The Unexpected Career Podcast

Christine LeLacheur: Corporate to Psychotherapist

• Megan Dunford • Season 2 • Episode 4

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Season 2 Episode 4: Christine pursued a winding corporate career, with some teaching along the way, leaning into roles and opportunities that allowed her to learn and build on her previous experiences ultimately taking her into a new career as a Psychotherapist. https://momentymtherapy.com/


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Welcome to the Unexpected Career Podcast, where we share stories of real people and the twists and turns they have taken along their career journey. I am Megan Dunford, and as someone who found myself in the payments industry, largely by accident, I'm fascinated by how people's careers unfold and how they've gotten to where they are today. It's also why I'm passionate about reducing the pressure on young people, about going to university, what to take in school, and on getting that right first job. Today I am speaking with Christine Lelacheur, who has an interesting and winding journey from corporate to teaching and entrepreneurship, and now qualifying as a registered psychotherapist.

Christine:

How

Megan:

are

Christine:

you?

Megan:

Yeah, I'm all right. How are you?

Christine:

I'm good.

Megan:

Thank you for doing this. Thanks for having me. I think your career is so interesting, and your journey is exactly the inspiration for the podcast in terms of things don't necessarily go in a straight line. We make the best decisions we can with what's in front of us at that time and you're not stuck. So if you make one decision, you can make a new decision in the future. You're not stuck somewhere forever. And just the whole idea of I'd love to inspire people to take the pressure off a little bit. So yeah, so I'm super excited to jump into your career journey and your story.. So thank you. I always like to start right from the beginning. When you were small what did you want to be when you grew up? When I remember that far back.

Christine:

Actually, there is a newspaper clipping from grade one I don't even remember how this came about, but they came to our class and asked a whole bunch of us what we wanted to be when we were adults, when we grew up. And. It said I wanted to be a teacher. So I don't remember really that I wanted to be a teacher, but clearly I did. That's what I, that's what I told them. And I think that makes sense. That tracks I actually really loved school. I for the most part, really liked my teachers. I connected with them. I actually saw them as, human beings. Um, and, I loved learning and probably a little too much sometimes imparting that knowledge to others. So that makes sense. Probably by junior high middle school. It changed a little bit more towards like I wanted to be a lawyer or I used to joke in high school. I think my high school one said, I wanted to rule the world. So a little more on that assertiveness but, and, the lawyer, it was, everyone always told me you should be a lawyer because I really liked arguing that classic. And yeah, but nothing, I never had like always the same one. This is what I want it to be. I'm, I've known since I was. So yeah, the answer kind of changed over time, and I still probably didn't even have one going into university.

Megan:

What did you take in university then, if you didn't have an exact idea?

Christine:

Yeah, I would say I more picked my major out of, even, not even major, like area of study by process of elimination, if I am honest. I don't even remember deciding I'm going to go into business, so that's what I went into in undergrad. I think it was more like, okay I don't want to do sciences, I don't want to do med nursing, like all of those health sciences I want to do. At that time I decided I didn't want to do education. I think I was a little more, we're probably leaning towards business on career ambition and wanting to still conquer the world at that point. And so it was just like crossing it off. Like I loved sociology, psychology, arts at that time, I was like, what do you do with arts? And so yeah, I, crossing everything off the list eventually came down to business. There's a lot of my dad's side of the family lots of business people in it, like lots of entrepreneurs. So again, it wasn't really surprising. I had done a lot of those tests in high school like aptitude tests, that would come up like a lot of times communications, marketing, lawyer would come up in those. Business person, entrepreneur or so that I guess led me towards that. But I just think back now to almost how much I limited myself, but not knowing like what all the different options were felt like there's only five or six different options. And then some of them, despite being really good at math, for instance, I'd never been exposed to engineering.

Megan:

And I

Christine:

really did think it was Related to trains. And so just even not even being exposed to different careers.

Megan:

Yeah, I think that's a good point. There's so many different undergrad degrees you can do. So even knowing what they all are, but just knowing all the jobs at the end and it's impossible to know all of them. So we know what we're exposed to through family and friends. But there's so much more kind of out there, and then there's all this pressure to choose something that feels practical even though we're, 18, 19 years old.

Christine:

I still struggle with where do I see myself in the next couple of years. So to ask that of a, I was 17 when I started university. To be like, Oh, what do you want to do for the rest of your life? Like I had no idea. And also even limiting yourself to university, Because I love school because I love learning that probably was the natural progression, but how many other occupations are out there through the college stream through apprenticeship I think I saw, I'm not going to quote it because I'm horrible at memorizing studies and stuff, but it was about how asking high school students about career prospects, and they can only list five or six. It was very limited on what they even knew was available to them.

Megan:

Yeah, a hundred percent. I know the industry I'm in. I didn't know that existed. And there are roles within this industry that we definitely wouldn't have known existed. I'm in payments, anti money laundering. Would I have known that was a thing? No.

Christine:

Right. What is that? Besides like mob boss movies or something that you might just watch. Exactly. And even a lot of the careers now didn't even exist when we were in university.

Megan:

100%. 100%. Yeah, then there's new things popping up all the time. So you did go to business or take business for your undergrad. Did you go on to do post grad or did you jump into the working world right after undergrad?

Christine:

Yeah I started working after undergrad. I was working through university and, a lot of times when people are working a part time job many will go to like service industry, like where they're getting tips and stuff. And, making pretty good money with that. I found jobs that were well aligned with my major, which was organizational behavior.

Megan:

Mm hmm.

Christine:

So that was pretty great that I was getting exposure to things like leadership development, change management, those types of things when I was still an undergrad, which I think helped me find a full time job when I graduated in that field. I was, I started more in the HR area and then an opportunity came not even a year after graduation to move over to marketing, which was a course I really love, or like a study I really love. And it was related to, it was business to business marketing. So helping other service oriented businesses, professional businesses B2Bs. Market their companies. So it wasn't like to consumer. And it was actually a really good mix of, having that organizational behavior.'cause you're doing a lot of strategy work as well in addition to the marketing and advertising. There wasn't as much advertising. And after a few years there, I think I was there about three or four years and my boss. And he went to Queens and did the executive MBA program, but told me about another program that was just starting. That was for people who had their undergraduate degrees in commerce. So they had to have a commerce to take it. So it was only one year instead of two. So I went back and did my MBA when I was 25. Oh wow. So pretty young, I think I was one of the youngest in the program. Yeah, pretty green.

Megan:

It's an interesting program that Queens offers because they're two normal streams as the people who go to the MBA immediately after undergrad. And then there's. the other stream, which is usually people have worked like 10 plus years who do an MBA and you did something in the middle of that

Christine:

in the middle. Yeah. And even the program I felt was a little bit in the middle. It wasn't quite an executive program. Like you said, it wasn't people I would say most would be 15, 20 years. From their undergrad, probably more senior level people, and then there's the ones. Yeah, that went straight in. So it's a pretty young most of the classmates were probably in that 5 to 15 year range. And they were actually all across Canada. So that was,

Megan:

yeah.

Christine:

So you you did some residency in Kingston but then the rest of your courses, they were like the originators of online learning because many, many years ago, and we went every second week for video conferencing with our team in our city. And. Huh. All of us would be there together with the prof in in Kingston. So, great way to build networks and that's. It's also been a big part of, opportunities, presenting themselves and exposure to different industries.

Megan:

Yeah. That's really cool. That, they really does sound like they were the originator of online and a good mix of online, but still with your local group.

Christine:

Yeah. Yeah. And they still had the in person sessions for, I think it was like four weeks, which were intense. Yeah. Yeah. They're from like 8 in the morning to 10 or 11 p. m. at night. So you really got to know, you

Megan:

know, Amazing. So what did you do after your MBA?

Christine:

So by that point, I really loved where I was working. I think just for me, I tend to get a little itchy after, three to five years of something and finishing the MBA, it was an opportunity to do something a little different in one. Again, fell in my lap. You'll see this theme of, presented itself to me that I wasn't looking for to actually move overseas and work in the Middle East in Doha. And it was a contract to work on a special event because that was another area. That I had worked, always worked in like part time jobs and stuff was event planning. And so again, marrying the business and that I went over and my role was like in the project management area for a They were hosting an international sporting event and working with the company helping with all of the look and feel. So there was the marketing element of it. And I was over there, obviously amazing once in a lifetime experience in my mid twenties. And, ended up traveling a bunch after that and then I came back and started working in recruitment, which was actually with one of my former clients when I was at the marketing firm. So that's, yeah, that's mid twenties.

Megan:

Wow, amazing. And Is that what you're doing now? Or, no, that was

Christine:

the yeah, that was the mid twenties phase. So I was working in recruitment, but ended up moving to Calgary as I was back. I don't think I mentioned I was from Edmonton. So then Edmonton doing that moved Calgary to open a new branch for them, which was an exciting opportunity to do that. But then. Part of the reason I actually went and did my MBA was because I knew you could teach at the post secondary and master's. So it does come a little full circle to the grade one child who said she wanted to be a teacher because that was a, an interest of mine. In Edmonton, I had joined which is now Grant McEwen University as a sessional instructor. And then when I moved down to Calgary, I joined Mount Royal as a sessional instructor. And then there was an opportunity to go more full time with Mount Royal. So I did that and I was teaching business. Um, and then, without getting into the length of this story, but love brought me to Toronto and so I moved to Toronto and I ended up working with Sheridan College and then had a baby and I was on mat leave and then an opportunity presented itself again, fell into my lap to do more corporate. Training and so to take what I've been doing, at the college level, marry it with my business experience and work with corporate clients that way. And so that's what I did for a number of years that grew from, as I developed a leadership program for high potentials at this company. That was. At first, just like a pilot program of one intake, but it's a pretty comprehensive, like six month leadership program about 20, 25 individuals. And then over the next few years, rolled it out. This is a large multinational company. We rolled it out across North America with, at its height, about 250 participants across. 10 different locations. Wow. That's pretty amazing. That was pretty amazing. And then I, went from being not only the instructional designer of the program and facilitating it, at that point it became so large, we found other facilitators. So then I was in a train the trainer type role and throughout all of this, I was also doing coaching with. The participants and, really enjoyed that. And I started doing that more and more and then found that a lot of the clients were experiencing similar struggles and. Some of those struggles were really starting to move into other areas that were not my background, my expertise, noticing it wasn't just necessarily stress. It was more burnout, anxiety even depression and areas that were really important to address, but I did not feel that I Was adequately experienced enough or it didn't have the the education to do that. And so that was, yeah, the next phase that brought me up to my early 40s and that brings me closer to where we are today.

Megan:

I think it's really amazing because like you said, so many of these opportunities kind of fell in your lap, but they're all based a little bit on what you were doing before. So there's, there's clear connections on that journey. And a massive program of, once you have 250 people going through it and train the trainer and that's huge. And I could see how then as you're doing that one to one coaching, it just gets outside of your life isn't just your job.

Christine:

And

Megan:

so your life comes, starts to come into your job. And of course it would.

Christine:

And it should, like it should. And I would say that to clients. It's like, look, I don't, I know this is, executive coaching corporate coaching, but it, I'm not saying you only should talk about what's happening at work because. Despite best efforts to compartmentalize, like the two bleed into each other, they overlap. Obviously things are going on in your personal life. And so we would. Look at those areas. We wouldn't ignore them, but it was just more like noticing this trend and companies started talking more about mental health and its importance and putting a spotlight on it. And that's when I started looking and you're right. The common theme seems to be like, I take one part. Of something I've done and go into a new area, but join them. So it's not necessarily brand new, something out of left field becoming like a, I don't know, a baker or something. But I've never shown any interest in that. It marries my past experiences with where I'm heading. And so that. Is when I started looking at heading back to school for another master's this time in master of arts in counseling psychology and getting the professional designation I need in order to help support clients, not only, from the career aspect, but also holistically, like the, their whole mental health.

Megan:

Is that a hard decision to go back to school? You now have kids and all of that and family life. And is it a hard decision to step out of the corporate world and go back to school?

Christine:

Yeah. By then I had my two kids and we were. Just, oh, and was it still in COVID coming out of COVID, you know, but like many, COVID was an opportunity to really,

Megan:

you

Christine:

know, stop and reflect on what we're doing. Did we like it? Did we want to keep doing it? And. It was also following the pattern of me getting a little antsy and itch to learn something because that's been the other, common thread is love of learning is really do learning new things. It was a lot, the program I did. I don't think I appreciated it when I looked into it and started it which probably is one of the reasons I finished it, because I think if I would have known what I was signing up for, I'm not quite sure if I would have taken the plunge on that one. Sometimes. Ignorance is bliss, where it helps us do things that if we know too much, we can talk ourselves out of.

Megan:

Yeah, because then there's a fear, and not just fear, but also just the amount of work seems daunting, like the amount just seems too high to climb.

Christine:

Right, like, oh, this is too much right now, I can't And so almost me not knowing that, and how much it was going to be, how long, cause it was almost three years from start to finish. Oh wow, I didn't realize it was so long. My first Masters was the one year, it was the condensed. And and then I wasn't married and I didn't have children with the first one, so much more free time. But I was like, Oh, this is what I want to do. And I didn't really dive deep into it. I actually started two weeks after I showed interest in it, which, yeah, has generally served me well in the past doing things a little impulsively and decisive, I would say. Exactly. Exactly. So yeah, that's how I got into it. And now I'm, I've completed the program and I have opened my own therapy practice and I am still helping a lot of same type of individuals now through that therapeutic lens. So just, yeah, more tools to help and support. More tools and just digging into maybe their past, like you wouldn't do that in the, film and and just making sure you're looking at their overall mental health and supporting them.

Megan:

Yeah, that makes sense. I can imagine it's intense. So the schooling, the doing the masters, I can imagine was intense. Just. With the amount of things to learn, but then to actually do the practice and Be having those conversations with people, which you were having before, but the digging in to people's backgrounds and potentially trauma and very emotional experiences. I can imagine that can be quite intense though.

Christine:

Yeah. So there were a lot of similarities and people in my life who, especially those. Who tend to be more the ones that, knew what they wanted to be and did it, and then have stayed in that they look at my journey as a little chaotic. A little bit of making those leaps, out of left field. And so when I said, Oh, I'm going to go back and get another master's and become a therapist. People were like, that is such a huge departure from what you were doing. And to me, again, it wasn't because I was. Working with these individuals one on one sometimes people tend to think coaching like more in the realm of sports coaching where it's go do that and telling people what to do. But, when you're doing executive coaching, we are not telling people what to do. Helping, guide people to get to those decisions on their own. So that still shows up a lot in therapy. And so it wasn't like that big of a transition there. But like you said, some of the topics obviously a lot more they, they either involve a lot of trauma people just. Really struggling and being vulnerable. And one areas I really had to work on is holding space for them and and being able to connect with them on those deeper challenges and struggles they're having, but also be that support system, which You know, can it, involve like you're sitting with them, but you're not getting it into it with them, if that makes sense.

Megan:

Yeah. Yeah. And it does tie to the coaching, as you were saying. And actually, there's a bunch of things like I've learned just today that I didn't know you had done, but I do see how they all connect. And when you think about coaching to therapy, to your point, coaching similarly is. Sitting beside someone and maybe helping give them options, but they still have to make the decisions and carry it forward and you're just like a sounding board and helping give options and things like that. And I imagine that is similar in therapy. With a wider range of topics.

Christine:

Yeah, and I think there is also an element of challenging people, but you can't do that until you build. A strong connection where they're feeling safe and secure and you wouldn't do that when they're not there yet because that can be really scary and that would be a little bit of a difference, I'd say, with the coaching and therapy and stuff. You could probably get to that a little bit quicker in a

Megan:

coaching.

Christine:

Relationship, so that's something, that with the work I've done and the education is like being able to assess that and to support clients through that.

Megan:

Again. Wider range of topics, more emotional topics, potentially, and that trust really needs to be there. Sometimes when you're coaching, it's a, you're talking about a presentation or a conversation, but their boss or whatever. So the challenging can happen much earlier. Yeah, that's amazing. When you think back, and we've touched on this already, but when you think back on the common threads, love of learning, and one of the ones that I see that we've talked about is how there is that connection. It's like you've taken a piece of something you were already doing, and either taking a skill set of it or a piece of it To explore more. And that's led to the next thing. Are there other things when you look back that are like common threads or skills that you have really carried through

Christine:

yeah we talked about. Those common themes of taking one thing and expanding it, and I've always more embraced a generalist mindset as opposed to a specialist, and I think that's just because as much as I love learning, I dive into a topic, but I usually Come out of it and then you don't want to go into, the next topic. And so I think embracing more of that generalist mindset allows you to do that. I've always joked, the whole Jill of all trades, master of none or mistress of none. I know a little bit about a lot as opposed to a little bit. And so I think that helped me make those jumps, is being more of that generalist. Is you could take, it was easier to see skills. In one area that could be applied those transfer to other areas, and I would even say a lot of specialists probably also have this. They might just struggle to see those skill sets, or they've had other people downplay those skill sets or not help them see those transferable skills. I think just me keeping it more general helped me see that and, another common thread, I think, is most of my roles have involved helping people from maybe that more strategic perspective of helping them take things they're feeling overwhelmed with that are feeling really, really big and helping break it down into something more, whether it's structured, if that's what they're looking for more approachable Something that they can, wrap their heads around more. And in another common element is I try to keep it fun and light. And so even in, somewhat enjoyable way. And that's from when I was. A marketing manager doing that for people's businesses to HR recruitment, helping companies, find the right people and people find the right companies to students and then obviously clients in the coaching and therapy world. That's, been another common thread and not that this is necessarily the common thread. But when you look at those things of being more of the generalist of the love of learning about something and diving in deep and moving to the next thing and like being able to, maybe take some of these risks or be more impulsive or have my own businesses. Didn't find out till I was in my early 40s of being diagnosed with ADHD and all of that started to make sense. So that was also the common thread. Which now, it's embraced a little on the nose because a lot of my clients have found themselves in a similar situation, either, suspected or late diagnosed neurodivergent and unpacking that. Of their own past journeys and how that's shown up where it's been struggles, but also where it's been strengths and I can definitely see many ways that it's been struggles for my clients and for myself, but many of the things we've talked about today, it's been the strength that's helped.

Megan:

Yeah.

Christine:

Yeah.

Megan:

And that's, that's definitely a fairly new diagnosis for women especially, so I can imagine that does come up a lot. And I really liked what you said about that generalist view and it makes you just a bit more flexible and be able to evaluate the opportunity more for what it is. Because as you were saying, specialists are quite often really wedded to what they're doing, so even if they have the transferable skills, they either don't see them, to your point, or they doubt them, or they feel like they've invested so much in one area that the risk feels too big.

Christine:

Right, it would truly feel like restarting for someone. And that is huge if you're mid career oh, I can't start again. Even with all the transition, even going back to school, I don't feel like I ever felt like it was starting again.

Megan:

Yeah, you were never starting over completely.

Christine:

Yeah, it was continuing on.

Megan:

I think that continuing on is and that's exactly the point, because they're like building blocks, and you are using existing skills to either dive into a specific area or build on top. Rather than I start something completely different. And I think when you're a specialist, you miss that. You have that sunk cost fallacy, so to speak, of oh, I put all my time here, and even, yeah, even if I hate it, I have to keep going because I put so much time in, et cetera. Yeah, yeah, no, I, that was actually exactly what I was thinking when you were talking about it before. It was sunk cost fallacy is Yeah, just continuing on because you've already put that much effort, time, resource, everything into it and just feeling like it's just too much or it's losing too much to start again. Yeah, and it's for sure, it's scary, but I think, your career is a great example that it doesn't have to be like that. And we're not stuck if we don't want to be it does maybe take taking a bit of a chance or looking at things in a slightly different way. And something you said about in COVID having that time to really evaluate, I think is so important. I think it's hard for people to do. And so COVID was a bit of a unique time where we all got forced into that. And the other time I hear people find themselves doing that is if they were laid off or made redundant, and because they're unexpectedly finding themselves in that place. Just. It would be great if we could start all, myself included, I'm not great at this either, like just building in that reflection into.

Christine:

Right. But a lot of times until we are forced into those moments I would say for those who have children, you hear similar things on maybe when they're on parental leave sometimes sabbaticals for certain roles is when you were taken out of it and you have that opportunity to reflect that. On it, not in it,

Megan:

and

Christine:

that we don't get too many opportunities to do.

Megan:

A hundred percent. It's that whole being able to see the wood for the trees of like when you're in it. You can't see at all. You don't have the perspective. So if you could go back in time and give your younger self advice what advice would you give yourself?

Christine:

It was laying out like almost a script of meeting your younger self for coffee and what the conversation would look like. And so I had ChatGPT do that for me and it was pretty enlightening. It was talking about. Meeting with my younger self, that was still a lot more, one thing we, we didn't really talk about how, it evolved as I was talking about in high school and even university, like that very ambitious go getter. Yeah. The world and you might sense that I'm not quite on that same, wavelength now and meeting my younger self. She would have still been on that trying to, climb up the corporate ladder, people pleasing high achiever, headed straight to burnout. And in essence it happened a little bit. At a pretty young age, I think I don't know if it was doing the MBA, if it was moving overseas I'm not sure when it happened, but just being able to reflect on as opposed to in of I actually don't really want this. I don't love the corporate world. It doesn't feel like me and now I look back and can see, as someone with ADHD, it wasn't for me I don't fit that 8 to 5 mold. I don't fit people telling me what to do. I don't fit following or being told to follow policies, processes I don't fit. I was more about just judge me on the output. Don't look behind the curtain. And I was very lucky to work for a lot of organizations, like smaller organizations that, allow me to have that agency to do that. But I feel like I got off the corporate ladder pretty quickly in my twenties and You said, what would you tell your younger self, but like, she figured it out, maybe, just trust the process and you'll get there. And also lean into all the things where you're asking yourself Huh, I may be a bit different on this, or maybe I don't think I don't look at things the same way. Is lean into that, and it's but I think I did for the most part. I just maybe looked at it more as like an individual thing which it is, but at the same time recognizing now oh, that was a, that's a shared experience with many neurodivergent people. I thought, I just thought it was quirky. And, being like, oh, so what is my personality? If that is all of the ADHD. And. I'm not questioning it. I'm not worrying so much about it.

Megan:

Trust the process is such good advice and something I still am always trying to remember and lean into. And I think as you get older, you do get a little bit more comfortable with that. But as you were saying, your younger self probably wouldn't have listened to any advice outside of trust the process because she was so ambitious and wanting to conquer that corporate ladder.

Christine:

Yeah. but I think at the end of the day, she's still still doing it her own way and that ambition like actually helped because it was a little bit of being confident enough and I guess believing in herself enough that, that it was like, yeah, I don't want I don't like this and I don't have to do it. And, but I don't know, yeah, if I would've, if I would tell her that now, like 100 percent would not listen for sure. She needed to figure that out for herself. I now raise children that it's you tell them, don't do something they 100 percent have to put their hand on the hot stove to find out it's hot.

Megan:

Have to, learn a lot of these lessons the hard way and doing it yourself.

Christine:

And then, but then making your own rules to like another, that's been the common theme. I don't think we talked about that is I did jump off that, that corporate track pretty early. And even started my career with a more small business and I made things fit for what worked for me. So owning my own business, like doing the entrepreneurship thing allows me to do it the way I want. And if it wasn't working and I wasn't fitting is making something that does fit.

Megan:

That's. Really powerful because you had said earlier in the conversation of some of the people, you know, maybe don't see the connections but you haven't been afraid to make those decisions and say, this isn't working for me, or actually, I'm going to do it my own way, despite maybe, people in your environment who don't always get it, you're going to, do it anyway.

Christine:

Yeah. And really when you're applying to jobs and you feel like, okay, even if you do a belief in your transferable skills and they can't see it I can see that's very frustrating. I could totally see that's frustrating for people who are willing to, jump out of what they were doing and do something else and want to switch and they could, they can see all of it, but trying to. Sell a recruiter on that can be another thing, whereas I just didn't even play that game. I just was like, you know, and ended up funny enough in a role right now where my lived experience. Is actually a benefit that it's, not related to so, so yes, I'm late to the game of becoming a therapist at this age, but many clients have actually come and said I specifically picked you because you have that background in business or because, your second career, third or fourth

Megan:

yeah.

Christine:

You have that maturity. I was like, a bit of old. We'll just say that. Because not every therapist is a fit for every client or vice versa. You might have your ones that are the younger went straight into their masters after and they're a great fit for a lot of people. And then there's. Other clients that are like, no, I want someone that has that lived experience. So it's been a benefit.

Megan:

That's amazing. When you look forward, what's your vision or what you're hoping for?

Christine:

Yeah. Even if, retired, Christine came back, I'd probably ignore her too. I'm still, or, and honestly, if you. You heard a few times of Oh, it landed in my lap and Oh, it presented an opportunity here. I have no idea. And it's funny because being an executive coach, even, therapists, especially in the coaching realm of so much of it's find your vision. Where do you see yourself? And I never bought it. I'm like, I don't know. And part of it is I think I would have missed opportunities. If I was too focused on where I wanted to go and that has been the theme of this journey is these opportunities presented themselves because I was open to them and had the audacity to entertain them and flexible and where I was going because I didn't necessarily have an end point in mind. I was just. Enjoying the journey,

Megan:

That in itself is great advice. And you're right. When you're too focused on a specific thing, it's very easy to get tunnel vision and you just don't see the other things or you dismiss them because it's no, I want to do this. But it's if you don't even look at it or explore it a little bit you're You don't know what decision you're actually making and what you might be giving up.

Christine:

Yeah. No, for sure. And I do see the flip side. If you don't have anything, obviously you might feel like rather rudderless, just floating around. And so there is that, give and take. And I've also had things because I had, getting the MBA because I wanted to, I liked the idea of teaching at the post secondary. Then I taught at the post secondary level, which opened up, going more towards corporate coaching and facilitation, leadership and even doing this therapy program. Like I always plan to keep it virtual because that actually One area I want to focus on is traveling and my family's away right now for a year. And about five years ago, I was asked that question, where do you see yourself in five years? And I knew it aligned with a sabbatical my husband had and I was like, I want to be overseas. So that did help actually say whatever I do, I want it to be able to fit that goal.

Megan:

Yeah,

Christine:

I do see the value in it, but I think being really open and flexible and like the goal was to be a way it wasn't what I was doing.

Megan:

So it's helpful to have goals or things you need in your life or values, boundaries, like they come in many forms to help. Shape the direction and it's good to have a general direction of oh, these are things I like and don't like and use those as evaluation tools as well along the journey, but being really focused on, oh, I want that job in that industry. can close down opportunities. And also, unless you already have some experience with the industry or that job, you don't actually know. So you can put all your time in getting there and then not enjoy it, which again is okay, because we never know until we do it. But again, it goes back to that sunk cost fallacy of You can get there and be like, Oh, I spent five years just working for this and not doing anything else and saying no to other things. And actually I hate it. And for some people that can be quite Demoralizing or they can feel like they've wasted time, which is my personal view is it's never a waste of time because you don't know until you do it. But but there is that kind of that balance of, even if you really are sure where you want to go don't completely have the, the blinders on like your

Christine:

peripheral vision there. Flexibility just watch. How rigid you get with it and that you're still, you're, yeah, you have your eyes open on what other opportunities are potentially presenting themselves.

Megan:

A hundred percent. That is, it's amazing. And as I said, off the top, I've always been super interested by your career journey and and it turns out I only knew a very small part of it. it's always been personally inspiring of you are willing to take a chance and that's something like on a personal level, I sometimes and more risk adverse. I don't think that's really exactly what I mean, but more kind of

Christine:

calculated risk taker. I might sometimes. Missed the calculations,

Megan:

but I think it's also like a good example of that's okay to it will work out and if that thing it didn't work out exactly. Yeah, you'll go on to the next thing like there's always so much to take away from the trying. And, with being willing to take a leap. on something that's interesting, or you want to explore more, or that comes across your path that you didn't plan for. Thank you so much for sharing your journey, and thank you for allowing me to share my journey. Thank you. And yeah, the lessons that you've learned along the way I really appreciate it. Thanks, Megan.

I've always been fascinated by Christine's journey as every time I spoke with her, she seemed to be doing something new, and the three things I really learned from her in this conversation were first, her willingness to explore things that interest her and dive deep into something and then follow her curiosity on, and it allowed her to build a really diverse set of skills. Second, her openness to opportunities. Christine's pursuit of learning and following her curiosity, likely opened up opportunities. As she said, they sometimes fell in her lap, but she was actually open to taking the leap and doing things that from the outside perspective maybe didn't seem to connect. And third, trust your gut. Although we didn't explicitly speak about this, it really seemed to me that Christine was able to trust her instincts, whether it was making her own rules, evaluating those opportunities that fell in her lap or decisively starting a second Master's just weeks after deciding it might be something she wanted to pursue and she did so despite sometimes facing doubt from those around her. Lastly, I loved what she said about sometimes having to learn it yourself the hard way, but just trust the process. Thank you for listening to the unexpected career podcast, please follow, share and rate on your favorite podcast provider. The unexpected career podcast is produced, edited and hosted by me, Megan Dunford. See you next week.