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We are Meredith and Mishelle and together, we are flipping the script on what it means to be an IT girl. Each week we will be discussing topics and questions submitted by YOU, our audience, as we navigate life's challenges together.
Mishelle (00:00)
Okay, welcome back and welcome back to you, Meredith. You just got back in from out of town. So glad you're back. Feels like you were gone forever, but I think you were just telling me feels like you're it was such a short trip. How was it?
Meredith (00:06)
Yeah.
Yes, it was so good. I went to go see some family and get some work done, some business out of the state. And my oldest niece had just graduated college. And so I was able to see a lot of my nieces and nephews. It was a really good trip. And then I was able to meet with a couple of clients and and be outside of Texas and some cooler weather. So I'm glad to be back. I know I know.
Mishelle (00:35)
lucky you, lucky you. Okay, so what are we talking about today? We're here for episode 10. What is this? Meredith?
Meredith (00:45)
am is who I wanna be is the title of this episode, I think it's a fun episode. The question is, how did you know what you wanted to do with your life? And the icebreaker question here is, Michelle, what is the biggest goal for yourself in the next five years? We're looking, we're looking towards five years from now.
Mishelle (01:00)
Okay, okay.
Okay, wow, this is gonna be a stressful episode. Pressure. All right, biggest goal that I have for myself in the next five years is...
Meredith (01:15)
You
Mishelle (01:27)
building out my speaking career and whatever that might look like, whether that's hosting and facilitating workshops or if that's delivering keynotes, maybe it's a combination of both, but that feels like a goal that makes me sweat, makes me really nervous. And then secondarily, and I said one goal, but I'm going for two. The second one is just figuring out like the next season of my life and with my family and.
what it looks like in the future, whether that's buying land, building a home, like that sort of thing. I think after having Aspen, I really am craving like a homestead, like a farm, a homestead, roots. Yeah, like I think our house where I live, it's perfect. Like I love it. It's the perfect size. It's really comfortable. The floor pan's really good. We've got an incredible, it's like very functional.
Meredith (02:07)
Mm -hmm.
Roots. Yeah. Yeah.
Mishelle (02:23)
And having Aspen, I've just realized like, I want a bigger backyard and there's just so much more that I want to do. Like, do I want to create a garden? Do I want to have more animals? And so a big goal is just figuring out what does that home look like in five years.
Meredith (02:40)
Yeah, those are both good goals. And I think that it's appropriate to have professional goals and personal goals. And sometimes they intertwine and sometimes they're completely separate and you can leave them completely separate and that's healthy. Yeah, so.
Mishelle (02:54)
Okay, you're right, you're right. Okay, and I didn't even realize when I said them out loud that one was professional and one was personal. So thank you for bringing that back. And if we wanted to really round it out, you would have a health goal, because then you would have captured all three buckets. But anyways, I don't know. I don't know what my health goal is right now. You go.
Meredith (03:01)
Yeah.
I think that I'm working on this now. So I'm in year one of five years of where I'm trying to figure out what makes me happy. I've accomplished so much to satisfy a goal that I thought I had to obtain. And when I was
close and continuing to obtain it, it wasn't as fulfilling as I have thought it would be. And so now I'm really prioritizing happiness, healthy, mentally, emotionally, physically. And so I guess five years from now, I really want to make sure that I have the right intentions around my professional goals. I've started my own business, right? The consulting, the public speaking and coaching.
And really want to see that flourish and having taken the time to even pour into that is I'm proud of. And so really. Seeing that scale and hoping and pulling in others and inspiring others. And then similar to you, my, my personal goal is to just be happier and really listen to who I want to be in this next chapter. That brings me happiness and really establish better friendships because I've moved around so long that.
Mishelle (04:10)
Mm -hmm.
Meredith (04:32)
I don't want to say that people being my friend is fleeting to me, but I don't. I, when I was traveling, I saw an old high school friend who's very dear to me and try to connect as much as I can. And I value that, but I really want to have a bigger circle of friends where I'm like, Hey, let's go out and do this thing on the weekend. which is not something that I've had. I've moved around so much. So I think I'll pour into those two things in the next five years. And that's my goal is to.
Mishelle (04:45)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Meredith (05:01)
be really intentional in my relationships and my happiness and my health. And I feel like I've already reached success. So just really focusing professionally on what makes me happy and how much I can give back and build others.
Mishelle (05:16)
I'm so happy to hear you say that and I'm so proud of you, Meredith. Again, I know we've only known each other a short time and when we started this, we knew this was going to be a fun adventure of getting to know each other online. But I, when I hear your story and I've gotten to know you more, I think what I, if you even like experiencing from just being your friend, you pour so much into so many and you've had to stand up so many.
Meredith (05:22)
Thanks, yeah.
Mm -hmm.
Mishelle (05:45)
And I think in that process, you've lost like your sparkle and your joy and your friendships and like things have suffered because of that. And I'm really proud to see you now, like take a stand for who you wanna be. What do you wanna do? And you're not afraid to say, I'm focused on me and my happiness and that's okay. And I'm gonna do that for the next five years.
Meredith (05:50)
Yeah.
Mishelle (06:12)
That's incredible. And I think that that's a huge testament to the work you're doing to try to grow and learn and be the it girl. So way to go, Meredith. I think that's awesome. It's exciting.
Meredith (06:13)
Yeah.
Yep, now taking application for new friends, so... I got room in my life for more, I guess is what I'll say.
Mishelle (06:33)
Yes, and let's not forget, because you will cut people out real quick. We learned that a couple episodes ago. Okay, so the question though, let's repeat it again one more time. So how did you know what you wanted to do with your life? That's the question. okay, how did you know what you wanted? Do we even know? Do we even know?
Meredith (06:36)
I do, yep.
That's the question.
That's what I think that's what it boils down to is do we even know?
Mishelle (06:59)
Do we even know today? I would say I had no clue what I wanted to do with my life. I still have questions about that. I mean, I think I have more of a general understanding of what my strengths are, what I'm passionate about, what lights me up, what my contribution can be, what my gifts are, what I want to be contributing to the world. But I would say how I got to that. I mean, I would say growing up.
even in my 20s and 30s, I had no idea. I had no clue. I was just doing things that felt good or felt right or like as the opportunities arose. I think it really started becoming clear to me when.
I hit rock bottom. It was my life exploding. Everything that I thought meant success blew up in my face. My marriage, the businesses that I was owning, everything. And I had to start peeling back and really looking inward to say, okay, who am I and what do I want? And I remember being 30 years old. Can you imagine 30 years old? And for the first time ever at age 30, I'm
drawing a circle on a piece of paper and thinking about what is it that I want? And I remember thinking, wow, this is the first time that I've actually taken a second to think about what I want because this whole time I've been thinking about, well, what does my family want? Or what does society want? Or what am I supposed to do? And I was like, wait, I can actually do what I want. So it was a process. I'd say, so for me, I guess it would be around age 30.
I started to figure out like, what are the things that I want? I would say during from 30 to 35, there was still a long journey and a process in that. And then as I got closer to figuring out, okay, this is the things that really light me up. Then I started putting together, like, what am I good at and what can I do? And what does the world need and figuring out, okay, from that, here's what I would love to do, which is coaching and developing people.
Meredith (09:05)
Mm -hmm.
Mishelle (09:08)
teaching about leadership, sharing about failure and helping people overcome their roadblocks and helping people achieve their goals and helping people know what their capabilities are, know what their strengths are so that they can go out and go be that person. Like that's what I think my purpose is and what I'm here to do is to help people.
live into their gifts. That's, I think that's how I would like sum it up. I don't know. What about you?
Meredith (09:44)
Well, before I share, I also want to ask because you left out a huge piece of who you are, like your passion and what you really love. What I'm hearing you say, what you really love about your day to day is pouring into people, lifting others up, showing that holding the mirror up for them to discover. But you neglect to share your skill set of how much of a boss be you are.
in your day -to -day life, like how much skill you have from a business acumen and what you bring to the table for business. And so I think there's two distinct things that as we're growing in this and you're learning and 30 isn't old, cause I'm figuring it out at 40 and whoever else is listening, if you find it at 20, it could change by 30 and it could change by 40. But what I'm...
you have a skill set and you have a specific skill set that you bring to a table, to an organization, to a company, and then you have your passion. And that's what I think melds into your culture in the business world, in a professional setting. And then your passion also bleeds into what you offer in the community and people you mentor. But I do think that there's a huge piece of what is going on in your life that transcend with your businesses to what you do on a day -to -day job.
and you kind of blend your passion and sprinkle your special passion into your day job. So I wanna also just highlight that. Like that's probably not the road when you're like, hey, I'm 15, 16, 17, maybe 25 that you thought you would be on, but you can't neglect to highlight that skillset that you bring to the table too.
Mishelle (11:02)
Mm -hmm.
-huh.
Mm -hmm.
Yeah, no, that's a good call. You're right. I mean, I think, I think it's just like some, some of what I bring to the table, honestly, is from actually a lot of what I bring to the table is just like learning by failure. And even in the book I'm reading right now, which is called Trust and Inspire, it's talking about how failure is the road to success.
Meredith (11:38)
Mm -hmm.
trust.
Mishelle (11:50)
And I believe that so much because my whole life has been nothing but failure. One failure after another or one mistake or one bad decision. But I've learned so much through every single one of those moments and I've grown and been stronger and come out on the other side. And now I'm using those lessons to teach people how to overcome that themselves. And so talking about going back to like business, why I was tying that all back in was.
I used to own two restaurants. And so having this entrepreneurial mindset and this background has really helped me today in the career that I have today, which is in retail. So I have to run a business. It's not my own business, but I run it like it is. And I use that entrepreneurial background and all the things that I've learned and I instill them here. And then I think my passion for people can also be used here because obviously I work with a lot of people.
And so just being able to tie the two things, I think that's another way you can figure out what you want to do with your life is how do you find like, what are you good at? And then how do you bring that to life in whatever job that you might have? Because sometimes your passion might not be your job, but you can bring your passion to your job. And I think that's what I'm hearing you say. So thanks for that reminder.
Meredith (13:05)
Yeah, yeah, of course. And so in my case, I have always wanted to have a career and be in a job that paid the most money. That was always my goal. It didn't matter about passion, didn't matter. Yeah, it was out of necessity. And so I started in accounting. I felt like I did every job. I was a security guard. I worked in a coffee shop. I worked in accounting. I worked almost every role in accounting.
Mishelle (13:18)
Great goal. Great goal.
Yeah.
Meredith (13:34)
And then I transitioned into technology.
Mishelle (13:36)
I mean, we're gonna have to talk about the security guard job a little bit later, but okay, continue. my gosh, okay.
Meredith (13:39)
Hmm. Yeah, yep. I worked as a security guard right after 9 -11. It was one of the higher paying jobs in downtown Boston. And so I did it and I didn't mind wearing a blazer anyways. So I just, no, mm -mm. Nope. I didn't care. And checking floors and checking the different floors of a building to make sure.
Mishelle (13:53)
Did you have to, did you carry a gun?
Were you like signing people in and out of offices or like what were you doing?
Meredith (14:06)
if they were occupied, that things were turned off, just almost like a concierge type security service. But yeah, no, but it was 18, $19 an hour. And at that time, you know, after high school, that's a higher paying job. Yeah. And so I just kept trying to do jobs that made a lot of money. I fell into technology.
Mishelle (14:14)
Okay, not like kicking people's butt or trying to stop robberies.
Thanks a lot. Yeah, for sure.
Meredith (14:34)
and thought that I feel like, it's hard for me to say, I feel like I'm mediocre in technology, but I hear from other people like, no, Meredith, you have an insight and you bring a different perspective to technology because all of my education is centered around business and strategy and leadership. I continued to go to school for what my passion was and I continued to live my day -to -day job, my nine to five,
job was what could make me the most money. But what I poured myself into education, the books I read was my passion. And that's why I think I was talking to you about blending it. And so I didn't ever know what I wanted to do, but I did know what I didn't want to do. And I knew how I didn't want to struggle. And I also learned from people around me. And I've always been a person who leads and wants to lead by example.
Mishelle (15:17)
Mm -hmm.
Meredith (15:27)
And so really watching people, how they engage, I've had some really spectacular managers and bosses that I've learned more from them by their actions And so what I want to do with my life and want to continue to do with my life is lead by example. So someone who's outside looking in doesn't just feel like Meredith made it and Meredith came out from this situation where I grew in this environment.
where it was almost not quite, I wouldn't say borderline poverty, but I want people to reflect and see how hard I worked and it wasn't accidental and it wasn't luck and it wasn't all these different factors. It was kindness, intention, clarity, focus and hard work to get to where I want to be. So I think I'm.
Mishelle (16:08)
Yeah.
Yeah, it was a personal choice. I mean, because let's not, like your path could have gone a completely different direction. I mean, there's, without going into too much detail, I feel like there are, it could have just gone totally different and you rose up above it and that's incredible. How did you know when it was time to leave corporate world and take the leap?
Meredith (16:22)
Every single step.
Yes.
Mm -hmm.
Yeah.
Hmm.
Mishelle (16:45)
into consulting and what you're doing right now. Cause I think that's probably on the mind for a lot of people as they're trying to navigate leaving work or trying to figure out their next season.
Meredith (16:56)
I, not in an ego way, egotistical way, I always feel or have felt that I was destined to do more or I'm capable of doing more. And I find that I'm the most rewarded where I can come into an organization and help them create a real solid foundation of process and systems. And my impact is one to one right now. And I just...
Mishelle (17:07)
Mm -hmm.
Meredith (17:23)
always felt what if I could be one to many and come in and help several people fix their people process and systems. And I felt that I was reaching a ceiling and it.
Mishelle (17:31)
Mmm.
in terms of like the amount of people you could be helping.
Meredith (17:37)
Correct. Yeah. And it was at that point in time where money wasn't the factor anymore. And not to say that I'm so financially well off that I don't have to worry about money, but it was more along the lines of that wasn't the deep motivation. Yeah. I'll always find a way to make money. So if those negative thoughts, we've had an episode about this, the negative thoughts that sink in is what if I fail? What if I'm not good at this?
Mishelle (17:51)
It wasn't like the deep motivation need. It wasn't like the necessity anymore.
Meredith (18:07)
I will always find a way to make money and it doesn't always have to be at the highest roll or the highest thing. So I know that I wouldn't put it. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Well, and I'm also spiraling every day wondering if I'm...
Mishelle (18:15)
That's, that's brave. I mean, that's courageous for you to think like that's good. That's really good.
No.
So it's a both and. It's like I believe in myself, but I'm also gonna spiral. And that's real. But then you go back to believing in yourself.
Meredith (18:30)
Yes, it's - it's -
Mm -hmm. I feel in being in a, in a, in a most, in, sorry, I don't know exactly how to say this well, but having lived my life where I feel like an emotional robot, where I don't experience high highs and high and low lows, for the most part, being on this journey right now has pushed me out of that threshold, almost catapulted me where I'm feeling immense joy.
of having the privilege of people referring me to businesses and putting backing me with their name and their reputation and having this pressure of I can't let them down on top of not letting myself down. And then some low lows of did I make the right choice? Should I just jump back into corporate world and make a steady paycheck? And, you know, I always talk about Ben and, and my husband, Ben, who supports me and he's just like,
Mishelle (19:10)
Yeah.
Meredith (19:34)
I think that you still should try this. I know you're feeling all of these feelings, but I feel like it's the right path. And I'm really trying to be mindful about what I take on and what's going on in my world. And so I think I'm living out what I want to do with my life and it's becoming more clear and giving back into the community and really focusing back in that is a next step I'm taking as well.
Mishelle (19:53)
Yeah.
Meredith (20:02)
I don't have children to pass along a legacy, which I, that's okay. I understand that, but I want to make sure that I make an impact in the community, in the world, to one person, to many people, to show them the potential, to show them what they're capable of doing as well. And that's what I hope my legacy continues to be is lifting up others. And if that's my life mission and that's what I'm setting out and that's the best thing that I could do with my life, I think that's a,
Mishelle (20:21)
Yeah.
Meredith (20:32)
a life well lived.
Mishelle (20:34)
a thousand percent. A hundred and thousand, ten thousand times a million percent. Yeah, that's amazing. I mean, I think that that's good. I mean, it's like.
Meredith (20:35)
Mm hmm. Yeah.
Mishelle (20:47)
taking the leap, but also doing it because you know that there's an impact that you could be making. Staying committed to that, even when it gets scary and you want to spiral, you almost are leaning into your legacy and the choice you want to make around creating that every day for the community and even the one person that you may be mentoring or the life that you could have an impact on. So that's cool.
Meredith (21:13)
Yeah. Do you have any advice for someone who doesn't know and doesn't have? Yeah.
Mishelle (21:21)
even know where to begin.
I mean, I think the only advice I can give you is to do, like take the steps that I took. I can just share with you the steps that I took. Cause like I said, I started off going to college. I chose the college I wanted to go to because that's where my boyfriend was going. Yeah. Okay. Like I didn't think, I didn't, I did not look to see like what colleges makes sense for me. What?
Meredith (21:41)
Cure it.
Mishelle (21:46)
course offerings do they have? Like, you know, the normal things that you'd want to look at in terms of a college. No, I just said, where's my boyfriend going? I'll go there. So I did that. And all of this is also related to like the reason why I made these choices was because I didn't know what else to do. So this is what I'm doing. And then I got to school, and it came time to choose a major. And what did I do? I said, well, what's the one that offers the least amount of math and science because I hate math and science.
So I chose communications. Do I even want to study communications? What does that even mean? Does it even matter? But no, I'm just going away from the things I don't want to do. And in that process, I don't think I got anywhere closer to what I actually want. I was just running from the things I don't want. So the very first thing that I would encourage you to do is get clear about what do you want.
And even if it's simple, there's a very simple tool you could take. It's the power of knowing what you want, Circle. It's a light -year leadership tool. You just draw a big circle on a piece of paper and you just start writing down the things that you do want in your life. And even if it's like, I have no idea in terms of like a career or anything, just start writing whatever it is that you want in your life inside the circle and the things you don't want on the outside. And that just helps activate the positive part of your brain.
to focus on the things that you do want. From there, I always think it's really important to get to know yourself. What are your strengths? Take a personality test, look at your strengths finders, do a disc assessment. What are you naturally good at? And then from there, it's the three circles that I talked about. It's what are you, like what are you, what's your passion and what are you good at?
What does the world need? So like, what does your community need? What is your like inner circle need? Like, what is that? And then what can you do with those two things? Your passions, what your strengths are, and what the world needs? In that, what is that thing that you could do and offer and contribute? And that's like the sweet spot. That's where I would say you start to figure out, okay,
That's what I could be doing. I could be offering this. I could be doing that. I could be this, that, the other, but you won't really know until you know yourself. So I think when I look back on my life of all the crazy mistakes that I made and all the random choices I did, it was all because I had no idea who I was and what I wanted. And so I was just listening to what everybody else was saying or doing what everybody else was doing. So that's my tip. Would you do anything different?
Meredith (24:19)
Yes.
Yeah. I think what I would add as far as a tip is one, you don't have to have it all figured out. You don't need to know, but there are some things that itch and burn inside of you that you naturally gravitate towards. I would tell you to know yourself and know how much you're willing to either sacrifice or put in effort.
Mishelle (24:37)
or add.
Meredith (25:02)
because it's not as easy as it seems. It's not this social craze where you're gonna be Instagram famous or social media famous within 24 hours. It is a lot of dedication, focus and hard work. And if you can't nail one thing down and that's not really what you, then get comfortable in something that is maybe your second option or your second choice that...
allows you to have some stability, financial stability and all of those things while you're figuring it out. Cause I think that that was always the easiest for me was I wasn't too picky in my day -to -day job. I learned every skillset that I could be naturally curious of the things that are going on around you because that's how you learn. And you understand like what the marketing department's doing, what the sales department's doing, what.
Mishelle (25:32)
Mm -hmm.
Meredith (25:58)
you know, inventory or procurement departments doing. You don't know until you ask questions and you learn more about your surroundings. So don't be so focused on just your immediate window. Look at the house in its entirety to see what you could potentially like to do. Learn different skillsets and just try to have a little bit more stability. And I'm only saying that from like a not fun professional perspective because when someone looks at your resume,
Mishelle (26:05)
Mm -hmm.
Mm -hmm.
Meredith (26:26)
and experience and years of experience matter when you're trying to get your foot in the door for a professional career. Seeing you jump around from job to job because you're trying different things on for size to see what you liked is fine in your teens and maybe even early 20s. But when you're getting mid 20s and later, that's not gonna be as easy to open the doors for you. So that's maybe just.
Mishelle (26:30)
Yeah.
Yeah. And the more, yeah, no, I think that's good because it's like growing in your experience. And sometimes it's not going to be exactly what you want. But the other thing, going back to what you said earlier, you got to look to see like, what's the motivation is, what's the need is it finances? Because I think that's like how you started off was, well, right now, the most important thing to me is making money. So I need to start thinking about what do I want to do that makes the most money? And that kind of helps narrow it down.
So I think if you can even think through what's your motivation or what's the biggest need or what are you trying to solve for when you're trying to think through a career path thing, start there too, and then try to narrow it down. Cause it's so vast, you could go any route. So the more you can narrow it in, the easier it will be to find a pathway and no, it's not going to be perfect right off the bat. And there's going to be twists and turns.
And I think the biggest thing to know is don't be so paralyzed by fear that you're picking the wrong thing or that you're going to do the wrong thing or that you're going to mess up because just know going into it that you're going to figure it out and it's going to be messy and there are going to be some things that you do that you're like, why did I do that? But you're learning. And each one of those things is going to be a stepping stone to the next thing, to the next thing, to the next thing until you find that unlock for yourself. So I think it's just don't be afraid to try.
Get to know yourself, get to know your strengths. What's the motivation? Narrowing it down. And then like Meredith said, stay in it for a good minute so that you can start building your resume and building your experience level and grow with an organization. Like take time to get promoted and grow and get to the next position before you just hop to the next one.
Meredith (28:34)
Yeah, continue to stay curious and don't ever silence whatever is burning inside of you as your passion. But until that's clear, don't let that shadow the necessity to pay the bills or to do other things until it's really clear of what is burning inside of you as your true passion and how you want to give back. Because a lot of the time you have to have a good network and a good community to raise you to a platform that allows you to
to showcase your passion. So.
Mishelle (29:06)
Mm -hmm. Okay, this was good. I liked it. Hopefully this is beneficial for y 'all as listeners. This is, again, another topic that I do feel like Meredith and I could go on and on and on about. It's leadership, it's knowing yourself, it's figuring out who you are and who you want to be. So if you have more questions about that or if you want to submit a certain topic or an experience or anything around that, we're happy to hear it.
Meredith (29:10)
Yeah.
Mishelle (29:33)
You can get us at itgirllife .com. You can send us an email directly at hello at itgirllife .com or you can get us on our social media channel at Instagram and that is just the It Girl podcast. So hope to hear from you. Hope you got something good out of this. Meredith, what's your final, any final words of wisdom before we go or is that it?
Meredith (29:54)
I think that if you follow what your calling is and whatever you're doing in this moment, you don't have to figure it out right away and just keep moving forward and not getting into that panic that you had mentioned, Michelle, and that life is going to figure it. Everybody's going to figure it out. Life is messy. And most of the times we learn in the failure to catapult us into success. So.
Mishelle (30:22)
So go out and fail. Fail your butt off. Love it. I love it. Bye.
Meredith (30:26)
Yep, we did.
Bye.