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Women are told they have to choose between family, career, and personal growth.
I’m Bree Katulak, wife, CEO, mom of four, and I’m here to tell you that’s just not true.
Every two weeks, I’ll share my journey of balancing a high-powered career, a busy family, and my pursuit of growth, along with candid conversations with inspiring guests who have done the same. We’ll discuss the challenges we face as women in male-dominated fields, the importance of grace, and how we keep moving forward.
Whether you're striving for a career milestone, seeking balance, or just need to know you're not alone, Unstoppable You is here to remind you that success is about showing up, embracing your journey, and doing it your way.
So, if you're ready to stop choosing between your dreams and your life, pull up a seat, and let’s be unstoppable, together.
Jiff Chapman (00:00):
It's not like my family put any extra pressure on me to be great necessarily. It was internal for me what winning meant to me, which was so much more than, and even literally up until these last nine years, I turned a lot of winning into this external validation that meant I was enough, that I was doing enough, that I was worthy of being seen because I was "thriving."
Bree Katulak (00:25):
Hey, I'm Bree and this is Unstoppable You, the podcast for women ready to stop choosing between their dreams, family, and personal growth. What if the biggest thing holding you back isn't a lack of talent, but a belief you don't even realize you are carrying? Hey there, welcome back. Have you ever looked at someone else's life and thought, "Of course they were chosen. They got the opportunity, the promotion, the stage, the business, and even the recognition. And somehow, without even realizing it, you quietly decide they must have something that you don't." I've done that. In fact, before I met today's guest, Jennifer Jiff Chapman, I looked at her career and immediately started comparing myself. She has over 11,000 followers on LinkedIn. She has built a successful coaching business. She was speaking professionally, and I remember thinking, "She's already doing what I'm trying to build." Then we sat down together and what completely surprised me was this.
(01:38):
Despite all of her success, Jiff shared that she's still working through a belief that she might not be chosen. That stopped me in my tracks because if someone I admire still wrestles with that question, how many of us are carrying the very same belief? At 34, Jif suffered a life-changing stroke, but what she discovered afterwards wasn't just how to recover physically. It was how to grieve the version of herself she thought she had lost. Confront the beliefs she'd been carrying since childhood and begin choosing herself instead of waiting for someone else to do it first. Today's conversation isn't really about a stroke. It isn't even about building a successful business. It's about something much deeper. It's about the invisible stories we tell ourselves about our worth and how those stories quietly shape the opportunities we pursue, the risks we take, and the lives we build.
(02:44):
We're talking about worth, achievement, failure, and the courage to stop letting old beliefs decide what's possible for your future. So before we get started, what does having it all mean to you, Jiff?
Jiff Chapman (03:05):
That's such a big, powerful first question. It looks so different to me now than it did 10 years ago. For me now, it's being content and fulfilled with the simplicity what life can be and not feeling like I need to have the next thing or this and that for it to mean having it all. With the many women I surround myself with, we all have a new definition of what that is versus what it was in our 20s and 30s.
New Speaker (03:37):
I think everything that you've just said resonates very deeply with me. I mean, going back to the simplicity is huge. When you say simplicity, what goes through your head? What do you mean by simplicity?
Jiff Chapman (03:50):
I've had a gratitude practice now for eight years, which has really helped me keep my perspective in check. Meaning be grateful for what we have versus feeling like I'll be grateful when I have this. The power of gratitude for the now is everything versus constantly searching for it because it has built for me that gratitude muscle in my mind and in my brain to keep it in perspective of not taking the things we all probably take for granted every single day.
New Speaker (04:29):
I think it's really interesting what you said also about the women that you surround yourself with and how you're all looking at it very differently from when you were in your 20s and your 30s. I'm now in my 40s too, and I'm like, wow, I almost feel like I wasted portions of my life because I was always chasing the next thing when I should have been practicing and flexing this gratitude muscle like you referenced to really appreciate the here and the now going into more of the conversation. You lost your mom when you were about 11 years old, and you've talked about becoming a high achiever afterwards. When you look back now, what do you think achievement was giving you that you needed at that time?
Jiff Chapman (05:12):
That I was good enough. I love the fact that we're having this conversation today because literally yesterday was the 33rd anniversary without my mom. August 9th is always such a significant day in my life, and every year it has kind of looked different and I've felt different. I've been asked this question more recently than ever as far as part of my healing and grief journey. I didn't know then that I had put a lot of who I was into what I did, which was sports and getting good grades. It's not like my family put any extra pressure on me to be great necessarily. It was internal for me what winning meant to me, which was so much more than. Even literally up until these last nine years, I turned a lot of winning into this external validation that meant I was enough, that I was doing enough, that I was worthy of being seen because I was
Bree Katulak (06:09):
"thriving." I absolutely struggled with the exact same thing. My parents, they absolutely loved me. They didn't need me to achieve all of these things, but somewhere throughout my life, I absolutely started equating achievement and winning with, okay, I'm enough. I'm worth being in the world. I don't want to say validating. It's comforting to know that I'm not alone in that, but at the same time, making it so important to get this message out there so other people can realize it sooner before potentially wasting or not optimizing years of your life trying to chase this feeling.
Jiff Chapman (06:50):
With the way you just said that, what's coming up for me too, and what I know to be true is that our bodies track all of this. It tracks how much internal pressure and stress we are putting on ourselves to go get the next thing. And that's really such a huge part of my story and why I share it is so that both men and women hear it and hopefully start to be more proactive with listening to their body and what it's doing internally when they're not listening to it.
Bree Katulak (07:24):
Right, exactly. So when you say your body tracks it, do you mean in stress or in how we operate? Or can you go a little bit more into what you mean by how it tracks?
Jiff Chapman (07:35):
Yeah, so for me personally, I had trauma at age 11 and immediately then put a tennis racket in my hand and started playing competitive tennis for years. Really cared about the grades that I was getting, then went into college and still cared about the grades, and then went into the world of sales and have spent majority of my career in both corporate and family-owned companies where I quote unquote succeeded and had done really well. If I look back, looked at all the accolades and all the awards, it was like, give me a challenge. I'm going to win whatever you put in front of me. I'm such a competitive human, which can be a strength and an opportunity. I've gotten a lot better at managing that aspect of who I am. I had the best year of my career in 2016 where I was with this corporate organization and I had hit the pinnacle of sales.
(08:32):
I'd hit President's Club. That was such a huge deal. And then having my first life epiphany of being only 34 when not only did I do that, but really realized my mom was only 34 when she had passed. So I had this moment of I feel so young. I still have so much I want to do. I just didn't realize how young she was. I want to share that because what I did in that moment was put on an invisible backpack of unhealed grief because I had not fully worked through that like I thought I had, and the internal pressure to go hit another President's Club. And my body was tracking this invisible backpack that I was carrying nine months later is when at 34 I suffered a major stroke. And I just don't think that's a coincidence.
Bree Katulak (09:21):
Walk me through that. So you had another traumatic event at the age of 34 when you had this realization that your mom was the same age. And again, you said you felt so young and you have so much you still want to accomplish. I mean, I still feel that way now and I'm 41, so I can't imagine that feeling and that pressure and that backpack. I mean, walk me through, what were your first thoughts after the stroke? And did you realize immediately or well down the road that this invisible backpack was even there?
Jiff Chapman (09:54):
I did not realize any of that for months. And stroke is fascinating because it's the brain. Physically, thankfully I was in great shape before. I worked out all the time before, so that helped. When I was going into all of my therapy sessions, it was like, just tell me what to do. Tell me the next thing to do and I'll do it. The physical recovery was not overly challenging for me, even though probably on the outside for everybody that knew me and would come to support me in my therapy sessions would probably be in disbelief that I'm relearning how to do some of the most basic things again. It's not like I was processing, oh, I can't believe I have to have help walking down the hallway right now or have help literally bathing and getting dressed. I had to have help with all that for several weeks, but I wasn't processing the fact I can't believe I have to have help with this right now.
(10:43):
That didn't register. And I remember in one of my PT sessions, I remember saying, "It's weird I can't cry right now. I can't physically produce a tear if I tried." And yet I remember being a girl that wore her heart on her sleeves before my stroke. And my therapist said to me, "That's okay. Your brain is in protective mode right now and it's allowing you to do this type of work first and it will show up when it's ready." And she couldn't have been more right. It was literally on the one-year anniversary of my stroke that I had a neurology appointment that day as a follow-up, and I was uncontrollably crying.
Bree Katulak (11:19):
Wow.
Jiff Chapman (11:19):
We could not stop and literally did not stop for what felt like a year, and that's not an exaggeration. And yet I went back to corporate sales, so I'm still calling on accounts and making appointments with these decision makers every day and still trying to close deals. And then I would sit in my car and cry, and I would do that every day. And it wasn't until hiring my first life coach about 15 months after my stroke where I met her in a coffee shop every other week. That was really when I processed, oh, I was the same age as my mom. That was the biggest life epiphany and saying she didn't make it and I did. Why am I here?
Bree Katulak (11:59):
Have you found the answer? I know I'm still searching for it, right?
Jiff Chapman (12:03):
It was such a powerful moment and also really understanding for the first time that not only was I still probably grieving her, I was also grieving a version of myself that I had to let go of.
Bree Katulak (12:18):
One of the things I want to go back to, so you went back to corporate sales, you just mentioned that. First I want to ask how long after the stroke did you go back to corporate sales? And then ultimately, what drove you to want to go back to corporate sales? Was it because it's what you knew or were you still trying to prove that you were still the same version of you?
Jiff Chapman (12:40):
That's a great question, Ray, because I feel like I went back because it's what I knew. It was like, I'm just going to go back because I'm going to go back to quote unquote normal. I'm going to go back to my life.This is what I did before. I was good at it. I can go back and do it again.
Bree Katulak (12:54):
Right. Which is logical. It makes sense.
Jiff Chapman (12:57):
It does make sense. And I stayed with them another year and a half, so for 18 months. Very much so throughout that 18 months. I really felt like I was out of my body looking back. It was very much going through the motions of day-to-day. I had the awareness of I want to be here because I want to still contribute, though I know I'm not contributing really in the same way. And yet I hadn't really asked myself then, what am I supposed to be doing? That didn't happen for about a year. Working with my coach, I worked with her for about eight months, is when I really started to question, okay, I know I'm not supposed to be doing this. What am I supposed to be doing? And at the time, and it's probably important to mention for this conversation, because I had had success at this organization that I was being recruited on LinkedIn to go to big med device companies, which a former version of myself would've loved, would've wanted to thrive in that.
(13:56):
I had the thought of, well, at least it would be going to a company where I feel like I was helping people feel better, get better. It's still corporate sales. They're still going to have big numbers tied to it. Those elements weren't showing up quite yet. It was like, oh, I'm going to at least go help people feel better, so I'm going to continue to follow these opportunities that recruiters were reaching out to me for.
Bree Katulak (14:16):
So you had a really interesting story that you've told me before about your interview process. Do you want to walk me through that?
Jiff Chapman (14:24):
Yeah. So when I knew I was no longer wanting to stay at the current organization that I was at, and I was being recruited by one of the biggest med device companies in the world, there was a part of me that was excited because I had known people that had gone there and that were doing really well. And so I went through the entire process with the recruiter. I had met with the sales manager, I'd done the ride-along, I had taken the assessment, I had several interviews. So it was around the one-year mark of my stroke, by the way. And they had flown me up to Minneapolis to meet the regional VP. And then the sales manager that I would've had, they were both sitting at the table. And it was a long interview. It was an intense interview because he was asking me lots of questions really of why, why, why?
(15:04):
Real life story. Why have you made the decisions you've made? And we had gotten to the point where we were within the last year or two. And that was the first time that I had said out loud outside of my friends and family that I had said the word, "I had a stroke last year. I suffered a stroke." In that moment, I felt like all air and oxygen leave the room as well as my confidence go right out the door. I shopped them. And I knew in that moment that I did not get that job. I knew it.
Bree Katulak (15:32):
I mean, I know you said the air left the room, but it's a med device company. They should be understanding that things happen. Why do you think that shifted with that comment?
Jiff Chapman (15:44):
There was a moment or two of silence that spoke loudly to me, and then they tried their best to continue the conversation. I had this feeling in my gut, going back to my hotel room, I'm not going to get it. And the next morning, the recruiter had called me and shared that with me. In that moment, it was professional devastation.
Bree Katulak (16:05):
So that rejection then, what did that make you believe about yourself?
Jiff Chapman (16:09):
I'm not good enough again. I had recruiters still reaching out and I had other interviews on the books. During every interview when they were asking me whatever question they were asking me, I never once said I had suffered a stroke. I never got specific. I remember saying I had to take a few weeks off for a health scare and came back. No one's ever going to ask any more detail about that. It was like I had told myself, "Don't say that again or you won't get the job."
Bree Katulak (16:32):
Which is crazy to me to think that. But that mental shift that immediately, whether consciously or subconsciously happened based on that feeling and that reaction.
Jiff Chapman (16:43):
Yeah. So that was interesting. That was a learning lesson.
Bree Katulak (16:46):
Thinking about all of the life coach work that you had been doing and processing your grief, tell me about how ultimately you got through or are still working on grieving the version of you that you though you had lost.
Jiff Chapman (17:01):
A defining moment was in one of the first sessions that I had with my coach. I shared this story a lot. It was really profound. She said to me, "Have you ever asked yourself, why me? Why has this happened to me?" And I remember thinking, I don't really remember asking that, because again, I don't think my brain was allowing me to go into the woe as me. I remember lots of my family and friends saying, "Why Jennifer? She's the healthiest person in our family. This doesn't make sense. Why her?" And my coach said, "That's because you need to ask yourself, why not me?" When you're going through something really hard in your life, that can be an offensive comment. What do you mean why not have a stroke at 34? That sounds crazy. Something in me said, "I'm going to lean into this instead. I'm curious about that." And that was really the first moment where it was like, okay, I'm choosing to accept this messy version of me, because then you can start to move forward 1% every day, a little bit more every day because it doesn't stay like this version.
New Speaker (18:08):
You are consciously choosing to make advancements, and this day will always be better than yesterday.
Jiff Chapman (18:15):
That's it. And a lot of people allow themselves to sit in the why me phase when something really hard happened. And that's valid. That's real.
Bree Katulak (18:24):
It absolutely is. But the mindset shift can be so strong. Were you afraid acceptance of this new version of yourself ever meant giving up on something from the past? Or were you only looking at it from that other paradigm shift of, no, this means we're getting better?
Jiff Chapman (18:43):
There was a part of me that was scared that that current version was going to stay that current version. I've just done a lot of work now to be able to really acknowledge that messy emotional disaster version. I can take so much from that.
Bree Katulak (18:58):
I want to take a moment and just celebrate how far you have come. You absolutely are an inspiration to me. I see all of the followers that you have on LinkedIn. I see your speaking presence. I love your IP with the Invisible Backpack and just every conversation I have had with you. I have left incredibly energized and just motivated to continue my own journey. So know how much external viewership is looking up to you and honestly inspired by you because you're showing the world what can become possible, and I'm sure there's much more that you have planned.
Jiff Chapman (19:39):
Thank you so much. Your words are so kind and I receive them and really appreciate it, Bri.
Bree Katulak (19:45):
No, absolutely. It's genuine. It's real. So with that, let's move on to the next segment of the show. And I want to know, because I have so many thoughts on where this answer could go, what does unstoppable mean to you in both your work and your personal life?
Jiff Chapman (20:02):
Unstoppable to me means not giving up on what you believe is possible. And so much of what I've had to reflect back on and understand are the opportunities that the rejections or the failures that we think mean more than they do when actually they're a part of the process. And that's where we learn more from than the wins. We wouldn't get to where we're going is if we literally gave up. So for me as a business owner and a coach and speaker and soon-to-be author, which is wild to say and getting more real by the day, is believing that my message is meant to be shared with as many people as I can share it with. Because my story, although it is unique to me, there's many elements of it that relate to other people. I'm not the only one that's lost a parent at a young age, and I'm not the only one that has suffered a health scare at a young age.
(20:57):
So many people have, or they know someone that has, and it's being able to show people what's possible on the other side of the pain.
Bree Katulak (21:04):
Absolutely. And that's very important too. I mean, we had a health scare in my family where my mom had a stroke almost two years ago now, and her recovery did not go the same as yours, but it really does put things in perspective that tomorrow is not guaranteed. How has your mantra or the way you live your life evolve having that mindset now?
Jiff Chapman (21:31):
I've learned way more from losing my mom and having a stroke than I have in 20 years of sales experience. Not that there weren't lessons learned there for sure. A lot of people that I see, especially when in the speaking engagements that I've had or even at team environments or one-to-one conversations, a lot of people are scared to go where they don't want to go because there's pain there. And what I know to be true is whatever's in your way is the way through. You have to go where you don't want to have to go to actually heal and to move forward in an upgraded way. If you choose not to do that, you will stay exactly where you are for the rest of your life.
Bree Katulak (22:11):
That's very profound, and I couldn't agree more. And I think I've been doing a lot of self-reflecting, and a lot of it has been painful. And it's not always fun to go through that path that you need to go through in order to come out the other side. But I think it's really important work and it's something that should be embraced and then celebrate the many wins along the way.
Jiff Chapman (22:35):
100%. It's those things that we take for granted every day. What if we choose to celebrate the small wins? That's retraining your mind to continue to find the small wins to celebrate. There's evidence and data to back up how this actually works.
Bree Katulak (22:52):
This also relates to something that I think we talked about in one of our previous conversations, and I can't stop thinking about it. You said something along the lines of whatever you tell yourself, your brain will manufacture evidence that it's true. So how do you interpret a belief that you've spent decades collecting evidence for? How do you interrupt that pattern?
Jiff Chapman (23:15):
Building the self-awareness muscle is the most foundational work that you can continue to do for the rest of your life. I really believe self-awareness is huge. And what that means for me and what I share with clients and teams and people that I've gotten a chance to work with is really reframing our own thoughts because we have thousands of thoughts a day and majority of those thoughts are negative and repetitive. It's really understanding why that voice is there when it is telling us the negative things. There's a protection element there. When we are an actual unsafe situation, your brain's going to tell you this is not safe. It's there for a reason, but a lot of times there's fear to protect us versus us being able to choose not to believe that though that we can't do the thing or that we can't go for the promotion or the job change or say yes or no to a hard conversation or hard situation.
(24:11):
If you tell yourself you can't do the thing, your brain's going to find evidence of why you can't do the thing. Being able to catch that and say, "Oh no, wait a second. That's not true. What is true is that I am capable of applying for this new job or I am qualified to explore this promotion." Whatever that is, your brain's going to find evidence of why you're capable enough, why you're qualified enough, because you've done things in the past where you've proven that to yourself.
Bree Katulak (24:38):
Absolutely. And one of the things that we had also talked about previously was that you recently were approaching clients a little bit more passively and almost waiting for them to choose you rather than confidently putting yourself out there. What does that waiting to be chosen actually look like in our behavior when we don't realize we're even doing it half the time?
Jiff Chapman (25:04):
That's such a great question, Bree. That has shown up a lot over the last couple of months. And it was really, to your point earlier, me having that kind of profound moment with my coach when we were exploring that, when we got on our group call, I was not alone. Every woman on the call, it related to them in some way, and it was really waking up to why are we waiting to be chosen? What is it about us that they wouldn't choose us? Where did we first think that we had to wait to be chosen, whether it was in middle school or high school, doing that exploration of like, okay, that's where that shows up. Now that I can see it, I can change it and now approach it in a different way and being confident with all the evidence I have in my past of where I've worked with clients and we've done the work or done the team engagements and helped people really get out of their own way that this can be of value to the people that I'm continuously reaching out to on LinkedIn.
Bree Katulak (25:58):
Absolutely. That's great. So I want to challenge both of us because I feel like you're much further in your journey and understanding where it came from, I think, than I am. But I know at one point you said that you're looking at speakers now currently that are commanding these $25,000 speaking engagements and thinking, why should they choose me? And I'm looking at you and seriously thinking, she's already where I want to be. And I think it's interesting because here I'm at in more of the beginning of my journey and you're in the middle of yours, and then there's probably someone else that's actually further along. How much of our lives do you think that we waste comparing ourselves, our beginning to someone else's middle or someone that's already made it?
Jiff Chapman (26:49):
I would say majority of people are doing that more than they maybe even realize it. This is what my coach helped me with. She's like, "Externally, you're doing all the activity. You're showing up, you're reaching out, you're doing all the things. What is it underneath that there's this belief that maybe it's like one foot's on the gas and one foot's on the brake?" It's up to us to be able to put tools and resources in our tool belt to know how to lift off the brake. And for example, before I go out, if I get the chance to speak, whether it's virtually or in person, it comes from the same place, the feeling of excitement and the feeling of nervousness. We get to choose in our mind, I'm going to choose to be excited about this and start to go down that path of why I'm excited about this.
(27:32):
Because if I choose to go down the path of I'm nervous, I don't know if I'm going to say what I want to say right, in all these negative thoughts, that would've also held me back. And I would continue to say no because I don't think I've got everything that I need. That's not true. I do have everything that I need.
Bree Katulak (27:47):
That reminded me as you were talking about that, I had a workout coach. I was doing a really grueling workout and my coach said, "You can either think positive thoughts that you're going to get through this, or you can think really negative thoughts and it's going to be hard, but you can't have both thoughts in your head. So what are you going to choose?" And that sat with me hard, not just for workouts, but for life in general. I honestly took that one to heart and I couldn't agree with you more.
Jiff Chapman (28:16):
Thank you. And really quick, just because this just happened, I was at a conference last week not speaking, just there in the audience, and I got to hear from Claude Silver. She talked about how she dropped out of college and her mom signed her up for this outdoor camp. It was like 90 days where it was mostly these 21-year-old boys and her. So she was one of the only female. And they had to climb a huge mountain. This was out in Colorado. She was far behind the boys. And the female instructor came down to meet her where she was on the mountain. And she literally said, "What song's playing in your head right now?" And Claude had said this, it's like a nine-inch nail song where it's really harsh and that she wanted to die and that she wasn't going to make it. And the female instructor literally said, "You need to change the song in your head right now." And dad has stayed with her her whole career.
(29:10):
So then she asked us, "What song's playing in your head right now?" It's very similar to what we're just talking about.
Bree Katulak (29:16):
Exactly. Once my personal trainer made me aware of that, that I consciously had that choice, it changed everything. It really did. And that was only a year ago, so it can do great things. And I think the fact that we're relating it to so many stories that we've recently heard is also powerful. Hopefully someone else takes that away and is able to make that conscious decision going forward.
Jiff Chapman (29:40):
Yeah. It gives me chills because I'm thinking right now, another big way to look at this and what I want people to hear is, are you your own best friend? I was not being kind to myself. I was exploring this version of myself that I had no idea who she was. I hadn't met her before when I got the chance though to meet her and start to befriend her. Her and love on her is what has helped me not only move forward, but continuously be this version of myself that I'm proud of and that I love in all the things, in all the tough days is really building that friendship with myself.
Bree Katulak (30:15):
That's such a powerful question. And I've never thought about that before, but you're right. I mean, I know for a fact I'm probably my own biggest enemy. A
Jiff Chapman (30:24):
Lot of us are.
Bree Katulak (30:26):
I need to be nicer to myself.
Jiff Chapman (30:28):
That's my invitation to you, especially when we look at ourselves in the mirror. We are harsh to ourselves. We are our own worst critic. And if that's the lens, if that's the conversation I star with in the morning when I look at myself in the mirror and I beat myself up, I'm going to carry that with me for the rest of the day with anybody else that I interact with.
Bree Katulak (30:48):
Going deeper into that, do you think that's innate in how humans think? Or do you think we learn that over time? I'll let you think about that for a second, but I'm thinking back to, I have a 14-year-old daughter and I have a seven and four-year-old daughter. And my four-year-old daughter, when she looks at herself in the mirror, she is like, "I look good." But then the older they get, it chips away. It's more like looking at the flaws as opposed to all the greatness. So I'm wondering if it's either through our brain development process or if it's the societal pressures coming at us, and I'm wondering if it's more internal or external, or it's probably a combination of something.
Jiff Chapman (31:31):
Yeah, I love that. I mean, if anyone takes anything away from this conversation, it's be like your four-year-old.
Bree Katulak (31:37):
Right? Own all the beauty that you see when you look in that mirror.
Jiff Chapman (31:42):
That's it. Because if we look back and think, it was very much societal too. As girls in middle school and high school, you start to compare yourself to your friends and maybe what they have versus what you don't have. And parents certainly play a role. And one of the podcasts that I love, Mel Robbins, she interviewed a mom that had called in and asked the question. She was like, "The mom said, I was raised by my mom to be perfect. I had to be perfect. I had to have straight A's. I couldn't get anything wrong. I had to look clean," whatever, clean, cut at school, prim and proper. And she's like, "I want to make sure I don't do that for my kids." And Mel said, "You have to do the work to help them. Don't do anything with them right now. You do the work and they will see that work that you do." So that was such a great reminder too, for women our age that do have kids.
(32:38):
It's like the more you continue to do the work, your kids will see that you're doing that work.
Bree Katulak (32:42):
It's all about being that role model, modeling behavior that you want them to embrace, right? It really is. And it's hard. It's not easy. I don't want to pretend that it is. It is hard.
Jiff Chapman (32:55):
Anything that's hard is worth it though.
Bree Katulak (32:58):
Agreed. I was just thinking the same thing. It just is.
Jiff Chapman (33:01):
That's why I want to continue to tell people this work is not easy and it's worth it though. It's really understanding we are worth it enough to do this work. And that you cannot escape this life without pain, that pain is there for a reason. And they're the greatest lessons you will ever learn.
Bree Katulak (33:19):
I've loved this conversation. Thank you so much, Jiff. I really appreciate you taking the time to meet with me and have this conversation.
Jiff Chapman (33:26):
It was so good. Thanks for the invite. I love this. I love what you're doing. I am fully supportive of it and cheering you on for sure.
Bree Katulak (33:33):
I really appreciate it. And we'll talk again soon.
Jiff Chapman (33:36):
That sounds good.
Bree Katulak (33:37):
All right. Here's my challenge for you these next two weeks. Think about someone you admire, someone you look at and think they're already there. They have the career, the confidence, the audience, and the business. Whatever the thing is that you are still trying to build, now consider this. They might be looking at someone else thinking the exact same thing. That hit me hard during my conversation with Jiff. Before we met, I was intimidated by her. I saw more than 11,000 followers, a speaking career, a coaching business, nine years of building something that I am just beginning to build myself. And I thought, she's already there. Then I sat across the room from her to talk about something that she's still working through. And I realized how absurd this game is that so many of us play. We stand outside someone else's life looking at all the evidence of their success while standing inside our own lives, staring directly at everything we haven't accomplished yet.
(34:52):
And we convince ourselves that everyone has been chosen and we're still waiting. So here's my challenge. Where are you waiting to be chosen for the promotion, the opportunity, the moment that you've convinced yourself that you'll finally belong? And then ask yourself one harder question. What would I do differently this week if I already believed I was worth choosing? Maybe you'd send the email, ask for the opportunity, or maybe you'd finally stop treating someone else's rejection as evidence that you were never good enough in the first place, because maybe being chosen was never the real problem. Maybe the real problem was handing someone else the authority to decide what you were worthy of. Jiff is still doing the work on this. I'm still working on this, and I'm willing to bet some version of you is too, because becoming unstoppable doesn't mean the doubt disappears. It means you learn how to hear it without letting it make your decisions.
(36:03):
So these next two weeks, stop waiting for proof and permission. Stop waiting to be chosen. Choose yourself. This is your life. Define it, live it, become unstoppable. Thank you for listening to Unstoppable You. If this episode was helpful, I'd love to know. Connect with me on LinkedIn at Bree Katulak. That's K-A-T-U-L-A-K on LinkedIn and shoot me a message. This show is for you. Be unstoppable. I'll see you next time.