Are you feeling stuck in a corporate hamster wheel, unsure of who you really are? In this episode, Rosie Zilinskas chats with Happiness Coach Shannon Talbot about breaking free from career limitations and discovering true fulfillment. Shannon shares her inspiring journey from corporate leadership to becoming a happiness coach, revealing how she overcame self-doubt and embraced vulnerability to live more authentically. She also discusses the three key areas that might be holding you back from a fulfilling career and provides actionable steps to overcome them. Tune in to feel empowered, unlock your potential, and embrace a more joyful, authentic life.
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Breaking Free: Finding Fulfillment Beyond Career Limitations With Happiness Coach Shannon Talbot
How many of you have been juggling so many roles at work that you’re not even sure which one is you? Our guest has been there and she has some pretty cool wisdom to share on breaking free from that corporate hamster wheel. I know that we would all love to break from that corporate hamster wheel. Welcome back to yet another episode of the No Woman Left Behind show. As always, I am here to help you unlock your potential in your career, stop holding yourself back, and level up. Grab your favorite drink and let’s dive right in.
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We’re chatting with Shannon Talbot. She made a major career pivot to become a happiness coach. There are happiness coaches. We’ll talk about how she found the courage to make that shift, how to stop people-pleasing, and the three things that are holding you back from living a more fulfilling life. You’ll leave this episode with some real actionable steps to find more joy in those who don’t need more joy.
Let me introduce you to Shannon Talbot. Shannon is a happiness coach who helps women feeling overwhelmed by competing priorities find more fulfillment in their lives before this. Before this, she spent fifteen years in corporate leadership where she honed her coaching skills and discovered her passion for helping others. After a life-changing experience, she made the bold move to rewrite her career and embrace personal development. She’s here to share how we can all stop holding back and start showing up as our true selves. Stick around. This is going to be one of those episodes that you are going to want to tune in to again.
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Shannon, thank you so much for being here. Are you doing okay?
I am. Thanks for having me.
Breaking Free
Thank you for being here again. You have a book and your book is called Breaking Free. I love that you talked about “stop holding back and start being you.” That is such a good conversation that we’re going to have. I always tell the women in the corporate space that I helped that they’re holding themselves back by doing different things or not doing different things like not applying for jobs, not speaking up, and not advocating for themselves. I’m focused on creating a custom career roadmap for women, but I know that there are many other ways that we have to stop holding back and start being ourselves. I know you left the corporate space. Now you’re a happiness coach. Why did you decide to write Breaking Free?
I wrote Breaking Free because when I was growing up in the corporate world and navigating the corporate world, also when I got married, had kids, new titles, and more responsibilities at work and home, I found I was missing a guide, the how-to. How to do all of this and how to figure it out as I went. I was also wanting to hear stories of other women.
I had great bosses and mentors. Some of them would share their stories with me, but I find so often in my experiences in the corporate world that we hold a bit of ourselves back even when sharing our stories because we’re afraid of how we will be perceived. It’s like, “I don’t want people to think I love being a mom and my kids are so important to me because maybe that won’t let me get ahead at work,” or “If I take time off to go to my kids’ school trip, then maybe people will think I’m not serious,” or all of the things that come. It’s not even just for moms but in general, the stereotypes that there are against women. For me, where are those stories? Where are those stories of women and how they did it?
We learned through stories. We learned through sharing experiences. I wanted to create this book Breaking Free which was part step-by-step of simple actionable steps that we can do and exercise to help us break three and live our more authentic lives. I also wanted to share my personal stories and the stories of other women that I found inspirational through my journey in the book as well. Some of them are my clients and then shared with their permission. Some of them are other women who have influenced me on my journey.
Leaving Corporate
How did you decide to leave the banking world? I think you went from banking to advertising. Now you have your personal development. You’re a happiness coach, which I love. How did you first decide to leave the corporate space?
It came in as a surprise. Had you asked me ten years ago, “Shannon, where do you see yourself in ten years?” I never wanted C-Suite but I would say, “Senior Vice President at a big company in a big office tower on a high floor.” That’s seriously where I want to picture myself ten years ago. I tell this to people all the time too. Our dream careers can change. Even if we had this vision, and I had that vision for years, it’s okay if they change. It’s okay if a new dream comes up.
That’s what happened to me. It came up by surprise and it happened about six years ago. My oldest son who was five at the time was admitted to hospital right around the Christmas holidays for his appendix. It should have been a simple procedure, but it turned into a 31-day stay in the hospital over the holiday. We were in the hospital on Christmas morning.
He made the best of it and it turned out to be a lovely bonding time. My husband and I took turns staying overnight at the hospital. We had a three-year-old at home, so one of us would be at the hospital and one of us would be with the three-year-old. It was very hectic but it was the first time in my life when my career took the back seat. My work was very understanding and very supportive and I worked when I could, but my career took the backseat.
One evening, my son had fallen asleep and I was lying there, reading Michelle Obama’s book Becoming. It caused me to pause and ask myself three questions, “Am I happy? Am I healthy? Do I feel fulfilled?” My answer was, “Not really.” I’m a very motivated person. I’m a very driven person. I’m a high achiever. I had high expectations and for me, that was not okay.
What immediately followed that was guilt, “Shannon, you have everything. What are you complaining about? You should be happy.” All the shoulds we tell ourselves. For the first time, I said, “I’m blessed to have a lot of great things going on in my life but I want more. There’s something different that I want. That’s okay and it’s time to figure that out.”
It so happened that after we got into the hospital and my son was better, someone reached out to me about a retreat that we’re hosting with a coach and figuring out what your next chapter was. I thought, “That’s interesting.” I’d never worked with a coach. I was a bit skeptical but it was the right timing. I went and attended this three-day retreat. I came out of it with one line that shocked me that I couldn’t believe I wrote. I wrote, “I am a successful entrepreneur who helps women live happier, healthier, and more fulfilling lives.”
I didn’t know how. I had no idea. Anything else but I left there saying, “What lights my fire is being an entrepreneur. I want to do that. I want to leave corporate, but I gave myself ten years. That was the plan but in the meantime, I also left with a short-term goal. I’ve been in banking for fifteen years. It was wonderful and provided me with great experiences, but I didn’t grow up saying I was going to work in banking. I want to try something else out and see what it’s like, which then lets me into doing some networking and talking to a whole bunch of people. This opportunity came up in advertising as a vice president as I moved into there. A bank was my client, so that’s how the transition worked. It was fun, creative, and strategic.
I got to develop all these new skills, but the hours were worse than I thought. Everyone told me the hours were bad in advertising and they were worse than I realized. It wasn’t conducive to my life anymore. When the pandemic hit and I had two young kids at home and everything going on, I ended up speeding up my dream. In 2021, I left the corporate world and started my own business where I’m a happiness coach and then I do speaking engagements as well.
I understand when your son was sick, you guys were busy. It was a little bit before you realized that it was as bad as it was. What was the conversation with your husband when you finally realized that it was appendicitis?
It happens to so many of us, but it’s not something we share because we feel bad or guilty. When my son got sick, there were eleven kids out sick in his class. It was December, lots of colds and stuff going around. My brother was sick. We said, “He just has some type of bug,” but he was lethargic. On the fourth day, my husband took him to a walk-in clinic. He called me and said, “We’re on our way to the sick kid’s hospital. They think it’s his appendix.” I went, “Oh, no.”
I felt awful, guilty, and everything. The great thing about my husband and I is we don’t beat each other up over it. We don’t say, “How come you let this go?” There’s none of that. We’re true partners. It was one of those things where we’re like, “It is what it is. We still caught it in time. We probably could have caught it earlier to go through 31 days in hospital, but it happened.”
It brought light to a whole bunch of things that were going on in our lives. My son was later diagnosed with autism as well, which helped us uncover a bunch of things. A lot of great discoveries came out of that time. It sounds funny but I’m grateful for that time. Anyone who experienced this, don’t beat yourself up. It happens. We’re all busy. When you can follow, your gut goes with it.
My kids are 23 and 25 now, but I think of when he was 16 or 17. He was already driving. He wasn’t feeling well. I was working and I’m like, “Drive yourself to the doctor. I made an appointment, go.” He then called me. He’s like, “Mom, I have a mono.” I’m like, “I’m so sorry. I’ll be right there.” He was very lethargic and I was like, “Just drive yourself.” It happens to the best of us.
Step-By-Step Guide
I know what you talked about the practical steps from your book. That’s where I want to shift the conversation a little bit because we are so busy in this day and age. We’re all trying to do the best that we can but people need tools. As you said earlier, you never worked with a coach and you were skeptical about it. I always feel that when we’re little we have a football coach, a piano coach, and a dance teacher. We have all these coaches. Professional athletes have several coaches.
When we go into the corporate space or any workforce, we’re expected to know what to do without having that coaching. As much as our leaders, bosses, and managers want to coach us, they’re not a coach and they have their work to do and they have other team members to deal with. Having a manager say, “I’m going to help you develop your career,” that’s not necessarily the right path. Having a coach is so critically important. It’s becoming more mainstream these days to have a variety of coaches for whatever reason. Let’s start talking about the main practical steps that you can go through in your book, and then we’ll take it from there.
I broke my book down into four key sections. The first step is uncovering what lights you up. It’s an important step and it’s also a step that as adults, we forget to do this. We forget to take that time to sit back and say, “What is it that I enjoy?” Either about your current work or what you’ve always dreamed of doing. What are those things that get you excited to get up in the morning?
One exercise I start within the book is creating the vision, letting yourself dream, and letting yourself go there. Usually, I pick ten years out from now because when we pick ten years out, we’re not bogged down in how is it going to happen, that’s silly, or I’m not qualified. We give ourselves the space to dream. I have an exercise where I’ll walk through a visualization and get you excited about what your ideal but typical day looks like ten years from now.
In my case, I had two dreams. One I had as a kid and one I had in high school but I told myself that they weren’t real. They weren’t real careers. You couldn’t make a living and now I’m making a living doing it as an author and a speaker, but for years I said, “No, Shannon. Those are silly.” Letting yourself go there. Letting yourself forget what your teacher said or your parents or whoever told you that you couldn’t do something. Go there and think about it and picture what your life could look like without the how.
From there, I go into probably the biggest section of the book and most important in a way. That is what holds us back and identifying it. Certain areas hold us back. We all have excuses, “I don’t have time, energy, and money. I don’t know how.” We are masters of excuses. We learn them in childhood. We learned to get out of things and we become good at them. Sometimes we don’t even realize we’re using them as an excuse to not do something we want.
We always usually think of them as doing something we don’t want to do but we also use them to not face the fear of doing something scary. I outline the fears that hold us back. One fear that we don’t always think about in the sphere of success. “If I get that job or if I get that client or that promotion, I might have to perform.” We hold ourselves back from getting it and come up with excuses to justify why we didn’t get it.
All those fears play a part. Probably the two harder areas to work on are our beliefs. The things we learned as kids and as we grew older, society, peers, and culture influence us. Maybe you heard starting at five years old either from somebody else or you told yourself, like in my case, I told myself being a writer isn’t a real career. That was the story I had in my head that I had to work on and change so that I could follow that passion.
The last part is our bad habits. Things like watching TV over getting that course done or reading that book we wanted to read, drinking, binge eating, shopping, and all of those things that make us feel good in the moment, but also might be getting in the way of us doing what we want to do. The last two parts of the book are about how to be set free. There are exercises on how to start going after what you want, how to ask for what you want, how to stop those negative habits or face your fears, and then how to keep it going. We all get into great habits. We’re going well for a while and then something happens and we fall. There are tips in there as well for getting back on and keeping it going.
Identifying Excuses
A lot of good information there. The last piece that you said was so key because a lot of people are good at starting things and then something happens like vacation, sickness, or whatever, and then it’s so hard to get back onto whatever it is. Let’s talk about those excuses a little bit more because we human beings are so good at making excuses that we don’t even realize that they are excuses. Tell me a little bit more about how can someone identify that it’s an excuse versus a valid reason. Let’s start there.
One of the tricks I use for all of the things that hold us back, not even just excuses, is asking yourself, “Is this fact, or is this fiction? Would this hold up in a court of law?” That’s the question I like asking because that’s going to have us go, “It probably wouldn’t. The judge is going to see through me.” Ask yourself, “Is it a fact or a fiction?”
It takes self-awareness. Sometimes we need somebody to help us out. In my instance, I love giving the story of how I do not like exercise. I don’t like it. I didn’t start exercising until I was in my late 30s. I wish I had exercised sooner. I wish someone had told me that was the key to managing my stress better. No one had ever connected those dots for me as silly as it sounds. My parents didn’t exercise, so I didn’t have those role models. I do not enjoy it, but I know that I will feel good afterward.
With the exercise, I had to get my husband to help me out. I had to say, “I’m going for a run tomorrow. Don’t let me not go.” The next day I will be like, “I didn’t sleep well last night, so I’m not going to go today.” I come up with every excuse possible. He’s like, “Think of how good you’re going to feel. It’s a beautiful day. Get out there. As soon as you’re out, you’re going to feel good,” and it’s true. Once we’re in it, we’re okay.
It’s that taking that first step. Self-awareness is key. Doing it yourself or asking somebody, “Can you help point out when I might be avoiding doing this thing that I know is good for me?” Also, getting that accountability person to be like, “Can you help me push through because I know I’m going to come up with excuses to not do the thing?”
Let’s translate that a little bit into careers because you might have the excuse of, “I hate networking events and I don’t want to go to networking events.” I’m pretty good at networking now, but what would you say to somebody that knows that they need to network but they don’t like to network and they’re like, “ I am never going to do that?”
Two things. One is focusing on the result. I liken it to a house renovation. I asked this question a lot in my talks. I said, “What’s the first step of a house renovation?” Many people say demolition. I’m like, “No. You start with a vision.” What are the benefits of a networking event? What could come out of a networking event?
Forget that you don’t like it. After the networking event, maybe you have five great new contacts who are great and going to help you down the road. Maybe someone is connecting you to somebody who is hiring for a job and that’s your dream job or whatever that may be or a new potential client. What are the benefits that could come out of it? Know that it takes practice. The first time you go to a networking event, you might be uncomfortable. You may stand in the corner the whole time, but you made it to the event.
The second time, what can you do? I do this too. I’m a very social person but I also have an introverted side. When I go to networking events, I have to set a goal like, “I’m going to talk to three people that I don’t know.” I do it and then maybe next time it’s five people or, “I’m going to give my email to two people or get two people’s emails,” whatever it is. Set a goal. Make it a fun game. If you’re going with somebody, do it with them too. Make that competition and then know that it gets a bit easier every time you do it. Something that helps me too is knowing there are other people in the room feeling exactly how I’m feeling right now.
“There are other people in the room feeling exactly how you are feeling right now.” – Shannon Talbot Share on X
How you set it is starting with the end in mind with the vision because it’s the same thing. If you’re trying to have a conversation with your manager and you’re driving it, think about that vision and that result that you’re looking for, and work towards that. I think that works well. When it comes to your career, what was one top mistake that you made in your career and how would you now apply the framework that you have now to that mistake?
Top Mistakes
There are almost two mistakes I made. The one was I acted how I thought I should. When I started my career in my lower twenties, I didn’t care. I cared how I acted. I knew I had to present myself a certain way, but I went as me. I showed up as me. I brought up new ideas. I wasn’t jaded. I spoke up with confidence. It was great. I got to progress pretty quickly and try different things.
I then started telling myself with each new role or responsibility, “You have to act this way now.” I hold a bit of myself back. It got worse. As I progressed and got older, when I thought it would get easier and better, I would hold myself a little bit more back. I’d be like, “I’m a director now. I beat out all these other applicants. Now, I have to be the part.” You forget that you were picked for the part as you, but then I started being this certain way. We do need to act a certain way, especially if we have people reporting to us or different situations.
There are times when you might need to portray yourself a certain way, but it‘s still making sure you’re showing up as you and voicing your opinions, sharing your ideas, and not holding the parts back that make you so great and unique because it’s important. The first piece of advice I would give is to still be you and still shine as you because that’s who people hire. That’s who people want.
The second piece, especially for any female leaders who have a team, is to be more vulnerable. Share your struggles more. I didn’t do that until towards the end of my career. I knew I was on the way out. I cared less about what other people thought and that is when I shone the most because I was vulnerable. I was sharing with my team things about my personal life and the struggles I was facing.
It helped us bond and helped them open up as well and created a stronger relationship. Looking back, I wish I had had more female leaders do the same. I wish I had more female leaders to talk about how hard it is as a woman to be in the leadership table with mainly men, or if you have kids at home or whatever the situation is. The more we can share our story, the more empowered we might feel.
As you kept going through your career, you were acting the way that you thought you should act and you were holding yourself back. That’s interesting. Although, I can see that because I ended my corporate career as an Executive Vice President. You have to portray the image and you have to be a certain way. What would you say to an executive or a senior vice president who is more buttoned up and not as vulnerable? What recommendation would you make to have that connection with your team? Sometimes you hold yourself apart and they don’t see you as human and you might not see them as humans. How do we bring that humanity back into that connection?
There are a few different ways. One would be for any of the senior leaders who have kids. I know work is not a family and that whole debate is going on right now. Look at your team a bit more as if they were your kids. How would you want them to feel or what would you want them to open up to you? What do you want to share about yourself to help them understand that they’re not alone? Sometimes when we can think of it more as that relationship. It helps that empathy be there a little bit more.
The other question. This isn’t necessarily a tip but I asked a lot of my clients. I’ll say, “Who is a leader that you admire right now in your organization?’ I get a lot of, “There isn’t anyone.” I’m shocked at how often I hear, “There isn’t anybody.” I think that’s because there is this divide in this buttoned-up approach where we think. “I can’t be their friend because I’m their boss or their leader,” which I get. You don’t want to be their best friend. You’re not there to be their best friend, but there’s a middle ground where you can be a bit more vulnerable.
Share a bit more of what you are going through and invite them to share that as well, especially now that we’re more in a virtual world. I think we’re losing that even more now because you don’t get the water cooler chat it’s in the hallway as much as we used to get. Maybe that side of people would come out a little bit more.
Happiness Coach
You are a happiness coach now. How did you get to be a happiness coach and what does a happiness coach help people with?
There’s a misconception about happiness. A lot of people think, “Happiness isn’t for me,” or whatever people think. I used to think that too. There’s a misconception out there that happiness is this fluffy thing that isn’t attainable or it’s not important. I want to start spreading the message. What adult would ever go up to a child and say, “I hope you’re not happy,” or “I hope you don’t grow up to be happy?” What we want for kids is we want them to be healthy and happy.
Somewhere along the way, we lose that and think that happiness is a side thing. I became a happiness coach because I want people to understand that we all deserve happiness. I also want people to know that it’s not an innate quality. We’re not either born happy or not happy. We have to work at it and choose it. It doesn’t mean we’re happy all the time. I got called out on LinkedIn when I was saying that I got a book review that I didn’t love and it hurt me. We’re trying to work through that. Somebody is like, “You’re a happiness coach.”
It doesn’t mean you don’t have unhappy days because we all have unhappy days. What I do now is help people find more happiness moments and ways to bring more happiness into their daily lives. Often, it’s like, “I’m happy when I’m on vacation.” That’s great, but we’re maybe on vacation a couple of times a year. What else can we do to feel happier in our day-to-day lives and then also help our teams with their happiness or understanding happiness, helping our kids understand what helps improve happiness, and ways to recognize it, so we can all bring a bit more joy into our lives.
I love that. To your point, just because you’re a happiness coach doesn’t mean that you’re required to be happy 24/7. You’re also a human being and you have emotions. When someone criticizes you or judges you. You have every right to have hurt feelings. That’s a very good way of explaining what a happiness coach does, which means finding those moments of joy throughout your day. Some people are so stuck in the negative or the “woe is me” type mindset. They miss all those moments that could be perfect happy moments. A butterfly flies by or something silly, but beautiful at the same time. I love that. When you start working with clients, do you go through the four phases in your book?
Yes, I do. I go through the four phases. The first session always starts with both visions, creating the long-term vision, but then also goal setting, so more short-term goal setting, and then we go through the different stages of the book throughout the program.
How is your son now? Is everything good with your son?
Yeah. He’s great. He’s wonderful. It’s funny though. He was incredible. He was five years old. He was so strong during that time. He would go and visit other patients and get them to get up walking or eating. He would go chitchat with the nurses and tell them jokes. He was Mr. Congeniality during this time. He was wonderful. There was a games room, clowns came in, and dogs. It was an amazing experience.
Interestingly, he only remembers the negative now. He only remembers the negative things. Also through my research, I’m working on things to bring out that yes, it was a traumatic experience and it’s okay to think that, but there were also some great moments in it. The other thing we tend to do is our memories of events change over time. How can we take those negative experiences? I understand that it may be a horrible time in our lives, but what are the lessons we can take out of it? What were those good things that did come out of that time?
“Our memories of events change over time.” – Shannon Talbot Share on X
I went through a situation in my life where I had a bad divorce. People would criticize me because I would always buy gifts for my kids to give to their father on birthdays and Christmas and stuff like that. Despite everything that was happening, I wanted my kids to bring gifts to their dad. People never saw the purpose of me doing that. I was like, “I want my children to be able to give a gift to their dad on Christmas and birthday. How hard is it to understand that?”
Prioritizing Well-Being
Unfortunately, I don’t remember the negative stuff. I’m good at letting things go and don’t hold grudges. People who have more tendency to hold grudges are the ones who focus on those negative things instead of letting them go. Let it pass through you. Learn the lesson and then move on so that you can be happy and enjoy life. I love all that. You also work on prioritizing well-being and sticking to new habits. Tell us a little bit about how you do that because, in this day and age, we’re all so busy. We start things and then maybe not finish them. How can someone prioritize their well-being and stick to those habits then?
My first example does not always go over well. I joined the 5 AM Club. When I was working in advertising, my phone could start going off from 7:00 in the morning, and then who knew what the rest of the day looked like? If ever I plan to go to the gym after work or do anything like that, it may not happen and I couldn’t guarantee that it would happen.
I wasn’t a morning person. I’m somebody who loves sleeping in but I read this book The 5 AM Club by Robin Sharma and it got me hooked. I was like, “I’m going to test this out.” I did test it out for three weeks and I woke up at 5:00 AM. The concept is this. You have 20 minutes of working out, 20 minutes of journaling, gratitude, practicing, and mindfulness, whether you do meditation or whatever that looks like, and then 20 minutes of reading and learning.
I thought, “One hour from 5:00 to 6:00. My youngest was waking up at 6:00. Perfect. I can do this.” I did it for three weeks, then the pandemic hit. There was so much uncertainty and my routine went out the window. It took me five months to get back into it and I got back into it five months later, but I changed up the routine to work for me.
I’m not somebody who wants to wake up at 5:00 in the morning and start working out. It didn’t entice me. I wanted to drink my coffee. I wanted to journal and wake up, and then I could go workout. I changed up my routine and I changed to a routine that worked for me, ending with exercise. Not every day but a few days a week. I noticed such a difference. I had more energy. I was more focused, my brain fog was clear, and I felt good.
The other thing it did for me too was I didn’t have the guilt hanging over me all day. As you said, you’d work out today and you didn’t do it. Those voices that we heard all day were gone. I was way more productive as well. It has evolved over time, depending on when my kids go to bed and things like that. I don’t beat myself up over if I don’t wake up at 5:00 all the time, but I know that routine is there and it will help me get through the day. If I do it a bit later in the day, it’s okay. The meditation, the journaling, and the exercise have been such a game-changer in my energy and mood.
I’m like you. I don’t necessarily like to go get up and workout right away. I do my meditation first, about an hour of meditation. I don’t have little kids. We don’t have pets or anything. It’s just me. Funny as this is, sometimes it takes me four hours to get ready in the morning because I’ll do an hour of meditation. I’ll do my working out. I’ll do my journaling. I’ll jump in the shower at 8:00 and then I’m ready by 9:00.
How is it possible that one human being takes four hours to get ready? I take my time in the morning and it sets up my whole day in a much better way, especially if I take that hour to meditate. I love it. Working out is the second thing I do because I do not like to do it immediately when I workout. I am right there with you.
I love everything that you shared with us, especially being able to find those little moments of joy throughout your day. That’s what life is all about. We’re so busy. We’re in this go, go, go era where it’s so nice to take a moment and breathe and find one thing that brings you joy in your day. Shannon, you’ve given us so much information and I loved everything but is there one actionable takeaway that you think is the most important item that someone can use in their day-to-day going forward?
I would say to stop the three Ps. It’s maybe more than one but it’s to stop people pleasing, striving for perfection, and caring so much about other people’s perception of you. Those are the three Ps. If you can get rid of the perfectionism, the people pleasing, and perception and how much that impacts you of others, then you’re able to go after more of what you want in your life.
I love it, especially the perception one because we were so worried about what is so-and-so going to say. Don’t worry about what so-and-so. My mom was so worried about, “What are the neighbors going to say?” “We don’t care, mom. We don’t care what the neighbors are going to say.” I think the three Ps are perfect to leave us with that actionable takeaway. Thank you very much for your time. Any final words on how people can step into their happiness?
I talked about the book Break Free. Be Yourself and be who you are. When you can show up as your authentic self, you’re going to have more energy. You’re going to have more joy and you are going to attract the people that you were meant to attract in your life.
A perfect way to end. Thank you so much, Shannon, for your time again.
Thanks, Rosie. This is fun.
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Did you ever think that you would hear this great conversation between me and a happiness coach? There you have it. Let me break down some of the biggest takeaways from my chat with Shannon. First, she said to create a ten-year vision for your life without worrying about the how. What are the big ticket items that you would love to happen in ten years? Do you want to pay off your house? Do you want to go on a trip? Do you want to have all of the savings that you need to retire early? Things like that.
Next, she says to identify what’s holding you back by asking yourself, “Is that a fact or is it fiction? Is it a fact that I will never be able to stop working? Is that a fiction?” That’s a very powerful question that you can ask about every thought that you have in your life. Finally, she said to stop the three Ps. The first one is people pleasing. The second one is perfectionism. The last one is worrying about others’ perceptions of you. Nobody is thinking about you except you. That’s pretty funny. One of my favorite takeaways from her is to stop worrying about what other people think and their opinion does not define your worth, which is huge.
Before I let you go, don’t forget to take the Promotion Readiness Quiz to see how close you are to landing that next big promotion. If you’re ready to connect with other ambitious women, check out the Unlock The Leader Within Membership. All the links are on the episode website including Shannon’s website and her book.
In this episode, we gave you actionable advice on how to stop holding yourself back and start living a life that you’re truly excited about. It’s about creating that vision and ditching the excuses. I hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as I did. Until next time, remember to be brave, be bold, and take action.
Important Links
- Shannon Talbot
- Becoming
- The 5 AM Club
- https://www.Instagram.com/shannontalbot_coaching
- https://www.LinkedIn.com/in/shannon-talbot-mba
- No Woman Left Behind
- Promotion Readiness Quiz
- Unlock The Leader Within Membership
About Shannon Talbot
Shannon Talbot is a Happiness Coach, Speaker & Author. A former corporate leader in the financial services and advertising industries, Shannon started her own company, Shannon Talbot Coaching & Consulting, to help working moms create more balance and meaning in their lives.