Gathering Good People

We don't always know what will make us happy...

Welcome to Reset Learning Studio, a monthly newsletter to help you reach your greatest potential. Reset combines professional coaching with spiritual lessons to help you live a meaningful life. Each month, you can expect a theme with lessons, practices, and tools to help you in your personal and professional life.

We don’t always know what will make us happy. In a 2014 study, a group of commuters in Chicago was asked to imagine talking to strangers on the subway, and hands-down, everyone reported feeling dread and anxiety just thinking about it. (I’m sure we can all resonate with that.)

Then, they took another group and put them into action. Half the people were forced to strike up a conversation with strangers on the train, while the other half could sit in silence alone. Afterward, the ones who chatted with strangers reported feeling significantly happier than those who didn’t.

The study showed the misalignment between what we think and what we need. We think we hate putting ourselves out there for connection, but in reality, we need it for our happiness.

Two months ago, the US Surgeon General issued a national advisory about “the epidemic of loneliness and isolation” that affects 1 in 2 Americans— an emotional issue that has real physical effects like insomnia, inflammation, and immune changes. Prolonged loneliness is as bad for you as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, he said.

I love to be alone (which is different, but related to loneliness). In fact, I can spend a few days not talking to another person and feel rested and restored, but when I read this, I realized that I actually had been feeling a little lonely. We all need connection. We all need to feel seen and understood by others. We all need to know that there’s someone out there who cares.

With that, I wanted to share a couple of things I love that could possibly help with this month’s theme of Gathering with Good People.

1.) I am a huge fan of Jasmine Garnsworthy. I really don’t know how she does it all. Not only is she a new mom, but she’s also the creator of Female Founder World, which is the most welcoming and extensive community for women who are building consumer businesses online and IRL. They have a program called “Business Bestie,” where you get group business coaching, meet other female founders, and get access to templates, vendor lists, workshops, and other practical tools. I cannot express how much my friendships with other women doing similar work saved me in the last 4 years of Reset. Seriously, it was my #1 unlock.

2.) Come gather with me, my friend Sophia Li, and lots of other great people at the Strand Bookstore in NYC on Tuesday, July 26th. We’ll be doing a reading and discussion about my new book The Karma of Success and celebrating afterward with an open bar somewhere nearby. I don’t really love celebrations for myself, but I am so excited to use this as an opportunity to meet new faces and see old friends who I haven’t bumped into in a while.

3.) Half the year is gone! Do you believe it? I created a free 7-day challenge to get reconnected to the goals we all set for ourselves when this year started. This is a way to make small, daily, steps toward what you want to manifest in 2023. The content is inspired by what I wrote about in the book, so it’s a good way to check out some of the concepts.

Dear Liz,

What advice would you give to someone who feels that the life and career they built over the past 10 years is far from the expression of their true self, and is also struggling to identify their passion and new direction? There is an underlying feeling of needing a big change which comes with the fear of leaving something known and safe vs moving forward into a complete unknown without real clarity for the passion/drive.

-Edna, 32 from Manchester

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Dear Edna,

You’re a year ahead of me, because I had the exact same question come up when I was 33 years old, and I have the feeling that a lot of people reading this newsletter can resonate with you, too. So thank you for asking the question for all of us.

I went to a retreat at the Omega Institute last weekend with Elizabeth Gilbert and Rob Bell, and Rob Bell said something that made a lot of sense to me. He said, we all come to these crossroads in life when our current situation no longer fits us, but we’re not sure where to go next, and all you have to do is take it in two parts:

Part 1: The Stirrings: Stirrings are little ideas, intuitions, and curiosities for where we might go in the future. The most important part of working with your Stirrings is that there is no edit button on them. Hold them loosely. Don’t worry about if they’re practical or not. A Stirring might feel like the desire to apply for a certain type of job outside of your current field, the idea of starting your own podcast, or wondering what it would be like to move to the beach. The important thing is to not judge the Stirrings and to really listen to them. Take each other seriously, no matter how silly it seems. Sometimes following a Stirring winds up changing your whole life— let’s say you get one of those jobs you apply for and move to a new country for it. Most of the time Stirrings come and go. You explore them a bit, then you realize that it’s not really for you. The thing is, we don’t really know what a Stirring will become until we take some step forward with it. This brings us to Part 2.

Part 2: The Action: When you become aware of a Stirring, you have to just one step forward. This is very important— take one step, and one step only. Don’t do more than that. For instance, if the Stirring is about starting a podcast, perhaps the first step is to talk to someone who has been podcasting for a few years. Then, if you still feel that Stirring, you decide on the next step only once that first step is done. Going one step at a time prevents you from getting overwhelmed and over-committing. You don’t want to rush out and start booking guests or buying podcast equipment. You go slowly, and at the end of each step, you check in and see if the Stirring is still there.

Essentially, your work now is to be easy and gentle with yourself as you become accustomed to listening to your Stirrings and taking small, single, steps of action against them, one at a time. The answer is NEVER overnight for anyone. I myself, am always in a rush, so when I knew my career in venture capital was no longer for me, I was in a huge hurry to figure out what I wanted to do next. This was four years ago, and in that moment, I made the smartest decision I’ve ever made. I decided to resist the pressure and rush and I gave myself a reverse deadline. I said I would not make any big choices about my next career until I’d explored my Stirrings for at least 6 months. It wound up being closer to 8 months before I decided that I would start Reset, and even then I thought it was pretty fast!

Think about it this way. You’ve been in the same career for 10 years. Imagine if you were in a 10-year romantic relationship and you broke up. You’d certainly spend a long time dating before you settled down into the next long-term relationship. Give yourself grace. Let yourself have fun. Be professionally single, and enjoy all the non-commitment and exploration that comes with it. Get to know your interests, curiosities, and Stirrings again before you commit to anything big.

Love,

Liz

PS If you find yourself feeling suffocated by fear in the process of exploring your Stirrings, check out the podcast episode I recorded on “Making Friends with Fear.”

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Happy Gathering everyone, and we’ll be back for another newsletter in a couple of weeks!

Come join me on July 26th at The Strand in NYC

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