101. How to get unstuck in life: Interview with Teri Kerr

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Do you feel stuck in your life right now?

Are you wondering what is your life purpose or if you are on the right path?

Sometimes we feel we are playing small or not on the “right track”, and other times, we may feel we are going through life in motion, but not exactly present or becoming the best version of ourselves.

If any of these describe your current state of mind or feeling, then this interview may be a great pick-me-up to energise you and give you some clarity that you need.

I interviewed Terry Kerr a while back, but our conversation is timeless and I have no doubt the content applies to us many times in life.

Teri Kerr is an ICF certified Executive Coach through Royal Roads University and a graduate of the Purpose Project™. She lives in Victoria BC with her husband Jeff, a revolving door of teenagers, her beloved golden mountain dog Indy, and a one-eyed cat named Tallie.

You can connect with Teri via her website: https://unstuckduck.ca/

Feeling you may like give coaching a go? You can find out more about personal coaching with Sze Wing here.

Achieving a goal or solving a problem is ONLY the by-product or “side-effects” of coaching. The magic is in your own discovery about yourself, a deeper awareness about your strengths & desires, and knowing what strategy actually works for you going forward in life.

Interview Highlights:

• The idea of “Unstuck Duck” – helping women to get out of their corporate job into entrepreneurship
• From Super Busy Mum to the journey of Surviving Cancer
• “Be More You” – why bringing more joy  and fulfilment into your life is so important
• Trying to fit in or stepping into others’ shoes may make us forget who we are
• We don’t need to go through life with a “elbows up” a power through approach – sometimes it works better for us if we can soften instead of hardening our exterior to approach our life
• Be aware when we start to go through life in motion, but not really present in it, we may lose touch with who we are or our spouse/partner
• How to cultivate a sense of awareness to become more conscious in our life
• Ways to spot red flags when we are disconnected from our loved ones
• How do you want to be remembered – write your own eulogy
• Changing Lane: Start with reflecting on how life is working out (or not) and then creating new habits and experiences
• We don’t have a choice of what happens to us, but we have a choice of how we react to it and move forward through it.
• How do you want your next 30 years to look like?
• Playing Big – your greatness lies in the small day-to-day, moment-by-moment decisions. You have a choice in every moment, how you think, feel and act base on who you want to be now and in the future.
• Living on purpose is a muscle that needs to be trained and exercised regularly.
• Living life is like collecting data, one step at a time, to figure it all out
• Remember other people’s opinion or expectation is just theirs, you need to do you and know what works for you instead of trying to please everyone.
• Why we need to be aware not to get too attached to our stories, or to be right.

Video

Transcript

Sze Wing: Hi everyone today. I’m really excited to talk to my new friend – Terry Kerr and what’s so special about today’s interview is that we just met not long ago and she’s actually living in Victoria, British Columbia in Canada. And it works out the time zone is actually pretty easy for us to connect. I’m so excited because you know, it’s always lovely to talk to someone from far away from Australia and especially during COVID-19 these days we cannot travel. So this is really exciting for me to talk to someone not from my continent. So a little bit about Terry she’s a coach, I think executive coach and empowerment strategies is more the accurate term. She’s also an artist, hockey mom, cancer survivor , speaker and creative warrior. And I think many of us actually share similar interests or life goals in this community who are listening and watching and often those being interviewed as well.

Sze Wing: And Terry’s she’s a certified executive coach and a graduate of the purpose project. She lives in Canada, British Columbia in Victoria with her husband, Jeff and teenagers and dog and cat. So obviously a very busy household and incredible busy women because she’s also the managing director of the Victoria British Columbia chapter of the eWomen network in Canada. So obviously you wear many hats and I’m really excited to be able to connect with you today. And one of, so first of all, welcome to my show, Terry.

Terry: You’re welcome. Did I just freeze? I Apologize if I freeze,

Sze Wing: Don’t worry at all. It’s all good. So one of the things really caught my eye when I first met Terry is her website title because it’s actually named, it’s called the unstuck duck. So first of all, it’s very catchy, but also I love what she wrote on her website about, you know, do you have your ducks in a row? Do you know, like how you going? Like, and things like that, it actually makes sense. And it really stick in my mind. And I think a lot of people, a lot of women at some point in their lives feeling really stuck. So I’m curious, and, and I’m also pretty sure at some point in your life, Terry, that you were stuck. So that’s why you created this business. So tell me your story.

Terry: Okay. So thank you. First of all, for having me, I appreciate the invitation and it was actually really serendipitous that we met at the women network event. I had the time zone just worked. It worked, you guys have it in the morning. It ended up being evening for us. So it worked out perfectly. We, so a little bit about me. I live in Victoria, British Columbia. I have been I was born and raised on the West coast of BC. So I’ve been an Island girl, my whole life Victoria is on an Island. It’s just in case for people that don’t know that we live on Vancouver Island. And so I, my story is I used to work in a corporate job. I was a fundraiser for a university and I was one of those really high achieving people that was doing 50,000 things at any given time.

Terry: I had two kids that played elite ice hockey, so which is totally Canadian thing. And we hosted international students. We, I did my masters at the same time as working full-time and was working and was working a really high stress job. And I ended up getting sick. I ended up being diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015, and I had no family history. I had nothing that would have ever expected that to happen to me other than I had a really high stress, high energy life. And stress is not good for your body. So my body decided to make me slow down a little bit. And so during that time I was off work for almost three years at a very aggressive form of cancer. And when I ended up, like I had quite the extensive treatment and when I went back to work, I realized..

Terry: My meter was broken. I really didn’t care anymore. And I felt like everything that I was doing at work just, I was running into trouble because I was just not engaged. I was questioning authority, questioning process and really just realized that I was not in the right career for me. And so I ended up doing some work and diving a little bit deep into the different ways that I’m doing. I did a program called the purpose project, which you mentioned which is through a company called “Be More You” here in Victoria. Well, it’s not in Victoria, it’s in the Pacific Northwest. They’re actually based out of Seattle area. And during that time, I just really realized that there wasn’t a lot going on in my life that was bringing me joy.

Terry: That was making me feel like really fulfilled. And so I did, I started navigating the wilderness a little bit and I had a moment where I realized that I wanted to become a coach. I had been with a coach. Two of them, actually, one of them had been given to me through work. And one of them was a friend of mine who was an executive coach that just was a really smart cookie and I could talk to her about all kinds of things. So I ended up deciding that, you know what, I want to go back to school. So I went back to school, became a coach. So the story about the unstuck deck is I was speaking to a branding, another friend of mine through the purpose project. Who’s a branding coach. And she said, well, who’s your ideal client? And I said, really, I just want to help people get unstuck.

Terry: And I was reminded of a book little book when my kids were little, their favourite book was called one duck stuck. It was about a duck that got stuck in the muck. And no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t get out. So it was a counting book. So it was like two moose clumped to the duck, no luck still stuck. And it was, you know, singing songs and, and it became that no luck still stuck, became a mantra in our family. And so you know, I, it just really fit. I wanted to help people get unstuck. And I knew that I was not a corporate coach. I do work that way. I didn’t feel like people would take me that way. I would much prefer to work with someone who is looking to get out of their corporate job and into entrepreneurship. So I work mostly with women who are entrepreneurs. I like to say, I help smart, competent women who want to navigate the overwhelm of entrepreneurship. So they can create a life that’s both fulfilling and profitable. And it’s my story really. That’s exactly what my story is, is I want to wanted to break out of corporate and into doing my own thing. And I want to help others step into that for their life, whatever it is that they want and become an unstuck deck.

Sze Wing: Yeah. So many of us have walked a similar journey and once we actually got through it, the other side, so to speak, we want to help others who may have the same problems or challenges. So it totally makes sense. So let’s unpack a little bit, because I think there’s so many great things you said, you know, and that we can learn from your stories. So, number one, what I have observed is that because I have two little kids and one of them is four months old. So not exactly like reading books yet, but I find a lot of children books actually got something that can inspire us.I have the “We go on a bear hunt” book as something that I sometimes talked about because you know, it doesn’t matter the circumstances, you cannot go over it, you cannot go under it, you have to go through it.

Sze Wing: And a lot of times I found life, it’s actually that way that we got to keep moving forward. And, you know, sometimes we sometimes create whatever that is that we take. We actually still have to get through it. And I think like incredible, I used to look at children’s books sometimes and then turn around and go, actually, there’s something in this that we can learn from. It can be quite profound. So thank you for sharing us about the duck story. And I think it really like, you know, sticking out in my mind and it’s quite helpful. And the other thing I want to unpack and ask is, you know with all this time that, you know, you were navigating your own journey and, you know, and then helping others, like after you have done your part and you go and study coaching and you help people, you know, and helping them to become more themselves, what do you think typically from your client, from your own experience that we hold back and like review, like what we’re trying to be, because, you know, you were going a hundred miles an hour doing 50 things, and yet you actually was stuck instead of moving forward, you’re doing, doing, doing, doing, but then a wake up call happen and actually find yourself extra stuck and not being you.

Sze Wing: So what do you think is a common factor that put us in that position? One of my guess is social conditioning that we think doing more is better. Success is the outward thing. So as one of my guests, but from your experience and from your client, what do you think that put us into this position?

Terry: I think honestly, I think that a lot of it is, like you said, it’s social conditioning. You know, many of us have baggage from when we were child. I skipped a grade and I was always trying to fit in. That was a big thing for me. And I was super smart, but I really didn’t want everybody to know that I was smart because it made me stand out and I wanted to fit in. And I have allowed that thought to really hold me back from stepping into myself for a long time. I did, I don’t anymore. I mean, now I’ll, I’m happy to step into roles where, you know, where I am a leader in a leadership position, or but I also know that well classic example. So I’m the managing director of eWomen network and the lady that was the managing director before me, she’s a good friend of mine. Her name is Erin and she was a totally different type of person than I am. She was really organized. She was very controlled. She was quirky. And I mean, I’m pretty quirky, but in a totally different way. And so my fear going into that was I wasn’t going to able to be able to step into her shoes.

Terry: Really if that was the shoes that needed to be filled in that moment. I mean, we’re all have our own shoes. And, and so we try to step into other people’s shoes. We tried to step into our parents’ shoes or our parents teach us everything that they’ve learned because that’s all they know. So I think a lot of the times with our parents, that’s another classic example is, you know my dad was an entrepreneur. He taught me to take risks. He taught me and honestly he probably didn’t teach me to be very prudent in my risks. So that’s a different type of baggage than some people who, when, I mean, I’ve always learned by, by watching instead of by, by listening, I need to learn going through life, making the mistakes that I make. That’s how I learn. I go, I like to say I go through life with my elbows up. And,

Sze Wing: And what does that mean?

Terry: So it might be a Canadian hockey term,

Sze Wing: Right? I was wondering,

Terry: Yeah. So when you, it’s, there’s two minute penalty for elbowing and you’re not allowed to hit somebody with your elbow. Another classic example is going through Costco and it’s like super busy. So you’re like elbows up, let’s go. And you just power through. Right. I like to say that I go through life with my elbows up and sometimes it’s protective mechanism and sometimes it’s a bit, you know, I’m going to throw a jab and learn the hard way. So it’s more about learning the hard way and not in a very kind way. So that’s how I learned a lot of my problems. So like, I’ll, I’ll run into some of my lessons. I will run into a problem with authority, for example, it’s because I’ve called somebody out on their inefficiency. Well, that’s not the way to get over a problem. That’s not a way to go through life in a, and so I’ve had to learn those things because I’ve run into my own downfall of going through with my elbows up. Does that make sense?

Sze Wing: To be honest, when we know better, we will do better when we’re 20, we can’t expect ourselves to act like a 30 years old. I mean, sometimes we just have to make mistakes and the key is to learn from it or see the value in it. Now you say, you realize this may not be the best strategy in life, within relationship, maybe the best approach in Costco. I don’t know. But,ubut you know, what reminded me very interesting here is that I remember I was listening to a lecture by Marian Williamson and she said, remember the posture of Christ. It’s always like, like surrender with arms open, like chest open, sort of like this, you know? And she did say like, we may instead crossing our arms and walk around like this, you know? And it’s interesting because you know, we talk about posture when you say that, like it visually just came to my mind. And I think, you know, that’s, that’s what it is I’ve experienced. Sometimes you cannot hypothesize or intellectually imagine things. Sometimes you actually have to get some, get into trouble, so to speak or wake up. And everybody has their different challenges. And there’s no way to say this is bigger than that. You know?

Terry: Sometimes so I go through by getting into trouble, but some people go through life playing safe because they don’t want to get into trouble. And sometimes it’s because they’ve had a bad experience with getting into trouble. They’ve been burned somehow. They’ve seen somebody else have consequences and therefore they don’t want the consequences. And what ends up happening is somebody will go through life, never really playing at any higher level, like always playing safe. And the next thing, you know, they’re like 65, their watch from this corporation, they’ve lived at work and they have no idea. They like, like you talk about well, you don’t I have heard people talk about you know, when you’re, you, you go through the motions of having children with your spouse, you go through, you become a very well-oiled machine. And that was the situation with my husband and I, we were a very well oiled machine.

Terry: We could make four meals in a night and who was going to practice where, and next thing you know, like, yep, no problem. We go to bed and started all over the next day. And what happens is then the kids grow up and move out and you look at each other and you’re like, who is this person that I don’t even know because we’ve just been, you know, or we’ve gotten into these patterns. And when I work with my clients, a lot of the time, it’s because they’ve gotten into these patterns, they’re procrastinating because they’re avoiding something there. Speaking in words like I need to, and coming from a place of scarcity, like I need to do this and I can’t do this. And I, you know, I have to do this. And instead of saying, you know what, I’m going to choose to do this because this is going to move me forward in my business. And I want this because it’s going to make me fulfilled in a day or in, and wanting, and choosing and being that living life on purpose, being intentional about how we move forward. That’s, that’s where I want my clients to. Well, that’s where they grow. That’s where they grow the best. So it is scary. It’s scary. It can be very scary.

Sze Wing: Yes. Yes. Which leads me to the next questions. Actually the two-part questions, the first is that, you know, like you said, sometimes we, we so good at become a well-oiled machine, military unit, make four meals a day, make sure people go to bed the right time. And then suddenly we realized that we actually don’t understand or even know each other. We become, you know, distance, or we’re not thinking like not experience our true feelings or knowing who we are anymore. So first question is, so how, how do you cultivate a sense of awareness or thinking deeper or become more conscious? So, so if I’m like in a well oiled machine right now, because my kids are little. So how, how do you help clients, especially when they don’t see it yet, they haven’t had the wake-up call yet. So, but I think it’s important to point it out. So what will be your advice? How do we cultivate a consciousness?

Terry: I think part of it is that feeling of being stuck and asking you how’s that working for you? Why that feeling? Where does that come from? So you’ve obviously come to me because you feel stuck. Right.

Terry: And yes, you’re an absolute machine, but let me ask you, you know, how’s your relationship with your husband? How’s your relationship with your boss? When’s the last time you took, you know, took an initiative to do something different, you know, who do you want to be as a mom? Who do you want, how do you want your relationship to be with your kids? Is this it? And often, yeah. Sometimes. Sure. Okay. But often it’s that when that’s, when the light bulb goes off, it’s like, you know, I want my kids to be able to talk to me about things and not be just looking at this schedule and thinking, okay, well, you know, we have two hours in the car and we’re going to have to have these conversations. Then I want to be approachable by my children. And if this situation, whether it’s the job or whatever it is, isn’t working, chances are good.

Terry: There’s some symptoms where you’ll get that notification. So for example, you know, my kids, I have, my boys are 18 and 20. Okay. they often I would have to have a, like a red flag moment, which is like, when they get called to the principal’s office or they are doing something completely out of character for what I think they do, and they’re doing it for attention, they’re doing it for whatever it could be. Right. they’re not feeling, they are feeling that there’s a disconnect between me and them and therefore they don’t feel they can talk to me about something often with parents, it is a red flag, like self-harm or getting in trouble or breaking the law or something like there’s with kids, for example. And not always, I mean, you know, every kid is different, but sometimes it’s just a conversation that happens at dinner that you’re like, Whoa, hang on a second here, something isn’t right.

Terry: And then you realize, well, I do, I have realized in those moments that I’m not as connected as I think I am, or I want to be. And, and oftentimes it’s simply who do I want to be when I think about my relationships, when I think about who I want to be as an entrepreneur who I want to be as managing director, when I, you know, that whole concept of writing your own eulogy and what you want people to remember you for and what you want member to people to, you know, I don’t want people to remember me for having dinner on the table at time on time. That’s not how I want to be remembered. Right.

Sze Wing: And that you can look for news at night.

Terry: It’s usually, you know, I do not want my eulogy to say, wow, she’s super efficient

Terry: Super effective at her job. I want them to know that I made them feel good and I want, and that I was fun and that I that’s what I want. Like they wanted my opinion on things. They felt that I was important to them and made them feel important. That’s what I want. And so when I think about my clients, a lot of the time they feel stuck. They don’t know why, sometimes they know why, before I started working specifically with entrepreneurs, I would be working with people. I had a whole program working with cancer survivors because I’m a cancer survivor myself. And

Terry: There’s always everybody that I’ve spoken to. That’s a cancer survivor that has gone on to do something great. Generally, there’s the moment where they’re like, wow, that life, that person, that, who, that I was, I don’t want that anymore. I’m going to move forward into some other direction. And I have a really good friend. Her name is Jody. She’s one of the executive members of “Be More You” the purpose project. She talks about howwe get on these eight lane highway,

Sze Wing: The ways of existence.

Terry: So we go on autopilot. You know, our patterns are our ways. We interact with people. They become so ingrained with us. They become like an eight lane highway. And generally when we feel stuck, if we want something different, that’s not on that eight lane highway. We have to hack a path through the bush with a machete to try to get to what we want. And then it takes a long time of rewiring those neural pathways to get to where that goat path is a trail. And it becomes more of a habit. Like it’s about creating new habits and creating new ways of being that service. And so a lot of the times with my coaching clients, it’s like, well, how’s that working for you? And if it’s not, what do you want to change? Are you creating the experience that you want for life right now?

Terry: Because if we always have a choice in everything that we do, which I strongly believe that we don’t have a choice of what happens to us, but we have a choice how we react to it and move forward through it. If we’re always have choice, then we can change what our results are. We can say, okay. Yeah. I’m not creating the experience that I want. You know, like if I’m in a fight, if things aren’t good with one of my boys or with my husband or my mom, I can be like, wow, am I creating the experience that I want right now? No. Who do I want to be? What do I need to change? Because I can’t control them. I can only do what I say and do an act how I am.

Sze Wing: And I love that highway analogy because sometimes we try so hard to get on the fast lane, so to speak so we can get to the end quicker. But then it’s like, so what’s the book. Would it be more interesting or maybe more eventful? Occasionally take those highway exit, have a little detour and look at what’s on offer, maybe a little town here, maybe a little ocean view there and then get on the highway. And then we would still get to where we want to be.

Terry: Yeah. When I was sick, I, that was my detour. And it was an unintended detour. It was like that when the GPS glitches, right. You go in off completely different direction. And what happens. It’s like I go back when I went back to work, I realized that something had shifted in me. It’s like a classic movie line, you know, like finding Nemo, right. We all want to stay safe. And in finding Nemo, where the dad Marlin, he wants to keep everybody safe on the reef. Right. And then there’s this big adventure. And then you go back and you’re like, Oh, okay. I’m a different person now,

Sze Wing: But if you don’t do it, you, you may regret. And the thing is that we don’t have that 360 view. We don’t have the full picture. All we see is the immediate next step. But sometimes if your heart tells you, you got to jump, then you, I mean, obviously you take educated guests or you prepare yourself, I think it is a scary thing, but it’s important. And I think when you talk about in one of the articles you wrote, it’s called “What’s like the next 30 years”. And I think when you ask that question, then it becomes an invitation to think a little bit bigger than your immediate step. So just like actually what you said before, who do you want to be? How do you want you to be perceived by the people you love around you? And that’s actually directly the question of what do you want your next 30 years look like? I love that article, but tell us a little bit about, because it’s a story related to your father and you were turning 46 or something, and then next 30 years to look like?

Terry: Okay. So my, I lost my dad when he was 76, which was only two years ago. And it was actually a part of becoming the unstuck duck. It was kind of the time when I was in the middle of a big change in my life and he got sick. And so I wrote, I was, so Tim McGraw is a country singer and he writes a song. He wrote a song on his 30th birthday. Actually, I think he probably just sang it. It was somebody else must’ve written it, but maybe not. I don’t know. But anyway, it talks about, you know, in my next 30 years, I’m going to do things differently and better than in my first 30 years. And I had this moment where the music came on, the song came on. And I was thinking about my next 30 years.

Terry: It wasn’t a birthday of mine. It just happened to be that. I was 46 at the time. And I was like, Oh, well, 30 years from now, I’ll be the same age as my dad and my grandma when they passed away. And I had this moment where I was like, you know, my next 30 years, I can be intentional about what I want, who I want to be, how I, who I want to engage with, who do I want to help? Not necessarily creating a bucket list. Like, Ooh, I want to go bungee jumping and I need to jump out of a plane. I’m not going to do any of those things. Cause I don’t want to do those things. That’s not part of my who I want to be.

Terry: It’s not what I want to do. When I think about a bucket list, I think more about, you know, places I want to see and things I want to do. To me, I want to be the parent to my grown children where like I want my guys to find spouses that want to engage with me. Like they want to have me as part of their life. Like, I don’t want to be that mother-in-law, that’s like, this is yeah, exactly. Like, and really looking and going, you know, with every step I take with every intentional space I take up, I have the opportunity to make a difference in this world, whether it’s, you know, bigger little, I just actually wrote there was a quote, just I posted this morning on my page. It was in Napoleon Hill. It was about if you can’t do great things, then do small things.

Terry: And I love that quote because I think about, you know, I’m not going to necessarily change the world every day, but I have the opportunity to make a difference with every interaction that I make. I like to think about my ideal me some coaches. And in fact, I have a book that I’ve read called Playing Big by Tara Mohr. And that book changed my life completely. But she has a meditation that you go kind of forward 20 years and meet 20 year from now, you write and really visualize where does she live? What does she do? What is she wearing? What type of wisdom does she have to protect to give to me, give to you? And I think about me in 20 years, who I want to be 20 years of not a long time.

Terry: It sounds like a long time, but I remember very clearly having a four month old. And I didn’t feel like that was a long time ago. Oh gosh. It amazes me that, you know, that’s only 18 birthdays until they can vote. Well, here in Canada, I don’t know how old she can be to vote down there, but like it’s only, that’s not a lot. And it goes by really fast. So in every moment that I have, where I have the choice of who I want to be, I, I can look and say, okay, well, I mean, even, you know, I was hungry the other day and I was like, okay, well I could drive through and get a big Mac, but does that get me to the healthy version of me that I want to be? No.

Terry: Does it make me feel good after? Does it get me closer to who it is that I want to be? No. And that’s my, that’s my question is that, you know, who is it that I want to be and does this decision that I’m making right now, if I’m going to, you know, cut off somebody in traffic and flip, them a bird and you know, be angry, is that who I want to be? No, no, it’s not. So I have the choice to cut those things out of my life and those actions that I do.

Sze Wing: Yeah. It’s beautiful because I think, well, you touched on the point if you want to play big or do something big and great. Actually. You kind of need to look at the small day-to-day , moment by moment, decision by decision to be who you all want to be in a 30 years time. Like you say, the healthier you are, the small decision is a big Mac or a healthy sandwich. It may be a small thing, but if you look at moment by moment, that’s when someone becomes great. I don’t think Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr. Started out as an icon, no, it’s moment by moment, step by step. So I think it makes a lot of sense. And what you say, and you know, one of the blog you wrote was living life with purpose, and purpose is a muscle that needs to be exercise. First of all, we need to train them as muscles. And this is exactly what it is when you are conscious, when you try to make the right decision moment by moment, that’s your training wheels.

Terry: Yeah. It’s you don’t become a marathon runner in an overnight. It takes a lot of training and that goat path is not going to become an easy eight lane highway to a new way, without some work, without some intention, without some appreciation for the failures and for the moments that you’ve slipped, that you’re, that’s all data like, you’re just collecting data. Whenever something happens that doesn’t go according to your plan, it’s like, Oh, okay. So that’s not going to work. I can take that off of the list of things that I might try. And, you know, it’s just, when I talk about living life with purpose on purpose it is it’s a day to day intention. It’s a day-to-day moment. And, and we can, we can float like a cork in the ocean if we want letting light, you know, sway us from side to side or we can be like, Hey, you know what, this is not what I want.

Terry: This is what I want. I’m going to move forward towards what it is that I want. And I think a lot of the times we’re ingrained to think that it’s selfish to do what you want. We have this thing of, you know, Oh yeah. Always gets what he wants. And we say like, Oh yeah, well of course, you’re going to get what you want. And when children are little, it feels like they’re a bit spoiled when they get what they want. But entitled, that makes no sense to me. Right? If I want to be 150 pounds, I don’t know if you go in pounds or kilos, if I want to be healthy, let’s say that then why would I accept, expect that I can be healthy like that if I’m not currently doing with things.

Terry: And when I work with my entrepreneur clients, you know, they have this idea of I’m going to either arrive, like I’m successful. I have arrived. Well, there’s a lot of stuff you got to do between now and getting successful. There’s like, you know, write that blog post to get that feedback, get a review. You might get a review and then be like, Oh my God. And then change something about your program because of that review. And then maybe you might try changing that, review that because of that review and realized that that review was just somebody’s opinion. And that doesn’t matter to you. It’s all data. It’s all just figuring it out. And we’re all just figuring it out one step at a time. Every one of us.

Sze Wing: Yeah. It’s true. And I really agree that you said, you can want what you want, as long as you’re not just feeling entitled because you, you do need to pick your action. You need to learn that no matter what you do, there will be critics. They will be people who love your work and yes, you know, write more for those people because they support the work and they appreciate your work. But those who criticize you, you need to look at the criticism is that maybe 90% is based on untrue facts, but what is the 10% that actually even 1% can help you to improve and do better. We should look at it instead of just dismiss it. And it’s about learning from all of this rather than, mou know, turning away and not looking at it as an opportunity.

Terry: Because often times what’s super interesting to me is that first of all, everybody has an opinion, right? And sometimes those people are not my ideal client. Yes. So why am I trying to please them? They’re not my people. And I had the situation actually, where I had a program that I offered. And then I got a bunch of feedback from different places. It was not just the people that did, but the people that wanted something different. And I was like, okay, I’ll implement all these changes and make it different. One of the pieces was the first program. I did it in the morning. And in the second one, I did it in the evening because people were like, I want one, but I work and I want to have one in the evening.

Terry: And I want your time in the evening, it took me doing one of the calls to realize that I’m not an evening person. I’m not going to be at my best at that time of day. And it took, I had to continue. And what was it funny? Another piece of the advice or feedback that I got was that it was too short. So I did a one month. And so it was too short. So I did my second one as six weeks in the evening. So not only, not only did I change, like I changed the mboth. And then I was like, Oh my God. Now I have to spend six weeks learning this lesson. You need to do you. And I had that moment where I was like, wow, you know, I realized that I needed to learn that. And all of, all of that learning has made me go, okay, you know what, my next one’s going to be in the morning again.

Terry: It was the people that wanted in the evening that came to the morning. They have the same thing where they’re like, Oh, I’m so tired.

Sze Wing: I was like, okay, here we are

Terry: It was super funny. But you know, that’s, that’s how we learn. And, and I think as entrepreneurs and particularly women entrepreneurs, we are shaped back to your original question. We are shaped by how our experts went by others. People’s expectations by our social conditioning. And then by the expectations that we create around all the things that we’ve learned in our life. So the context that we have about entrepreneurship and what it should be like classic is the idea that, you know, you have to work your off. Like you have to be burning the candle at both ends and busting your butt and making, you know, that’s not true.

Sze Wing: All like being everything to everyone,

Terry: Nobody can be happy or unhappy. Like everybody has to be happy. It’s like, none of that is true. We have this, these contexts around it where it’s like, actually, you know what you can do. What makes you happy? If you don’t like writing, get someone else to do your writing. If you don’t, if you don’t want to go live on Facebook,

Sze Wing: Don’t go live on Facebook.

Terry: If you don’t want to have a podcast, don’t have a podcast. Do what fuels your work.

Sze Wing: Yeah.

Terry: And the people that want to be part of your business are going to be there, right? Because if you don’t want to do a Facebook live, because you’re really bad at it, the people that are watching you do a really bad Facebook live, What, how did that happen? Who won in that situation? And, and, and what is it? You know, so it’s just, and I’m not saying don’t try and do something new and muddy,

Sze Wing: To be honest, I think what is that at the beginning that you got?

Terry: Yeah. If you want to have a break in the evening, don’t do a program in the evening.

Sze Wing: I think this is the perfect time to wrap it up to let people know that, come back to what you have experienced and learned and done, which is, you know, be who you really are and be aware of that. And and moment by moment that build up to a life that is on purpose. And hopefully you become the person who you, who you really want to be.

Terry: Ultimately you’re the one that you live with.

Sze Wing: Yes. Right. And because you cannot divorce yourself

Terry: And we could go through life making choices that make us miserable, and then that’s on us. And sometimes we get really attached to our story, our misery story. Like we get really attached to why we’re, you know, so victim or you know, we get really attached to those stories because we get something out of it. Right. We get the pity or we get the experience or we get whatever it is, you know? We get to be right. Sometimes it’s just that.But there’s always a consequence to that. You know, you say your friend, your happiness and fulfilment is at stake. And at some point it would be, At some point we get to choose ourselves.

Sze Wing: Now, what do you want, do you want more, like people identify with your pain and your suffering and your injustice, or do you want to be more identified with happiness, fulfilment, daring wholeheartedness and make a few mistakes, but have a great laugh about it. Yeah,

Terry: Exactly. People will appreciate that more and you will be way happier.

Sze Wing: I think this is a perfect place to wrap up this podcast. I’m so happy that we have this conversation. I think we dive really deep into something that can really change someone’s perspective on what’s important and how do we live on purpose in the next 30 years? So now if people want to connect with you, what were you or maybe learn more about your coaching program and coaching work? Where’s the best way to find you online?

Terry: Well, you can find me at www.unstuckduck.Ca because I’m in Canada. I’m also on Facebook and Instagram at unstuck duck. And just reach out or info at unstuckduck.ca. You can email me.

Sze Wing: I will have the links on my blog post and the details on the podcast as well. So thank you so much, Terry. It’s wonderful. And well, I, I’m really excited to share this interview and hopefully I think it will be like in a couple of months because I’m so ahead of this, but I think it will be perfect for people actually also thinking about what’s important for them next year. What’s the new intention. I don’t really do new year resolution, but I like new year plans or intention, and what’s to look forward to in the next year. So thank you so much for your time today.

Terry: No problem. Thanks for having me.