The Thought That Isn't New | Loren Finger on Career Change

Guest: Loren Finger — founder of EmpowerHer Careers, a career coach who helps mothers navigate career change.

Episode Summary

Loren Finger's career crossed industries, professions, countries, and identities: executive recruitment, corporate law, nonprofit leadership, and ultimately CEO, before she built the kind of career support she once needed herself as a mother in transition. This episode is about the thought "I don't know enough," why it followed her into every room she was already qualified to be in, and what happened when she finally recognized it as a decades-old pattern instead of a fact.

Key takeaways:

• The Pattern, Not the Fact: How Loren traced "I don't know enough" back to childhood exams, long before it ever showed up in her business.
• Confirmation Bias in Real Time: Why we scan for evidence of what we don't know while ignoring the evidence sitting right next to it.
• Permission to Redecide: Why a career decision made by an earlier version of you doesn't have to be honored by the version of you today.
• The Golden Handcuffs: What keeps capable women in roles that no longer fit, even when the flexibility they're protecting is minimal.
• Rules That Aren't Real: How self-imposed rules keep people boxed into careers and decisions long after the rule stopped serving them.

Guest Links

website: ⁠https://empowerhercareers.com/⁠

Instagram: ⁠@lorenfingercoaching⁠ 

Free Get A Job You Love Masterclass: ⁠https://empowerhercareers.com/get-a-job-you-love-masterclass

Full Transcript

Dawn: What if "I don't know enough" isn't an honest assessment of your ability, but a familiar thought that has followed you into every room you were already qualified to enter? Welcome back to The Self Trust Solution. I'm your host, Dawn Ledet, and on this podcast, we explore the thoughts, decisions, and identity shifts that shape what we create. Not because we need to become someone else, but because we are often being asked to recognize and operate from what is already true.

My guest today is Loren Finger, the founder of EmpowerHer Careers, a career coach who helps mothers figure out what is next in their careers and then find work they genuinely love. Loren's own career has crossed industries, professions, countries, and identities. She has worked in executive recruitment, corporate law, and nonprofit leadership. She has led an organization as CEO, changed careers multiple times as a mother, and ultimately created the kind of support she once needed herself. Today, we're talking about career change, motherhood, the thought "I don't know enough," and what happens when you stop treating self-doubt as a fact and begin acting from the expertise and authority already present.

Loren, welcome to The Self Trust Solution.

Loren: Thank you so much, Dawn. I'm so happy to be here.

Dawn: I'd love to begin with, even before EmpowerHer Careers existed, what did you originally believe a successful career looked like?

Loren: Oh, it had to look impressive. My definition of success, even at school, was work as hard as possible to get into the hardest thing possible, which was law. Then once I was at university studying law, I had to work as hard as possible to get that high distinction average so I could get into the top-tier law firm. It was gunning up a corporate ladder of some sort. That was my definition of success.

Dawn: What did getting into law represent to you at that point in your life?

Loren: I hate to say it, but looking back, I think it was, "You're worthy now." I'd always validated my self-worth on my academic and professional achievements. Even when I was younger, I remember I started talking very early, and my parents were always telling me how smart I am, my intelligence, and I think I put that as my own identity. I'm intelligent, I'm smart. So if anything was a knock against it, like I came third in a class, that meant I lost, wasn't smart enough. So I guess it stemmed from that.

Dawn: Before beginning, so you were in Australia, that's where you got your law degree?

Loren: Yeah, I was born in Australia, got my law degree, and I'd always wanted to live in New York City. I don't know why, it was just this thing in my mind that I'd always wanted to live there. I'd already received a graduate offer from a top-tier law firm in Australia, so I asked if I could defer it for a few years, and I moved to New York City with no job, no apartment. I couldn't practice law there because it's a different system, so instead I went into executive recruitment for the legal and financial services industry, and absolutely loved it. I was there for a few years, then I thought, "I better start my big girl job now, what I studied for five and a half years." So I came back to Sydney and started as a lawyer.

Dawn: What did you enjoy about helping people navigate their careers at that point?

Loren: I just loved being able to connect with so many people, and being able to help someone at such an identity-shaking and pivotal time in their lives, help them see how amazing they are, show them what's already there. And then helping them change jobs, find something that works with their life as it is now, rather than what it was a few years ago.

Dawn: Looking back, were there clues in that season about the work you'd eventually create?

Loren: If you'd told me then I'd end up being a career coach, I would have laughed at you, because I thought this was just a bit of a hurrah living in New York City, doing something very different. But what I noticed was, when you're in recruitment, you're essentially in a sales role, because you're selling clients to candidates and candidates to clients. I loved learning it, because in law that's not what you learn at all, it's very dry, black letter, no sales component. So something in me sparked, "I'd love to do my own thing, something more expressive of who I am." But at the time I think I was just thinking it was a means to an end while living in New York City, and then I'd come home and do my impressive legal job.

Dawn: So you go back, and you enter the legal career you worked so hard for. What was it like to reach that goal?

Loren: It was amazing. I was very proud of myself that I managed to get a top-tier offer as a grad and started working at the law firm. I put a lot of pressure on myself. I was there for quite a few years, and then it became a bit of a toxic environment, which can happen when one person leaves or arrives at a company. At the time I was asked to go on a secondment in-house for one of my clients, and I took that offer, and I loved working in-house versus a services firm, because I understood the context of a matter. I had the most amazing boss, the general counsel there, an incredible mentor to me. I felt very supported, I loved the work, and I really liked working in an organization. I was meant to do one week there for due diligence, we ended up extending it, and I said to myself, "I need to make myself indispensable here." I worked hard, but I just loved it. After six months I said to her, "Let's make this happen," and she hired me officially, and I left the law firm.

Dawn: When did you begin recognizing that being good at the work didn't necessarily mean it was the right work for you?

Loren: That was after I had my first baby. While I was in-house, I had my first baby, and returned to work when she was 11 months old. The day I returned to work was the day Australia went into lockdown for COVID. They had to ship me my laptop and desktop and everything, because in Australia we usually get about 12 months of maternity leave. I started working, then we went into the office after a few months, and what I realized was, I was good at the work, I liked it somewhat, but it didn't light me up. I wasn't passionate about it. If I was going to be spending all this time away from my baby girl, I wanted to do something that felt meaningful, consequential, like I was really bettering society in some way. Something lit a spark in me that I had to do something with more purpose. That's when I actually started volunteering. At the time, it's what I call a career experiment now, but I didn't have the words for it then. I was clearly searching for something, and someone mentioned an organization that supported couples struggling with infertility in our community. I had no idea it existed, and we'd struggled with infertility before we had our miracle baby girl, so I had to be involved. I called the chair of the board and said, "These are my skills, I'd love to help in any capacity." I came on volunteering for the board, and after a few months I woke up one day and said, "This is what I want to do. I feel like I have so much I could contribute to this organization, and I want to change careers from law into nonprofit."

Dawn: What was that time span, from when you started to sense the dissatisfaction to actually making that decision?

Loren: I don't think it was that long, probably only a few months, it just clicked for me. It was funny, because we were sitting in a board meeting, and they were talking about hiring a marketing manager, and I was thinking, no, we also need a second in charge who helps with fundraising. Meanwhile I'd never done fundraising in my life, but something in me was like, it's so easy to fundraise when you're so passionate about the organization. So I called the chair of the board and said, "I want to pitch a role to you, because I feel like this is what we need, this is the gap in the organization." She said, "Create a pitch or proposal, and we'll share it with the board." I created this pitch, shared it, and they knew I'd be a good hire, so they hired me as the second employee of the organization. It was a really cool moment, they created a role around me, but I actively put myself forward for it.

Dawn: What did you find in that nonprofit leadership that had been missing in law?

Loren: A few things. First, the sense of purpose. I knew we were supporting people struggling with infertility, which was huge for me, both emotionally and financially. So every day I was doing work, it didn't feel like work, because I knew I was helping people. And what I loved was, we were such a small organization that anything I did was a value add, and there were no rules. It's like entrepreneurship, we think there are rules, but there actually aren't. There are so many ways to make money and be successful, and I felt that, and it was very entrepreneurial, actually. I really enjoyed working in that nonprofit space, in that kind of startup environment.

Dawn: How did you grow from entering the organization to leading it as CEO?

Loren: It was almost two years in. The existing CEO said she'd been doing this for 10 years or more and was going to resign, gave us an eight-month period, and we needed to start looking for a CEO. At the time, I was already four months pregnant with my baby boy. They wanted to do a full recruitment process, hired a recruiter, scoured everywhere to find this new CEO. But I said I also wanted to put my hat in the ring, because, "You know what, us moms can do it all." I put my hat in the ring, was interviewed through the whole recruitment process like the other candidates, and they ended up hiring me as CEO. They said out of all of them I was the best candidate for the role. I was about seven months pregnant by then.

Dawn: So then you had your second child, your baby boy. What happened after that?

Loren: I returned to work when he was about three weeks old, very fast. I was working from home, had a nanny, was on calls breastfeeding him, then handing him to the nanny. The organization had made a hire while I was on that six-week maternity leave, and how they thought the organization would operate while I was slowly ramping up my days as CEO didn't work. I ended up doing all the work for everything, and it became very unsustainable. After several months of that, pushing a boulder up a hill, I don't even remember the time with my baby for months and months, it was such a stressful time. After six months I resigned and left.

Dawn: What did resigning from the CEO role you'd worked so hard to get bring up for you, not just professionally, but personally?

Loren: They'd said they wanted a CEO full-time, and I had to have that conversation with myself, do I go full-time and not see my baby and now toddler at all, because I knew the kind of work involved, or do I leave? I never thought motherhood would change my career path or trajectory, but it certainly did, not just once with law, but twice with the nonprofit leadership role. Having to make that decision and realize my being a mom had to shift, and for a while after, having always validated my self-worth on my academic and professional achievements, I was like, who am I without that, without this next goal? Have I lost my ambition? I felt very lost after I left.

Dawn: Who were you when you no longer had the title or the next established step?

Loren: For a while, I didn't know. I said to myself, "I'm going to give myself the year," because the rest of that year was actually my maternity leave with my son, to decide. But my mind was racing on what's next, trying to figure out my identity now. I always knew I loved being a mom, but I wanted something else for me as well, that felt really important for me to show up as the best version of myself for my kids. So I ended up looking into the self-development space. I'd seen psychologists in the past for various things, but this is when I discovered coaching. I hired a coach, and it was really transformative, because none of my circumstances changed, but my mind and how I thought about my life changed completely. From there I was sucked into it, and thought, I just want to help others do the same thing. At the time I think I was just so into what coaching's about, because it's not past-focused, it's very present and future-focused, which I loved. So I decided I wanted to be certified as a coach. At first I think it was just for me, being certified so I could coach myself very well. Then as I was going through the certification, I knew this is what I wanted to do, start my own business and become a coach.

Dawn: What did you begin seeing differently about your life and yourself when you started seeing things change through that experience, even before circumstances changed?

Loren: I used to think everything I thought were facts. When I put myself into that identity box of intelligence, or said my self-worth is determined by my academic and professional achievements, breaking that and realizing that's not true, and even things like identifying as a perfectionist. I was, if you're remotely a perfectionist and you studied law and you're in a top-tier law firm, if you're not dotting your I's and crossing your T's, you're a failure, you have to be a perfectionist there. So I had to break that too, and know that I could break it. It was just so transformative, that just because you've identified as something, just because you think you are something, doesn't mean you are.

Dawn: Sometimes that loss of a role, whether it's a job, a career, being a parent, we can think it creates an identity gap. But usually it's actually revealing what was already there, the distance between who we truly are and the roles, achievements, or results we've been relying on to tell us who we are.

Loren: Yeah, one hundred percent.

Dawn: So at the same time, now you've gotten your certification, it started out mostly just for you, you're seeing how helpful it is, but you're also naturally helping women around you make career changes.

Loren: Yeah, so myself with a baby and a toddler, and a lot of my friends around the same life stage, would ask, "I want to change careers, I want to do something different, can you help me with my resume, what else is out there for me?" I was giving them advice, and one of them said, "Loren, you should do this, help people change careers, help moms in this stage." Because everywhere I went, mother's groups, little kids' parties, every single mom was going through this identity change, this time in their life where they knew the work they're doing now is not what they want to be doing for the rest of their life, it's either unfulfilling or unsustainable, but they stay in it because they don't know what else they can do. That's exactly where I had been as well, and I looked around at the time to see what was out there to help moms with this, and there was literally nothing. There's generic career advice, but it doesn't really work for moms.

Dawn: One of the ideas at the heart of your work is that when a woman becomes a mother, she evolves, and her career may need to evolve with her. What changes for women after motherhood that traditional career advice often fails to acknowledge?

Loren: The biggest thing is there's a huge identity shift, from woman to mother. And one of the biggest things is our definition of success changes dramatically. Before we become mothers, a lot of us are career go-getters, we feel like motherhood won't change our career at all, we don't really think about it. Then we become mothers, and what is successful for us now? Being able to be with our kids. Flexibility. It's no longer status or climbing a corporate ladder. You realize, wait, I'm climbing someone else's ladder, I don't want this career or role anymore. So it's just so much, and I feel the generic career coaching advice is more about climbing the same corporate ladder. But the biggest thing for moms is everything shifts, our interests change, our career motivators change. Before I had kids, my career motivator was adventure, that's why I went to New York. After kids, my career motivator is not adventure and status, it's purpose and flexibility, being able to help others. It shifts so dramatically. A huge part is moms don't realize the massive shift they've gone through, and they think it's a failure on their part, that they chose the wrong career, and they stay in this career and punish themselves for past career decisions.

Dawn: Or for it not feeling right anymore.

Loren: Exactly. What I always say is, the career decision you're living right now was made by a different person than who you are now. It was made by a person who, when you're 17, knows what they want to do for the rest of their life? It was made by a person with completely different priorities, interests, routine, and life. A huge part of the work is allowing yourself, giving yourself permission, to redecide.

Dawn: Now, even with your lived experience and professional expertise, you've shared that one thought kept appearing: "I don't know enough." When did you first recognize this thought wasn't new to the business?

Loren: Probably through getting coached about it. I was worried I didn't know enough to be a career coach. I think I had conflated knowing enough with being in HR, human resources, thinking I'd know enough if I'd studied HR. Meanwhile, I'd been in executive recruitment, changed careers multiple times as a mom, had expertise and lived experience and passion behind it, but the "I don't know enough" was still there, and because of that, I was a career coach for a bit, but actually at the start I said, "No, I'm doing mindset and life coaching," because I was afraid, what if I don't know enough. Through coaching, Dawn is my coach right now, I realized, wait a minute, this little pesky thought has been there since I was a kid. When I was studying for my final year of school, I was so stressed, put so much pressure on myself, and the running thought before exams was, "I don't know enough, I don't know enough." Meanwhile I got one of the top marks and got into the law degree I wanted. Then at university, the same thing, a few weeks before exams, "I don't know enough," very stressed. Meanwhile I got the distinction average I needed for first class honors. This happened again when I was a lawyer at a big law firm, and again when I started my business. I realized that thought is just this pervasive, intrusive thought I've always had. For some people, and maybe for me too, it's also like the "I'm not good enough" sort of thing. The biggest aha moment was realizing, wait, it's a pattern, I've proved it wrong so many times, but still my mind defaults to it. So now when I think it, I acknowledge, yes, my default mind is thinking it, but I choose not to take action from that thought, because just because it's there doesn't mean it's true, and it certainly isn't helpful or useful in me moving forward.

Dawn: You had so much evidence, and because that thought was believed as true, it made it difficult to let all that evidence out, working in executive recruitment, practicing law, leading a nonprofit organization, changing careers, helping others change careers.

Loren: Yeah, all the evidence was right there.

Dawn: I find it so interesting, I see it always in myself and others, it's like we're looking over here at this little thought, "I don't know enough," as if it's true, and over here is all this stuff saying, "Hey, look over here."

Loren: Yes, that's confirmation bias, isn't it? We're doubling down on what we don't know, rather than, oh my gosh, look at all you do know. Definitely confirmation bias at play there. So now, the thing I really love to think about is, when my brain naturally goes there, I have to intentionally change the channel and ask, "Okay, what do you know?" And you realize how much you really do know. A step further is just allowing that thought to be there. "I don't know enough. Yep, thanks. Hi, old friend." It's always going to be there for me, perhaps, and that's okay. One coach once said this, and I love it, I say it to my clients all the time, I had a client yesterday who said, "What's stopping me is all this doubt in myself," and I said, "The doubt is always going to be there. I'm a coach, I've done this for years, I get coached, and still it comes up for me. But having that doubt, having to intentionally direct your mind to choose thoughts that serve you, is like brushing your teeth. We don't think brushing our teeth once is going to give us great breath and great teeth for a whole year. We have to do this daily practice at least twice a day, and it's the same with our thoughts. If we aren't intentional with it, if we just latch onto and believe these thoughts, that's not going to serve us." I have a sign above my desk, my success menu, and doubt is one of the things there. It says, "Doubt is just an opportunity to answer my own questions, an opportunity to create belief and solution." I like to think of pervasive thoughts like "I don't know enough" as an invitation to remind myself how not true that is.

Dawn: I see self-doubt and imposter syndrome now, when it happens, as a good thing, because it means you're getting out of your comfort zone, doing something that's challenging you.

Loren: And life is all about growing and evolving. You're growing and evolving when you're feeling something like imposter syndrome or self-doubt, and knowing nothing has gone wrong.

Dawn: Was there something you began seeing about yourself through your work with other coaches that was difficult to see alone?

Loren: One of the things was that there are no rules. I might come to you and say, "I'm starting this membership," and I had these rules in my head about how I was going to get clients into the membership, and you'd ask, "What about this thing?" and I'd realize I hadn't even thought about it, because my rule was going down a certain path. I have some notes on a Post-it that say, "Break the rules," because they're all self-imposed in our minds. There's an image I love of a dog against the bars of a cage, trying to get out, but the door is open, and we keep ourselves confined by these self-imposed rules. This translates totally with my clients too, we box ourselves into these careers and think there's no way out, but here's a door, you're free to go.

Dawn: I think so often we're resisting something and think it means something's wrong with us, or it's not meant to be, and it's important to realize, wait, I'm resisting this for a reason, what rule am I thinking I have to follow here, and what if I just don't have to?

Loren: What rule would I create for myself, or do I just not want a rule at all? Exactly. Are there any decisions you make more cleanly now than you did before?

Dawn: (Reflecting the conversation back to Loren's own experience.)

Loren: Yeah, I trust my opinion a lot more now. I used to care so much about what others think, and I was scared to make a decision because I cared what others think. Now I've had to go through a few ego deaths, going from saying "I'm a lawyer" to "I'm a coach," that was a huge ego death in a way. I did that work with myself, coached myself and was coached on it. I was at a doctor's appointment once, I'd broken my foot, my mom took me because I couldn't drive, and the doctor asked what I do, and I said, "I'm a coach." My mom piped up, "She was a lawyer, she studied law, she was a lawyer." I laughed, because I realized at that moment I had fully transformed my mind around it, and my mom wasn't at that place, so it was quite funny. Trusting my own opinion helps me make quicker decisions, knowing there are no rules.

Dawn: Does "I don't know enough" still appear?

Loren: Oh my gosh, yes, totally. I'm one of the directors on the board of a nonprofit, and they asked me to be the chair of the fundraising committee, and in my mind I'm like, "I don't know enough." Meanwhile I did a few years of fundraising in the previous nonprofit I was in, and I love doing it, I'm very passionate, and they've seen that, even though I've only been a board member for a couple months. But they think I know enough, and I'm like, "Wait, I don't know enough to be the chair." But at the same time, I remind myself that having that self-doubt, feeling that imposter syndrome, is actually a good thing. And when I used to work in corporate, going from the law firm into a big company, I realized no one really knew what they were doing, these senior roles, older men, everything was shifting all the time, they'd send me half-constructed sentences in an email, and I fully think that everyone knows everything, and we don't know anything, but it's not like that at all. We're not supposed to know everything, we're supposed to learn and evolve and adapt and grow through it.

Dawn: What do women commonly misunderstand when they begin thinking about changing careers?

Loren: A lot think they'll have to start from the bottom. A lot think they'll have to take a massive pay cut. A lot are also in a role at that moment where they think they've proven themselves and they're going to have to prove themselves again. This is what I call the golden handcuffs, because they have a tiny bit of flexibility, and they've apparently proven themselves in that role, and they think they'll need to do all this extra work to prove themselves in the next role and won't get the flexibility they have right now, even though it's only a tiny bit of flexibility. Sometimes there's loyalty to a company too.

Dawn: What do you invite people to do before immediately applying for another version of the same job or a different career?

Loren: They need to access what they actually want now, what will actually fulfill them now. So many of us women, like how I was as a lawyer, we're doing something we're good at but don't love doing, don't enjoy it. So we need to find something we enjoy doing that we're also good at, and really understand what our strengths are. I have this career clarity compass that we create together, and once we've created it, you know exactly what will fulfill you in your next role, and from there we start generating exciting new career ideas. A lot of people know they don't want to do what they're doing for the rest of their life, so they jump to the job boards, thinking a role will miraculously appear that ticks all the boxes exactly what they want. But that's not how it works, you need to first figure out what you actually want, because you can only get what you want when you know what you want.

Dawn: I love hearing that, it's exactly what I work with people on in business too, we have to solidify the floor before we start building the rooms of sales and marketing and framework, because until you're decided in who you are and what you want and what you're moving towards, you're looking for proof in those rooms instead of creating from it. You've been working with people one-on-one for a while, and now you're doing a membership.

Loren: Yes, I'm launching a membership soon. The name of the membership is Mothers Who Love Mondays. I'm very excited about it. Through my coaching business as it started, I created this framework to help moms go from "I have no idea what I want to do next in my career" to figuring out that target career direction, then finding and landing it, developing the skills they need, interviewing like a pro, revamping their resume, LinkedIn, cover letter so it aligns with where they're going, not where they've been, then doing a really targeted and strategic job search to find and land a job they love. I created this framework, tested it with many women and moms, and turned it into a course, Get a Job You Love. In the membership there'll be the course, and I'll be able to coach women and help as many as possible, because when you're doing one-on-one coaching, you can only help a certain amount of moms and women every week. It's a way to help more moms.

Dawn: What would Loren, who had just resigned from her CEO role, think if she could see the work you're doing today?

Loren: Oh my gosh, I would have never thought I'd be at this point in my business, or even have created a business. It's so crazy to think about that. The image I have of me is literally crying in my study.

Dawn: What would you want her to know about the period when she felt lost?

Loren: That when you're feeling that lost feeling, like you're on the edge and precipice of something else, it's really uncomfortable, because you're growing and developing into something else. It's like that analogy of the caterpillar, uncomfortable in the cocoon, and then all of a sudden it turns into this beautiful butterfly. I think so many moms go through that transition too, in themselves and in their professional identity, it's like a double whammy.

Dawn: For the mother who has built a respectable career but quietly no longer feels like it's a fit for her, what would you recommend be the first question she should allow herself to ask?

Loren: It's a hard question for her to answer, because she'll say, "I don't know." So the first question is, what do I truly want now? And she'll say, "I don't know." And I'll say, what if you did know? What do you want your lifestyle to look like, what do you want your work to look like? Just literally do a brain dump, write it all out, and see if that aligns with where you're at right now. Because if it doesn't, we need to do the work to give yourself permission to redecide, and then figure out what's next.

Dawn: Just ask yourself the question, and let "I don't know" come up, but don't let it be the final answer.

Loren: Exactly, just keep asking it, maybe not all in one sitting, but keep coming back to it, let it unfold, because the invitation itself is going to get you thinking.

Dawn: For someone listening who keeps hearing "I don't know enough" whenever they consider their next move, what would you want them to know?

Loren: I want her to think about whether "I don't know enough" often comes up, and if so, know that's the pattern, and it doesn't mean it's true, and it certainly doesn't mean it's useful. What I used to do was go from "I don't know enough" to "I actually know plenty," ask myself what do I know. A lot of women look at a job description and think they're not qualified, don't have 100% of the bullet points required, even though a job description is just a company's wish list. So they don't apply, or don't even put their hat in the ring, because they think they don't know all of the things. What I say is, even if you think you know maybe 60% of it or less, don't believe what you're thinking. There are many flavors of "I don't know enough," it can be "I'm not qualified enough," "I don't have enough of this or that," and one is just, don't believe it, don't take it as fact, and give yourself permission to look at what you do have.

Dawn: Yes, exactly. Change the channel, give airtime to the opposite, because we give so much airtime to that default thought of "I don't know enough, I'm not qualified enough."

Loren: Allowing yourself to not take action from the "I don't know enough" thought, because that's going to stop you. Instead, think, okay, even though I have that self-doubt, I'm going to take action anyway, because I want to grow and evolve. And I always think about what's the worst case scenario, you don't get the role. It's the same with fundraising, if you don't ask, the answer will always be no. So you may as well leave no stone unturned and apply for the role if you're really passionate about it, if this feels like the next best step. Do it. You've got literally nothing to lose. Even if you didn't get the role, you'll be in exactly the same position you're in right now.

Dawn: A hundred percent, not in the role.

Loren: Exactly.

Dawn: Loren, thank you so much.

Loren: My pleasure.

Dawn: One of the things that stayed with me from this conversation is how convincingly a familiar thought can present itself as fact. "I don't know enough" can sound responsible, accurate, protective. But Loren's story reminds us that a thought repeated for years is still a thought. It doesn't become an authority simply because it's familiar, and sometimes we don't need more evidence before we move, we just need to stop dismissing the experience, capacity, and authority our lives have already revealed. So if you're a mother whose career no longer feels fulfilling, sustainable, or like a reflection of who you are now, Loren can help you explore what comes next. She offers a free live master class called How to Get a Job You Actually Love, where she helps women begin identifying the career they want and understand how to make that move in today's job market. You'll find the master class and links to connect with Loren and EmpowerHer Careers in the show notes. And if this conversation brought one persistent thought to mind, one you keep arguing with, obeying, or trying to make disappear, I'd love to invite you to Meet You in the Lobby. It's a free tool based on my book, The Inner Room. No email's required, just bring one thought, and you'll receive two invitations designed to help you stop making an enemy of it and begin using it to create inner unity and a more honest relationship with yourself. You'll find that link in the show notes as well. If you enjoyed today's conversation, subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with a mother who may be wondering whether her career is still allowed to change as she does. Until next time, remember, results inform the how, they never get to decide the who or the whether. I'll see you next week.

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