202 : Why do 84% of Reorgs Fail? - Reorg Resilience Series with Chealsea Wierbonski

Adam Coelho (00:06.498) Why do 84 % of reorgs fail? That's what we're gonna explore today on this first episode in the Reorg Resilience Podcast Series. And I'm thrilled to have my guest, Chelsea Werbonski with me here today. Welcome Chelsea to the Mindful Fire Podcast.

Chealsea W. (00:22.0) Thanks so much, Adam. I'm so happy to be here today.

Adam Coelho (00:25.878) Yeah, I'm thrilled to be here. And I'm so grateful to you for being the first guest on the first episode ever of the life of the first live episode ever of the mindful fire podcast. And we both know that reorgs are happening now more than ever before they are happening across tech and seems to be picking up. And so I thought it'd be really helpful to get you on the podcast and to explore this concept because

Whether we like it or not, we're probably going to go through a reorg or lead a team through a reorg at some point. And part of the path to financial independence and building a life you love is building resilience to navigate these ups and downs. So really thrilled to be here to explore this from both the individual contributor side, but also the leadership side. And, so thank you again for being here.

Chealsea W. (01:13.272) Of course, it's my pleasure. really excited to talk to everyone today and to have this conversation with you.

Adam Coelho (01:18.924) Yeah, and I'd love to welcome the people who are tuning into the live stream and all of the people who are joining us here in the studio. And if you'd like to join us here in the studio, we're going to do a Q and a, live Q and a with Chelsea at the end of the episode. And so I invite you to join us here live in the studio at mindful fire.org slash live, just put in your name and email address and you will be brought right into this studio room here. So we look forward to having you here and we'll remind you again towards the end.

But thank you for everyone who is here in the room with us. It's great to have you here. And we'll be doing the Q and A at the end. So Chelsea, let's start at the top. Why is it so important to build resilience in the face of reorgs? Like why are these things happening so often and what can we do to prepare?

Chealsea W. (02:07.002) Well, I think the reason they're happening so often is really because it's been a time of contraction for a lot of companies. you know, at first it was the post-COVID contraction where companies were cutting back expenses because they kind of over committed themselves financially right after or during COVID. And now with AI, so many companies are spending money on machine resources and whatnot. And, you know, spending is just kind of at an all time high. So I think the reason we're

reorgs is because projects are getting cut, things are getting reprioritized, people are getting moved around, there's just a lot, know, roles are getting eliminated and anytime you do that you have to make changes to the organizational structure. So I think that's kind of the background about why they're happening.

Adam Coelho (02:57.262) Makes sense. Yeah. And so you've seen it from both sides of the, of the, the table, so to speak. You've been a leader leading teams through reorgs as a group product manager at Google and other places. And you've also been through many reorgs as an individual contributor. Like what are the things that, you've seen go wrong when these reorgs happen?

Chealsea W. (03:19.598) Yeah, I think the biggest thing on the leadership side is the time it takes to land them and the hesitation. Reorgs can be a little bit chaotic. A lot of people don't really have a clear picture of what the reorg actually means. So it takes a minute to figure out what people's new roles are, who's going to be doing what. Sometimes you have duplicative roles or duplicative teams coming together, and then you have to

figure out, like, who's going to be doing this job now? We have like two or three people doing the same job. So on the leadership side, I think it's really comes down to sort of hesitating and trying to figure things out. But then on the individual contributor side, know, reorgs are destabilizing. So questions come up about like, you know, what is this team? What's the identity? What's my role on it? Maybe I was a superstar on the old team. Am I still going to be considered a high performer?

Or is my new manager going to understand what I do? So I think there's just a lot of questions that create some destabilization on the icy side.

Adam Coelho (04:29.57) That makes sense. Yeah, I'm just making sure that we are live here on LinkedIn. I hope it's working. If you're in the room with us here, would love for you to just kind of say hello in the chat, just so we can see that you're here as well. That would be awesome. And there we go. Hi. Cool. So let's start at the leadership side. Let's start at the leadership side and let's talk about

Chealsea W. (04:48.993) You

Adam Coelho (04:58.03) You know what I've seen, you know, I've been through 11 reorgs in the last 10 years at Google. My last 10 years at Google, it seemed like it was happening every six to 12 months. And, you know, I've seen the good and the bad and the ugly on that. So I think for me, what I've noticed is that there's just a kind of destruction of trust, you know, and psychological safety, right? Google did that study that shows that the best teams are the ones where people

feel safe to take risks, speak up and got to put themselves out there after a reorg, especially after a layoff. I've seen that just go quiet, right? Your, your best, most creative people just kind of put their head down. They don't want to, you know, they don't want to be next. Right. And so kind of what have you seen, show up when, when a reorg happens within a team and, and we can talk, well, first we'll talk about like what's going on there and then we can dive into what the solutions are.

Chealsea W. (05:56.686) Yeah, so I think.

to your point, like there's an erosion of trust, whether or not that's actually based in reality is, you know, I mean, it's a subjective thing and every reorg is different. But I think anytime you're in a situation where there are a lot of unknowns, people get scared because they don't know the, you know, their new manager, they don't know their new teammates, they don't know what it means for their future. So yeah, there's a loss of trust there. And when you're a leader,

trying to manage your own sort of feelings and emotions around a reorg and your own sense of loss of trust alongside all of these people that you're managing is really challenging. And I think that's something that people often don't think about in the corporate world because we like to think that our emotions are sort of separate from work. But regardless of whether or not you're a person that processes your emotions externally, you're still experiencing them internally, even if you try to push them out of your mind.

It's still happening. And it's only natural for people to maybe get triggered. especially fear. Fear gets triggered. And then they sort of behave in ways that are maybe counterproductive or not as effective.

you know, like on the leadership side, for example, if, if you don't know sort of like how your new team fits into the broader organization that can also create fear. And then you're kind of viewing this big change through that lens. And I think when you're operating from that state, it becomes a little bit more difficult to help create psychological safety with your team because you're experiencing a lack of psychological safety. So I don't know if you felt anything like that in these situations at Google or

Chealsea W. (07:42.972) if you can relate to that at all. But the thing that comes to mind for me with a loss of trust is fear getting triggered, you know, and then of course anxiety and all of the things that go with that.

Adam Coelho (07:54.073) Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think it's a good point. Like having been through it as an IC, right? Like I'm so consumed in trying to navigate it and find my way and figure out what my job is and who my teammates are and where we're going. But I, you know, to be honest, like that's happening to my manager as well and probably their manager, you know, like a lot of times these decisions, especially layoff decisions are happening so far up the chain that it affects everyone all the way down and

Everyone's feeling that same fear. And so it's really important that we, you know, kind of acknowledge that feel what we're actually feeling and start to move forward and rebuild that, that trust and that confidence. And I'm, you know, I have thoughts on how, how that is best done or best led through, how that psychological safety, how that trust is rebuilt, but what have you seen work, you know, that either you have done as a leader or that

great leaders that you've worked for have done to make that happen.

Chealsea W. (08:56.74) Well, I think before I go too specific on the solution, I just want to touch on one thing that you said, because I think it's super interesting. I think we often forget that.

when we're in a corporation or a company, regardless of whether it's big or small, because there's a hierarchy there, we assume that the people above us have sort of like, that they're not feeling things. You we think they're immune to these experiences. And you make a good point because the people, it doesn't matter like how senior you are, everyone is having their own human experience. So I think one of the things you can do, regardless of where you are in that hierarchy is just remember like what

you're feeling, other people are feeling their version of it. So in terms of like things you can do as a manager to recreate that sense of psychological safety, I think the first thing is in situations where it's like two teams coming together or maybe you had an existing team and like a new team is coming in, is to really try to make those new people feel welcome and to try to get to know them and to reassure them that you you want to get to know their

work, you want to get to know them, you want to understand the kind of value that they bring to the table, not in a way that makes them feel like you're evaluating them because you want to ultimately lay them off or cut their role, but because you want to understand them and you want to support them. So I think any type of reassurance that you can give as a leader is important. And then also one of the things that I think is important to be aware of is like, are the sort of cultural differences on the team? So like, does

one team have a totally different way of working from the one that's coming in? And if so, how are you going to reconcile those two things?

Chealsea W. (10:48.312) You know, that's another thing that I think comes up that can be problematic. And then the other thing is if there's overlap in people, people's roles, really taking a proactive effort and helping them to figure out like, what is their new place on this new team? Because I will tell you one of the worst, this isn't quite a reorg, it was an acquisition, but one of, would say the worst experiences I've been through is when Google bought DoubleClick. And it was basically like two teams of product

coming together and every there was like two of everybody.

And the manager at the time, the attitude was like, well, you guys will just figure it out. And I think as a manager and a leader, one of your responsibilities is to figure that out. Like you can't leave it up to the people on the team to figure it out. It's, it's your job to figure out what the organizational structure will look like. And if you don't do that, then that creates like competitiveness amongst people. People start getting like really territorial and, know, sort of adopt this scarcity mindset where they're

keeping information and knowledge from each other. And that just creates potentially a toxic culture on the team, which damages productivity. So in the end, you actually do yourself a bigger service if you try to be aware of where all of these potential issues are, and then try to figure out a way to navigate it instead of just not looking at it and worrying about your own position in whatever new structure is being formed.

Adam Coelho (12:21.196) Yeah, I love that. That makes so much sense because yes, so many times it's just been like, this is your new team. This is your new role. You know, we've, we've got 130 slide deck that McKinsey gave us, but you go ahead, read the deck and just figure it out. It's all, it's all good. But no, you need to actively think about as a leader, where are we going? What do we need to get there? And who can, who has the skill sets in what roles to make this actually happen?

Another thing that I think is often left to chance is just the idea of a shared vision, This total lack of clarity, right? I think back to my latest reorg, they created a new role, merged two organizations together, and everything about my job was new. New people, new team, a new manager, new role, new clients, new everything. And it was just like...

What is this? Where are we going with this? What's the like, what is the vision that we have? Like, how are we going to be delivering for our clients? What does that do for the overall organization? And then where do I fit in? And so I find that just that lack of clarity causes so much swirl and is why most reorgs take six to nine months to land. And then you're three months from the next reorg. And so I'm on a mission to help leaders speed up that,

speed to alignment by getting everyone on the same page, working together, talking together and moving forward together. What have you seen, you know, kind of that lack of clarity? Like how does that show up? Is that common in the reorgs that you've been through?

Chealsea W. (14:03.652) Yeah, it's so interesting that you say that is so common. And I think, you know, as a product manager, I can speak a lot to vision because like sometimes you don't know what your vision is going to be. And I think that's okay. Sometimes you have to make organizational decisions for financial reasons or, you know, some other reasons besides like a vision for where you want the company to go. And maybe you don't know what the vision is going to be for this new team.

I think that's fine, but you have to communicate that to people. So you have to at least acknowledge that maybe we don't have like the, you know, the vision fully defined yet, but here's sort of some ideas that we have. And here's what you can do in the interim to help support that initial idea. And, know, FYI, this is going to evolve over time, but this is what we think so far. And at least then you're kind of owning up to the

that maybe you don't have it all figured out yet. You acknowledge it. You help the individual contributors on the team to not feel crazy, you know, for assuming that things are chaotic. And you make it, you give them that reassurance that you're working to figure things out, you know, which I think is important because one of the biggest misconceptions I think about leadership is that you have to know everything or you have to figure things out. And I think it's much more valuable and I see is appreciated much

much more or even like, you know, managers, like first level managers appreciate it more when you just acknowledge the challenges that you're facing. It's much more authentic. It's more vulnerable. People can relate to that and that just.

you know, by default generates trust and psychological safety because then you create this feeling of like, okay, we're all in this together. We're figuring it out. And then you might have to have a couple of different touch points where you're like, you know, this is taking us a little longer than we thought. Please be patient. The worst thing you can do as a leader is to act like nothing's happening and to not acknowledge that there's no vision and to not acknowledge that things are chaotic because then the people on the team start talking.

Chealsea W. (16:15.968) they start gossiping, you know, it just it creates like this hotbed of toxicity and I've never understood why more people just don't be honest about what's happening. It's fine, you know. Exactly, exactly.

Adam Coelho (16:19.279) Yeah.

Adam Coelho (16:29.165) Right. We're all figuring it out. Right. Like even even in the best of circumstances, we're all just figuring it out. so acknowledging that and just showing that you are a human being, figuring it out. This was a change for you as well as a leader and just acknowledging that and being real about it. Yeah, absolutely. We'll put people at ease. It will generate that trust, that psychological safety because you are modeling it.

And then it creates a space where, you know, a situation where it's like, let's create this together. Right. I totally agree. A lot of times these changes are happening for economic reasons, cost saving, whatever they might be. But that doesn't change the fact that, you know, we have a new team and we have to work together and we have to go somewhere together. If you haven't set out that vision. And even if you have.

Chealsea W. (17:02.831) Right.

Adam Coelho (17:24.129) I find it really, really valuable to get the people in the room, get them talking to each other and get them collaborating from the get go. Right. You know, yeah. And it, you know, I, I lead this workshop, as you know, because we met in my workshop, the ask what's possible workshop. I've been leading it for teams at Google, outside of Google that are in this situation. They just went through a reorg. They have a new team. need to get everyone together, get them on the same page and

Chealsea W. (17:33.53) Yeah, for sure.

Adam Coelho (17:54.01) get them productive as soon as possible. And so my approach is get them talking to each other from the very beginning. And in the session that we did together, you know, it was exactly that bunch of teams from all over the world coming together for the first time. Some of them knew each other. Some of them didn't. got them, we got them talking to each other. We got them dreaming big about what first, what do I want for my life? Right? This is something that

We can talk about a little bit more in the IC side. Having a clear vision for your life is a game changer and most people never make the time to actually ask these big questions of themselves. And so that's where we start. That brings the energy up. Then we transition to what, you know, in that situation, what does the industry look like? Where is this industry going? We were talking to the search team. What is search going to look like three years from now and how do we.

as a team want to work together to meet that moment and to make that vision a reality. And then finally, creating alignment. There's alignment within the team, right? Everyone knows what their role is, how they're contributing to the vision, but then how does that help me get towards what I want to do, towards my vision? And so we finished the workshop usually with how do I want to contribute to this big team vision and how does that help me move towards my vision?

That way I'm personally invested. And I think that's the step that most people skip. If they even get the team alignment piece done and have the clarity. But I think there's so many benefits to bringing the team in to the process because they feel ownership and they feel like they are actually part of it. They're making it happen, it's not happening to them.

Chealsea W. (19:41.403) Right.

Right. Yeah. And in fact, when you first mentioned coming together, I immediately thought of your workshop because in that particular case, we were a few different teams coming together and we were very geographically distributed. So there wouldn't have been a chance really for me to meet any of those people in person. And that is the first great thing about it is that I feel like anytime you meet somebody in person, you just form a connection with them. And so then you're more likely to want to support each other because you have

sort of like a friendly, like a friend work, a work-friend bond, you know. It's harder to do that over like remotely and doing video conferencing. But your workshop in particular, think, encouraged a level of authenticity and vulnerability that helped people to really connect with each other and talk to each other. And then also you bring in the vision part of that. It felt collaborative. I really do feel like it set us on a really, you know, powerful trajectory.

Adam Coelho (20:16.419) Mm-hmm.

Chealsea W. (20:41.796) because I feel really close to that team now and many of them live in Tel Aviv, know, some of them live in Tokyo. So it's like I said, New York, California, it's very distributed and you know, there's with the time zones and stuff, there's just no chance that I would really get to develop that kind of relationship with those people. So I found it really powerful for that reason and definitely agree with you 100 % about the vision. I know we're going to talk about that more in the IC section.

But yeah, that's something that people don't take the time to do because they spend their entire sort of like career life just going from milestone to milestone without really stopping to check in with themselves to make sure like, is this really what I want? know? Yeah, I know you know. Right.

Adam Coelho (21:28.471) absolutely. Yeah. I, know, just chasing that next promotion, just trying to survive the next next layoff. You know, we always think that like, like if only this, then I'll be, I'll be happy. Right? Like if I just make it through this, then I'll have the space and time to think about what I actually want. And you know, the same thing's true of teams, right? If, we don't actively create space to think about where we want to go as a team. And you know, one of the things I also encourage people to do is to set aside the limitations, the constraints, the

ideas of what's realistic or rational, right? And think like, if I could do anything, what would I do? Right? What would we do? What would we build if we could do anything, if resources were no object? And obviously that's not the world that we live in. There are constraints, but setting those constraints aside for a moment can open possibilities that you would never even otherwise consider. And usually there's a way to get there, right? And if we just open our minds to those possibilities,

we now can start to figure out, OK, cool. We have a room full of the best people at Google, the best and brightest at Google. We can figure out how to get there. But without having that space and creating that container where people can ask those big questions of themselves and of the team, it's just not going to happen. So.

Chealsea W. (22:46.683) Yeah.

Yeah, totally. I 100 % agree with that. And I think what comes to mind when you're saying that is like the scarcity versus the abundance mindset, or some people call it the growth mindset, right? And it's pretty common, I feel like in companies to have more of a scarcity mindset where you feel where you only notice like the difficulties and the impossibilities and resource constraints and you know, and that's understandable, especially now. But when you do that, you're limiting your creativity.

You're limiting your innovation because you're shutting yourself down before you've given yourself a chance to explore What's possible and to your point?

You know, you can always find a way. Like maybe it's not going to be exactly the way that you think, or it might look a little bit different on the other side, but there's always a way. And that's the spirit of tech is like being creative, being innovative, having big ideas. And I feel like we've lost a little bit of that right now as the industry has gotten more mature.

Adam Coelho (23:49.541) Yeah, I agree. And yeah, we're in this world where everyone's like investing in AI and thinking AI can do everything. And what I'm seeing is it just creates a situation where everyone can sprint faster in different directions. Right? Like, and, just kind of outsource their thinking, right? I've done it myself. I'm like, just, just write this for me. It's like, yeah, well, that's not quite right. And it's like, I got to start from scratch, but you first have to figure out where you want to go, how it's going to work together. And then how

Chealsea W. (24:06.693) Right.

Chealsea W. (24:17.37) Mm-hmm.

Adam Coelho (24:17.892) we're going to use AI to move us in that direction.

Chealsea W. (24:20.709) Right.

Adam Coelho (24:22.602) And so let's, you know, and so I guess first I'd say like, if people want to do this work, if they want to accelerate their reorg from, from landing in a few quarters, six to nine months to two to three weeks, I invite them to set up a time with me to chat about that. And my ask what's possible workshop will discuss your situation and you can do that at ask what's possible.com slash fit, just a 15 minute fit call, see if it makes sense. And also.

If if people individuals want to get clear on where they want to go they want to do this exercise that we did in the workshop you can do that at mindful fire org slash start that's just a simple envisioning exercise that'll get you to set aside those constraints think bigger about what's possible and Create a bigger vision for your life So let's switch gears now Chelsea and let's get into the individual contributor side, right?

You I know you do a lot of work as a coach helping people Level up in their careers and build confidence in their careers I guess Someone's going through a reorg. What advice would you give them or they know a reorg's coming or they're worried over your coming? Right because that's where it really starts beforehand

Chealsea W. (25:41.243) Right.

I mean, a few things there, I would say. Usually people start getting worried about a reorg because they worry what it means for them. They worry that maybe it means their job is in trouble or they're not going to like their new manager or maybe not like their new teammates. And it's really easy for our mind to start spinning all these fearful stories. So I think the first thing you can do is to remind yourself that when you're

that state really what's happening is your nervous system is just getting activated because here's this big thing and it's a big unknown and you don't know what it means and what I mean when I say your nervous system is getting activated I just mean that that's like your survival response you know kicking in I know you know this Adam but in some ways like our brains still have like the amygdala the lizard brain as they call it is is really hyperactive you know it gets activated really easily so and

anytime we sense a threat or we, you know, feel like our position is in danger, then the fight, fighter, flight, fight or freeze response kicks in. And then that's when we start having all these fearful thoughts. And they're not really based in reality. We're just telling ourselves stories about what might happen. And usually those stories are really negative. So I think one of the things that people can do is to sort of change that perspective and remind themselves

Well, actually, I don't really know. Like, I don't really know how this is going to end up. I don't really know if it's going to be bad. It could be great. And the other thing to remember is like, you don't have to stay in these situations. You always have a choice. And I know we're going to talk about that a little bit later. But there's alternatives. You don't have to stay in these roles, even though it might seem like it.

Adam Coelho (27:38.673) Yeah, that's really interesting because that, it's funny, in the times where I went through that, it was not clear. In my mind, I thought, I'll just navigate this, it'll be fine, I'll figure it out, and it'll be fine. But in the reality, some of those times, I should have probably started looking. I probably should looking at a new opportunity. But just kind of to the point of what you were saying about our stories creating our reality.

Chealsea W. (27:57.637) Right.

Adam Coelho (28:04.612) Right or the stories that we're telling ourselves one of the things I always say in my teaching is that our stories create our reality the way that our brain works the fact that everything we think feel and pay attention to changes the structure and function of our brain and That's neuroplasticity and that that influences what our brain predicts and expects to happen It's it's essentially like we're telling ourselves stories about how our life is going to be and then we're acting out those stories We can

Chealsea W. (28:18.523) rate.

Chealsea W. (28:31.419) Yeah.

Adam Coelho (28:33.294) become aware of those stories, right? This podcast is all about mindfulness, Mindfulness allows us to notice, there's that story again. I keep telling myself this and you know, the first few times you have, you know, you're going through something difficult. You're going through a, you know, a big change. Like let yourself feel that. Let yourself tell you that story of, I'm afraid, or I'm, you know, I don't know what's going to happen. But the question I like to, to ask myself to interrupt that is, is this useful?

Is this useful? Is this moving me towards what I want? Or is this just causing me suffering? And if it's not useful, I can just choose to let it go. It might come up, you know, five minutes from now, but over and over again, I can ask, is this useful? And I think that's really helpful in this, these scenarios, because whether we're expecting a reorg or a layoff or whatever it might be, we can't control that. And so it's not so useful to spend our time and energy and effort.

thinking about that or strategizing about situations that may never even happen, and we can kind of interrupt that and move forward.

Chealsea W. (29:39.918) Yeah, totally. And now we're touching on, I think, one particular topic that you and I are both super passionate about, which is the power of your mind to create your reality. And just going back to what you said a few minutes ago, I just want to reiterate that that

your mind has a filter in it. You know, it's called the reticular activating system, the RAS. And that filter is based on, as you said, the stories that you tell yourself. So if you're constantly telling yourself things like this isn't going to work, or this reorg is going to be terrible for me, or I don't have a choice, or this is the only job I can do, then that's what you see. Whereas if you're open to possibility and you're open to new ideas and things

working out differently, your mind is able to perceive more opportunity because you're bombarded with millions of bits of information like every second or something like that and your mind just can't process it all. So it has to use that filter to filter out information that's not important and the way that it decides what is important is by what you pay attention to and the stories that you tell yourself. When you do that, you're telling your brain what to prioritize. So if you want

Adam Coelho (30:38.33) Mm-hmm.

Chealsea W. (30:57.394) to prioritize different experiences, the trick is to tell yourself a different story. And that is automatically how you change your life. And some people might think that sounds woo-woo, but it's not. It's actually, it's neuroscience. It's the way your mind works. There's nothing woo-woo about it at all.

Adam Coelho (31:15.396) Yeah, exactly. And that's why I focus so much on the neuroscience, right? Like I came up as a facilitator training Googlers and engineers and product managers and they're not into the woo woo, right? And so I keep it very based on the science and I find it much more practical, right? If you tell someone, you got to raise your vibe to get what you want. Like how do you, how do I raise my vibe? That doesn't make any sense to me.

Chealsea W. (31:28.005) Right.

Adam Coelho (31:40.101) But if I tell someone the story, tell yourself that story, you tell yourself about having bad that you have bad luck and then you have bad luck in your life. Those things are connected. So if you choose to a new story or even just ask, is this useful and let it go. And every time you notice yourself telling yourself that unhelpful story, you just choose to let it float away like a cloud in the sky. You kind of let those quote unquote mental muscles of that story atrophy.

and you create space for a new story. And then as you start to practice that new story, and I talk about this a lot as planting seeds, every thought or story you tell yourself is like planting or watering a seed. And every time you think those thoughts or those stories, you are watering that seed. And not surprisingly, that seed grows into your life. And so if you start to plant new seeds, you create a new story and you create a new reality.

Chealsea W. (32:32.57) Right.

Chealsea W. (32:39.012) Right, 100%. And I have a similar thing that I ask myself when I catch myself thinking, you know, things that I don't want to be thinking, do I, is this absolutely true? Do I know that this is true? Because I think sometimes people confuse fear with facts, you know, and, and we confuse these limiting beliefs that we have with facts. I mean, that's the definition of a limiting belief. It's like so deeply embedded in your subconscious that you believe it to be true, but they're just

Adam Coelho (32:50.288) Hmm.

Adam Coelho (32:55.94) Mm-hmm.

Chealsea W. (33:08.936) which can be changed. And I think the really interesting thing about limiting beliefs is that they are formed when you're a child. So as an adult, you're running this outdated software in your mind. Like you are operating like with this belief system that was formed, you know, 40, 30, 40, 50 years ago. And

And living your life from that perspective because it's driving all of your behavior. And so I think one of the tricks to having like a really, whether it's a successful career or a successful life is to update that operating system or those subconscious programs by identifying what they are to begin with. And then changing the story, right? Otherwise you're being like every one of your actions is basically being driven by like, you know, seven year old you or 10 year

world you.

Adam Coelho (34:05.188) Yeah, and so how can people take that, concept, and know, this knowledge that we are telling ourselves stories, whether we're aware of it or not, we are. How can they use this information to set themselves up for success in the context of a reorg?

Chealsea W. (34:20.654) Yeah, I mean, this is something that I help a lot of my coaching clients with. I mean, I think the first step in any of this stuff, we kind of talked about it earlier, is to become aware of what you're telling yourself.

Since many of these beliefs are subconscious, sometimes it's hard to do that. And so the way that I always advise people to figure out what those things are is to pay attention to how you feel. Because when you're in a situation and you get triggered, then that indicates that there's a fear response happening. And where there's a fear response, there's an underlying belief about what like what your interpretation is of the situation. So if it's about a reorg, if you're starting to feel like, you know, I

don't want to share this information with my new teammate because they might steal my job or somebody might think that they're better at the job than I am. And usually when you think that, there's a feeling that comes with it. It's like a feeling of tension or anxiety or like territorialism.

being aware of when those feelings come up, then you can be like, wait a minute, I don't know this person. You know, do I know that they're trying to sabotage me? No. You know, and, and then

kind of being more open to trying to support your new colleague and work together and create an environment of collaboration. And someone might say, well, you know, I feel that person being that way too. That's why I'm being like that. But the thing that you have to keep in mind that I think is really important is sometimes we lose compassion for each other in these corporate environments. And we forget, like, if you're struggling and you're feeling them struggle, that means they're struggling also. So they're likely having a similar

Chealsea W. (36:06.312) experience to you and the quickest way to diffuse something like that is to create a collaborative environment and try to work with them and help them to feel safe and seen and heard and then before you know it that sort of like territorialism you know and competitiveness just disappears because they don't view you as a threat anymore and then you're helping each other which is a like way less stressful it's a lot more fun

and it results in sort of like team performance being uplifted and it ensures the success of a reorg as opposed to everyone being all like, you I'm gonna compete with everybody and it's every person for themselves. You know, that's just like a terrible environment and it's super stressful.

Adam Coelho (36:52.932) Yeah. Yeah, it's just, it just feels better. love, I love that. I, you know, it wasn't thinking about that initially, but absolutely. Your body is sending you signals all the time, right? If your jaw is clenched or you're feeling tight or you know, you're feeling exhausted, right? All of that is information and you can kind of tune into that and start to decode it, right? And the more you...

Chealsea W. (37:05.327) Right.

Chealsea W. (37:12.368) Right.

Adam Coelho (37:17.936) practice, you know, I said practice mindfulness of just, this is what I'm feeling. Okay. Why might it be feeling that right? It just takes self-compassion first to understand what am I feeling? Why might I be feeling it? Another thing that's been really helpful for me in the, these like overwhelming moments is just journaling, just take a pen and a paper and just write whatever comes to mind. Right. Especially for me, when I have things swirling around my head and you know, just bouncing around,

Chealsea W. (37:23.526) Right.

Adam Coelho (37:47.705) I need to get it out of my head onto paper, which first immediately makes me feel lighter. And then it helps with clarity because now it's there. I can see it. can work with it. with AI, it's even helping with that as well because you can turn that, maybe not with your handwriting necessarily, but if you just talk to talk, record something and just get it all out.

It can help you parse that and understand like what are the themes in there and think but you could always just read it as well. getting it out of your head onto paper has been a game changer for me when I'm feeling overwhelmed or uncertain or anything like that.

Chealsea W. (38:16.966) Totally.

Chealsea W. (38:27.514) For sure, me too. And I think I use AI for that all the time, chat, GBT to kind of process what's going on and identify themes. And I think one of the really interesting things about journaling is like, oftentimes you don't even realize what you're thinking, but then when you sit down, stuff just starts coming out of you. So I think that's kind of like a really good bridge to reaching your subconscious. And then when you, to your point, when you see it on paper, then you kind of have to admit to yourself,

Adam Coelho (38:47.44) Mm-hmm.

Chealsea W. (38:57.448) hey, now that I'm seeing this here, I realized that that was sort of like, you know, ambiently driving my behavior. Because a lot of the times, you know, like, especially now, if you work in a big or small company, a startup, there's a lot of pressure to perform and everybody's moving really fast and just constantly hitting deadlines and milestones. And, you know, it's like a very intense environment. So you don't always take the time to check in with yourself and try to understand what exactly

is going on and it's easy to just push that stuff out of your mind and then if you layer on top of that the fact that it's sort of like frowned on and socially unacceptable to be quote-unquote emotional at work the minute somebody starts feeling something they like sweep it under the rug they don't want to feel it they don't want to deal with it they just have to focus on work and then I think that's why we get in these situations where then we're laying at bed at night ruminating over the day you know and like we can't fall asleep because our mind is swirling

Adam Coelho (39:53.934) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Chealsea W. (39:57.24) about a conversation we had or something somebody said to us. And all of that stuff is unprocessed emotion. And your nervous system getting activated because it's feeling threatened, or you're feeling threatened. And so therefore your nervous system reacts.

Adam Coelho (40:10.916) Yeah. yeah. I'm having flashbacks. I'm having flashbacks to laying awake at night, waking, like going to bed first, you know, last thing I think is about the situation. Waking up, it's about the situation. It's like, that's not healthy. And so there are steps that we can take. mean, just sitting in meditation, following your breath when your mind wanders away to that.

Chealsea W. (40:33.222) for sure.

Adam Coelho (40:36.898) situation or anything else, just notice it with kindness, a kind, curious awareness, bring it back over and over again. And then the journaling, just get it out of your head, write whatever you need to write. Right? No one needs to read it. Right? You can literally, I've done this, I've literally ripped it up and thrown it out immediately afterwards, but I felt better. I felt lighter and more clear after that. Because we do, we just build up and that fear response is

Chealsea W. (41:02.992) Yeah.

Adam Coelho (41:06.99) very real and we are wired for that, right? Like there's a negativity bias.

Chealsea W. (41:09.766) for sure.

Yeah. And also it's just survival. It's like human, you know, it's our animal instinct coming out. That's all that is. And, and one of the things that I try to teach my clients is like, just to remember that that is just a nervous system response. It's like, if you put your hand on a hot stove, it would feel painful, but you know what that is. Like with your nervous system, sometimes it's confusing because we're so merged with our feelings and we don't have, we don't create enough space to know like, okay, I'm just getting activated right now. Like I don't have to,

Adam Coelho (41:14.368) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Absolutely.

Adam Coelho (41:29.338) Mm-hmm.

Chealsea W. (41:41.656) to a story to this, you know, and make it mean something bigger than it is. It's just my body is just responding and it's like an autonomic response. We can't help it. And I think another thing that gets kind of dangerous is that not only do you have that fear, but then sometimes if you're like, like for me, you know, I was a woman in tech trying to step into leadership. When I would feel those feelings, part of me would be like, you know, really,

real leaders don't feel like that. Or if you were a leader you wouldn't feel that way. Or you're bad at your job, you can't do this. And so then that starts like a shame spiral on top of it where you're not only feeling afraid but then you're beating yourself up for how you're feeling. And so now you're processing two different intense and negative feelings.

Adam Coelho (42:22.384) yeah.

Adam Coelho (42:33.178) Yeah, yeah, it's it's kind of all goes back to what you're saying around like, we are so merged with our feelings that in these stories that we've practiced for decades that we feel like it's true. And we need to create some distance like getting it on a paper or telling it to a friend like the way we talk to ourselves in our head, we would never talk to even our worst enemy sometimes, you know, so it's like

Chealsea W. (42:56.36) yeah, right.

Adam Coelho (43:00.002) You need to create some space. need to get some objectivity to these stories and realize like you can choose a new story. And so I'm curious Chelsea, you know,

We talked earlier about vision, but is there anything that you do with your clients to help them think bigger about their life and create that vision for their life? I would love to hear your thoughts. I'm happy to share kind of how having a clear vision helped me, but really curious on the work you do with your clients.

Chealsea W. (43:30.284) Yeah, I mean, it's so interesting because I think I work with a lot of women in tech and people in demanding jobs, and so they're very analytical. And the one thing that I try to tell them when they create a vision is like, don't worry about logistics. Don't worry about the how, because what I find is when people started trying to do visioning exercises, they're like writing down their vision and then they're like, but that can't be my vision because I would have to do X, Y, and Z or this would happen.

Adam Coelho (43:47.567) Mm-hmm.

Adam Coelho (43:56.496) Mm-mm.

Chealsea W. (44:00.268) be able to do this and then they get caught up in the logistics of it and don't actually get to the visioning part. So one of the things I try to teach them is to relax, meditate beforehand and clear space in their mind and focus on an image and also how they want to feel. So not like what am I going to do or like what's my specific role or what are the specific steps I need to get there but how do you see your life and when it comes to the

feelings. It's things like, well, I want more freedom. I want to feel a sense of abundance. I want to feel, you know, intellectually stimulated or fulfilled. You know, those were all things that were really important to me. And then practice feeling those feelings now and then do that, you know, for 60 to 90 seconds every day. And then when you're in your life and actually doing the logistics, that feeling will guide you and you're, you'll start following the vision.

without even knowing it because going back to what we said earlier about your mind kind of see you know having that filter when you teach it that no actually these feelings are important and this vision are important it automatically finds opportunities that lead you down that path yeah so that's what i try to teach them to do

Adam Coelho (45:19.578) Yeah, I love that so much. Yeah, that's a huge thing that I focus on in my workshops and when I was doing group coaching and it's how do you wanna feel, right? How do you want to feel personally? And then in the team setting, how do you want this team to feel, right? Like, cause teams have a feeling too, right? Competitive is a feeling, territorial is a feeling, collaborative, kindness, those are also feelings.

Chealsea W. (45:41.22) Right, empathy. A big one. Yeah.

Adam Coelho (45:42.637) Empathy, right care, right? Like these things are also feelings that we can choose and that's the thing that I think about when I think about my vision It's I want to feel unrushed right like and I'm I'm one year out from working at Google. I'm into my Semi early retirement, whatever I'm calling it where I'm building this business, but my vision was always to be unrushed feel unrushed build this business

Chealsea W. (45:55.322) Yeah.

Adam Coelho (46:11.204) business in my own time, in my own way. And that's been a, a guiding, a guiding force for me. And there have been a lot of times where I've been forcing the business, trying to get workshops, trying to get leads, trying to do this and that. And it felt bad. It felt like rushing and forcing. And I want to be more in the allowing and unrushed type of thing. and just generally I noticed that I'm, you know,

Chealsea W. (46:22.511) Yeah.

Chealsea W. (46:29.957) Mm-hmm.

Chealsea W. (46:33.519) Yes.

Adam Coelho (46:38.976) Not as nice of a dad and a husband and a person when I'm rushed, right? And so I I really love that question of how do you want to feel?

Chealsea W. (46:48.912) percent.

Adam Coelho (46:49.808) Yeah, and then just on this on this topic of like once just entertaining a bigger vision for your life opens the puts your puts the wheels in motion in your brain to start moving towards that right because of the predictive nature of brain of our brain and you know for me like I had an example where I wanted to you know, I had this crazy idea all of my things start as crazy ideas

I wanted to lead a workshop for Sundar Pichai's team. He's the CEO of Google, as you know. And I wanted to, yeah, right? You know, just announced a hundred billion dollar quarter yesterday. Kind of a big deal. Obviously have no connections to him. And I wanted to do this, but I had no idea about how, right? I love what you said about, don't worry about the how. Not important at this point in time. When you're doing visioning, when you're getting clear on what you want, don't worry about the how.

Chealsea W. (47:23.014) Wait, who is he?

Ha ha ha.

Chealsea W. (47:40.038) Thanks

Adam Coelho (47:46.604) It doesn't even matter.

I thought that and I was like, that would be awesome. Right. And I started, you know, taking little actions, having conversations with administrative business partners, cause I wanted to do workshops. wasn't necessarily to get to Sundar, right. Cause that seems so unrealistic, but one thing led to another. got an email at, at 11 30 at night on September 27th, 2023, was up finishing all my work for Q3 tying up loose ends.

I got this email from a woman named Mary. She said, we're looking for someone to lead a mindful leadership workshop for a group of executives. I'm like, cool, that's right aligned with my vision of wanting to lead these workshops for teams and companies. Had a conversation with her the next day. She's like, would you be okay with if it was about 100 SVPs and VPs at Sundar's leadership conference? I'm like, perfect. That's exactly what I wanted. And so another thing you said is first, don't worry about the how.

Chealsea W. (48:39.908) Yeah

Adam Coelho (48:47.693) Obviously could not make a plan to get there the second thing is be open to how it happens when it happens and Expect it to look different right? Did I did I do it the workshop for Sundar? No, but did I do it for a group of VPs and SVPs at his leadership conference? Absolutely, right and so some people might consider that a loss. I consider that a huge win

Chealsea W. (49:11.024) Amazing.

Adam Coelho (49:16.677) You know, it has set my entire business forward because I have that credibility and that would have never happened if I hadn't opened my mind to like, what would be, what would I really want? What would be awesome? Right.

Chealsea W. (49:29.54) Right. Or if you would have told yourself, that's impossible. I could never do that. I better down level my thinking to something more realistic. I think that's what people do also that gets them in trouble with visioning and why some people think it sounds corny or it doesn't work because they automatically assume they can't do it. You know, and they start telling themselves all the reasons why it won't work out. Well, guess what? If you tell yourself it's not going to work out, it won't work out. You know, exactly, exactly.

Adam Coelho (49:36.783) Right. Right.

Adam Coelho (49:45.254) Yeah.

Adam Coelho (49:55.483) Your story creates your reality. That's what I tell my kids all the time, you know? So I love that. Yeah, that is so important. And I'm glad we covered that. Let's talk. know you had something you wanted to chat about, about someone who's early in their career and reorg comes their way and they might be really shaken by it. I'll hand it over to you, kind of talk about how you would...

Chealsea W. (49:59.652) Yeah.

Chealsea W. (50:19.94) Right.

Adam Coelho (50:24.195) advise somebody early in career or otherwise. mean, we all suffer with these same things, but let's use that example.

Chealsea W. (50:30.04) Yeah, for sure. So I think...

One thing that we lose sight of when we're working is we forget that we are autonomous human beings with our own life and we get to say like what's okay with us and what's not okay with us. And a lot of the times we have these stories about you know, I have to log in when I get home or I'll get fired or I have to do this or you know, I'll people are going to think I'm not committed but usually no one notices. And the other thing is that

in order to survive something as destabilizing as a reorg, you really have to set boundaries. So important, especially now because things are so crazy. And so I actually have this really great worksheet that I call Boundary Setting for Burnout Guide, which helps people learn how to set boundaries so that they don't get burned out. Because I think one of the common misconceptions about burnout is that people assume it's related to the amount of work that you're doing. But in fact,

burnout is actually because you're emotionally burnt out. So if you're in a role where there's a lot of stress or you are logging on all the time and then not getting enough rest, not taking care of yourself and your body's in like this fight flight or freeze mode all of the time, you're going to get burned out because you're going to get emotionally drained. And so that's why it's so important to learn how to set boundaries. It's okay. Everyone does it, at least people who are able to survive.

working in corporate for a really long time.

Adam Coelho (52:06.191) Absolutely and the final thing I wanted to chat about before we get into Q &A and again if you're listening to this live You're on the live stream, but you're not in the room with us I invite you to join us live at mine by going to mindful fire org slash live Enter your email and you'll pop right in with us here. We'll get to that in a couple minutes But one thing I wanted to touch on that I mentioned on LinkedIn and the post got some really good engagement is one of the

best things that you can do to prepare to navigate any reorg or layoff is to build financial resilience. You're not going to read this in any leadership book or any, you know, probably career book even, right? But that is the most important thing that you can do is build financial resilience. So what do I mean by financial resilience? Right? There's it's it financial resilience is the first step to financial independence, but it's

kind of table stakes. It's having a clear understanding of what your life costs. How much money are you spending on a month? What are the things that you could cut if you needed to? Right? You probably can't cut your rent, but you can cut eating out, you know, or ordering Uber Eats. Right? So what are those things that you can do there? And then having a clear picture of your finances. How much do you have? Where are your investments? What are your, what are all those things? Right?

highly recommend a book called the simple path to wealth. And of course you can also watch JL Collins on my podcast. I don't know exactly what episode it is, but we'll put that in the show notes so people can check that out. But if you just search JL Collins mindful fire podcast, so it'll come up on YouTube or on the podcast that'll walk you through exactly that. But again, the, the, S the way you build financial resilience is avoid debt.

Know your know how much your life costs and of course within that spend less than you make and then have a clear vision for your life, right? that between when I you know, the last year I had at google was very challenging right had been reorg to a team with a manager who I was not vibing with we'll leave it at that We weren't vibing and The the thing that kept me going was knowing that I didn't need the money

Adam Coelho (54:30.863) Right. I have an emergency fund, right? That's the third thing on the list is have an emergency fund, have three, six months expenses building on knowing your, how much your life costs have that in the bank so that you know that you can deal with whatever comes and you know, JL Collins calls this F you money, right? If you have, once you are on the path to financial independence, once you have a clear understanding of

what your life costs, how much money you have, and you know you have six months living expenses in the bank, you can take bigger risks. You can navigate anything that comes your way. at last several years, Google's done layoffs in the beginning of the year.

I was not worried at all. know, some might even call it hopeful to be laid off. you know, and, most people aren't in that situation, but I was not worried. could navigate whatever was coming. And when I got into a situation that was very, challenging, knowing that gave me the, confidence to pursue my vision. Full steam, right? I knew that.

Chealsea W. (55:25.478) You

Adam Coelho (55:47.246) I needed to this was now or never to make this happen and I went and I pitched the president of the Americas on about leading my workshop and ultimately got a pilot for for that and I would not you know, I most people in the situation I was in would been worried about paying the mortgage and that's the reality for a lot of people right and I you know didn't have a tech startup. I mean I did work at Google that helps but having financial resilience building

that muscle and having that that money in the bank was one of the core things that helped me through that challenging situation and allowed me to move into this next chapter of early early semi-retirement without worries and knowing what I was moving towards.

Chealsea W. (56:35.598) Yeah. Yeah. And I think even if, you know, we're fortunate.

to have, you we both work and work and worked in big tech and we have that luxury. But even for people that don't work in environments like that, it is still possible to have a backup plan. And the way that I always suggest people do that is start a side hustle, right? Like you can always make extra money. And this is another thing that people forget about very easily is like they feel like they have to just take this predictable path. I have to work in an office. I have to work in a nine to five. It's very structured.

Adam Coelho (56:57.041) Mm.

Chealsea W. (57:10.696) You know, you're I mean that the thing is like even if you're successful in a corporation like there's a ceiling You know very few people are able to get to the level where they're making like millions of dollars a year unless you're working on Wall Street as like a you know a managing director or something so

It's always possible to make more money. It just might not look like what you think it'll look like. Again, it just goes back to the idea of being open to possibility. Open up your mind and think that way, and then you'll see opportunities around you everywhere that maybe aren't like what you thought your life might look like or your career might look like. But you can literally design your career in any way that you want. And I think more and more people are starting to do that now because the job market's so unpredictable. there aren't as many jobs.

as there were before.

Adam Coelho (58:03.31) Yeah, there certainly aren't and they're certainly not as secure as they once were. Right. Google, used to before 20 January, 2023, we thought this is the safest place to be. Right. And that's right. And then, know, and then 12,000 people were laid off in the middle of the night. Right. So that's going to happen. Yesterday was 14,000 on Amazon. Right. So like we need I love what you said about having a side hustle. And that can be related to your core job.

Chealsea W. (58:08.417) percent.

Chealsea W. (58:14.296) Right, I was like, I'm retiring here.

Chealsea W. (58:25.284) Right.

Adam Coelho (58:32.228) You know, or that skill set, right? Could be consulting on product things if you're a product manager, or it could be completely different. You could drive for Uber Eats. You could drive for Uber. You could babysit dogs. This guy that I, this guy I know in my father's group started Drop Ship Company. I know people who have done all of these things. A guy I work with turned, a friend of mine in my father's group turned his backyard into a dog park and big.

Chealsea W. (58:40.848) Right.

Chealsea W. (58:45.678) or start a drop ship company. Yeah. Right.

Chealsea W. (58:59.898) Wow. That's amazing.

Adam Coelho (59:00.496) and has dogs there all the time. He's like, my kid wants a dog, I don't want a dog. And he basically now has dogs there all the time and makes money doing it with minimal effort, right? So there's all sorts of ways. I've done consulting stuff. I've done obviously the podcast and coaching and all these things. each time I've moved closer to getting clear on what I want my retirement to look like.

Chealsea W. (59:11.493) Wow.

Adam Coelho (59:31.086) And I've also made money that has accelerated my path to retirement. And so it's a win-win in terms of clarity and finances. All right, so let's get into the Q &A here. But before we do, I just wanna invite you, Chelsea, to share with the audience where can they connect with you? How can they find that resource you mentioned? Again, anything that you wanna share and plug for the audience.

Chealsea W. (59:36.678) for

Chealsea W. (59:55.854) Yeah, so the resource that I mentioned, Adam dropped in the studio chat. You can also find that in my link in bio and Instagram. My Instagram handle is Chelsea underscore W underscore. And just so you know, my name is spelled with two A's C-H-E-A-L-S-E-A. It's not a misspelling. That's the way it's actually spelled. So you can check me out on Instagram. I'm also on LinkedIn, just my first name Chealsea. And I post a ton of content around.

all of the topics that we talked about today and my big sort of thing that I'm talking a lot about right now is this idea of aligned ambition working from a place of alignment which really means like working in a way that actually feels good to you and that's not driven by fear and scarcity.

Adam Coelho (01:00:42.139) I love that. Yeah, that aligned ambition, that resonates a lot. I like the sound of that. All right, well, let's do the Q &A. We got some people here in the studio with us. Remind me, Chelsea, what does that button say? It says like send in a call in.

Chealsea W. (01:00:45.819) Yeah.

Chealsea W. (01:00:56.748) It says, yeah, live call, some kind of live call. I took a screenshot. Yes.

Adam Coelho (01:01:02.129) Yeah, you sent it, you did. I'm gonna look it up. But if you see the button that says live call in.

You did send me this and let's see, I got it here. Okay, request live call in. So if you are on the live stream with us and you wanna ask a question, hit request a live call in.

Chealsea W. (01:01:25.028) Yeah, and we'd love to talk to you all, so don't be shy.

Adam Coelho (01:01:39.163) Who's gonna be first?

Chealsea W. (01:01:41.222) I mean, I would love to hear from someone about what parts of this conversation resonated with them and, you know, what could they relate to? I would be so interested to hear that.

Adam Coelho (01:01:54.854) And if you don't want to come directly on screen, which you're welcome to, you can also put your question or comments in the chat as well. So what's resonated with you in this conversation?

or what questions might you have.

Adam Coelho (01:02:19.501) Alright, while you're thinking of your questions, because I know you're thinking of your questions, I'm going to ask Chelsea the Mindful Fire Final Four, okay? So Chelsea, we're going to switch gears now into the Mindful Fire Final Four. Are you ready?

Chealsea W. (01:02:21.67) you

Chealsea W. (01:02:33.22) Yes, I'm ready.

Adam Coelho (01:02:34.703) All right, first question, Chelsea, is all about envisioning. We've talked a lot about vision today and thinking bigger about the vision for your life. I'm curious, what is the vision for your life or the next, say, five years of your life and what you're creating?

Chealsea W. (01:02:49.636) So my vision is to transition full time to public speaking, coaching, and digital course creation and basically fund my life that way. And yeah, I'm focusing, I work with all kinds of people, but my primary focus is on helping women create their most aligned, elevated careers. And I do that by teaching them about neuroscience, doing inner work with them, and then

also wealth consciousness. So being able to do that 100 % and not have to hold down a nine to five is my ultimate vision. And I think about that every day and practice the way I want to feel.

Adam Coelho (01:03:33.103) love it and how do you want to feel?

Chealsea W. (01:03:35.568) free, abundant, and fulfilled.

I want to really have my work be of high service because I think it's really important. A lot of women, especially in tech, feel intimidated. They make themselves small. So I really want to help them feel empowered so that they can show up as their full selves and rise up to whatever career level they want to be at, whether that's within a nine to five structure or to be an entrepreneur.

Adam Coelho (01:04:06.885) love it. That sounds awesome. And I know you are well on your path there. But I also know that you got the East River behind you and you have a beautiful apartment that I can't imagine is cheap. you got to, you're building towards it. You're building towards it. But you've been doing it for a while and I'm sure that this has guided your actions for quite a while. So I hope, I can't wait to congratulate you on that happening. Question number two is,

Chealsea W. (01:04:11.664) You

Chealsea W. (01:04:19.974) I have my work cut out for me, yeah.

Chealsea W. (01:04:28.902) 100%.

Chealsea W. (01:04:33.328) Thank you.

Adam Coelho (01:04:36.074) What piece of advice would you give to someone early on their path to financial independence?

Chealsea W. (01:04:42.102) that's a good one. think a lot of people when they think of financial independence think...

more of, again, the logistics as opposed to the feeling. But I'll just, a quick fun fact, maybe not so fun fact about me. I grew up in West Virginia in Appalachia and my father and grandfather were coal miners. And so I come from a really working class background. And part of your ability to build wealth has to do with what you believe you deserve. So if you come from an environment where you feel less than or you have class

shame, which I did, you just assume that nice things aren't available to you. So really getting in touch of with sort of like, what are your stories about money? Like, do you have shame associated with it? Are you afraid of it? Are you afraid that you'll lose it? You can't manage it or you have to work really hard to get it until you think about those or become aware of those stories. It's possible for you to unconsciously block your

ability to acquire wealth because you're self-sabotaging because you think I don't deserve a nice life or I don't deserve money then you'll spend it as fast as you can get it.

Adam Coelho (01:06:00.07) Yeah, I think that's really important. you know, again, kind of getting to what we were talking about before, like how you untangle that is through coaching, through journaling, and just really trying to understand, like, what are these beliefs that I have that are underlying? And what are these feelings that I'm carrying? Because, they could be preventing you from, you know, getting the money you leave.

Chealsea W. (01:06:21.028) Right, 100%.

Adam Coelho (01:06:27.233) need to live the life you want because you don't feel like you deserve it.

Chealsea W. (01:06:30.756) Right, yeah, and it's interesting you mentioned my apartment. Like, I lived in a similar place before this one, and I remember the first time I went, when I went to rent that place, I was sitting in the, like the rental office, and in my mind, I was like, there's no way they're gonna rent me this place, even though, like, I had good credit, and I worked at Google, and like, and then I walked out being like, wait, what? And that was the first time I became aware of that mindset that was related to my, like, the class structure, you know?

Adam Coelho (01:06:48.145) Right. Yeah, you had it all. Yeah.

Adam Coelho (01:06:59.974) Right.

Chealsea W. (01:07:00.862) big breakthrough for me.

Adam Coelho (01:07:02.885) Yeah, that's really interesting that you had such a distinct moment where it's like, yes, that's great. I mean, that's freeing, that's freeing, it's so cool. All right, the third question is, what piece of advice would you give to someone getting started with meditation and or mindfulness?

Chealsea W. (01:07:07.788) Yeah. It is. Yeah. Yeah.

Chealsea W. (01:07:20.154) Well, the one thing I would say is that a lot of people, they think about meditation, they think, it's going to take a lot of time. I used to think that. you know, meditation, I cannot, like...

iterate enough how powerful it is when it comes to calming your nervous system and also organizing your mind and eliminating that spiral. You know, I used to be like a highly anxious person and now I've been meditating for like eight years and it's just phenomenal how much it's calmed my brain. But for a long time I didn't start because it seemed really daunting or overwhelming and I would tell myself, I can't meditate. That's what a lot of people say. I can't sit still, but you can. And the thing is, is you can start small.

And I think with any change that you make the key is to do it incrementally So it doesn't have to be this big thing like just start with 30 seconds Just start with 60 seconds, know, whatever it is anybody can sit still for 60 seconds And if you do that, you can do 60 seconds three times a day and that's really actually really powerful

it still has the same effect. mean, obviously, the longer you do it, the better, but I only do it for 10 or 15 minutes a day. And it helps, and it adds up over time. So I think, first of all, stop saying that you can't do it, because you can. I mean, if you say it right, exactly. And then the second thing is to remind yourself that you can start small. You don't have to go from zero to 100. know, like starting small doesn't mean you can't do it or that you're a failure at it.

Adam Coelho (01:08:36.241) unhelpful story.

Adam Coelho (01:08:48.709) Yeah, great advice. Absolutely. I always say like, you know, the, the best amount of meditation to do is that one you'll actually do, you know, like, what are you actually going to do that? It's no problem at all. So start with a minute, start with two minutes every day. It's not about how much you do. It's about how consistently you do it. all right. And yeah, of course. Yeah.

Chealsea W. (01:08:58.02) Right? Right, right.

Chealsea W. (01:09:09.966) Right. Yeah, and it's like that with anything, right? It's all about consistency. Right.

Adam Coelho (01:09:15.023) It's all about practice, right? Like everything that we've ever done, we've started off being terrible at. And, you know, think another tip I'd add is like, when you're meditating and your mind wanders, don't think you're doing it wrong. Most people think that they're doing it wrong. I certainly did and actually gave up for a while because I thought, there's no way I can do this, but that is going to happen. So expect it to happen. And that in my experience, that's very freeing.

that knowing it's going to happen and then I'm just noticing and bringing it back noticing and bringing you back. It's like doing a bicep curl for your brain and your brain. the neurocircuitry of focus, attention, concentration, all of those things are strengthened each time your mind wanders and you bring it back. So it's not a problem. It's actually a core part of the practice. It's normal. Yeah. That's our minds create thoughts. That's like literally what they do.

Chealsea W. (01:10:08.612) Yeah, it's normal. Yeah. Yeah.

Chealsea W. (01:10:14.49) That's the job of it.

Adam Coelho (01:10:15.761) That's true. again, want to invite anyone, does anyone have any questions? Would anyone like to join us on stage and say hello or ask a question or share a reflection?

Chealsea W. (01:10:34.672) See, we still have people in the event.

Adam Coelho (01:10:36.325) I know you're here, I see you. We'd love to talk with you, but I understand if you don't wanna come up, it's okay, but thank you for being here. All right, so let's, and the fourth question, Chelsea, is just again, how can people connect with you online and follow along with what you're doing?

Chealsea W. (01:10:45.44) You

Chealsea W. (01:10:56.602) Yeah, the best I would say is Instagram. I'm unfiltered there. LinkedIn, I kind of tone it down a little bit because there's a lot of colleagues on there and I feel like the people that follow me on Instagram, if they're colleagues, they know what I'm doing. So Chelsea underscore W underscore that's IG. And then if you do want to see me on LinkedIn, it's just my first name. Also website ChelseaW.com. Join my mailing list. Yeah, have lots of free workbooks on

my LinkedIn bio and Instagram, and I also actually create digital courses. I have all sorts of courses for helping people level up in their career using this inner work and neuroscience and mindfulness approach as opposed to just burning themselves out and without boundaries.

Adam Coelho (01:11:45.339) Yeah, that's important stuff. And yeah, I know you put out a lot of great content. I love following you on both platforms. And well, thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate it. yeah, for me, if people want to connect with me, you can follow me on LinkedIn, Adam Cuello, C-O-E-L-H-O. And if you are interested in landing your reorg in two to three weeks instead of six to nine munch, munch.

Chealsea W. (01:11:50.992) Thank you.

Adam Coelho (01:12:15.569) If you're interested in landing your reorg in two to three weeks instead of six to nine months, I invite you to connect with me for a no obligation fit call where we'll just chat about your situation, no sales pitch, just truly getting to know each other and seeing if my Ask What's Possible workshop can help your team rebuild psychological safety and align to a big shared vision so that you can get back to work and crush it in the next chapter of your team.

Chealsea W. (01:12:15.75) you

Adam Coelho (01:12:44.081) Thank you so much Chelsea for being here. Thank you everyone for watching in live and those of you who joined us in the audience here in the room really appreciate you being here and Wish you all the best

Chealsea W. (01:12:57.178) Thanks so much, Adam. This was great. I had so much fun chatting with you. And thanks to everyone who joined.

Adam Coelho (01:13:04.298) We're gonna go off the air now. How do I do that? Here it is. Alright.