F*ck Fear with Christine Spratley: Living Like a Head Bitch In Charge | Finding F*cking Fulfillment

In this episode of 'Fuck Fear with Christine Spratley,' Christine dives into the true meaning of fulfillment, particularly in the context of women striving for professional and personal happiness. She addresses women's common challenges in both work and personal life when pursuing their passions and fulfillment. Drawing on studies from Gallup and McKinsey, she illustrates how fulfillment can boost engagement and profit margins. Christine also shares personal anecdotes and strategies for overcoming barriers to fulfillment, encouraging listeners to question and reassess their 'I can't' beliefs. Please explore why fulfillment is essential and how to pursue it actively.

00:00 Introduction to Fulfillment
01:45 The Importance of Fulfillment
02:15 Professional and Personal Fulfillment
03:05 The Impact of Fulfillment on Work and Life
08:17 Emotional Intelligence and Fulfillment
12:49 Overcoming 'I Can't' Mindset
17:46 The Power of Vulnerability
30:33 Conclusion: Embrace Fulfillment

Creators and Guests

Host

Christine (HBIC) Spratley

Dynamic Public Speaker | Change Catalyst | Career Navigation Coach

What is F*ck Fear with Christine Spratley: Living Like a Head Bitch In Charge ?

This podcast is for anyone who wants to live like an HBIC—or lives with, works with, marries, dates, or is raising one. Let’s be real: being a Head Bitch in Charge is messy, bold, and unapologetically badass. This is not a guidebook—it’s a pantry.

My guests and I will share the ingredients that we use—what’s worked and what’s failed—as we say “fuck fear” and take action to live a fulfilled life. We cover real-life hacks and deep philosophical pillars to navigate the chaos of everyday life—where some days, my only accomplishment is having a bra on and my teeth brushed.

We’re tackling the daily shit women navigate, from workplace politics to relationships, raising kids, and building careers, all with humor, audacity, and zero filters.

So, tune in—tell your friends, and even your enemies. This isn’t about aging with grace—it’s about aging with mischief, audacity, and a damn good story to tell.

25 Fuck Fear
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[00:00:00]

Christine: Hello ladies and gentlemen and everyone in between and welcome to Fuck Fear with Christine Spratley, living like a head bitch in charge. And I know that some of you, um, maybe going, well, why do I care about fulfillment? I mean, yeah, it's something to have, right, Joe?

It's like we all wanna be fulfilled someday, right? We [00:01:00] all wanna live fulfilling lives. It seems pretty. Almost theoretical in nature. Um, and I know that I, I remember, especially when I was working in corporate and just always focused on succeeding, 'cause that was a big deal for me, um, was I was like, well, yeah, I, I wanna do what I want someday, but, you know, you don't just follow your passion.

Um, you know, that's just, I, I kind of felt like that was like buying a surfboard and, you know, checking out. And when I talk about fulfillment ladies, um, I'm talking about something more than just you find, yes, it is finding your passion, but it is, are you fulfilled? Are you seriously happy in what's going on in your life?

And the reason why I'm having this kind of conversation with you today is because I have. Noticed a few things recently. I kind of pay attention to what's going on in my life, but also the people that I meet and the conversations that I have and [00:02:00] also the things that come across in my LinkedIn feed or other social media or just, or things that I read.

And, um, it has been on a couple things. First of all. Fulfillment, obviously I coach on that. Both professional fulfillment, personal fulfillment, and this podcast is about that and it's really trying to help people that I coach and women that I speak with and do speaking engagements on go, okay, well what?

What would make you fulfilled? But I wanted to talk about why it's so important. This is, and then I'm gonna talk about why it's important, kind of some facts behind that. And then all I'm gonna walk into in today's session, it's gonna be a little bit more about the things that I've noticed and I've had to ask myself about, to kind of check in whether or not I'm fulfilled.

And I've, I've actually got some, you know, pretty. Interesting assignments that I give [00:03:00] people, but also just some gut checks that we can do today. So the first one, why? Why, why the hell should we care? Well, it's not, and I was talking with Joe before, it's funny 'cause on LinkedIn there's been this, if you've noticed in the past year and a half, if you've been on LinkedIn, there's been a move switch.

To where there's people more talking about what's going on in their lives. People talking about emotional intelligence, but doing it more so without the technical terms and just sharing their story. Um, I would say living out loud more than living behind their company brand or just the technical aspects of working.

And one of the things that's really. I believe, and I, I said, okay, well Christine, do you think, or do you know, you know, I always say that, do you think or do you know, and I learned that from a Colin Paul speech, um, when I was at ey. Um, he was our in session keynote speaker one time, [00:04:00] and he would talk about how people would come in and he'd be like, do you think or do you know?

I know as I say that Jason is my, one of my old managers at, he at um, Deloitte is rolling over, just going, oh my God, I don't ever wanna hear that phrase again. Although he did tell me he now uses it, um, with people he manages. So do you think if you know Christine, and that's a good check for me, and it doesn't mean I'm right or I'm wrong, it just says, well.

Where'd this come about? Like how much do you know about it? So I always believed that highly fulfilled people, whether it be whatever fulfills them, deliver on profit revenue and margin. I just believed that. So I started looking into that and there's a Gallup poll. Um. Not pull, but this is where I got my sources.

Low engagement teams, okay. Um, suffer about 18 to 40% more turnover than high engagement teams. And [00:05:00] which obviously we all know what this means. More turnover means lower lower consistency, higher inefficiencies, and typically more cost and, and, and less margin.

And why that? So when you think about fulfilled people and fulfilled teams and how you see people show up at work. When they're not fulfilled, um, they're typically either staying in miserable, which, which makes typically good people leave or they're leaving, right? If they're miserable and they're not fulfilled, they're leaving to go find whatever fulfills them.

But if you think about that, that's a percentage that's really, really high. And then Mackenzie did a, um. A, a study, and this was interesting, is that, um, the top potential for executive le leader level, um, gender diversity are [00:06:00] 21% more likely to beat peers on margin and more likely to create superior profit economic profit.

And I know we're not supposed to talk about DEI or diversity or anything this, but. One of the things I'm talking to women about is being fulfilled and when you're fulfilled, okay, and you're included. Because fulfillment means for me to be included in the levels in the company that I feel I want to and I'm qualified for.

And when I'm included in those as a female, when we are included, we are more likely to create superior economic profits. So I don't know of very many women. That wanna be excluded and are happy, I'll just put it that way. And so when you're fulfilled and you're happy and you're included, it's 27 more likely to create superior economic profit.

So don't tell me that. [00:07:00] Doesn't matter. Um. And then we've got job fulfillment spills over into life satisfaction and relationship quality. And while this was interesting, this was a ER's research gate, um, did a study and they studied basically the links in between. How does, and we all have done this, taken a bad day home, you know, we've taken a bad day home from work and we've just, we're, we're drained, we're, ugh.

And what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna flip this and go, how much do we take of a bad home day to work? And again, it's funny to me how people want to believe that they can just leave it at the door and we can for a while. But, and, and maybe we leave it at the door when we walk in, we put the smile on and all this other stuff, but think about [00:08:00] the energy that we are keeping to keep that down.

And so it just really matters. So I had had this podcast episode early on and. It was about emotional intelligence. And one of the things that fulfillment, there's a study by ResearchGate again that shows, um, that EEI fulfillment fosters emotional intelligence. And everybody knows that emotional intelligence is something that everybody wants.

It's a hot commodity in business. But if we're not in tune with what's going on, if we're denying. It's kinda like, how do you have emotional intelligence at home or, and, and shut down this part of the circuit board, you know, just all the time, and you've heard me talk [00:09:00] about this, about how I was, um, very concerned about my creativity level, especially when I was going through my coaching training.

I remember sitting, going. They would say, be curious. And I'd be like, I ain't curious. Like I don't, I don't even know. Like I'm not curious. How do they'd be like, well come up, you know, be curious about who you're coaching. You know, be, ask the curious question. That's how you asked the questions. And I was like, I know.

It was really scary to me. And again, as I started to work on being curious in my own life and really pulling back, um. What I didn't want to look at, and I said, okay, I'm gonna look at this shit. And I got more and more curious without judgment of it, and I just let it happen and said, okay, what is this? Do I think or do I know what is this?

I began to have all sorts of creativity and all sorts of [00:10:00] curiosity. It's kinda like when you pull the thread and it just goes woo, and it opens the floodgate almost. You know what I mean? Joe? Yeah. And so one of the things, and I've also brought this up before about how the cost of toughing things out, um, and the increase in heart disease, especially in women.

, the study showed that there's an increase in early death rate. And then the cancer mortality rate goes up, um, with high suppressions of, um, emotional suppression. So, but one of the best things that I've seen, um, women in fulfillment driven outperformance and, um, Gallup, a Gallup study showed that women managers create higher engagement on 87% of their metrics when they feel more [00:11:00] engaged themselves, which then. Another part of that study shows that those engaged teams then inha inherit about a 23% profit lift.

Think about that. You're happier, you're more engaged, you're more, ah, I'm more engaged because I'm fulfilled. And, and again, we can define fulfillment, how you wanna define it, but the output for me is I'm going in. It's not I'm going in 'cause I have to go in or it's not, I'm engaging 'cause I have to engage.

It is because I am learning. It's like all cylinders go, you know, all what is it full thrust, throttle, or I'm screwing this up so bad today guys. But you know what I mean, right? Yeah. Mm-hmm. And it's like when the floodgates are open, we are there, we are present, we are learning, we are engaging. That's a, that's we are more, we are 87%.

More likely to have [00:12:00] higher engagement with our teams and with others, which then renders a 23% profit lift. And I just, I just, those are just business stuff. Right. But if we take that and you go, alright, if you had more engagement at home, what benefits do you think that would have, not just to you, but to your home life and.

I wanna sit and I wanna talk about those are reasons why. Okay. Let alone to be happy if that's not good enough for you. These are some other reasons, but the other part of this that I've been realizing and that I had to go through was I knew a lot of this and I still wasn't going after my fulfillment.

So what I did and what I do a lot with people, um, or I encourage people to do, is I say. List all the reasons I can't. [00:13:00] What are they? And not the reasons, but the, the, I can't, for me it was, I can't leave my job. Um, I can't get a job in a different industry. Um, I can't, you know, obviously make less money. I can't do certain things.

And there was this whole long list. And then I looked at, well, why do you think or do you know why? So take a moment and go, what are three? I can't, and you know what they are. You know, what are you going? I can't. I'd really like to, but I can't. And it could be something big or it could be something small.

It could be something. Let's say non-work. Let's say I can't have this discussion with my husband. Okay? I can't have this discussion with my kids. I can't have this discussion with my mom. [00:14:00] I can't have this discussion with my girlfriend or my, my dad or my brother. I can't, I can't say this. I can't think this.

What are your, I can't. Why? Why? And I went through that and I made this list and there was this, and then the next thing I did was I went through and I went and okay. I started looking at, well, why do you think or do you know? Um, an example recently was a woman that I was talking with was saying, well, I can't, I can't do that.

I can't, I can't go after what I want. I can't get a job that I want. I said, okay, well, why? She said, well, it's gonna cost, it's gonna be less money, and I have to, and I wanna retire by this time. I said, so, okay. And I said, well, how do, obviously you've looked at jobs that are like this, right? She's like, well, [00:15:00] no.

And I said, well, why don't we start there? You know, why don't you start looking there? And also, I said, where, where'd you come up with this retirement thing? You know, which was a great retirement. I'm not, I'm not telling you to change your retirement, but let's, let's look at where that came, came from. It was, well, I decided based on these certain things that I wanted to be here by this time of my life.

And I said, okay, so what's, you know, that's fine, but first of all, let's go see one If a job that you want actually want to do is out there. And two, can it pay the wage that you want to meet your retirement? And if it doesn't, what's the gap? What was interesting was the very first thing I said was, okay, so have you talked to your financial planner about this?

You know about, Hey, how do, what do we have to do so I can maybe make a little less, but get there just on time or, you know, how long's it gonna take? And none of that had been [00:16:00] done. And that's where, to me, the, the boogeyman gets bigger. I can't, I stop it. I can't. I haven't looked, I haven't done the research.

I haven't even opened the, the door to look. I can't have that conversation with my husband. There was a, a post on LinkedIn from a woman and I should have it and I don't. Um, but I will find it by the time this airs. I, and it was about if you basically speaking up. You won't speak up in public out loud with voice if you don't speak up in the bedroom.

And what was interesting about this was, this is what I really realized about myself, is that I was pretty fierce in front of clients in certain aspects of corporate, but then I was very meek in other aspects because in my home life I had shut down so much of my conversation about what I really wanted.[00:17:00]

Um, and the bedroom to me is just the term she used, but to me it's my whole personal life, my whole fulfillment there, what I really wanted to do. And so it was like, okay, well I need to give voice that. And we had the conversation the other day on one of our episodes about, you know, I can't, you can't read my mind right.

And I, I can punish you, Joe, but you can't read my mind and, and I'm punishing you for not telling, you know, for not, you know, and I think it, it was more around managing up and managing down, but it's more about the communication of what I want. And then I was sitting there and we were started talking.

'cause I was in a, in a, in a session, not session, but in a group with my friends. And we were talking about, well, why is it so hard for one, for us to look. Then two, for us to speak up and to say what we want, you know, us to [00:18:00] look, us to find out, and then to speak up. And, um, and we had this wide ranging discussion about it.

And the discussion was anything from included, everything from. One, me just holding it in and not taking the ownership and the responsibility, conflict avoidance, this or that. Um, and then all the way to, Hey, you know, we know it's not gonna be received well. There's been hints being dropped and I was trying to figure out how to convey that because I think that is for women.

One of the things that we've really started to do is we read the rooms, right? I. And if the room is given us the unspoken signal that it is not going to be well received, whether it's the boardroom, whether it's the coffee shop, whether it's the bedroom, whether it's, and their little hints dropped. Right.

Um, [00:19:00] we're not, we're less likely 'cause it's, we feel like there's more at risk. And of all comedians, bill Burr. Who, I don't know if you've watched his stuff. Um, but he's,

Joe Woolworth: yeah, I'm a fan. I love Bill Bird.

Christine: Okay. All right. Well, I haven't always been a fan. I've liked some of his stuff, but I've found some of his stuff, his older stuff to really hard to watch.

But I don't know. Have you noticed this is a good since you're a fan, have you noticed some of his new stuff? Changed. Very, very changed.

Joe Woolworth: Yeah. Especially his newest one. Right. He was talking about, I thought it was a really interesting bit. He was talking about his relationship with his wife. Mm-hmm. And how he is just like, basically like a curmudgeon.

And she'd be like, you wanna go out to a restaurant? But she'd ask in a way, like, she was like, like timid, like he was gonna get so mad. And he is like, 'cause I did, I'd be like, I work all the time. I don't wanna go to a restaurant. He's like, so I'm just gonna start saying yes a little bit more. And then basically he told the story and she, she was so.

Appreciative. Appreciative that she went and loving, she went, [00:20:00] yay.

Christine: Like she actually said. And, and she went. And then what she do, she went over and she gave him a kiss and, and what happened to him. He had this feeling of, oh, I like this.

Joe Woolworth: Yeah,

Christine: I like this. Maybe I should just be nice. But what I, what was interesting though is that is that is, and if there's a man out there listening, watch this.

Not just in your relationship, but watch this in your work environment. How do people react to preempt what they don't wanna hear? Meaning in Bill's example, his reaction was, oh, okay, I work 70 hours a year, but I'm home for an hour, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it was just this overwhelming, hostile reaction.

So his wife would be like, tiptoeing around just to, you know, and so it's like. Again, we don't wanna come into a hostile environment and ask, especially at work, because [00:21:00] that is, we have a lot to lose. Um, if you think about the percentages of managers that are men, so when we're asking or representing in an environment that is, you know, it's like, okay, we, there's not a lot of us here at this level.

Oh my God, we gotta, we gotta make sure we're approaching it right? But. I, again, if you're a man, watch your environments. How are people responding to, um, or how are you responding? And women, same thing. How are we responding? But how, what environments shut us down [00:22:00] there's a lot of, in relationships and not all of them, but.

A lot of them that I've had conversations with where women have said, okay, I've either, I've had to really have a conversation with my husband about my, me being unfulfilled and there's this double speak that happens. Oh, I love you. I'm so proud of you have some blah, blah, blah, blah.

. But there's comments like, yeah, I could be a kept man. I like being a kept man. Or, or, this was one I, I've heard, um, and my conversations where the woman's who is likely.

The breadwinner or the, not the breadwinner, but the, the, the, the majority of the higher earner, let's just call it that. And um, the husband will go, well wait, we can live on less. [00:23:00] It's like, whoa, wait, why don't you go make more? I mean, think about that. I would like to do something else. I have been providing an environment in which I enjoy too, but.

Now I wanna go to something else. And, and your response is, well that's fine. I'm not gonna pick up more. I'm not gonna pick up the margin, or I'm not gonna pick up the gap. You know, and there's not a discussion of, well, alright, let's see if I can pick up the gap, you know, but it's little things like that where, and I've talked to some really high performing women that would just like to do something less.

And they don't wanna have the conversation because everything in their life is, is there and set. And then they feel guilty for wanting everything to be set. The kids are in a good school, this and that, and this and that. And [00:24:00] it's like, but have the conversation with your spouse. Well, can you pick up this?

Can you pick up more? Can you make more? Or maybe it's not income, maybe it's, Hey, can you do this with the kids? Like not just occasionally once a quarter. Like, I need you every day in here with the kids. Can you? And even I've had, um. Women that do take care of the kids work and then take care of parents or plan for family events that include parents and relative, you know, it's like, Hey, I need some help here and not help.

I need it to be incorporated into this. But that's one of the reasons that's really hard to have those conversations, and I realize that women, but at the end of the day, if we [00:25:00] don't have the conversations and you don't ask. You may or may not get, but you don't know until you ask and have that conversation.

And I'll tell you, for me, um, I started to have the conversation and it unfortunately led to a lot of things going, oh yeah, yeah, everything's great. Everything's great. And it wasn't. There was a lot of resentment. There was a lot of different things happening and um, and so I moved on because my fulfillment was very important to, to myself, and I couldn't continue doing what I was doing.

And I think for a lot of women that is so scary. And I will tell you that not every woman who is asked. Or been unfulfilled and had that conversation, whether it be at work or be in their [00:26:00] personal life, has had to leave their job has had to leave their marriage. Some of us have and some of us haven't.

And so, but do you think or do you know just what are the three things? What were those three things? Why can't you have that and what if you were able to have that conversation? It did turn out okay.

The other thing that I've learned is a lot of times I preempt based on the fact that I don't have enough belief in myself. And so I don't know if you've ever thought about this, but like where you don't take a risk because you don't think you can withstand it. If it doesn't work out[00:27:00]

and not, I'm not talking, you know, debits and credits, I'm talking, you know, risk of, of vulnerability and that's what kind of what Bill Burr was talking about in his thing. I know I'm, I am not putting words in his mouth as far as, he never used the word vulnerability. Okay. But that is a very vulnerable moment.

For his wife to have that conversation to do that. And so it's one of those things, it's like, have you ever said, oh, I'm not gonna be vulnerable here because the risk is too high. So that's what it comes down to. But I always wonder is, is the risk greater by not saying anything? And I just went through, you know, the health risks and things like that, but just.

Happiness risk. And the other thing that I've also learned is that we teach others around us, whether they're our children, whether they're our friends, whether [00:28:00] they're our coworkers, people learn. We had that conversation the other day about, um, you know. The five people, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with and, and things like that.

So if we're not taking the risk to be truly vulnerable, and I'm not, I'm not bashing anybody for, you know, there's a lot of risk out there that we don't wanna take, but why can't you have those conversations? Why can't you look that? Why can't you put that down on paper? What you really, really want. What is gonna make you fulfilled?

Why can't you write, I don't want this job. And for me, you know, it was on the surface, it was, well, the kids are, you know, the kids, the mortgage, this, that, and the other. And I thought, well, you know, we'd have to downsize or this, that, or the other. And turns out, um, I don't think we would've had to 'cause the, the money was there, but we did end up separating.

And I have [00:29:00] a lot less, I make a lot less and I have a lot less, but I am a hell of a lot happier. Not all the time it's up and down, but I am, I am a hell of a lot more at peace with myself and I'm doing, and I will tell you, I, I remember at work, it was just a dread to sell. I think sometimes you've heard me talk about this.

I was just like, ah, there was nothing worse than end of quarter. Or actually it was in every four weeks. Um, we would just get the numbers and you'd be like, where are your numbers at? Where are your numbers at? And now I will go spend, I will call people, I will do things. I will. 'cause I love what I do, you know, and I am fulfilled and I have, I feel like I have value in what I do, but I just want you to go, what are those things that I can't, and why can I not do that?

Really? Why [00:30:00] is it not allowed? Is it immoral, illegal? You know, why, why? And I'd even question, you know, you one step further and say, well, what, what about that environment is that you're in right now? That tells you, you can't even ask, you can't even bring it up.

And then if you can bring it up, go find out. There are ways to find out if what you want to do is possible, but you're never gonna know if you can fly unless you jump. This, it's, it's funny, I've, I've said this before. It's my coach Lynn would always tell me it's not a leap of faith until you leave the ground and you jump and you leap into that other part of your life.

So I just really [00:31:00] think that being fulfilled is not about being selfish. It's not about just being self-centered and it's all about me. It's all about living to the most of who you are and who you can be. And when I'm not have that in my sights or I'm not leaning towards that, then I'm not living to the most.

And when I'm not living to the most, I'm not able to give to the most I'm giving from a level of deficiency, a level of fear. A level of, okay, I've gotta protect. And I just really, that shows up all the time in work and at home. And I'm not saying everything's gonna be easy peasy, [00:32:00] but we only get, we don't like get a do over on this.

We don't get a do-over. Like there's nowhere to catch yesterday's bus, so I need to catch mine today. You know, and I'll tell you someone is someone who's 54.

I don't get 34 back. I don't get to go back there. Not that I do differently, but I if you, if you're listening to this and you're young, don't wait. Ask the questions now question and go get, because like I said before, these, from just, from business, it makes sense. But also if it makes sense in business, it's gonna make sense in personal life if you've got a 23% lift in profit.

These are with [00:33:00] people you don't care about and you don't love, and your engagement is more like your, your energy is more, and it's better. You are gonna be like Bill Burn and go like, ah, you know, think about that, that amount of goodness, whatever you wanna call it, into your personal relationships. And yet it may take you a while to get there because there's that change and there's that transition.

There are going to be people that are like, whoa, we don't like this,

that are gonna have to really seriously look at why they don't want you to be fulfilled.

Because I think that's the better way to look at it is why don't you want me to be fulfilled?

So ladies and gentlemen and everybody in between, [00:34:00] what are the three things that you can't about your fulfillment? You can't do this, you can't do that. It's not time. I can't. I can't. And then how do you know you can't? What have you done to. Look to see how far you can

and is your happiness worth it, and ultimately is the happiness of others worth it?

So until next time, ladies and gentlemen, tubs

[00:35:00]