessarily true either.
There are lots of ways to liveyour life.
Mary (51:01):
I think that's a great reframe of city living, because
it is especially to somebodythat grew up in a very rural
area, like us.
Oh, it's the scary city andit's dirty and it's noisy and we
tend to focus on the things wewouldn't want in that situation.
But this goes, this sort ofgoes back to your being open.
(51:21):
You know you didn't put thosebarriers up like, oh, you know,
I don't know, I'm not.
I mean, I'm sure you had a few,maybe, yeah, like, maybe
worried about having somemisgivings, but you still had
that, you know, sense of beingopen to it.
And those are great points.
And you know the other thingthat you and I have talked about
, which I'm not going to liewhere I live now, very jealous
(51:44):
of the fact that you can havesuch a buffet of cuisines.
You're so lucky I have, like,pizza and, you know, a sub and
whatever, but no, I think that'sa great reframe.
So I'm glad that you circledback on that and kind of looking
at the clock, of course we'vetalked for almost an hour and I
have loved our time and I wantto thank you so much for taking
(52:08):
the time today to talk with me.
Kasey (52:11):
My pleasure.
Thank you for having me.
Mary (52:14):
Yes, it's been great and I want to thank everybody for
listening.
I would love if you would do areview or follow the show to
make sure you don't miss a thing, and I would also love to hear
your thoughts.
So if you have anything youwant to comment about, or you
can actually text me directlythere's a link above the show
notes and until next time, goout and be the amazing,
(52:36):
resilient, vibrant violet thatyou are.
Thank you.
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