Speaker #0Almost everyone who is on the hero's journey of meaningful career change is already living with the worst case scenario in their heads. It's probably not explicit, it's running somewhere quietly in the background, but it's there every day and it's particularly strong at 3am in the morning. But they've never actually stopped and let themselves look directly at that fear. And today I want to help change that. Because naming the fear Dealing with what it presents is actually what makes this whole thing workable. And I want to show you exactly how to do that. This episode is for you wherever you are in this journey, whether you're still in that corporate role, still trying to make that decision to actually leave, whether you've already taken that step and now you're in the messy middle, desperately trying to figure out the right direction, or perhaps you've got an idea and you're taking your first steps to building something of your own. This question that we're going to look at today will make all the difference. If your career looks great on paper but feels wrong in your bones, you're not alone. Welcome to From Corporate to Calling, your lifeline into meaningful work. I'm Alyssa Murphy, a regenerative business mentor and former startup CEO who walked away from corporate systems to create work that brings life. Each week, I share stories, reflections, and provocations to help you recognize the signs of burnout and make a career change with purpose. If work looks good but feels wrong, this is your invitation to get out of corporate and into your calling. This week, as I continue to develop my new venture, which I talk about in more detail in the previous episode, so go back and have a listen to... episode 74 which is about how to build the idea that won't leave you alone and lots of really great nuggets in there if you are trying to find the courage to build on your own idea or your own vision and this week has been a sort of a busy energised week of starting to put all of that into practice and I've been having lots of kind of critical conversations with people that I trust and who can help me to... shape this concept. One of those people was a lawyer who had volunteered some time to speak with me. And during our conversation, she asked me several questions and she asked me one that just really stood out and that I want to share with you today. She described it as the classic lawyer question. And it was, what is the worst that can happen? And it was quite a tender question, I suppose, to answer because this is... very early days for me. I was kind of five days in to the new concept, but I found myself to be kind of surprisingly receptive to it because it wasn't that I hadn't thought about it. Of course, I had constantly from the moment that the idea presented itself to me, I had started to think about what the worst could happen if I actually let myself pursue it. But being asked in such a way was so helpful because I really allowed myself to sit with it properly and answer it honestly. And going through that process really shifted something for me. It didn't magically dissolve the, you know, the fear or the kind of worries that I have about doing something quite so audacious. But it helped me to get really clear on what exactly those fears were. were to stop them being something kind of abstract that just sort of floated around me and really crystallized them into something specific. And why that is important is that when you can get specific on your fears, then you can work on them. This is something I see with almost everybody that I work with. The worst case scenario isn't something that they haven't considered. It's something that they think about all the time. but not directly. They think about it kind of in the abstract. It's just, like I say, it's kind of floating around them like a kind of dark cloud that keeps coming overhead. And it means that the fears stay in this kind of vague and quite catastrophic form. They're just a sort of dark energy. And that means that our fears kind of just sit on our shoulders. They're kind of humming in the background, they're never quite named, they're never examined. And because it hasn't been named, it can't be reasoned with, it can't be put into proportion, sorry, it can't be put into proportion, it can't be analysed, we can't plan around it. And all it does is suck our energy and our confidence every single day without actually helping us, without giving anything back, without showing us anything useful. And here's the thing, if you can find the courage to ask yourself that question, it doesn't introduce the risk. And that's what we're afraid of, right? If I look directly at it, it will somehow magnify and it will take over. The risk is already there. It is inherently risky to step off of the predefined kind of travelator of conventional careers and choose to do something different, choose to do something aligned with your values, choose to do something that gives you the kind of life that you want to experience, choose to do something that really makes a meaningful contribution, dare to step outside of the system. Of course, there is risk inherent in that. But if you allow yourself to get specific about that risk and really bring it out in front of you and look directly at it, then it becomes something that you can actually work with. In my experience, there are usually three flavours of worst case scenario for people who are in this kind of transition. There is, of course, the big one, financial fear. You know, what if I run out of money? What if my new idea doesn't generate income fast enough? You know, what if I, you know, don't have you health insurance, what if I don't have benefits, what if I can't save for my pension? These are all you know very real, very powerful fears. There's also the identity fear, so this sounds like who am I without my job title, who am I if I don't pull this off and make it work, what will people think, what will it mean about me? I've you know made a kind of visible exit from a career that people understood and that defined me like What will my relationship with people be like when that is no longer true? And then, of course, there's kind of, I guess, societal fear, which is to do with, like, will people understand what I'm doing? Does everybody think that I have lost my mind? Am I being irresponsible? You know, why don't people around me get what I'm trying to do? What if people don't support me? All of those kinds of questions. And I don't think I have met anyone on this kind of journey who isn't carrying some degree of all three of those fears. And, you know, usually there's one that kind of particularly stands out for us. And I think it's really important to allow yourself to notice which specific flavour of fear is showing up for you and to begin to work on that fear. And what I mean by work on is build a strategy around it. So let me show you exactly what that looked like for me. So when this wonderful lawyer who was kind enough to help me ask this question, I actually had a few different scenarios that came up for me. One was that I find out that what I'm doing has already been done by someone else, but I actually feel okay about that. that scenario, because for me, that's just a great opportunity to collaborate with them to, you know, maybe go and work alongside them. Like if someone else is doing it in the way that I'm conceiving of it. Amazing. I just want to go and amplify that. So it's not it's not really a worst case scenario. The real worst case scenario for me is that I put in a huge amount of energy and effort and time and resources. I give it everything that I've got for an extended period, maybe a year or two, and there comes a point when I realise either that it can't be done or that I can't make it happen. And actually that feels very real, even just saying it out loud, I can feel the shift in my body, like the emotion that comes up when I think about that. It's very hard for me to... think of that worst case scenario. But it's so important that I do because as I outlined that in our conversation, and I explained to my lawyer friend about, you know, that scenario, instead of just kind of flinching away from it, I started to put together a kind of strategy to respond to that scenario. So here's what I mean. what a strategy like this can look like in action. If it doesn't work out, I have decided to approach this in a particular way. I am documenting everything that I'm doing, the thinking, the process, the ideas, the attempts, the learning, the emotional side of that journey. I am sharing it out loud. I am building out loud as I go. I'm possibly, I'm at least going to pull together the content and go through the process of writing a book alongside that journey. And here is why, because I know that the core idea And yes, at one point, I will share it with you. I know that the core idea is strong and necessary. I've seen the response that I've already had in these early conversations. Everyone connects with it. Everyone is interested in it, is supportive of it. And I know that even if for some reason, I can't bring it to life, or that this is not the right time for it, that all of that documentation process can become valuable. information and resource for someone else who can learn from it and build it and take this work forward. Also, just from my perspective, if I can approach this journey in a way that, you know, that forms an awful lot of connections, that builds my network, that creates a kind of profile and platform for me to continue communicating and connecting with people like that. that is also not going to be wasted. That is something that I can then build from in the future. I will have invested in something that can support me wherever I may end up going after this process. So essentially, I'm building a contingency strategy. And to me, that strategy, when I think through it in that level of detail, Suddenly, it doesn't feel like that worst case scenario would be an overwhelming defeat. You know, it feels like it would be a pivot or a change of direction. It feels like the process and the journey itself will be worthwhile, whatever the outcome. It feels like I am backing myself properly because I have taken the time and the steps to actually put you a contingency strategy in place that I feel really good about. I'm going to give you another example because mine is quite specific and the risk profile that I'm taking on is quite high. And that may not apply to you. I think often the, you know, the risk is, I don't want to say smaller because I think, you know, risk is how we perceive it, right? It's what might feel like a small risk. to me might feel like a huge risk to you and it's really about how it affects you. That's what's really important here but I'll give you a different example that might feel a little bit more tangible. This week, this was not a client, it was another mum that I met at a birthday party and we were at this party and we were kind of nibbling on the party rings. And we were chatting and we've known each other for a while, but we don't know each other that well. And she was asking me about my work and what I do. And I was telling her about my experience as an entrepreneur over the last 15, 16 years and selling my company and the coaching work that I do. And then also, you know, this new idea that was starting to take shape. And she very sweetly said, you know, I don't actually understand about 85% of what you've just said, but I'm so in awe of people who have the courage to go after the thing that they want to do. And that immediately kind of sparked something for me. And I asked her, you know, if that was something that she related to. And I asked what she did. And she said that she was a teacher. And she said, you know, and I sometimes think about, these were her words, she said, I think about when I'm on my deathbed and people might say, oh yeah, she was a teacher. She said, it's a bit boring, isn't it? It's a bit depressing. This is nothing against teaching, which I think is an incredible thing. incredibly important and valued job and I think teachers are superheroes but for her the energy around it was it's a bit boring isn't it so I asked her what she would do if she was brave enough and I promise you she didn't even blink to get to the answer she said I would be a writer she said if I had the courage I would be a writer and so I asked her why she hadn't done that I asked her I assumed, to be honest, that it might be a question of financial stability, that she, you know, needed to keep her teaching job to support her family and, you know, that she didn't want to take that risk. But she told me that that's actually not the case for her, that she has, for various personal reasons, she has some money behind her and she could actually step out of her job for a while. So I asked her why she hadn't done that and she said, well, I just, you know, I don't feel like I can take that big a leap. I have a really comfortable and secure job and it just seems crazy to me to think of just walking away from that. So I suggested, could there not be a way to take some kind of sabbatical? You know, whether you'll be able to kind of get an officially sanctioned sabbatical. from your workplace, which she may well be able to do, she's been there for a long time, like somehow can you take a year out in a way that kind of leaves one foot in the door of teaching or even in that particular job and you think of it as something you're going to do for a year and you become a full-time writer for a year knowing that there is a route back into teaching if it doesn't work out for you and her whole energy shifted when I came up with this idea. And I think it's because without meaning to, this was just a kind of casual conversation while the kids were playing around us, but without meaning to, she'd done exactly what I had done in my conversation with the lawyer, which was, you know, that she'd allowed herself to look at the worst case scenario. And then I had helped her to see a strategy that responded to that fear. And it was really incredible to see, you know, how much more of a possibility. the idea of writing became to her when she could see that strategy in place. And I have no idea whether she will follow through, whether she will take that step. I hope she does because I think when life hands us the opportunity to do work that we find meaningful and actually takes some of the obstacles out of our way and makes it possible, that is such a gift. And, you know, and I really hope that she is able to do that for herself and I hope that you are able to seize those opportunities for yourself as well. And one big unlock can be letting yourself look directly at the fear that is holding you back and build a strategy around that. So this is what I am inviting you to do this week. Sit with the question, what is the worst that can happen? Dare to write it down. Not the vague dread. not that I might not be able to do it get really specific you know find a kind of a mental image of your head of that moment when the worst case scenario arrives for me it's kind of it's reaching a point of realization or having like maybe one particular conversation and thinking it's just not it's just not going to come together in the way that I thought it was and I can feel that in my body. So allow yourself to make it real. This isn't about compounding your fear. It's not about filling yourself with fear. Remember, when you make it real, when you make it specific, when you can see it in front of you, then you have something to respond to. You have something to work on, something to build a strategy around. You're not defenseless against it anymore. This is how you have your own back. You look at the fear and you build it. a strategy around it. Because the cost of not asking that question is that you're going to carry that fear every day anyway, and you'll get nothing from it. You won't have any useful information you can take from it. You won't make any changes as a result, and it will just keep being there, pulling you back, holding you down all the way through this process. And just before we finish, I want to make something clear. In case you can't hear it in my voice, My belief in what I'm doing is in no way shaken by letting myself look at that worst case scenario. If anything, it strengthens my belief in both in the idea, in my ability to do it, in the fact that this is the right moment to do it. Because I've looked at that fear, it's not taking up mental space for me. It's something concrete that I know is part of the equation. but I'm building around it. I'm creating solutions in response to it. And it's actually helping me to really commit, to really invest. I am, as I've said before, backing myself. And you have to back yourself when you are going through this brave process of career change and building something of your own. So give this a try. If you do, I would love to invite you to share your experience with me every now and then I get a wonderful email where someone has taken me up on my invitation, has done their homework and sends it to me and shares it with me. And I would love to invite you to do the same thing. So you can reach me at Alyssa, A-L-I-S-A at regenerativeworklife.com. If this episode landed for you and you are curious about my journey of building something new, figuring it out in real time and how it can help to guide you in your own career transition. then I'd love you to come and join my email list. The link to subscribe is in the show notes. If this episode of From Corporate to Calling was helpful or inspiring, follow the show so you don't miss an episode. And if you know someone who's questioning their career, send them this podcast. Lifelines are meant to be shared. Remember, you don't have to tolerate burnout or misalignment. You can redirect your skills into meaningful work that brings back life. to you and to the world around you.
