#36 – Intuition as a Guide: Shifting Careers, Embracing Change, and Thriving Beyond Burnout | Empowerment & Career Advice

[00:00:00] Loree Philip: Hi, and welcome to the daring to leap podcast. I'm your host, Loree Philip. I'm so excited to dive into this week's episode with you this week. We're speaking with Donna Starr, the author of unsuccessfully successful. Donna has an incredible story to share about her leap out of corporate into a new chapter of her life.

[00:00:20] Loree Philip: Donna opens up about the signs that led her to make this life changing decision, the importance of following our intuition and why trusting ourselves is so crucial. We also explore the topic of burnout and share tips on how to recognize it, address it, and make meaningful changes. Let's dive in.

[00:00:39] Loree Philip: Donna Star is a highly sought after certified executive coach and professional speaker after a successful 30 year career in corporate America.

[00:00:48] Loree Philip: She is the author of the book, Unsuccessfully Successful. At the heart of Donna's success is her ability to connect with people in a deep and meaningful way. [00:01:00] She is smart, funny, intuitive, and says it like it is. Welcome to the podcast, Donna.

[00:01:06] Donna Star: I am so happy to be here. I love the name of your podcast and I love everything that you stand for, for

[00:01:12] Loree Philip: women.

[00:01:13] Loree Philip: Thank you. I really appreciate that. And I think where I want to start with you is. You've had a 30 year career in corporate. What was it? Take us back to the end of that time that made you decide I think it's time to close this chapter of my life and move into something new. Can you share with us your journey there?

[00:01:38] Donna Star: Yeah, sure. I knew for a very long time that my corporate career was no longer serving me and I was fortunate to work at a company that always found new opportunities for me. So I am very, very grateful for my corporate life. And that they were like, Oh, you don't want to do this anymore. Try this. Or so I was very, [00:02:00] very blessed.

[00:02:01] Donna Star: But my moment was my daughter was graduating college and she was moving away and she was my youngest. I have two kids and I really wanted to spend the summer with her and, and travel, which we didn't. Thankfully I did because COVID happened right after that. So I had a natural end point with not paying for kids college tuition anymore.

[00:02:21] Donna Star: But even deeper than that, it was just time to go and it was time for my company to let me go. And it was time for me to leave. It was really mutual. Although I gave my notice. I really felt like I had done everything that I set out to do in my corporate career and my body was giving me signals. You and I talked about that and we'll probably dive into that more later, but my body, I wasn't able to digest food at the end of my corporate career.

[00:02:47] Donna Star: Like my basic staple of salads, I couldn't eat, I couldn't digest them.

[00:02:51] Loree Philip: Wow. Yes, we'll dive into that a bit more. Did you, know what [00:03:00] your career was going to look like or what you wanted to do when you were leaving, you resigned and put in your notice and your corporate career? What, what was your plan at that point in time?

[00:03:10] Donna Star: The reason I wanted to be on your specific podcast, Daring to Leap, is because I dared to leap. And it was the first time in my life that I ended something without knowing what was next. I knew I wasn't done. A lot of people at, I left my corporate career at 56 and a lot of people might've said, Hey, I'll take early retirement.

[00:03:32] Donna Star: I work part time. I'll do whatever. But I knew that I had a whole lot more left in me. But I didn't have a plan and somebody that I had met newly met one of my daughter's friends mothers had said, Hey, I'm going, I'm in this coaching program called IPEC. I think you'd really like it. And I signed up for it before I went to Europe.

[00:03:53] Donna Star: And I think part of me went into that program because I wanted to be able to tell people [00:04:00] who asked me, what are you going to do now? I wanted to default, but I didn't realize until I went into the program that I had found my thing because I took a leap.

[00:04:08] Loree Philip: Yeah. It's so hard sometimes to take that leap without knowing what you're going to do, especially I think being in corporate for so long.

[00:04:20] Loree Philip: Everything is planned out down to the sentence in an email or everything is so scripted and plans and upon planning. And so it's, when you move from that, And you're saying to yourself, okay, I'm done with this career. I'm not done with career generally, but with this career. And, but I don't know what I'm going to do.

[00:04:48] Loree Philip: And I think I want to talk, shift into talking a bit about some of the signs you were getting, because in our last conversation, we talked a bit about Feeling [00:05:00] burnt out and that feeling of burnout. Tell me a bit about how that came through for you.

[00:05:07] Donna Star: I have so much to say on the topic of burnout and I know that there are lots of books written about it, but the reality was in my corporate career, if you weren't burnt out, we didn't actually think we were doing it right.

[00:05:17] Donna Star: So it was actually, it felt more to me like the norm. As opposed to the exception now, I, I know it's changed since COVID, so I don't want to throw all companies under the bus, but we were, we were like all of us begging for to get to Friday. So it wasn't just me. So in that context, it was harder to know, unless you really look inside, it was harder to know if I was at my breaking point.

[00:05:46] Donna Star: Because I was like, well, she's doing it. He's doing it there. Everybody else is doing it. So it must be the norm. But it wasn't until I realized I was so deeply unhappy. I was never really aligned with my corporate career. Again, grateful for [00:06:00] my corporate career. It was about me, not about them.

[00:06:02] Donna Star: They're going to. They're going to take every ounce of what I want to give them, and I was very good at my job. Maybe the best at what I did. So I ignored the signs for a very long time until I just couldn't until my body gave out. But the other signs which were more common, sorry I'm giving you a longer answer here, But I don't think I'm alone, assuming that other people and companies feel burnout across the board.

[00:06:26] Donna Star: And that seems to be the standard. And I just really don't think I'm alone there. So for me, though my kids and my partner at the time and my family. Would all look at me like I had six heads. I'd be on vacation. I'd be hanging out of trees, cars in quiet zones at vacations. I literally was on vacation with my family, hoping we had wifi on the boat.

[00:06:53] Donna Star: So hoping that we would come closer to shore to get renewal on contracts. And my son finally looked at me one day and [00:07:00] said, mom, this is not normal. Like you have got to stop. And it really hit me. He he's always been sort of a harbinger for me. To change things and my daughter too. Mm hmm when I was younger and I gave my notice the first time He said you don't spend enough time being my mom So, you know as a single mom, we don't have a lot of choices all the time But more choices than we think we do so.

[00:07:22] Donna Star: Mm hmm That was very long winded all that to say You have to be able to do the work to look into yourself and see does this serve me? and I think a lot of people run on autopilot and assume that that's a given And that you have no other choice when in fact you do.

[00:07:40] Loree Philip: Yeah, I think you're right. I mean, the, there is so much burnout that hasn't changed.

[00:07:47] Loree Philip: I don't believe at the macro level, because even with COVID women in professional work in corporate, and they were [00:08:00] expected to do their job and. Continue to take care of their family when their kids were at home, their kids, you know what I mean? It was like, yes, and, and don't, don't drop the ball on what you were doing, even though we were having even more responsibility put on us during that time.

[00:08:21] Loree Philip: No, the

[00:08:21] Donna Star: report would, would show that, I'm sorry, that what you're saying is true. The reason I think it's a slightly different is that we were all in the office together commiserating, whereas on Zoom, I don't think we are. You're like sitting next to the oven saying, can we just end the week? Maybe that's happening on zoom.

[00:08:37] Donna Star: I do think COVID put much more on women and men because there was no separation. And I think it was harder. And the McKinsey report would say that more women have left the workforce. In fact, we lost all the gains that we made pre COVID.

[00:08:52] Loree Philip: Yeah, it was the great breakup was the theme of that McKinsey report.

[00:08:58] Loree Philip: We did an episode on it [00:09:00] at the beginning of this podcast first few episodes. . I really, I want to go back to what you said earlier about tapping into understanding for yourself. Is this serving me? Is this, am I okay with this? And because I think you're right we could have We could be okay with the status quo and just say, okay, this is the cultural norm.

[00:09:25] Loree Philip: If you're not burnt out, then you're not doing your job because everybody else is working at this pace that's expected across the board and It doesn't have to be that way for you and and and I'd like to hear maybe some additional thoughts you have on what what really Sunk in for you that on that shift that, you know what, this isn't for me anymore.

[00:09:51] Loree Philip: Well,

[00:09:53] Donna Star: that's a great question by the way, you know what I talk about in, in the book and just overall is it doesn't need to be so hard, [00:10:00] and I just didn't know that. So when I started to work with my mindset coach, And we'd go to a session and she'd say, you're doing great. You're getting clients, you're getting renewals, you're building programs.

[00:10:10] Donna Star: And I'd be like, and she'd be like, what do you mean? Are you waiting for the other shoe to drop? And I said, yes, because in corporate, you can't get too high. You can't get too low. You're always waiting. At least I was always waiting for the shoe to drop because in the variability, it does, you lose a client, you lose an employee your revenue tax, your revenue spikes, there's.

[00:10:30] Donna Star: You kind of have to mod self modulate right to do that. So when I realized that I didn't have to beat myself up in order to be successful, which is why I named my book the way I did. I was like, Oh my God, you mean I did corporate wrong all those years. I thought that's what drove me to be successful, beat myself up and rehash things and how could I have done things differently, better.

[00:10:54] Donna Star: And that drove me. But you know what it did? It drove me crazy.

[00:10:58] Loree Philip: Yes. [00:11:00] Yes.

[00:11:00] Donna Star: Right. Well, how about just giving yourself some grace and saying, Hey, it was a tough week. We get to start all over again on Monday and we get to do a better job. But I didn't do that. I was like, I felt like self flagellation was the way to go.

[00:11:12] Donna Star: And I was like, I was, if I had any marks on me, I mean physical marks on me, which I didn't, but if they were, I would have been a body beat up physically because I just couldn't take the foot off the gas pedal because I was worried about running out of gas. And now I realize that it doesn't have to be like that.

[00:11:30] Donna Star: It just doesn't. People are much more comfortable leaning into what they've done wrong versus what they've done right. And we need them to lean into what done right so that they can continue to improve and, and be confident, not beaten down.

[00:11:45] Loree Philip: Yeah. Yeah. I think this is, this point is really important.

[00:11:49] Loree Philip: My experience is what you, what you focus on expands and grows and you, you shine your light on all your failings or perceived failings. [00:12:00] That's where your energy is going. And when you, if you, if it's possible to shift that into acknowledging. All the amazing things that we are doing. And so in my experience, what I noticed with myself is I would skip over that.

[00:12:17] Loree Philip: It was almost like, Oh yeah, well, you, you did this thing. Oh yeah, yeah. What's next? I'm now I'm trying to do the next thing without actually taking the time to really let it sink in. That I had come so far and I did so much and I am raising kids and they're great and I mean like we could actually we could be So supportive of ourselves in what all the amazing things we are already doing it does make such a big difference It

[00:12:50] Donna Star: does.

[00:12:51] Donna Star: And in my group program, we, on Fridays, we make all the attendees go through accomplishments for the week. And you can hear the hedging in the beginning [00:13:00] well, I didn't do as well as this person or it wasn't a big deal, but I did this. Like we do so much hedging, right. And we really try to dismantle that.

[00:13:10] Donna Star: Like I had a great week. No one. Period. No. Period. What a great week. I'm proud of myself because I made it home for dinner three times with my family. When? When's the last time that happened? So no, no amount of accomplishment is too small, but you are right. That people tend to overlook this, their accomplishments and the things that come easy to them.

[00:13:33] Donna Star: So I've had sessions with my clients and I know you're a coach also, where I had one client, I wrote about her in the book that was like, I turned around. The CE doesn't like my new employee. I'm working with her to turn it around. And she did, but she didn't put that on any list of accomplishments. And I'm like, is there anything more important than developing talent?

[00:13:56] Donna Star: And turning around talent, you know how much money you save the company? [00:14:00] Didn't put it down as an accomplishment. And it is. It's a huge accomplishment. But I think women are, I don't want to stereotype too much, but I think women are just not very good at tooting their own horn. And certainly the stuff, as I said, that comes easy to them, they just, they just well, that's not a big deal.

[00:14:19] Loree Philip: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. I think it's true, tooting our own horn is not our natural inclination to do. It feels like we're bragging or sometimes it feels oh, well, I'm just putting out all these positives, almost like you're promoting yourself too much in a sense. But it is really important because. It, it, it provides ourselves that avenue to pat ourselves on the back and how are people supposed to know all of the things that we're doing unless we are talking [00:15:00] about it.

[00:15:01] Loree Philip: And that, that was a big shift for me. Mm

[00:15:04] Donna Star: hmm. Huge shift. So if you write down your accomplishments, they're good for your one on ones. They're good for your performance reviews. They're good to prepare for an interview. There's no it is helpful all the way around. Plus you get into a good muscle memory.

[00:15:17] Donna Star: I'm just really starting to realize that you are doing much more than you're giving yourself credit for.

[00:15:22] Loree Philip: Oh, yeah. I think that's important. It's funny because I started, I actually bought a journal recently just to write daily accomplishments, even the really teeny tiny ones. And after the end of the first couple of weeks, I don't think I did anything differently, but I felt like I was like really kicking butt.

[00:15:43] Loree Philip: I was like, wow, look at, I'm, I'm doing great. But it was just the fact that I sat down and I thought about it and wrote it down and realized just, I guess the reflection of it, like there are so many things that we're doing right and doing well [00:16:00] and allowing ourselves to feel that positive piece of it.

[00:16:05] Donna Star: And as you said, it's about focus. So the fact that you were taking the time to do it every day is focused and it expands as you continue to focus on it Yeah,

[00:16:15] Loree Philip: so I want to also get some of your wisdom around Intuition I know that we talked about this previously. That's something that that's important to you and maybe you look at it a bit differently Can you talk to me about?

[00:16:35] Loree Philip: Yeah. Yeah. You did. You leaned in. Tell me a bit about intuition and the importance of it and how can we start to tap into our own intuition?

[00:16:46] Donna Star: That's a big one for me. So I think intuition, all of us have intuition. We all get that prickly feeling on the back of our neck. That's intuition. That's knowing without facts.

[00:16:58] Donna Star: Right there. [00:17:00] Danger. And that's really powerful. Minus danger, there are moments in our everyday lives when we get a, this doesn't feel right or that feels right. And we, I think a lot of times we tend to ignore them. So, but for me, my intuition worked like this. I'd go into a meeting, a huge presentation, and I would know instinctively who the decision maker was.

[00:17:23] Donna Star: Or I could feel the energy in the room if we were going to get fired, or I, if I walked by an employee, I could just do a management by walking around and tell if an employee was sort of off kilter. So I, my intuition was always part and our CEO who was amazing, he used to say we do monthly operational reviews, financial reviews, business reviews, people reviews, risks, future look, just a very comprehensive every month.

[00:17:49] Donna Star: It was. was a lot of work, but it was very good. And sometimes at the end, she would just say, what's your gut? So you can do, and that gut is, he's really leaning into what's [00:18:00] going on inside your body, not using your logical brain. Sometimes we overthink things. A lot of times we overthink things. So what's your, how are you feeling in your body?

[00:18:09] Donna Star: So for me, my body gave out on me, right? I couldn't digest food. And it was what I've said, I think I said this to you when we spoke earlier is I feel like my body was a ping pong or something was going on Oh, we'll try to make Donna not sleep. We'll try to make her irritable. We'll try to do all these things.

[00:18:26] Donna Star: And I wasn't paying attention to any of them, but when I couldn't digest food, I salad, sorry, not all foods that I was like, huh. I better do something about this because I really like to eat salad and I really want to figure out what's going on here. I had all the signs of my body. I mean, if you look at burnout, I had every single classic symptom of burnout and workaholism.

[00:18:47] Donna Star: Couldn't go to sleep, slept with my phone under bed, was answering emails at three in the morning, didn't take vacations. That doesn't mean I didn't have a great life. Not poor me. I just didn't have any boundaries or anything. So intuition [00:19:00] at the end. Hit me over the head because I was in my body was saying, please stay up.

[00:19:08] Donna Star: Please pay attention to what's going on in your body because we're not going to let you ignore this anymore. But if it's, your question is how do you lean into that? When I did take intuition classes with a forensic medium, believe it or not, during COVID, it was a course that said, Hey, do you want to tap into your intuition?

[00:19:22] Donna Star: I was like, who doesn't want that? And then I get on the phone and or zoom call and it's with a medium, like a psychic medium and I'm like, Oh, this is kind of weird. But I a year. Guess what else? When you get out in your brain and you're just, she would say, do you think, or something's going on?

[00:19:38] Donna Star: Because once you think you're in your brain, once you're like, what is the rest of my body telling me? And I know that sounds slightly woo, but we all are getting some messages that we are ignoring or paying attention to. But people who didn't get on flights that eventually crashed, they, they got some sort of message.

[00:19:56] Donna Star: Yeah. You have you've heard them. I mean, that's a weird, [00:20:00] I just pulled that out of thin air, but do you have an example of one for you? Because I think we all get instances of intuition. Oh gosh.

[00:20:06] Loree Philip: Yeah. Just even having this podcast, I felt it was my intuition pulling me towards it.

[00:20:12] Loree Philip: And I say that because I really didn't want to do it. In my head, I had all the reasons why it's too scary. I don't know if I'll have enough things to talk about, like, how do I even start? All this kind of stuff, but I kept coming back to it. And it kept just popping back in. And so for me, that, that was more of intuition pulling me towards something that I should consider even though if I thought about it, I was like, yeah, I don't know if I really want to do it.

[00:20:46] Loree Philip: And... That's a great example. Yeah, yeah, and I think what's interesting about intuition, and I don't know that people on this podcast are going to be worried too much about woo woo type [00:21:00] stuff, but if you take it at a performance level and the The human, a human person has so much capability, right? So you have your thinking mind, your brain.

[00:21:15] Loree Philip: And if you can also then tap into your body and the knowledge in your body, and there is so much there to be noticed, whether or not it's screaming at you Hey Donna, we've tried everything, you're burnt out, you need to stop, I'm not gonna let you eat one of your favorite things to eat. I mean, that got your attention, right?

[00:21:39] Loree Philip: And so I think part of it is we have so many capabilities, are we using them all? And what kind of difference could that make for us being able to use all the capabilities we have and not just leaning into just what's going on in our brain and what logic is telling us and that kind of a thing?

[00:21:58] Loree Philip: Yeah. I mean,

[00:21:59] Donna Star: I have [00:22:00] one chapter in my book on intuition, which you and I talked about. And so some of the signs for me were our numbers, right? And I think everybody has like a favorite number or whatever. And for me, it's 33. I lived at 33 Hampshire out of Larry Bird is 33. I'm from Boston, so I'm a proud Bostonian.

[00:22:14] Donna Star: And then I was looking through pictures from my social media person. Did I tell you this story? And then now I was, she said, do you have any pictures of you and growing up as a child she was just getting me organized for social media. And I said, yeah. So I pulled out a picture of my brother and I, my oldest brother and I dancing.

[00:22:31] Donna Star: And I don't even know, it must've been a wedding party or something. And I turned the. I turn it over in the picture is a picture of my mom and dad. My dad just passed. And my mom's been gone for 40 years on the backside of the picture is handwriting 33 in handwritten, like pen. And I'm like, the number follows me around.

[00:22:50] Donna Star: And then I look up what the number 33 means and it means master teacher. And I'm a coach. I went away with my girlfriends. We ended up in room 33. Like the number follows me around. So [00:23:00] people will have I think people do that with 1111 and some other things, but I mean, I believe, I believe that there are, if you pay, if you focus, like you said earlier, you will see signs all around you and inside

[00:23:14] Loree Philip: you, inside, outside this number thing just came up for me recently in the last, Oh, really?

[00:23:23] Loree Philip: Two months. Maybe a month. Oh, so interesting. I'm saying, oh my gosh, it freaked me out

[00:23:33] Loree Philip: Yeah, no it freaked me out because it was so like I was seeing 11 22 and 44 Those are the numbers I'm seeing Everywhere, like literally everywhere I'll glance at the clock always at the, those exact times stuff like that. I see it all over the place because

[00:23:54] Donna Star: there's some significance usually

[00:23:56] Loree Philip: with numbers.

[00:23:56] Loree Philip: There is, there is it, it, there are a lot of [00:24:00] things it, it has to do with, I think 11, I have to remember exactly, but has to do a lot with being on the right path. It's almost like. Yeah. Support. It's supportive. Like I see this and then I know to keep going and to not to lose faith

[00:24:18] Donna Star: I'm so glad I brought it up because I think people don't know what to make of that, but it's all information.

[00:24:24] Donna Star: It's And when you looked it up and you said, I'm on the right path, you made a massive change after 16 years in corporate. And you had mentioned that you didn't want to do this podcast, but you got pulled to it and you're doing such amazing work. So I'm so glad you listened to your intuition.

[00:24:39] Donna Star: Thank

[00:24:39] Loree Philip: you, Donna. So Let's talk a bit about, let's, I want to go back to burnout because I think it is such a big topic and I want to talk to you about what are some of the things that people can do. A lot of people are not ready to just up and leave. Their, [00:25:00] their line of work and I, always want to stress this in a lot of my episodes is that's not what we're trying to convince you to do.

[00:25:07] Loree Philip: What can people do to once they realize and they start to notice within their body and just their environment that I'm burnt out and I'm ready to do something differently to make a change. What kind of strategies can we work on? I'm really

[00:25:28] Donna Star: glad you said that because the idea of burnout, just to take it one step further is if you don't deal with the underlying issues of why you're burnt out, it will follow you.

[00:25:38] Donna Star: It just doesn't magically go away because you decide to switch companies or switch whatever. So recognizing that you are burnt out is the first step. You can't make a change unless you actually acknowledge where you are and you're aware of where you are. That's, I think, I don't know if you agree with me on that.

[00:25:55] Donna Star: But in my group coaching program, and even in my, some of my privates, what steps can [00:26:00] you take? And sometimes a little step, and I know you know this, is a big step. So in my group coaching program, which we do for high performing female leaders. You have women that are just like, they're ready to just, I mean, they're so overworked.

[00:26:14] Donna Star: I thought of you have people just shut your laptop off to an hour early to decline a meeting, buy store bought goods for a bake sale instead of having to bake. So little changes. I know these all sound minimal, but if you're shutting your laptop early. And you decide, instead of working till 9 o'clock, you'll work till 5.

[00:26:39] Donna Star: 30. And then maybe you get back online after the kids go to bed. Not that I'm recommending that. But to take some time back, the only person that can do that is you. Your company is never going to say to you, Hey, why don't you take time to have dinner with your family? Maybe they will, but they're not going to police you about that.

[00:26:57] Donna Star: We're going to your favorite workout class at seven o'clock, go to your [00:27:00] favorite spin class. So once people have permission to take some time back in their lives, burnout has a lot to do with having no boundaries too. You might actually work in a burnout culture where they, the expectations are that you work 24 seven.

[00:27:15] Donna Star: I'm watching suits right now. And that is somewhat the expectation, but for you to say, I'm going home, I'm doing my class. I'm taking a meeting, walking. Instead of sitting in front of a computer all day, you can take baby steps and it will make you feel better. I've seen women transform when they start to do those things because they realize they have more control over their life than they originally thought.

[00:27:37] Donna Star: And I hope none of that minimizes that burnout exists, but you have to take charge of fixing it. No one else is going to do that for you. Mm hmm.

[00:27:46] Loree Philip: Yeah, I do. I think, I think taking small steps is important. Really understanding and implementing boundaries. I think it's being about, it's about being intentional about it.

[00:27:59] Loree Philip: Just, [00:28:00] and for me, it's, I think what we really need to internalize as people and as women is our time is. valuable, just as valuable as other people's time, if not more valuable because it's your time. And so taking time for your priorities, whether that's working out, being with your family, so it's about knowing what those priorities are for you and making a point to make time for it.

[00:28:29] Loree Philip: And then, like you said, Taking, seeing how it goes, take a little baby step on what, what if I close my laptop at five? How did that go? Did the, did the world fall apart? I'm

[00:28:41] Donna Star: so glad you said that because I always say did the world, did the world end? Because it doesn't. It

[00:28:46] Loree Philip: doesn't. Yeah.

[00:28:48] Donna Star: So, I mean, that's, those are my tips and I've seen women, and I'm sure you have in your practice too, transform when they realize that that's always available to them.

[00:28:56] Donna Star: Not all the time, 24 7, but the little baby [00:29:00] steps are available. You don't lose 10 pounds overnight. I wish you could. Right? You have to take a baby step.

[00:29:05] Loree Philip: Yeah. Yeah. I, I do like the idea of baby steps and it, it, it doesn't have to be 24 7. I think the, the reality of work is that you have these peaks and valleys of times where you, hopefully some valleys, but it's not all peaks, but, there are times where you need to put it, go in above and beyond your typical day and a deadline or this or that. So that exists and the key is to make sure through priorities, boundaries and taking steps that that's not how it is at every day and the weekends. You know what I mean? That's not the mode of, of your day to day flow.

[00:29:54] Loree Philip: Right. And a

[00:29:55] Donna Star: lot of women feel guilty because as working [00:30:00] moms there at home, they're distracted at work. They're like, well, I got to pick up some I'm not, I'm not at school. Who's going to pick it? There's always logistical stuff. So that guilt, if we can reduce that guilt factor that you have to do everything for everyone all the time and not for yourself, it reduces so much tension on the body.

[00:30:20] Donna Star: Once you realize that you don't have to live like that. You just don't, I mean, we only have one life. So the world that's so important for women, I think to just realize that it, it doesn't need to be

[00:30:31] Loree Philip: that hard. It doesn't need to be that hard. I'm letting that sink in. That's still something that I'm learning for myself because I think I have a limiting belief around that success takes a lot of hard work.

[00:30:50] Donna Star: Yeah. So the word hard in of itself puts a word, it takes work, but work that you want to do when you label [00:31:00] something as hard or good or bad. A lot of the work that I do with my clients is about word choices. The way you talk to yourself Oh, this is going to be hard work. And then you have an easy week and then you make more money than you did the week before, and you're like, Hey, what's going on here?

[00:31:14] Donna Star: And I'm not saying that's the only factor, right. And money, because I don't want people to think that's what I'm all about. In my business, it's.

[00:31:22] Donna Star: It doesn't have to be clenched. Like ease actually brings good flow, right? Less blocking. Yes, it does. When you're in ease, right? When they say somebody's in flow, when you see someone swish a basketball, that's looks like flow, but there are years of hard work behind that. So I think that that notion of it has to be hard to be good.

[00:31:40] Donna Star: Has we have to dismantle that because it has done us a huge disservice.

[00:31:49] Loree Philip: And so it's I'm glad you brought that one up around words and watching how you define things and put labels on things that don't have to be [00:32:00] there. And so it's, it's a lot about questioning it. Does work have to be hard? No it doesn't. Although some people haven't experienced that yet, but you could, is it possible for it not to be hard?

[00:32:15] Loree Philip: Are there examples of other people who have built something without it being so hard? And so you can start to kind of shift your perspective of what work looks like and what's possible for it. Yeah. So

[00:32:29] Donna Star: I don't want anybody to leave this podcast and think, I think work is easy or hard. I think work is work and that our words make it one way or the other working 10 hours one day means, Oh, I had a huge pitch or there was a crisis at work and I, I needed to get this done is different than, Oh, work was hard today.

[00:32:48] Donna Star: So word choices should, should be eliminated, right? It's a terrible word of judgment. Oh, I should have gone to the gym versus I want to go to the gym. Which is more likely to happen? [00:33:00] Want versus should. Have to. Need. So, I like the word police with my clients.

[00:33:09] Loree Philip: I like the want because it implies choice and when we choose something, we're more likely to do it.

[00:33:15] Loree Philip: If you say I should, it, it feels like, oh, well, other people are telling me I should do this, but I don't really want to. And so there's resistance there to doing it. And

[00:33:25] Donna Star: when there's resistance, there's less likelihood that you're going to do the thing.

[00:33:29] Loree Philip: Yeah. Exactly. Well, we're going to start to wrap up this interview, Donna, I'd love to hear any closing thoughts on burnout or intuition or anything else you want to leave with our audience.

[00:33:40] Donna Star: I would say based on who your audience is and who you are is trust yourself more. I loved your last comment is what other people think influences us so much in our early and mid career and maybe even later career. But what you did, which is so powerful is you left your corporate career of 16 years and [00:34:00] you let your intuition lead you to this podcast.

[00:34:02] Donna Star: Everybody has that available to them. Trust yourself more not everybody else knows what's best for you. And I think that's the most important message that I, and it doesn't my message is a, say it like it is, is my personal brand to do a lot of, we spend a lot of time and energy not saying the things we really want to say.

[00:34:20] Donna Star: And who does that hurt most of all is us by not saying the things. And it just doesn't need to be so hard, and we can learn different ways to be in the world that don't attack us all the time, don't cause us to have burnout, and make us feel guilty, and less than, and like a failure. Because we're good enough as we already are.

[00:34:40] Donna Star: We are already enough. Everybody listening. Everybody here. We just have to believe that.

[00:34:45] Loree Philip: We are already enough. That is beautiful, Donna. I believe that too. And each person listening, we believe that for you. Well, if we could just let everybody know, where can we contact you? Look, check out your [00:35:00] work, connect with you, Donna.

[00:35:02] Donna Star: Well, I loved being with you today and thank you for doing what you do. I know I started out that way, but after listening to you just even interview me today, I just think what you do is such a service. And so thank you. But I am really a DSTAR consultants is my website. I'm very, very active on LinkedIn under Donna star.

[00:35:19] Donna Star: On Instagram, DstarCoach, and then on Amazon, you can grab my book, Unsuccessfully Successful.

[00:35:26] Loree Philip: Well, thank you so much for your time, your expertise, your presence, and I, I really enjoyed this conversation, Donna. Thank you so much. I did too. Thank

[00:35:35] Donna Star: you so much. Have a great day. Bye.

[00:35:38] Loree Philip: Thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you've enjoyed it, I would love for you to subscribe. If you're already a subscriber, don't forget to share the podcast with a friend. Hope you all have an amazing week. Until next time. Bye.