Life and executive coach Johanna Beyer joins Stacey Delo of Après, a career resources for moms going back to work, in conversation on how to identify your purpose and apply it toward your career. She offers three strategies for anyone starting out or over, or seeking a career change. It is Your Turn!
You can watch the video or here’s the script from our conversation:
Discovering Your Purpose and Passion with Johanna Beyer.
Stacey Delo
See? Hi everyone, I’m Stacey Delo, CEO of Après, a career resource for women returning to the workforce after a career breaks, or pivoting to something new, perhaps leveling up to something more challenging, more meaningful, more money, whatever it is. And I’m also the co-author of Your Turn: Careers, Kids and Comebacks — A Working Mothers Guide and at Après, we talk about what is it your turn to do and today, I’m so excited to be here talking with one of my very, very favorite humans, I call her the purpose whisperer. No Hannah buyer who is a life and executive career coach, but so much more. She’s the principal of on your path consulting, she works with teams and individuals to really help them dig into what drives them and, and of course, what their purpose is, and then help them figure out ways to put that out into the world so that they can be their best selves, both personally and professionally. So today, we’ve talked through the years many times about purpose and passion, but I thought that this was such a good time to revisit this conversation, because we’re coming out of this time period, Johanna, where people have been really double down in a way that, you know, we couldn’t have predicted right, but really double down on the purpose of taking care of others to get through this pandemic. And now we’re finally you know, kind of inching out and getting on the other side of it. And I find in our coaching, that people are feeling reflective, but also maybe unclear about what their purpose should be going forward. And so I wanted to just have a chance to talk with you about it and see if this is something that’s coming up for you in your coaching and conversations and how it’s resonating with you.
Johanna Beyer
I’m so excited. I’m so excited to be with all of you right now. So let’s do it. Yeah.
Stacey Delo
So how are you feeling about purpose and where people are and in in their own heads about, you know, if they’re feeling in your experience, having done having talked to so many people through the years now, if you feel like there’s something different in the way that they’re thinking about their purpose?
Johanna Beyer
Well, you know, it’s so interesting, I don’t know if you all felt this, but when the shutdown first happened, I think there was almost a sigh of relief because we were all so out there and busy and overstretched and also in it, and the shutdown kind of gave everyone this big pause to kind of take a deep breath clear, their calendar was so bizarre, right? Just everything just erased. And, and then as the pandemic went on, I think comfort started to Trump, courage. Comfort started to become what we all just got used to. And for better for worse, from the clothes we wore. Right to not having to be social anymore. Yeah, to just been food, alcohol. And, and there was a real shadow side to that I just read a quote yesterday. Choose courage over comfort. And so I think to really, like be curious about yourself, and to live a purpose driven life, you have to be incredibly courageous, and introspective and, and comfort just started to like, grow like a weed in my life. In every one, I was coaching slife. And it just was this malaise, right?
Stacey Delo
Yep. Well, and I think you’re so right. That’s the I’ve been thinking a lot about the isolation also, and how that causes you to almost just turn inward. And then it’s, it’s more scary to be courageous to get out there when the time is coming. And that’s one of the things I’ve been thinking about as these companies don’t open up fully. I was just in New York and New York is really alive and back. When I live in the Bay Area, and the San Francisco area is like slowly it’s not there. And I think there’s so much value in being around other people even though I support remote work and hybrid schedules and these types of things. I think the idea of continuing to just be isolated in our homes, causes people to to lose that courage muscle.
Johanna Beyer
They lose the courage muscle and I think a lot of us forgot what, what we are. And I think we started to rationalize that maybe this is just this is just the way I am now. If any of you are starting to say things like Like, well, maybe this is just the way I should be with my health. Or maybe this is just the job that I should be in. Or if there’s any of that kind of rationalization over mediocrity. I want you to wake up and recognize that that is, that is fear trying to make sense of how just what you’ve lost, and that none of you listening right now should ever settle for those stories. You know, and I’m not talking like you have to be this grandiose, big thing in the world all the time. I’m just talking about how aligned how aligned do you feel in your life with your truth with what you want to do? How you make impact how you feel each day, states have been talking about this metaphor, I always like to use metaphors when I’m coaching. And it’s like, healthy choices is something we use with food. But I like to use healthy choices with work, you know, like, healthy choices? Are you reaching out and connecting with colleagues? Are you talking about yourself in proud ways? Are you making healthy choices? If you’re in a job that you don’t like anymore? Are you getting your LinkedIn freshened up and you making a healthy choice to put in a new, like, throw your hat into the ring? Are you choosing courage over comfort each day? Healthy Choices, little ones, it’s choosing the apple over the Snickers bar, right? You know what I mean? So I think that if anyone walks away from just what we’re talking about right now is do an honest check. How much are you rationalizing mediocrity in your life right now? And we all I’m talking across the board, we’ve all done it? Because it COVID Are you sick of it? And you’re bored of it? Right. Now, are you ready to say? I don’t know what’s next. But I definitely know I’m not aligned. Yep. I don’t know why it makes me emotional. But it’s like, if you’re not aligned, wake up and recognize every single day, you can make healthy choices to get back to your truth, even if it’s difficult and courageous and hard. And you need to break up with your job, or you need to have a difficult conversation with your spouse, or do you need to? I don’t know, but it’s like, let’s do this.
Stacey Delo
Yeah, absolutely. No, I, I love that message of healthy choices. I mean, that’s, that’s exactly the way to think about a filter for where you are in your career. And then of course, like, how is it? How is it filling you as well. Um, but so one of the things that you and I were chatting about is the idea that as we age, and we get, you know, our kids, you know, either they’re grown and flown, or maybe we’ve gotten to a point where the youngest is in kindergarten now. And they’re sort of these different stakes in the ground, if you will of pivot points, or times for different reflection. And I’m, I’m curious how you encourage people to, you talked about aligning with your purpose, like how you encourage them to think about ways to align with their purpose, I actually want to quote you. This, as you know, a very good quote, but that you wrote, you wrote, I let me find it, okay. Purpose is not a destination where you arrive one day, purpose is not a skill you learn in school, or something you can get tested on. Purpose is your most natural way of being in the world. And I think that I mean, that’s just so lovely to think about and how you would bring that to an employer and your career and how lucky an employer is going to be if you fully are aware of what that purpose is and what you are naturally, really good at how do you help people figure that out?
Johanna Beyer
Yeah. So there’s two parts of what you just talked about. So I want to start with that first. And then I want to get back to wherever your kids are, what’s important to do with your purpose? Okay. Okay. So for instance, I know that my purpose is awakening spirit. I actually know this because I have a tool I use with my coaching clients. It’s a beautiful deck of cards called the calling cards, and maybe you could even put a link somewhere where people could get this tool, because sometimes it’s really hard just out of the blue to say, What’s my purpose, but again, like what Stacey just said, purposes, purpose is who you are when no one’s watching. It’s what you love to do. It’s how you make impact, right? Awakening spirit is what I geek out on. It’s what I’ve done since I was young, I’ll do to hopefully I’m old and gray. And I get to do it in my job every single day I help people awaken to what they truly care about. And so, for the last 20 something years, I’ve built a business around it and it feels really, really good. Other people’s purposes are different, solving problems, organizing things, getting to the heart of the matter, creating dialogue. Like, you just have to think about, it’s not outside of you. What do you do all the time? What do friends come to you? And ask your opinion on? What do colleagues knock on your door for with advice, that is your purpose. And it’s not just one, it’s probably a couple of things. Okay. So if you are not aligning your purpose, somehow in your work, you’re probably feeling a little dead inside, maybe not very energized. Right? So you can do lots of different things. You can be a teacher, a lawyer, a doctor, a business person, whatever. But if the underlying thread underneath your job doesn’t kind of bring out what you do so naturally, then there’s going to be misalignment. So I think the first thing is, you have to think about what do I do so naturally, I would do it if no one was paying me money. I like to bring joy, I like to weaken spirit. I like to solve problems. Like that’s just what I love to do. Probably annoyingly, so to my husband.
Stacey Delo
We can hear it in your
Johanna Beyer
spirit card. And then And then, you know, think about if this job or something that you’re in right now, how could you align the opportunities more to bring out that natural thing in yourself? If you’re interviewing, I beg of you, please do not start off with a resume. Start off with your purpose, say, for all my life, or all my career, these are the three things that I have done that make impact, they’re part of me. And I can give you examples of them. Right? So then you can get your resume, but people will really understand you better if you begin to talk about your essence yourself your way of being not only professionally, but personally, right.
Stacey Delo
Yeah, absolutely. So getting team here, it’s like, yeah,
Johanna Beyer
so if you want to just do a self reflective exercise of what I do naturally, if you want to get this tool that I’m mentioning the calling cards, which is fantastic. But I think it’s it’s a way of like going back waking up like you got one precious life. How do you want to express yourself each day? Yeah, I love it.
Stacey Delo
I love it. So talk to me about the the stakes in the ground. At different stages of your kid’s career. You couldn’t your kids ages, I suppose.
Johanna Beyer
You know, it’s so wild. So I just sent my oldest son to college, which is a big deal. And I’m noticing all my my friends in the same situation and how we’re all handling it so differently, right? And what I have noticed, are the women who are having a much harder time and there’s no judgement, it’s a big deal. Yeah. But are maybe the ones that invested a lot of their purpose, they thought their purpose was just tending to their children. Right. And so when the kids left, there’s this massive void. And it’s, it’s very, it’s a big deal for them. Yeah, it’s almost like a lot of it’s not depression, but it’s, it’s, it’s intense.
Stacey Delo
Yeah. And it takes and at that point, it’s really important to invest in tools that will help you turn that around quickly. And remotely. Because and the good news is, it’s a great environment for employment at the moment. And so, you know, everyone should really should really think about, as you’re talking about here, aligning with their purpose, so that they can, whatever it is, and even a, you know, could be volunteering, oh of worse, contracting part time work, whatever it is, but to start getting out and trying something new.
Johanna Beyer
I always say you got to keep one solid foot in the motherhood and another foot in your own, in your own endeavors outside the home, whatever it may be for money for not for money, but just that other expression, right? Yes, this is the interesting thing too, about raising kids is we love them so much. And we want to protect them. We want them to be safe and happy. But in order for a really healthy human being to grow and develop, they got to push their boundaries, and they got to do things that that scare them, right. But as parents, we also have to recognize, every time they take a leap, we have to face our own fear. And if we don’t let them do it, that’s it looks on the surface and keeping my kids safe. But really deep down, we’re not looking at where am I not looking at my fear and I’m not pushing my fear, right? So I would say as your kids grow, continue to look at where your boundaries where your edges and ask in appropriate ways. Is my kid ready for this? If the answer is yes, then I have to face my own fear and let them go. And over time when they finally do fly outside of the house. It’s not this massive like shock. It’s like you’ve gradually pushed past your own fears and you’re doing it together. Does that make sense? Oh, yeah, no,
Stacey Delo
I love that. I love that. What an important message. Okay, so I want to quickly just give a couple more pointers here for people. So, you know, we talked about we, we headline this as purpose and passion, you really put them together, but they they don’t. They cannot they can be the same, right? They can kind of merge at some point, I think but they can also be kept somewhat separately. I mean, that’s one thing. We always talk with people about you know, you can you can have a job and also have a passion that’s not you know, you’re you’re bringing your purpose maybe to the to the your career and whatnot. But you can have a past side passion. I don’t know, I may be a little scattered in the way I’m saying that. But how do you think about those two coming together? And if they always should?
Johanna Beyer
I 100 I love this question. So much. So my passion is dancing. Am I a professional dancer? Heck no. Am I making money from my dancing? No. I’m wild and crazy. And I have to do it every week. And I’ve done it. I mean, it’s it’s my passion. I’m the first one on the dance floor. If there’s a party, I’m the last one on the dance floor. Okay, okay, I, I would never want to smother this passion of dance with the pressure to make money or make it a career. I actually think it’s really important. Whatever your expression is, whatever you like to do that really brings you joy as you don’t necessarily need to make it a monetized thing. Or your business or whatever. Now, am I awakening spirit in myself? For sure. Have I made people have a good time on the dance floor? Because they’re dancing with me? For sure. Yeah. But it is. It is not always needing to be like, well, how are you going to turn that into work? Yeah, yeah. I think you need to be very, very protective over your passions. And to not put that pressure on them to make them money to make them have to make money. Yeah,
Stacey Delo
I 100% agree. I actually, I saw one of your posts recently. Silent dancing on the beach.
Johanna Beyer
Oh, my God, the best thing I’ve ever done silent disco on the beach. I mean, there’s a bunch of women. I was going to lose my mind. I was so happy.
Stacey Delo
And everyone’s listening to the same music. Yeah, that’s a riot. Oh my god.
Johanna Beyer
That’s such a great point is I think COVID Took a lot. I took my dance away, because I couldn’t dance in groups anymore. It took a lot of our passions away. Classes, getting together with friends, whatever it was, bring them back now. Bring them back. It will help your work. It’ll help it it will help everything.
Stacey Delo
Yeah, now I’ve been i minus tennis and yes, now have like tennis elbow because I’ve been playing so much. But it is it is the way that it sort of like, fuels me to keep going in a way that I can’t get in different parts of my life. So
Johanna Beyer
do you feel like since you’ve brought tennis back, and that little bit of that competitive spirit and the physical and everything, it’s helped you in your work?
Stacey Delo
Oh, for sure. I mean, I’ve used I’ve used new learnings and actually it’s funny because I know you you’ve played tennis as well, but the I’ve used the new learnings that you know, the the tools that a pro will give you to improve your shot, you know, you can extrapolate that into your perfect you know how to do better in your own professional life. So anyway, I have all sorts of new new tricks that I use outside of just tennis, but I love it, it’s just an it’s on, you know, anyway, you can whack that ball and um, alright, so let’s I want to I sort of want to end with, you know, what, what would you for someone who’s listening today? Who’s feeling a little stuck? What would you suggest as almost like a baby step toward starting to, you know, take them take the time to get back in touch with what they what they bring naturally to the world, like the things that they they do when no one’s watching that they may have just lost touch a touch with.
Johanna Beyer
Okay, so I think the very first thing would just to be get just to get a little bit more honest with yourself. So I’d almost make a list of courage, courage versus comfort. Where am I playing? Where am I playing safe in my life? Because I just routine and I know it and what would courage look like? I think that that is at the bottom of at the base of everything the first thing you need to do. Okay,
Stacey Delo
all right. So lists and then you know, we’ll post this and you can you can write them in the comments. And we can we can follow them and sort of weigh in on them as well but it’ll be a great process to do that. And I’m a big list person as well. I always posting them so that you can kind of keep them front and center to think about them. And you can X out ones that aren’t as relevant. You know, this one isn’t as relevant as I thought it was. And they can
Johanna Beyer
circle the one that feels really big, right? Yeah, exactly. So that’s the first thing, the next thing I would do is to start is to start thinking about, where do I most come alive? You know, kind of do that inventory. And write all of those down, maybe not the tool, the cards and just start to get really aligned with? Where do I make the most impact. And then the last thing, and I was just talking to someone in a coaching session yesterday, is you’ve got to be like a little bee pollinating as many flowers as possible. So you start talking about it, start talking about it with your friends, start talking about it with people you work, say, you know, I don’t know if you know this about me, but I absolutely love organizing things, or I love taking things that are in chaos and bringing them into order, or I love bringing out potential in people. I want more of that in my life. Do you have any ideas? Or can I be on that project? Or take a risk to speak out loud? What’s going on inside out? You?
Stacey Delo
Absolutely. Yeah. So Johanna, before I let you go, I always end with the question of what is it your turn to do? What are you thinking about? Now in this moment of you know, one child at college? One child still at home, you have a thriving career and life but but given given the state of the world and where we are today? How are you? What is it your turn to do?
Johanna Beyer
Oh my gosh, well, I feel like it’s my turn because my kids are getting older. Now. It’s my turn to to be a little bit more selfish and in the best way selfish with me, I guess to like, say yes, to more travel, say yes to new ideas that maybe I couldn’t have done when I had other responsibilities. So I’m doing that I’m getting honest with where am I not being courageous in my life, it’s my turn to be more courageous. And this is kind of hilarious. I don’t know if you know this, Stacy. But I launched a tequila company. Yeah.
Stacey Delo
So when I was saying before we started that I need to come up with a purpose and Belgian cocktail. Yes, that it needs to have tequila. Now
Johanna Beyer
I know. Yes. And so this is this is this is kind of funny. It’s been four years in the making. We live we have a place in Mexico. We love tequila. We thought what would it be like to create heal? I’ve always done coaching and consulting. My work has always been processing ideas. nothing tangible. Right. And so we did it. And it’s beautiful. And what’s it called? It’s, it’s called doser. Piano bass. And maybe we’ll do a webinar. Yeah, totally. I love that. And it’s, it’s it’s one of those fun things that to say yes to something that’s so different than what I’ve done my whole career. Yeah. is exciting for me. Like it’s my turn to see what it’s like to do something you can hold in your hand. It’s just an experiment to see what it’s like to do something different. So I’m saying yes to
Stacey Delo
that. That’s very courageous. I love that.
Johanna Beyer
Yeah. And I’m just I’m just saying yes to more of this work that I love that we’ve been talking about more and more platforms to speak and share. And I just love it so much.
Stacey Delo
Well, we appreciate you for for always being so present when we speak and bringing such great resources and information for people that that it always speaks to everyone in a way that I think the rest of us strive to get to. So thank you for that. It’s definitely been a joy to work with you through the years. And I’m I’m excited for all of those things that you just said it’s your turn to do. And I look forward to continuing this conversation. Thank you so much for coming on today. Johanna.
Johanna Beyer
Thank you. It’s been so much fun to talk with you
