[deanna_nwosu]: hey there, their experience junkies you are in for a treat with today’s episode, today i’m joined by katrina mcgee she’s a career coach and a sabbatical counselor
and she helps women and others navigate taking gaps in your career um our conversation talks about her twenty months sabbatical where she traveled throughout the us south america and southeast asia as well as europe but also by the end of the conversation it became a part motivational session slash free coaching session so katrina drops so much knowledge so many good tips for just motivation how to get out of your own way and go after the goals that you have set before you so sit back relax and take a listen to my interview with katrina mcgee
[deanna_nwosu]: welcome back to another episode of experience junkies i’m joined today with katrina mcgee we met in a facebook group and she told me about an experience that she had and i knew
[katrina_mcghee]: oh
[deanna_nwosu]: i had to have her on the show to talk about this a little bit more katrina is a career coach and counselor and she works with women so uh katrina it’s so great to have you on the show today thank you for joining
[katrina_mcghee]: thank you for having me i’m excited for this conversation
[deanna_nwosu]: absolutely so go ahead and take a second to tell the audience a little bit who you are and what you do
[katrina_mcghee]: yeah so i am a career break and sabbatical coach which means that i help people leave their jobs to do amazing things like travel around the world write a book take the time they need to heal recover from burnout but basically claim space and take the break that they are really needing and wanting to take and you know that reflects very much my own personal journey so i have about sixteen years of experience in corporate america i went back half way through and got my nba but you know in my second career i just was really faced with the truth i think i’d been running away from in my first career which is that corporate america was not for me and that lifestyle was not for me and so eventually i hit a hard moment where i just felt like i didn’t know how to create a change i didn’t know what that change would look like all i knew was that i needed a change and so i hired a life coach back in two thousand eleven and she worked with me um to really just like let go of all of my expectations of myself and what i thought i should be doing and i realized i wanted to take a break and travel around the world and so that’s what i did i saved forty thousand dollars in eighteen months
i left my job and i traveled around the world for about twenty months um came back paid off my debt as fast as i could working another indifferent corporate job and then got certified as a life coach and sort of began my business on the side and then grew it into a full time thing which is where i am today yeah
[deanna_nwosu]: awesome awesome um what i was thinking as you were kind of giving your back store is you kind of had your uh great awakening that a lot of people are dealing with
now due to the pandemic about ten years before the rest of us so you were kind of ahead of the curve there if you will um so talk about kind of what prompted you to know corporate america wasn’t for you and then that that discussion that got you to the point where you realized as you said you were living a life that you thought you had to live and not necessarily the thought that the life that you wanted to
[katrina_mcghee]: yeah so you know i think i think it’s it’s been a sort of a a duality in my experience in that i have a lot of gratitude for the journey that i did take and it afforded me so many opportunities that you know my parents couldn’t have you know weren’t able to offer that i didn’t get to experience as a kid like i went out and i made good money and i had job security and i was able to live in in a city you know i moved to atlanta for eight years and it was the most fantastic thing to able to access all of those opportunities i felt like were beyond my reach as a kid growing up but there was so much misalignment and the choices i was making in my journey and so you know a lot of the why behind it was trying to prove right i i was someone that was successful and i could excel and i didn’t even know what what just whatever people wanted me to excel at to be successful right and so i think unchecked my goals were oftentimes driven by some external validation or sort of like a a guide post of what was working for other people
over there versus what was going to work for me and so you know i think i tried to course correct when i went to get my n b and i ended up feeling worse in that second you know that second job because it was more corporate it
[deanna_nwosu]: well
[katrina_mcghee]: wasn’t even necessarily the company it was just a more corporate environment and i think what became painfully clear is that corporate isn’t working for me but literally the only two spheres i knew about i could become a corporate person doing a different job or i could go into non profit it’s like that’s all my brain was open to at the time and it was like that’s really
[deanna_nwosu]: right
[katrina_mcghee]: limiting and it’s so not true i mean there are a million things i could do and i
know that now but i didn’t know that then and so it was like this point of desperation when someone that i knew um at work heard my story and was just like listen i have a friend who’s a life coach do you want to talk to her and i was like oh my god yes i do i don’t’ do
[deanna_nwosu]: you don’t know what to do and
[katrina_mcghee]: i need someone to help me yes i do and so you know i
[deanna_nwosu]: right
[katrina_mcghee]: met with the live coach and it was like we clicked right away and i was like i i feel like this is gonna help and it sure enough did and i remember it took about six months of working with her you know like almost every week to have the the awareness of how much i just wanted to take a break and to travel i think that is something i never would have been able to give myself permission to do unless i had hit like either a mental breakdown or you know had some like huge devastating loss in life i don’t think i could have been the person that planned that on my own but it was just this awareness of gosh when you take it all away and i give myself full permission to do anything i just want to see the world and so it really i i had this epiphany sort of sitting on her couch having a conversation with her and this voice inside me was just like you don’t want a third career right now you just want to quit your job
[deanna_nwosu]: right
[katrina_mcghee]: and travel around the world and i was like oh my god that’s so scary but it was my truth and so i just had to figure out how to make that happen
[deanna_nwosu]: oh i feel like this is this is why we connected so quickly because i feel like you’re speaking my language i like that you talked about you address kind of the privilege that
that you had a position that was paying really well did have good benefits and you know you didn’t have to worry about getting your next meal so you’re at a different place than someone that maybe you know has to work to survive so i love that you mentioned that but also what kind of got you to that place was your background and needing to prove something and and because of your your motivations you found yourself in a situation that you didn’t necessarily want to be in but you didn’t even have awareness of that you just knew something felt wrong but you couldn’t even put your finger onto what was wrong so i love the kind of that journey of realizing what have i been telling myself un subconsciously all this time um and what of that is even true like you said you know in your mind there was only two job options for you but in reality anything was available to you so i totally understand that because that’s kind of where i was a year ago so you know i went independent but all the way leading up to that i was like why can’t you my job and and then i had to sit with the well why and why are you telling yourself that you can’t do that so i love that you address the fact that we’ll tell ourselves these things just because it’s either things that you know family or friends have told us society has told us and they’re not necessarily what our heart is telling us or where our motives and everything lie so getting to
[katrina_mcghee]: yeah
[deanna_nwosu]: the root of it i think is great that you kind of got there before you went on this journey there are some people that will go no mad or go out you embark on all these things and those motives might be wrong too but
[katrina_mcghee]: yeah
[deanna_nwosu]: honestly that was your motive so can you talk about once you kind of have that epiphany
[katrina_mcghee]: hm
[deanna_nwosu]: what were the logistics you had to go through to even make it happen
[katrina_mcghee]: yeah and i just i wanna i wanna like underscore fourteen times what you just said about you know if you’re not doing that work before like your break is not magically going fix you that travel is not magically going make make sense you’re going to have a great time and you’re gonna learn stuff but you can’t shortcut the work right to really get clear on what you want and need and i just think like that is so so important you know um as far as you know for me once i had that realization and it was time to like make that happen and put it into practice it was really figuring out my finances so i only had fifteen hundred dollars in my bank account and i knew taking a break the way i wanted to was going to cost a lot of money i was guessing about forty thirty eight to forty thousand dollars and so i had to like really change my relationship with money i had to really be willing to look at what i was currently doing with my money where my choices aligned with the life i wanted to live or were they again subconscious behaviors i had just sort of adapted to over time and i had to change a lot of things um but i did so in a way that still made life feel good right it wasn’t solely about deprivation and cutting myself off from the world but i really had to get my finances in order and to to find that you know financial freedom but in addition to that it was getting really clear and doing the work to figure out what do i need this experience to give me to make it worthwhile and that i think is so critical that is like one of the few things i consistently do for every client that ever passes through you know my door is setting that intention because as you were saying right like doing anything amazing but without really understanding why you’re doing it you’re still going to be left with those questions and so i want to help people construct a break that gives you exactly what you need which is what i did and so i made it fun right i think that’s the other thing is we can make anything feel like work if we get obsessive about it so i kept it fun as much as i could and i really got clear on like what do i need this experience to be and i just designed a break that fit me and then i just started making plans right i’ve got to sell my stuff you know i’ve got to make sure my money is on track i’ve got to think about when i’m going international do i have my visas do i have my immunizations and all of those things you know but sort of taking it one step at a time because there is a lot to think about when you’re planning for a break
[deanna_nwosu]: excellent i i i really resonate with the fact that you said setting your intentions so this show is all about experienced junkies were people that we left curating experiences consuming them and then kind of reflecting on what they’ve taught us and what we’ve learned but how often are we just jumping out and just trying to oh i wanna go on a trip or oh let’s go out to eat this weekend or oh like and and we’re letting our life kind of just fall before us before us as opposed to like really setting intentions with not just our day to day life but the experiences that we want to cure and consume so it’s important that you mentioned that like what are the intentions what are the goal what do i need from this experience that question that you that you post was really kind of key i i love that and and what would you say from your you know your twenty months sabbatical let’s kind of rewind too
[katrina_mcghee]: okay
[deanna_nwosu]: i feel like we’ve kind of glossed over that you want on at months of
[katrina_mcghee]: yeah
[deanna_nwosu]: give some context on how many places you went and were you more of like a slow traveler or were you like a jet center a different city every week
[katrina_mcghee]: yeah i definitely mixed it up and i think that’s a theme of my life is i have so much more gratitude and appreciation for things when there’s a contrast right like sometimes if you’re staying in a hostel um but you’re used to staying in hotels it can feel so nice to be around people and to effortlessly be able to find a tour group or have a dinner you know like a dinner party or like be in the middle of the city and just have people to go with
[deanna_nwosu]: sing in his
[katrina_mcghee]: but then if you spend a all lot of time in hostels you’re like oh my god i need my privacy and why am i sharing a bathroom with four people right so i find the contrast can create so much appreciation and so much joy and so you know that has been true for me in many ways including the slow travel mix with the jet setting so you know there was a point in my break where i lived in argentina in boss for a month i rented an airbender and so that was amazing right but then i went to europe and there were some locations where i was there for like two or three days like in san sebastian spain just eating as much food as i could and getting in as fast as i could and being like i’m just here to eat
[deanna_nwosu]: lots of hormone right
[katrina_mcghee]: yeah exactly yeah so just to like shove it all in and get it yeah so it food was so good but you know and then but then i was in the south of france in provence and i fell in love with avon and i decided to stay for two weeks and it’s a tiny town but i can spend two weeks eating and strolling and doing all the things so i think i was very much willing to mix it up so that i wasn’t like burning myself out but i also was seeing a lot of things
[deanna_nwosu]: right
[katrina_mcghee]: and you know as far as places i went there were a lot so i did a three month road trip through the us i did a gigantic circle before i started my international travel and then internationally you know i hit up colombia and argentina and then i flew to europe and spent some time there basically in spain france and italy and then i did southeast asia for about three and a half months um so i was
[deanna_nwosu]: okay
[katrina_mcghee]: all over all over southeast asia for that time and that was fantastic it was my first time you know in southeast asia asia in general so it was really special
[deanna_nwosu]: yeah and and here’s the thing you did this what ten years ago twenty eleven so we
[katrina_mcghee]: yeah i did yeah i took my break in twenty thirteen yeah but almost ten years ago
[deanna_nwosu]: didn’t have some of the the okay twenty thirteen so we didn’t have some of the tools that we have today how did
[katrina_mcghee]: yeah
[deanna_nwosu]: you get a lot around
[katrina_mcghee]: yeah
[deanna_nwosu]: with you know all those language barriers uh especially southeast asia how d how was that for you
[katrina_mcghee]: yeah i love that you pointed this out cause i think it’s like i feel very proud of this fact because i’m like instagram wasn’t the thing there were no like there were no insp
[deanna_nwosu]: right
[katrina_mcghee]: boards you know what i mean of like places you just had to figure this stuff out like uber wasn’t a thing like there were
[deanna_nwosu]: yeah
[katrina_mcghee]: just so much that was different but i think the thing is is you
[deanna_nwosu]: or even like google translate was that a thing back then i don’t think so you
[katrina_mcghee]: adapt right oh yeah that wasn’t yeah that was not no no no no that was not a
[deanna_nwosu]: know
[katrina_mcghee]: thing so
[deanna_nwosu]: yeah tell me tell me how you did that
[katrina_mcghee]: yeah so you know i do speak some spanish i’m not fluent but i do speak some so that really helped in colombia that really helped in argentina um europe you know is it’s kind of the same like europe is like you can you can make it by sometimes people don’t understand you but you mine things out and there’s a lot of tourists they’ll figure it out southeast asia was a big surprise so i actually struggled more to be understood in argentina than i did in southeast asia and that is because you know at that time what i can say was true then is that they’re on the tourist trail right so i wasn’t like going super off the beaten trail like i was in singapore and i was
[deanna_nwosu]: gotcha
[katrina_mcghee]: in penang malaysia and i was in bangkok and chenghai right so they weren’t super off the beat path they knew enough english to sell things right or to have some type of transaction so that they could understand and so i might not be able to have a chat like a full chat but like we could communicate enough to
[deanna_nwosu]: yeah
[katrina_mcghee]: like get needs met and so that was actually pretty pretty straightforward pretty easy you know the hotels and the hostels i stayed at they were really good about helping me figure out how to get somewhere if i didn’t know and i did have google maps so google maps was really helpful i would use it in the because i didn’t have like data or anything but i would use it in the hostel or the hotel to like pre map the area and then i could use it kind
[deanna_nwosu]: yeah
[katrina_mcghee]: of a as a map to get where i was going but i actually didn’t
[deanna_nwosu]: right
[katrina_mcghee]: struggle too much but there’s a lot of miming and there’s a lot of just awkwardness right sometimes people won’t know and you just are okay with that and you’re like i mean like eating or you know miming like i need to find you know it just you figure it out and so i figured it out but yeah it was it was not as easy as it is now
[deanna_nwosu]: okay so i’m gonna have give you like a two part question and uh i think one for any women who are out there um i know this was probably me ten fifteen years ago the idea of solo travel especially internationally as a woman traveling alone just is really kind of overwhelming so i think that’s just a barrier for many women so kind of talk about that how you kind of manage that as a solo woman traveler but then part two is just in general some of the barriers that what are the barriers you think many people keep them from either doing along sabbatical being a digital nomad traveling more what are the things you think people tell themselves that prevent them from trying
[katrina_mcghee]: yeah so good okay so solo female travel you know for context i had never traveled abroad or used my passport until i was twenty nine and i took this break when i was about
[deanna_nwosu]: seven
[katrina_mcghee]: thirty to thirty three so i didn’t have an extensive
[deanna_nwosu]: so i didn’t want me to
[katrina_mcghee]: roster of travel period let alone solo travel but i think what’s true is my desire was bigger than my fear and i think that’s so important is to cultivate and like fan the flames of your desire so that it is bigger than your fear so that you are willing to do uncomfortable things to find a way um and so that you know is kind of what i did and i can say my experience was fantastic right luckily i didn’t have anything you know bad happened to me on this trip i know that sometimes you know things can happen they can happen to anyone but i was really careful you know where i was going at night especially i would pay more to stay in a better part of the city like i wasn’t trying to stay in the cheapest part you know if it didn’t feel safe i would sometimes ask the host of the hostel or the hotel if i was gonna walk somewhere or go somewhere i would say like can i walk through these neighborhoods like this is where i’m going is that safe so i was taking some precaution as far as not trying to put myself in a
[deanna_nwosu]: right
[katrina_mcghee]: dangerous position but you know to me that that risk the small risk was worth was worth the the the price right like i was i was willing because i thought my my rods were low of having bad things happen i was like willing to figure it out and i think you know making friends with people like you know utilizing the resources of people that care i was so shocked um and astounded but like heartwarming by the amount of people that were invested in my safety so if i’m on public transit in vietnam or in thailand and someone is like miming like under your purse like keep your purse to your arm girl what are you doing you know like they
[deanna_nwosu]: wow
[katrina_mcghee]: were trying to keep me safe and like worrying about me and they might ask me where i’m going and if i look lost like they wanted to like walk me to the place that i’m going and and not like in a scammy way it was just like in a general caring like this young woman is by herself so i’m gonna exert you know like a little extra effort to make sure she’s all right that really blew me away and
[deanna_nwosu]: right
[katrina_mcghee]: that was one of the most amazing things from my experience was just seeing all that kindness reflected back to me especially you know like you said not really having done that before and being a solo female traveler as far as barriers go in general you know i think gosh can that status quo be so comfortable it is really hard to leave the bubble you know and like i said you have to you either have to be in a desperate place where your life is so painful and so terrible that you will do anything to like change it or you have to be burning with desire you know and i think hiring a coach or working with someone or surrounding yourself with mentors or people that have done it can really like push you off of that ledge and help guide you without it having to be so extreme but ultimately right like the fear of like being uncomfortable and the unknown and
[deanna_nwosu]: three
[katrina_mcghee]: just being overwhelmed with the how a lot of times when we want to do something and we don’t know how to do it it’s like i need to know how i need to research it i need to ask a million people i need to write down a notebook worth of facts i need to know the how before i can do it and it’s like you’re never actually going to know the how because when you try to do it it’s going to be
[deanna_nwosu]: right
[katrina_mcghee]: different you know but it’s it’s a thing i think we want to like fall back on for safety and security and feel a sense of certainty and then specifically with sabbaticals you know it’s that career sacrifice who am i if i’m not a dentist a lawyer a market you know a marketer like who am i mixed with worrying about what other people think that i’m lazy that i fell off you know like
[deanna_nwosu]: right
[katrina_mcghee]: fell off and couldn’t hack it or hang you know hang with everyone and then also worrying about their progress like what will this mean for my career trajectory if i get off the hamster wheel will i ever be able to get back on and like have i lost all chance of any getting ever getting a promotion you know
[deanna_nwosu]: you just dropped so much in that little snippet i was like trying to keep track of all the little quotable that you just offered but what i loved most is that you talked about your desire was bigger than your fear and that was how you you challenged it and i think it’s a great parallel to how people can just look at any kind of dream or goal or obstacle in front of you in your life like yes it’s scary to do the thing but do you want it and how much do you want it is your desire bigger than your fear of the process or your fear of failure or whatever that may look like um so i i love that but then also you talks kind of about like community and people looking out for you even though they were strangers and you were in a different land and they they wanted to kind of take care of you in a sense was there anyone you met along this adventure that really had a lasting impact on you and talk about that
[katrina_mcghee]: yeah so there were so many but i think um i think favorites if i’m gonna give you like a couple of quick favorites you know there was i i talk about this sometimes but there there was an old man and there were these two younger girls on a bus to vietnam um i was going from de lot like a mountain town into hoch min and i was the only person knowing like western or like obvious like non asian person on the bus and i didn’t speak vietnamese all the announcements where we were going is this a restroom stop is
[deanna_nwosu]: right
[katrina_mcghee]: this an unofficial stop for a friend is this like i mean there’s like like there are no rules i had no idea where we were and i
[deanna_nwosu]: five
[katrina_mcghee]: was like i just pray i get off this bus at the right place like i don’t know what to do about this and there was this old man that didn’t speak english but uh i like mind having to go to the bathroom because at some point on this bus ride the bus stopped and i had to pee i thought my bladder was going to burst and so he was standing smoking at like the front he’d gotten off the bus and i like minded like this like potty dance like i got to go to the bathroom and he like pointed to me yeah but he does body dance yeah he like pointed to like where to
[deanna_nwosu]: the universal potty dance right
[katrina_mcghee]: go and he like minded like running and he was like talking to the bus driver making sure the bus driver waited and he was like you know but he waited for me at outside the bus to make sure i made it back on the bus which i really appreciate it and then the two younger women at the lunch stop they were waiting for me and they were like you speak english and they spoke like broken english but it was so much better obviously than my vietnamese and they were like we want to practice can we have lunch with you and i’m like yes you can have lunch with me this is amazing and then they like or can we order for you and i’m like yes you can order for me and then they were like can we we’re gonna buy
[deanna_nwosu]: perfect
[katrina_mcghee]: our lunch and i’m like what but it was just their kindness like literally reverberate through me you know to this day and then also when you talk about the magic of meeting strangers my airbnb host this is back in like twenty thirteen twenty fourteen he somehow was like involved with bitcoin and he you know was just like
[deanna_nwosu]: oh wow
[katrina_mcghee]: working like directly not for bitcoin but directly with bitcoin was like surrounding his job and i remember him telling me forty five times in that month that i lived in his airbnb you need to get into bitcoin i’m like that is a stupid scam and no i won’t and so i never did i never did sadly but bitcoin was five hundred dollars a coin at that time and i often think about yokine and i’m like what was i thinking like what was i thinking i could be so rich
[deanna_nwosu]: it’s like just get two
[katrina_mcghee]: i know right i just had two i would be so good so you know like you meet really interesting people that that are involved in really interesting opportunities and so you know there’s that and then i made two really great friends with guys that from the czech republic in vietnam and we ended up traveling together for two and a half weeks and then five years later i went to prague to visit them and we like had a great adventure and so you know i’ve met some really amazing people on my travels that have like touched me in ways that i still think of that and remember that so fondly
[deanna_nwosu]: that’s definitely a benefit of solo travel too because you’re going to be more likely to meet other people other people are going to be more likely to approach you because you know other solo travelers so that’s what i find as a benefit is when i’m in a group it’s great because you know you’re you’re experiencing it with your friends and family but you’re not as going to be as likely to meet people whereas when you’re so low yeah you can experience everything on your own and do things like by yourself and be in your own skin but other people will want to talk to you co they’ll notice that you’re alone
[katrina_mcghee]: yeah and you’re uncomfortable right so i think you welcome that connection much more you know much more so than when you’re safe in your bubble with your people and it’s like you’re having a great conversation with your people but as a solo person i think you’re always energetically like inviting good connection in like you know i would love to talk to someone now so
[deanna_nwosu]: so you had a twenty month journey uh you know around the us south america over over to europe southeast asia and then you come back home walk us through kind of how that transition felt i know it’s something that uh there’s a term for it for like expats that like rejoin society but how was it coming back home
[katrina_mcghee]: yeah
[deanna_nwosu]: and what did that transition look like for you going back into the workforce
[katrina_mcghee]: yeah so i definitely it was really easy and it was really awful all at the same time so i think you know what you’re referring to is like that reverse culture shock and that is one hundred percent what i had i had it i was cranky i was like i mean just so many things like i talk about this you know sometimes but just the proportion side of our size of our food after living in europe for a while and then especially southeast asia where it’s like you’re getting street food in small portions and it was just like why do i have to have a salad that’s bigger than my face why do you know what i mean it’s just
[deanna_nwosu]: right
[katrina_mcghee]: like these things that you’re just like why do we do it this way but it’s normal and you’re not even like thinking or conscious about it when you live here but but when you come back it’s like you’re sort of a stranger in your home and so i think it can take a while you know and then there are the the really like just sort of like behavioral things i was used to traveling i wasn’t used to like having a home where i had to think about things like dusting and vacuuming and cleaning i was you know
[deanna_nwosu]: right
[katrina_mcghee]: moving from place to place and paying people to do my laundry and that was my normal and getting food like on a street corner at at ten o’clock at night for four dollars was normal and you can’t really do that here you have to commit to like a big meal or make it yourself and so it was just such a different you know like in so many ways it was just really different and i think you know even cars versus walking and like having cities full of people and and public transit and so it it definitely was reverse culture shock and i was really cranky and i was kind of angry a way i couldn’t express i couldn’t even really articulate it cause i was happy to be back but it was like there was a part of me that was just so resistant to like my break being over and like to going back to the way things were and it was like well i’m different now but like this is the same and so there was a lot of emotional like constipation that had to like come out be
[deanna_nwosu]: o emotional constipation
[katrina_mcghee]: released yeah it
[deanna_nwosu]: i love that
[katrina_mcghee]: was just yeah it was just like a lot of stuck emotions that didn’t feel so good and they just had to kind of like come out and it took probably like three weeks of just being in my feelings to like really let that go but the easy part was once i did let it go and once i got clear on what i wanted my next step to be which was going back into corporate life to specifically pay off my debt as fast as i could that process was so easy you know i got my resume together and from the moment i hit send and just put it you know out into the world and started posting i got five job offers in just five weeks and so that transition back you
[deanna_nwosu]: wow
[katrina_mcghee]: know part of why i didn’t want to take a break
[deanna_nwosu]: why
[katrina_mcghee]: is cause it’s like well
[deanna_nwosu]: take three
[katrina_mcghee]: what’s gonna happen to me after the money is gone after my break is over which i think is a huge fear for a lot of people understandably so but in my experience and i have to say most of my clients that process is seamless like you know whether people are coming to you before your break is even over asking you to do like a special project or asking you to come back you know to an old job or a new job with like an old manager or just like me applying for jobs and people being really excited to talk to you because you are excited about your break and you have the right mindset to share that
[deanna_nwosu]: my my pe
[katrina_mcghee]: story without shame and without self doubt you know
[deanna_nwosu]: three
[katrina_mcghee]: that transition was so much easier than i ever thought it would be
[deanna_nwosu]: it’s key that you pointed out like framing the story that you’re telling i think it’s true that especially now post pandemic during pandemic however you want to phrase that like career breaks are going to be widely more accepted because of everything everyone’s been through but yeah how you’re framing it like people receive the energy that you put out so
[katrina_mcghee]: absolutely
[deanna_nwosu]: if you come to the table like oh well you know i i took a break and you’re like coming apologetic as opposed to owning yes i wanted to have this experience you only live once um and i was really responsible in making sure that my responsibilities were handled but i could still go out and enjoy life and now i’m gonna bring back all those things i’ve learned like i’m a very worldly person i’ve i’ve learned a lot of culture by immersion and i can bring that to your company right like framing that conversation so that you kind of own the narrative as opposed to it being uh oh well how how will i approach talking to people about this and also kind of that abundance mindset of knowing that okay just because there there probably are employers out there that may not like to see that that’s fine but there’s probably way more that that do might are excited to see people with gaps and that are coming back in the workforce and want to work with people that take sabbaticals and things of that nature more companies are starting to offer sabbaticals so i love that you mentioned kind of like the framework of how you approach the search how you um talk about your break i just it’s it’s key to just own your story cause it’s yours regardless of what other people think of it so if you just have that conviction about it that will read in the energy that you’re giving off to others
[katrina_mcghee]: a men i just wanna say you are dropping golden nuggets right now and like this is literally what i preached to all of my all of my clients and anyone who talks to me you like your energy determines how they receive you right like they might have some prejudice about the idea of a break going into the conversation but so much of how that conversation goes is determined by how you show up to that conversation so if you were like i am a badass i follow my heart i am super authentic i did some crazy stuff that was like really not easy to do i flex my courage muscle i learned a lot and i came back and i want to work for you that is so much more powerful than please don’t ask me about my break can we just talk about my my boring work experience i really want to skip over this i have a lot of shame about it i’m not sure why i did it like infinitely like different night and day and so i love what you said and i you know i think that
[deanna_nwosu]: he said i had
[katrina_mcghee]: is something to really like drive home because ultimately in so many instances in our
[deanna_nwosu]: silver
[katrina_mcghee]: life right like our energy is
[deanna_nwosu]: i like art
[katrina_mcghee]: everything and people receive that and so we get to dictate the narrative of the story that we’re telling
[deanna_nwosu]: i hope the energy that the listeners get from this episode is just you know own your narrative and if a career break for you is for you or sabbatical is something that maybe you thought about and didn’t think it was possible maybe just research what the options are and maybe tap into that a little bit more and realize there may be a whole plethora of options available to you that you’re not even aware of
so this has been an amazing conversation katrina you’ve been awesome just got one more question that i ask all the guests and i hope i don’t catch you off guard with it uh but if you had to pick a song to convey this experience of your you know career breaker sabbatical especially your time traveling what would that song be and why
[katrina_mcghee]: yeah so to really signify like this particular time in my life uh the song that would go with that would be ends of the earth by lord heron and you know it’s it’s really like a person that is seeking and and really fulfilling that sense of wonder listing to travel to the ends of the earth and really putting that you know as the priority and i feel like where i was in that moment and what that represented to me was me just full unabashedly like indulging that wonder less i think i’d had even as a child and just tasting freedom in a way i had never really been able to taste it before
[deanna_nwosu]: oh wow wonder less tasting it in a way you can never taste it before you are very good with
[katrina_mcghee]: oh thank you
[deanna_nwosu]: words katrina i think you have i think you have a second uh career lifestyles a writer uh coming up in your future so i’m going to put that into the universe for you
[katrina_mcghee]: i love it yeah we’ll put into the universe
[deanna_nwosu]: so before we sign off tell the people where they can find you on the interwebs
[katrina_mcghee]: yes so you can find me on my website which is www.bestbreakever.com or you can find me at caging for instagram i show up there ire a lot there you can always dm me ask me questions just follow along um so that’s k m c g h e e coaching
[deanna_nwosu]: best break ever like how how could you forget that website well i’m gonna sell it
[katrina_mcghee]: right that’s what i was thinking
[deanna_nwosu]: like that
thank you so much for being on katrina and i hope everyone comes and follows you on instagram checks out what you have to offer because yeah i think a career break a sabbatical um it’s more in reach for more people than they realize so hopefully if it nothing else people take away from today they get that small nugget
[katrina_mcghee]: i love it thank you so much for having
[deanna_nwosu]: i’d like to keep them
[katrina_mcghee]: me and it was really really awesome to be here with you
[deanna_nwosu]: thank you
Experience Junkies Podcast 