Kristin Sherry | Career Grief and The Gift of Hindsight

Kristin Sherry is a bestselling and award-winning author, creator of YouMap®, a 2020 Career Innovator Award recipient, and she's also my mentor. Her brilliance is why I am a Certified YouMap® Coach.

If you have been struggling with your life path, career, purpose, or what I like to call - a midlife unraveling, this episode is for you!

Grief is the loss of hopes, dreams, and expectations. When it comes to what we spend most of our waking hours doing if we don't love it, don't utilize all of our skills, or aren't valued, grief is often the result.

It's also for you if you've experienced grief of any kind, too. Why? Because, also in this episode, Kristin and I talk about why I include this program with my one-on-one grief recovery clients and why as grievers, we can sometimes feel isolated within our love relationships.

Kristin shares how her own losses and career grief have shaped her work today and why perception matters. We also get into how the way we grieve, when misunderstood, can cause further conflict and grief in our lives.

There will be golden nuggets (and a new favorite analogy of mine) in this episode you've likely never heard before (even if you've listened to every previous episode). I hope this episode inspires you. And, if you want more inspiration after you listen, be sure to follow Kristin on Instagram!

"The more you know yourself, the less you look to others to tell you who you are."
- Kristin Sherry

RESOURCES:

• YouTube Channel
• Find a YouMap® Coach 
• YouMap: Find Yourself. Blaze Your Path. Show the World! 
• Maximize 365: A Year of Actionable Tips to Transform Your Life
• Victoria | Certified YouMap® Coach

CONNECT:

• Website
• Instagram
• LinkedIn

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NEED HELP?

• National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
• Crisis Text Line provides free, 24/7 support via text message. Text HOME to 741741 to connect with a trained Crisis Counselor

If you or anyone you know is struggling with grief, there are free resources available HERE.

Are you enjoying the podcast? Check out my bi-weekly newsletter, The Unleashed Letters.

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Transcript

Victoria Volk  00:56
Thank you for tuning in to grieving voices. Today I'm very excited to share my guest, Kristin Sherry. She is a mentor of mine, and she is also the best selling and award-winning author and creator of the YouMap profile, the 20 Career Innovator Award recipient from Career Directors International, and she is the managing partner of YouMap LLC, as coaches, consultants and leaders as YouMap. Coaches. Kristin is the author of international bestseller YouMap, and a pen craft award winner in business for her management book. Your team loves Mondays, right? She's also the author of Mom's Choice Awards called Children's Books, You've Got Gifts, You've Got Values, co-authored by Lila Smith, and You've got Skills, and the 2010 a book of the year, Maximize 365 from Indie Book Awards. Thank you so much for being here.

Kristin Sherry  01:51
Thank you, Victoria. It's been a long time coming, hasn't it?

Victoria Volk  01:55
Yes. For those who don't know, Kristen Sherry, because she is the co-creator of YouMap. She is who I received my certification through for YouMap as well. And how many YouMap coaches are there would you say?

Kristin Sherry  02:13
I think we're we're just coming up to 130 and seven countries.

 
Victoria Volk  02:18
Now that's a very small group in the scope of the world. 

 
Kristin Sherry  02:23
Yeah, we certify in small batches of six, so it takes a while.

 
Victoria Volk  02:29
But it's growing, it's really growing and expanding. And that's, it's amazing. And I so many coaches in our small circle are doing amazing things with YouMap. I incorporate it with my grief recovery work as I feel like it was the missing piece in the work that I was doing with people because career grief is a huge aspect of life. And we don't necessarily connect the dots of what's happening in our lives personally with grief if we've lost a loved one or things like that, because grief is a real clarifier in a lot of ways for many of us, and we might have, you know, the death of a breadwinner in our home. And so, we suddenly find ourselves having to navigate, first maybe entering the workforce for the first time or maybe needing to really buckle down and find something that's more sustainable or stable or offers more income. So, I really am excited about this conversation because it is an aspect of grief that has not been talked about on the podcast as of yet. And who better than to have a career expert like you. So, thank you.

 
Kristin Sherry  03:39
Yeah, I think we can tend to minimize and say, oh, you know, career grief, that's, oh, that's not a saying or that's not very important. The only thing that really matters is grief around losing people, right? Because people are more important. And that's true. But what people are forgetting is we in the western world tend to connect our identity to our career. And we have relationships in our workplace. And so, when we lose that role, or that job, or that position, or whatever happens, we also lose that daily connection with those relationships we had and also our identity does take a hit. Ideally, we don't connect our identity to our career, but that's so common. What's the first thing you hear people say when you meet them most times is so what do you do?

 
Victoria Volk  04:31
The Kristin Sherry that you were maybe 20 years ago to the Kristin Sherry who developed YouMap and career grief, maybe? Maybe grief otherwise in your life? That clarified things for you because I just said you know; Grief is a clarifier. 

 
Kristin Sherry  04:48
Yeah, that's true. I've had a lot a lot of that actually. I've had a lot of career grief. I've had more career grief, as a form of loss, if you will, then I've had grieving of losing people. So, and I think that's probably because I've transitioned so much in my career, I've, I've, I'm like a serial job changer I was before I owned my own business. I have had situations where I quit my job and took a new job. And then someone showed up with a gun on site, and the place shut down. So, I had quit my job and started a new job. And then I couldn't go to work at my new job because of this domestic violence situation that happened at the company and that I was thrown into this super chaotic situation. I've had situations where I've had to quit my job with nothing lined up and I was the primary breadwinner because of very unusual toxic workplace situations happening. That was just not sustainable to stay there. I've had situations where I was offered a promotion in a different department in the company, and was given a counteroffer by in my department, so I declined a significant promotion, and they reneged on their counteroffer of promoting me. So I lost an amazing job offer. Because they didn't follow through, I've I've had situations where my husband and I both lost our jobs the same week. And we found ourselves with two kids. At that time, I have four now, but we had two kids and no income. And no savings really, either at that time. So yeah, and that's just, that's just the tip of the iceberg. I could go on, but you get the idea. I've had a lot of a lot of career disappointment.

 
Victoria Volk  06:55
I imagine you knew your value. And that's what kind of kept you pursuing things. But what can you speak to that? And in particular, about how, when were not valued, like you said, you were, they didn't follow through. And so, they didn't value you as an employee. Can you speak to how when our values are dishonored, kind of adds to the grief too?

 
Kristin Sherry  07:20
Oh, there's a lot to unpack here. So, there's a couple of things that I would say in terms of how I've been able to navigate those things. First of all, the benefit of hindsight, the job that I did not take the promotion because I accepted the counteroffer of the the department I was in if I had to if I hit if they had not countered, offered, for example, and I had gone to the department it was running the bio physics department in this it was a Yeah, it was a graduate level biophysics program. And it would have been basically being the administrator of that program. And if I had gone that path, I would have probably become a dean of a university or that that would have been the career path I had been on. But that happening led me to pivot my career and meet my husband, so and he's my best friend and my favorite person, the whole world. So, I literally would have gone down, we lived in different states, we didn't have any mutual friends, our paths would not have crossed. I met him because of the new career I transitioned into, because he transitioned and in the same career as well. So it's hard for me to lament my employers are screaming over. It led to really one of the best things that's ever happened to me in my life. So, I would say, I tend to believe in a friendly universe over a hostile universe. And I believe that things work for my good. Even when I don't see what's being taken away from me a door that's closing, I don't see that as a positive thing. I was mad. I was very mad when that happened. But with the benefit of hindsight, I can see how that path ended up working more in my favor. Because path I was on actually wasn't a good career fit for me anyway. So I always say to myself this or something better this or something better when I want something in my career. And when the door closes or something doesn't come through for me, I say, Oh, I'm getting something better. So there's this perception and when you believe in a friendly universe over a hostile universe, that things are working for you or that you can be the architect. We're not in control of everything. But we can take the pieces and parts and bits that were given and recycled them into something great. So there's this perception continuum that I learned about when I got my masters certification and brain basically Coaching, which when you coach people, a lot of it is dealing with anger, fear, baggage, they have situations childhood trauma, family of origin stories, people come to the table with a lot of other things other than the situation you're helping them with, as you know, as a grief counselor. And so as a career coach, I wasn't just dealing with help someone find a job, right? What's their attitude of getting fired from that job? Do they feel? Who am I without that job? Are they feeling this sense of identity loss? Are they feeling like a failure? Because they can't provide for their family in that moment? Are they feeling on useful? Because they feel like all they're doing is sitting at a computer job searching? So you're dealing with this mental aspect, right? So the perception continuum continuum, is around helping people actively manage their mindset, because we spend about 80% of our thought life in a sort of default network, our thoughts are largely going on unconsciously, we have about 80% of the thoughts that that we have every day repeat themselves. So there's this track that plays every day, I'm worthless, I'm never going to find love, I'm going to be alone forever. nobody appreciates me my life has no meaning whatever we tell ourselves, we tend to repeat those messages daily, day after day. And because those thoughts go subconsciously, they tend to go unregulated, when we're just they, they run away with us. And then what happens is, we start to have some sort of biological reaction to those thoughts. So we're having these negative thoughts, they put us into this sense of fear, harm, and despair. And then so we start to have actions, those thoughts become things so we withdraw, we become self protective, we become angry, we start feeling depressed, our brain starts to release neuro chemicals that put us into the fight flight freeze mode. And so those thoughts are not harmless because they become they, we start releasing chemicals in our brain in response to those thoughts. And then it affects our actions. And I remember my mother saying to me, when I was younger, at first, I had sort of a negative reaction to it, she said people's lives are largely a product of the decisions they make. I had a negative reaction to that, because first of all, I didn't like the accountability that was attached to that. And I thought, well, people have a lot of bad things happen that are outside of their control. But what I didn't realize is how we respond and react to those things, the decisions we make, and even the indecision not acting as a decision, right. So if we go through life, and we don't act, and we don't act, and we don't act, decisions can be made for us. And so when she said people's lives are largely a product of the decisions they make, I thought, I'm going to make sure that I'm proactive and making those decisions because I didn't want those decisions made for me, or I didn't want my indecision to lead to outcomes that I didn't want. And so that was sort of the start of the journey for me. So the perception continuum has two parts to it. And it's like a coin, you know, you have heads on one side and tails on the other. So on one side of the coin is that threat and defend model that comes from the fight, flight, freeze, response, threat and defend and when we are in a threat and defend mode, we feel a sense of harm, we feel we have no options. We feel things are unfair, we feel broken, we start to feel doubt, fear, confusion, we look at things from the perception of loss, deficit and lack and that leads to despair. So we might start to feel offended, we might start to avoid we become self focused at navel gazing, we start to put walls up to protect ourselves and we disengage and we withdraw. But there are options to choose for each one of those things. Instead of feeling harm we can choose to feel safe and so we we then choose to be on the other side of the coin, which is the flow flourish model so creating safety for example. So when we feel we have no options, we can say oh, I have the freedom to choose when we feel something's unfair. We can choose gratitude. When we feel broken. We can focus on feeling whole. We can choose optimism over doubt. So you can see everything has a companion fear The other side of fear is trust. The other side of confusion is what's the meaning in this. The other side of loss lack and deficit is I have enough I will be provided for the other side of despair is hope. And instead of avoiding, you can press in and approach a person or people or situation instead of disengaging. You can engage with authenticity instead of being self focused. You can look at the big picture, instead of being offended, you can give people the benefit of the doubt, there's always another choice. Well, so how do you get there? Well, the first thing is when you lose a job, for example, or you apply for a position and it's not given to you, you don't get that promotion, where you get an injury, and you can't pursue what you let's just say you wanted to go into the military and you don't pass the physical, or let's just say, you want to be a hand surgeon, and you have an injury on your hand. And now you can your whole career you had planned out? Well, when I lost my my job, I said, you know, this is disappointing. And I'm going to be grateful for the friendships I made for the experience I gained. And I know that I am going to be okay, I'm excited to see what's next. For me, this is going to open up opportunities to try something new, meet some new people. And I think we claw into our circumstances because we don't like change. Most people don't like change, some people do. And we definitely don't like change that wasn't on our timetable. And by our design. It's someone else's change imposed on us. But we can choose how we respond to that. Where is the opportunity in this? What is something I've always wanted to do or try instead. And so when those doors closed one time, I got a training email from our company, it was a job board. Notice, it was a director of training position, and I was a, I was, at the time I was an interim Senior Manager of operations. I said, Oh, I'd love to go into training, I always want to work in training. So I applied for this job as the director of training, and I had done a lot of the work with my team that they were looking for. So I thought, Oh, I had the experience. I've heard I already know the company. I'm already in the company. I didn't even get called for an interview, let alone not get an offer. And I thought, oh, that's unbelievable to me that I never even got called in for an interview. I checked all the boxes here. But I came to find out later that this division had a terrible work life balance. Everyone worked 80 to 100 hours a week there. And culturally, it would have been a terrible fit. I had two small children, and I was a single mother. So if I had got that job, it would have been a disaster for my family. So when you start to look back at six situations that were disappointing, you can apply this perception continuum. What was the time that I felt something was unfair, and I was able to be grateful that that actually ended up happening? What was a time that I was doubtful, but really optimism was warranted because of how it worked out, or what was a time where I wanted to withdraw and focus on myself. But I focused on other people serving others looking at the big picture and showed up and engage and how did that work out? What was the time that I feared something and that fear never even came to fruition? I think when we look back, and can see all of the things that were disappointments that actually worked out. That helps us see that ultimately, we can have faith in a universe that is not hostile toward us toward us, but that works in our favor.

 
Victoria Volk  19:06
It came up for me and I was listening to your talk is which is very applicable for my life right now. But it's wanting the proof or the evidence before we have it right? And so, I think what you're saying is these asking yourself these better questions, like these hindsight type questions, to bring the awareness of, to bring real life awareness to examples that you've experienced before in your life, where it wasn't the worst-case scenario where it worked out in your favor, where it worked out for your higher good and in everything that you're speaking to. So, it's not like this Pollyanna approach where Oh, just think better thoughts. It's, yeah, it's looking for evidence in your life before in these hindsight type questions. And I think that's, that's a great way to actually live our lives in every aspect.

 
Kristin Sherry  19:57
Yeah, there's I think when we're looking at a situation that we're in, we don't factor in a lot of variables we factor in, I'm disappointed because I didn't get what I wanted. But we don't factor in look at the people who stepped up and gave us love and support. Or look at the strength that I discovered that I never knew that I had. There's a saying that says you never know how strong you are, until you have to be. Right. When we're in those trials, that's when we have a chance to actually shine because we can we learn and grow from those experiences. Our friendships can deepen, yes, you will also have some stripped away, because the people that you thought would be there for you or not. But you know what, that's a gift too. It's a gift to have your relationships clarified, to use that word that you use earlier, who are the people that I should be spending the most time and attention with the PN, you know, you have to give great people grace to like, you don't know what people are going through. And so someone may not have shown up for you because they're in the pit too. So, you have to, and you didn't know that they were in the pit because you weren't around for them either. 

 
Victoria Volk  21:23
Right, that is an in during the time of this pandemic, that's very, very likely to be true for most many people. I shouldn't say most, but for many, you know, with careers and transitions and changes and loss, so much loss.

 
Kristin Sherry  21:43
Yeah, but I will tell you that I did a lot of research, when I wrote when I wrote my book maximize 365 A year of actionable tips to transform your life. I did research on happiness. And people who focus intently on themselves. Like where are your thoughts all the time is the first thing you think about when you wake up your situation, your problem? And do you carry that through the day? Are you even getting your eyes up off your desk, and looking around and seeing who can you help who might need you? It's difficult to want to serve people when you're hurting, I get that. But research shows that people who serve others and focus on others are the happiest people who focus and navel gaze on themselves are the most miserable. And when I think about people that I know that every time I talk to them, they just wallow in their own situations. And all they do is talk about themselves. I realize, oh, this is not this is not because of their situation. This is because the setting they have themselves on and it's going to be another situation another situation another situation. Because I will get to the end of the year. And I'll say, Boy, that was a great year. And every year I say that, and the next year is going to be better and better and better. But it's like well, wait a minute. I've had two miscarriages. My grandmother died when I didn't think she was going to die. Like I when I was 19 years old. My mother told me my grandmother was in the hospital. And I was like, oh, well, I'll just visit her when she gets out. Like my grandmother was a really strong woman. She was just like a hero in our family. She never took crap from anyone. She was just this the strongest woman, and she was an advocate for education and learning. She was very intelligent, and a well-read woman. And I just admired her so much. And she used to pick me up from school and bring me home and make me lunch. And I was in elementary school, and I would hang out with her. And so when my mom said she was in the hospital, I was like, oh, I'll just I'll visit her when she gets out. And then my mom came home and said, you know, Grandma John's died. And I was like, what that was not what was supposed to happen. I was just It never occurred to me. She was 80. But it never occurred to me that she would die. This is my grandmother was so strong, she was going to come back from anything. And even though every year has one of those things, I mean, I don't lose a family member every single year but my cat was viciously attacked a cat I had. I was eight years old. And then when I was 24, she was viciously attacked by to name her dogs and and it was it was a horribly traumatic experience. And but yet every year I'm never saying Oh, I'm so glad for this. I can't wait for this awful year to be over. And I said to my husband one day, why is it that I never feel that way? Like I can't wait for this terrible year to be over? And he said because you focus on the good things that happened that year, not the bad things. And I said yeah, that's exactly what it is. And I get it like Some things that people go through are really, really bad, like way beyond getting fired from your job. I'm not suggesting people say, this was such a great year, you know, when they lose a child or something like that, I get I get that I'm not being glib when I say this. But just in general, I'm talking about the mindset, the perspective. And the example I use is when you look at the moon in the sky, if you stand and put your thumb over the moon, you can cover the entire moon with your thumb, and not even see the moon. And so you can eclipse the moon with your little thumb, but the moon is quite large, right? So we can Eclipse and ignore our blessings by focusing on this problem, this system is the problem and eclipse the abundance that we have in our lives.

 
Victoria Volk  25:52
I love that analogy. Because I have a confession, I've been one of those that's been saying I can't wait till this year is over.

 Kristin Sherry  25:59
I hear it every year. I hear it every year people. And this is a tough time for a lot of people, no doubt, because my parents live in another country. And so, I'm feeling a lot of stress and anxiety now because I'm trying to go see them over Christmas. But I have to have a PCR test for me and my kids and my husband. Like I have four kids and my husband and me. So, we all have to get PCR tests and get the results within a 72-hour window. And we're supposed to go the 27th but it's Christmas on Saturday. So there's not going to be anything doing tests. And will they even be open on Sunday, and Friday is going to be too soon and Mondays too late. So now I'm like, ah, how am I going to see my mom and dad, my dad had a very critical health scare this year, we got to the emergency room. And my mother was told if she had brought him in even an hour later, he would not have survived because his he was in sepsis, septic shock. And his whole stomach had filled with bile. And he was vomiting bile which is terminal. If it gets in your windpipe and into your lungs, he was on the edge of death. And I was able to get into Canada earlier this year to be able to see him and thankfully survived and he's getting stronger. It was very touching go situation if my dad was going to make it to my parents are 77 and 76. And we're in a situation where we live in different countries. And so that is very stressful, a lot of people who are separated from loved ones because of the pandemic. So, in a situation like that, instead of me just everyday focusing on Oh, I can't be with my parents, and I know I'm going to lose my parents and I won't be able to go their funeral instead of like catastrophizing like that. I focus on Well, what can I do? And so we can get on video, chat and talk and see each other. And we can send each other messages every day. And we make videos of the kids to send to them. And we're going to try and get over there. But I don't know if we'll be able to get across the border. But we'll see. Fingers crossed. Yeah. But yeah, I know a lot of people are in those types of situations. But it really doesn't serve you well to it's not harmless to wallow in the stress of your circumstances. Because when you feel really bad that big that becomes spec becomes physical, right, you get ulcers, and I mean, I'm not telling you anything, you don't know all of the different physical ailments that come from stress. So, I tried to I exercise every day, I do have a rest day but I exercise every day, you can get a 12 hour mood boost from walking in the forest from the oxygen coming off of the trees. But it's funny because we turn to food a lot of times and sugar in particular, which is really quite poisonous in our body and large amounts. processed sugar fruit, natural sugars are great maple syrup, pure maple syrup, and fruits and things like that. But we turn to food. And that that sugar might give you an immediate boost, but it actually tanks, your mood food affects your mood. And so, when we're not eating clean foods or eating the processed junk that gives us that that drug it's like sugar is more addictive than cocaine you know. So, it gives you that immediate but you have the crash of drugs that that crash afterwards sugar gives you the same thing You're much better off exercising for a mood boost than eating ice cream.

 
Victoria Volk  30:06
I were just talking before we started to record, and I was telling you about my son who's been kind of in and out of the hospital the last few weeks and we just came out of a stent of him being in the hospital and I was telling you how just physically, that stress has manifested in my body, like even my eyeballs hurt, like to put my eyeballs up. It's like, oh, and I've canker sore the size of Texas and yeah, to my lip. Like that's my first like, that's usually the first thing that happens is I get canker sores. And, and so yes, absolutely 1,000% stress manifests in our bodies grief manifests in our bodies. And I think that's one of the first things that goes out the window, when I'm stressed is my self care. The one thing that you need the most we often neglect when we really need it. And it's really difficult in hospitals to I suppose I could walk the halls and I should have like, I'm like, now hindsight. It's like, huh, we definitely need to walk more, you know, instead of just sit, you know, you do so much sitting,

 
Kristin Sherry  31:09
Do laps around the hospital for sure. 

 
Victoria Volk  31:13
Right? Yeah. I would love to hear more. And for the listeners to learn more about YouMap in how that transition into you creating that has changed your life and how you've seen it change so many other people's lives because I absolutely am a huge proponent of YouMap. I like I said, I've incorporated it into the Grief Recovery work that I do with my clients, because I feel like it was the missing piece for for many. And so yeah, take it away, please share more.

 
Kristin Sherry  31:41
So YouMap was created by accident, I think accidental entrepreneur would be a good title for me. I was really unhappy in my own career. And I know people are using the map for a lot more than career stuff. But I was unhappy in my career. And I kept going from job to job and it would give me a new shot in the arm for a little while. But then a year in I was getting wanderlust again, and I would want to leave. And I really didn't understand why. And I started to feel guilt around that. First of all, I felt guilt because I was sort of disengaged at work. And I felt guilty that my employer in some cases, I was getting paid six figures, and I was daydreaming out the window half the day not being as productive as I could have been. And then I also felt guilty because I had this great paying job that I had dread going to. And I thought I had a gratitude problem, then I was really grateful in a lot of other areas of my life. So I didn't know that that was exactly true. So what was wrong, I didn't really know. But what was wrong was I really didn't know myself. And I didn't know the reasons of the conditions of career fulfillment, what would fulfill me and what wouldn't. And so I kept putting myself into situations that really didn't align with who I was. And I came to find out that career success is really predicated on self awareness. When they look at people who are the most successful and happiest in their career, and really, in their life. Self awareness is really where it's at. Why? Well, first of all, if you know your gifting, you can align to what you do well to things. So your you can use your talents and work becomes effortless to you because you do things naturally well, and instead of working against the grain of who you are, but really what's key is the values. They're all important all too. So YouMap looks at a person's strengths. Their values are what's most important to them, their preferred skills, what burns them out versus what brings them energy and their personality. And the personality is around your motivation and your preferences and your interests. They stem from personality. But for me, I had a values problem. And the reason I was unhappy in my job is because autonomy was in my it was my number two value is the second most important thing to me. And so I would go to a new job. And it would be great at first but then the bosses would say no to my ideas, or I'd have to do things I didn't like doing. There was always something that I felt that I was sort of not in control of my work. And I started to realize I need to work for myself. And that's not for everyone. And I think when people go around pushing everyone needs to be an entrepreneur. That's so not true. That is absolutely not true. For a lot of reasons, but for me, I was never going to be fulfilled because I wanted to write the script for my own life. And I couldn't do that as long as I was working for other people because there's a quote by Jim Rohn that says if you don't design your own life plan, chances are you'll fall into someone else's plan and guess what they have planned for you not much. And that's how I felt at work every day that I was in someone else's plan instead of fulfilling my own plan. So once that happened, once I realized what my own values were, I started to look at that whole big picture, which gave me the four pillars of career fit, I interviewed people, I started taking notes, of why people were unhappy, why they were fulfilled. And I started to look at the patterns. And I knew that I had to understand how people worked, why they worked, what they wanted to work on, and who they are, I needed to know those four things about people to really help them and so that that fast forward, people are using you, Matt, for all kinds of things. Now, like you said, for grief counseling, how do you grieve? Are you a big thinker, so you grieve by going inward, and you're grieving the loss of a child and your spouse is a relational person, their gifting is building connections with people and your gifting is thinking. And so now they want to connect with you. But you're coping inside, and they get divorced. Because the the one who's the relationship builder feels rejected, and neglected, and the one who is the thinker that needs to process internally feel smothered by the other person, and they don't feel understood. And they don't feel like the other person is meeting their needs, whether that's giving me space, or whether that's pressing in and connecting with me, that's just a very simple example, to show. When we understand who we are, we start to understand other people. And then we don't take it personally when we grieve differently, as an example.

 
Victoria Volk  36:50
And that's a beautiful way, the way you said that. And actually, it's a great segue to into talking about how that can trickle into relationship grief. Like you just said, people can end up divorce because they simply don't understand how each other is wired. I'm very much a thinker, I'm in my head. And just like you said, my husband is very much more of creating that connection. And so, I tend to feel smothered, sometimes.

 
Kristin Sherry  37:17
Doing a certification class, one of the women in the certification class lost a child. And she said, in the class, you know, if I had gone through YouMap, and my husband had gone through YouMap, when we lost our baby, I think the baby was stillborn. They didn't know anything was wrong until we're maybe within the first couple of days. But anyway, I think that's what happened. She said, I don't think we would have been divorced. She came to that conclusion, when she started to understand how she processed and how she she said, I don't think we would have ended up divorced if we had known if we had done this.

 
Victoria Volk  37:57
And this is why I think this is the bit has been the missing piece for the work that I do. And so, I'm glad that that the conversation went there. And you brought that up, because I think it's it's huge. What are some things that you look forward to, with you map in, in, in in your own life with, you know?

 
Kristin Sherry  38:18
Oh, boy, I am looking forward, there's a couple of things I'm looking forward to continually innovating you map so that it can be used in ways I can't even fathom right now, I get excited thinking about taking places that I can't even tell you right now, because it's so like out of the box that I don't even know what it is yet. I get excited thinking about what's possible for it. But I also get excited thinking about, perhaps one day starting a Foundation, a nonprofit foundation to help people with you map. And we can employ people, but the people who use our services don't have to pay for it. So, we can help people getting out of prison with you man so that they don't. So, they understand their value because you met those confidence when you start to realize what you have to offer. And you have innate abilities. Even if you've been incarcerated for most of your adult life, I look forward to being able to offer it to people who are in a situation of domestic violence because first of all, when women or men are in a domestic violence situation, they don't tend to control the finances or anything but so to be able to help them build their confidence in who they are, just by understanding themselves better alone, and then having a tool to see how they could provide for themselves and what careers would be a good fit for them. Those types of things. I really get excited thinking about giving people hope through UMap in incarceration, dementia Sick violence, potentially even homeless people. I'd like to have a foundation; I'd like to be able to fund it myself sort of Bill and Melinda Gates don't need donations from people building the business to the point where I can then fund a nonprofit and everyone. So Lila Smith always says she's a YouMap. Coach, she always says the world needs to be you mapped. And the reason that she said that was because when she got certified as EMF coach, she worked with her first she does communication, consulting, using it, but she worked with her first client. And they had a breakthrough on a communication problem they've been having with their boss. And this woman had been struggling with this problem. And it just YouMap illuminated what the issue was like, boom. And so it was so exciting for Lila to be able to give that client that breakthrough. She called me from the back of an Uber after she was leaving that meeting. And she was so excited. She just said, this is this was that was just the most incredible feeling and to be able to bring her to that point. And she said, The world must be human. The world must be you mapped in her excitement. And so that's sort of in the running joke. And I've thought about that ever since she said it. And I thought, well, the only way the world is going to be you mapped is if it's accessible to everyone. So, I that's what I think about.

 
Victoria Volk  41:21
I 100% agree. And actually, some of the recent Grief Recovery clients that I've had that I've used, YouMap with them. Both of them have had career big shifts in their lives, as far as career and one of them is looking to start a podcast and really just under looking at the YouMap just coming back to that every time. And looking at truly like you said it builds confidence. And it was very affirming for me that what I do in my work is spot on. Like I am in full alignment. And so that was the beautiful gift that it gave me was yes, I am on the right path. So, it can do that for you too.

 
Kristin Sherry  42:07
Yeah, absolutely. I always use my own new map to guide me. It's my my guiding light. If you map says no, I'm not going to get involved in things. Why would you want to do this when you're you map says no.

 
Victoria Volk  42:24
Right? It's a tangible piece of real estate of who you are. Yeah, you can look at.

 
Kristin Sherry  42:32
Yeah, summarised and visual. That's how I like things.

 
Victoria Volk  42:36
Yes. Same. What is one thing that you would suggest to someone who I know you've had a lot of suggestions and the advice, like the different questions are amazing. But for someone who isn't sure if the career is the problem? Or if it's something else, do you have a way to help someone discern that? 

 
Kristin Sherry  43:01
Sure. So, I have an ideal day exercise that I love to give people. And if you want to put it in the show notes, I can give you a URL to a quick video that people can watch to do it. But if you just go through and think about all the times in your life that you really enjoyed work that you were doing. Even if you hated the job, what were things that you enjoyed. So maybe you had a customer service job that you absolutely hated. But you loved chit chatting with the customers. Or maybe you you had a job as a data entry person and you hated data entry. But you really loved the mission of the organization you work for. So what were the things that you enjoyed, or that you liked? And if you write all those things down? What are the themes that you see? Did you love problem solving? Did you love creating? Did you love thinking and analyzing? Did you love meeting new people? And are you doing that now in your life? How far is your life? Now? How far have you drifted from this list of things? That that really made you happy in your work? And if it's not the actual work, what you're doing isn't the problem, then maybe it's your values? So what are times that you felt really satisfied, fulfilled and happy in your life? Not because of work, per se but what that work gave you. So did you thrive on being independent? Or was it community that you really love to really learning and growing? Or did you were you in circumstances where you just got to enjoy the beauty of creation? Or were you in situations where you felt respected or you had expertise or or something, the things that you valued and are those things being fulfilled in your life? So if it's not how you're spending your time and what you're doing, it might be where you're doing it or who you're doing it for.

 
Victoria Volk  44:57
I love that and I know you don't work one on one with people. And so, if anyone listening, they might want to say, I really want to work with this Kristin’s charity, but they can't, right. Is that correct? Yeah. But you have all these brilliant books that you've put out, which I highly recommend you map as the book is a great start as well as maximize 365, then you love to segue into the children's books, because I think, just like helping children with loss program and Grief Recovery is intervention. I think in a lot of ways your books are the intervention of helping children build that confidence before the world gets a hold of you, right?

 
Kristin Sherry  45:37
For sure. Yeah, I had a mom write me on LinkedIn. And she said her four-year-old daughter had been molested by her dad, by her own dad, not not the mom's dad. And obviously, that's an immense trust break and trauma. And she had been reading through the children's I think it was the first one, you've got gifts, because there's four of them. And she said that, helping her see her gifting. And what was wonderful about her, was really increasing her confidence. Because I think when kids are betrayed, for lack of a better word, by the adults in their life, they don't view the adult as the problem. What a terrible evil person. They view themselves as bad and dirty. And so that's why she wrote me because she just said she was grateful that her daughter had something to to show her what was good about her. Course, there's nothing bad about her from that situation. But she was feeling that way

 
Victoria Volk  46:44
Gave her hope. For herself. Yeah. So yeah, again, like I said, intervention, intervention.

 
Kristin Sherry  46:53
If somebody does want to go through the map process, and it's not grief related, if it's career related, you could go to my youmap.com. And you can either get a YouMap yourself, and there's a workbook that goes with it, to work through it. Or you can go to the Find a coach page, to find a coach that focuses on career. But if somebody is dealing with a loss from a grief perspective, of course, I recommend they work with you.

 
Victoria Volk  47:17
Because I am the only Grief Recovery specialist that is certified.

 
Kristin Sherry  47:20
In the whole world, you are the only one.

 
Victoria Volk  47:23
Yes, I can say that for a long time. Yes, I highly, highly recommend it. Yeah, like you said, you can do the DIY. And that's certainly a viable option. But I do think the coaching really helps to implement and facilitate or what you know, I think a lot of it, too, is the accountability piece.  

Kristin Sherry  47:48
Also the coaches will add insights that you won't be able to add yourself because you're too close to yourself, you need that third party objective person to help you look into your situation and reveal things that you can't see, because you can't see the forest for the trees.

 
Victoria Volk  48:02
You can't see the label inside the jar. Right?

 
Kristin Sherry  48:04
Yeah, I always say that it's hard to read the label when you're inside the jar.

 
Victoria Volk  48:10
And that's true with grief as well. What gives you the most hope for Well, I kind of asked that already. I'll just give you the floor. Is there anything else that you think would be pertinent to people during this pandemic? In the work that you've done? And created all through these past several years that let's just say, let's say you had the mic for five minutes? Mm hmm. What is the one message that you would like to share with people?

 
Kristin Sherry  48:38
I think it's, I think the simplest message is just find out what you do best that other people need most. So how do you do that? Well, when you start to think about things you do well, you can ask other people, what was the time I made an impact in your life? Can you tell me about a time you saw me doing something out of my gifting something that I did naturally? Well, and how was that helpful? Or how did that make an impact? And when you ask 10 People that you'll start to see patterns? Whether they say, Boy, you just a really good listener, you're really good at make holding space for people and making me feel seen and heard. And just Everyone's so busy, I feel like you're the only person that sees me, or maybe they say, you always know the right thing to say in every situation. Or maybe they say, anytime I come to you with a problem, you're able to just hone in and see exactly what the problem is that I couldn't see. So what is it that you always just do Well, naturally? And who can you help with that? Because when you're in a difficult situation, the best way to feel a sense of purpose and usefulness and is by making a difference in other people's lives because I truly believe that so think about marriage when People try to, to fulfill themselves to get what they want in the marriage, it doesn't work. But when you try to fill fulfill the needs of the other and they do that to you, everyone's needs are met. It's it's really true when you look out for people obviously look out for number one that does not work in marriage doesn't work in any relationship, you need boundaries. 100% boundaries are important. But when you service the needs of your partner, and they service your needs as well, everyone is more fulfilled than when you endeavor to fulfill your needs yourself. There's something magical about that, about meeting one another's needs, then each trying to meet their own needs individually, it's like something magical happens. Well, it's the same thing in all relationships. I think if you figure out what it is that you do best, and you apply it to people where you feel passionate to help, your fulfillment in life will go up. I was a selfish person. When I was younger, I always worried about myself, what was best for me, and that just didn't get me anywhere. And the minute I started to invest in other people and making a difference in other people's lives, my purpose and my fulfillment just went through the roof. So that's what I would recommend to people stop navel gazing, figure out your gifting what you do best, who needs it? And marry those two things together?

 
Victoria Volk  51:27
I love it. I love it. Is there anything else you'd like to share?

 
Kristin Sherry  51:31
No, I don't think so. Except for actually, if you go to if you want to have some free videos on some of my content, if you go to youtube.com/c/kristensherry, or just search for Kristin Sherry on YouTube, I have a ton of videos on there to help people in a lot of different areas. mindset stuff, self confidence career, the ideal day exercise, figuring out your strengths, your values, it's all on there on the videos.

 
Victoria Volk  52:06
And I will put that in the show notes the link as well. Excellent. And how can others find you as well? If they want to find you on social media? Where are you at?

 
Kristin Sherry  52:17
Probably you can reach me on Instagram @careerkristin, Twitter @YouMapcreator? Um, that's I mean, you can connect with me on LinkedIn. I don't I'm kind of on a sabbatical from LinkedIn right now. I got burned out day after day contributing there. So, I'm sort of taking a little break. It's been a couple months now. But you can connect to me there for sure. But I only checked my messages like once once a week there.

 
Victoria Volk  52:47
Or on myyoumap.com, right? 

 
Kristin Sherry  52:49
Yeah, through the website? Yes. I actually have not delegated the messages to my operations manager me me. I read and respond to every message to the website myself. A lot of people say I should probably delegate that. But I like doing that.

 
Victoria Volk  53:04
That's your baby. Right? YouMap is your baby. Well, thank you so much for your time today. I think this is such an important topic, given this long drawn-out pandemic that is continuing well into 2022 It seems but so thank you so much for your time today. I greatly appreciate it. And I have no doubt that anyone listening is going to find some value in what you've had to share today. So thank you. 

 
Kristin Sherry  53:37
Thank you, Victoria. It was a pleasure. 

 
Victoria Volk  53:40
And thank you for being a mentor of mine. 

 
Kristin Sherry  53:43
My pleasure. I love it. I love meeting all the YouMap coaches and investing in you guys. It's my joy.

 
Victoria Volk  53:48
And it is a phenomenal program to by the way the support is bar none.

 
Kristin Sherry  53:53
Thank you. I appreciate that.

 
Victoria Volk  53:56
All right. And remember when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.