Who Are You Without the Title? (with Carly Anna Walker)

When people lose a job, a role, or a career they've spent decades building, they often describe it as losing themselves. 

And I understand why — when your identity has been organized around your work, your title, your mission, the work going away can feel like you going away. But here's what this conversation with my guest Carly Anna Walker made even clearer: Your work was never the foundation of your identity to begin with. It was just one expression of it. 

And that distinction changes everything.

Carly Anna Walker is a former behavior analyst, a master's-level psychologist, and a coach to coaches and entrepreneurs whose work sits at the intersection of behavioral reconditioning and identity change. She created the Midas Coach — a psychology-grounded coach training program — and has spent nearly a decade helping people identify and update the conditioning that quietly puts a ceiling on their growth, their income, and their freedom. 

Carly is also one of my most trusted mentors, and someone I turn to when I want to think more rigorously about how identity actually works.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• What self-concept actually is, how it's formed, and why a fixed self-concept creates as many problems as it solves
• Why the feeling that your identity has been "taken away" is a misunderstanding — and what's actually true about identity that makes this moment an opportunity
• How to use your values as a decision-making framework when everything feels uncertain and unclear
• Why we wait for external permission to change — and what it takes to stop outsourcing that decision to circumstances, other people, or fate
• What agency actually means in the context of identity change, and how to start exercising it even when you're still in the thick of loss or transition

I hope you love this conversation as much as I loved having it. Carly is one of those people who makes the abstract feel actionable and the psychological feel personal. She has inspired me, and I know she'll inspire you, too.

Changeology is a podcast about the real, messy, nonlinear process of personal change — hosted by Dr. Meg Trucano, developmental psychologist and change coach.

Book a free 30-minute Clarity Call here to cut through the noise and bring next steps into focus: https://www.megtrucano.com/book-a-call

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Meg: Welcome back to Change Ology, where we explore the psychology philosophy and real life mechanics behind making big, bold life changes. Today we're talking about something that sits beneath almost every major life transition identity or self-concept. If you're psychology nerds, like today's guest and I are, because when people.

Start questioning their career, their lifestyle, their relationship, the direction of their life. They may feel like the friction they feel comes from the logistics of their situation, but the real friction is often psychological. It has to do with the story they've been telling themselves about who they are. To talk about this, my guest today is a personal hero of mine, Carly Anna Walker. She is a former behavior analyst and therefore fellow psychology nerd, a coach to coaches and entrepreneurs, and a writer who spends a lot of time thinking about the nuances around identity and self concept. As a behavioral psychology informed business coach with a master's in psychology and nearly a decade of experience working with female entrepreneurs, Carly's work sits at the intersection of behavioral reconditioning and business strategy.

It's so fascinating. Through her seven transformations framework, she helps establish entrepreneurs identify and update the conditioning that. Puts a cap on their growth, their income, and their freedom. Carly is also the creator of the Midas coach, which is a psychology grounded coach training program. In it, she teaches her methodology to coaches who want to create real lasting change with their clients, and this is actually how I met Carly, and she's been inspiring me ever since I worked with her inside the Midas coach. In this conversation today, Carly and I explore why identity isn't nearly as fixed as most of us think it is. Why letting go of an old identity can feel so threatening to us, and what actually happens psychologically when you start becoming someone different. I hope you love this conversation with Carly.

As much as I loved talking with her about identity, please enjoy. 

Welcome to the Change Ology podcast. Carly, how are you today?

[00:02:41] Carly Anna Walker: I'm so good, Meg, thank you so much for having me.

[00:02:44] Meg: I am. So I'm just, I'm so excited to have you on. I mentioned earlier in my introduction that you are a mentor of mine and also a fellow psychology nerd like me, and I know you and I both love talking. And discussing the nuances of self-concept and identity change, and we find these things completely fascinating.

So I'm very excited for our conversation. But to kind of ground our audience in a little bit, in who you are, can you please briefly describe your background and how you came to be where you are?

[00:03:19] Carly Anna Walker: Of course. So, my name's Carly Walker. I am a New Zealander, which is why we have slightly different accents. And I am currently a coach, and a mentor to coaches as well through the lens of psychology, which is how we know each other. And I came to be in this place through the, I came through the psychology pathway into coaching.

So I started my career. Very excited to be a psychologist. Very keen to be working in that field. I did my undergraduate. I worked in behavioral therapy for many, many years. I did my masters in psychology and. It was probably about two months after I finished that master's that I really finally was honest with myself that I couldn't keep going down that pathway, that it wasn't quite giving me everything that I wanted out of my life.

It gave me a great sense of. Impact and meaning because I loved the work, yet I knew that it wasn't quite the work that I was supposed to be doing. it gave me, you know, a great connection. Great, you know, sense of purpose, but it was really missing a lot of the other things that I wanted for my life. I wanted to be able to travel and to be able to impact people from all over the world, not just the ones that were there, you know, in therapy with me.

I wanted to make a much. Bigger and wider impact. And at that point in time, the field of psychology didn't really allow for that. You know, online work wasn't really a thing. Online courses not very common. So we're talking back in 2017, and so I, you know, struggled for a long time. What am I gonna go and do?

Where am I gonna like, make the impact that I wanna make? And eventually this idea of coaching just kind of dropped in. And IP pood it for a long time because as you probably experienced in your shift, there's a lot of judgment in the psychology world towards coaching, which I completely understand. And I finally kind of thought, you know, I just have to try this and see what happens.

And so I started training as a coach and immediately loved it. It was like the, the level of transformation that I really wanted to be making with people I. Was very burnt out on working with, you know, kids and clients from the medical model. Like, there's something to be fixed, there's something wrong with you, there's something you know going wrong.

And I really, that way of working didn't gel with me and I very much wanted to be working with people from a very more like positive psychology mindset and like, you know, how can we take you from baseline to thriving and how can we, you know, look at your strengths and help that. To build the life that you want.

And, coaching just really felt like home to me. And so I took the leap and I think I've now officially been coaching for longer than I was a therapist, which feels a little bit crazy. Yeah, I think I crossed that over last year. Yeah. So now I run my own coaching business. I work with clients all over the world.

I also. Aside from my work directly as a business coach, I also mentor other coaches to use psychology based methods in their coaching, which is another piece that I'm really passionate about. and that kind of brings us to where we are today.

[00:06:34] Meg: Yeah, well that's how, for the audience listening, that's how Carly and I met, through the Midas coach, which is,A fantastic program for any coach out there who wants to elevate their, their coaching and really become an exceptional coach. And I feel so grateful to you for pulling together this program that was.

So in depth and so rich and completely based in science and psychology because that's where my heart is too. It is at this intersection, sometimes fraught intersection of psychology and coaching. And so without getting into too much detail of, of all of the ins and outs of all of that, I, I. Completely resonate with your story of just wanting something different and a little bit more, and I think that's where a lot of the audience is as well.

So let's get stuck in here on identity and kinda, I think we all, and I'm using all in kind of air quotes here. We have a collective kinda loose understanding of what identity is, right? You often hear people see it, say things like, I'm the kind of person who, or, you know, I can't do this because that's not who I am.

But let's get clear for the audience and define our terms. So from a psychological perspective, what is identity? How is it created, and why is it so important to us as humans?

[00:08:01] Carly Anna Walker: Okay.

[00:08:04] Meg: Real short answer, I.

[00:08:05] Carly Anna Walker: From a psychological perspective, we can look at identity through two different lenses. So we can look at this frame called self-concept, which is what you've just utilized. So this is like the concept of who we are, who we believe ourselves to be, what we think is possible for us, what we think people like us will do or achieve, or think, or be, or how we, our self concept is really a list of.

Usually quite inflexible rules about who we are, and so that's like typical psychology. Now there's another kind of branch or field of psychology called acceptance and commitment therapy, or acceptance and commitment coaching, which is what I incorporate a lot of into the Midas coach, where we go, okay, self-concept might be how we typically think about ourselves.

But when we get very fixed on who we think that we are, that fixed self-concept can sometimes be really unhelpful to us because we think this is who I have to be, or this is who, who I have always been. Therefore, I have to continue being this person and those very rigid self concept. Can limit us massively from the lives that we want to live, from the people that we, the person that we want to be, from, what we can achieve.

But it also can create a lot of. Unease under the surface in our own personal experience when we have rigidity about who we think we have to be. And so in act, we look at self as context. So who do we want to be in this moment? Who do we wanna be in this context? What values do we wanna bring forth? What strengths do we wanna bring forth?

And we are looking at self-concept. Or we are looking at ourselves as a, from a much more flexible point of view. And so I think both can be really helpful because we have to understand that most people do actually have a self-concept. But using self as context, we can help build more flexibility in how we see ourselves, but also how we behave in the world.

And that's, I think, where a lot of magic happens because we start to see people go, ah, all of these things that I thought. Were true about me. What if they're not, like, what if I could be someone else or what if I could, you know, have more flexibility or, you know, have like an alter ego that is kind of who I am in these situations and that helps me to achieve different things and you know, then I can come home and I can be a different person with my kids.

And like, it really, that flexibility really gives us a lot of freedom and I think a lot of fulfillment because we can really wear a lot of different hats and, I think it's a really special way to look at. At identity, so I tend to, to look at it from that perspective.

[00:10:50] Meg: Okay, so something that struck me as you were, as you were talking is, and I find myself falling into this trap very often. Especially in the business world, the entrepreneurial world, I feel like there are a lot of, of expectations for oneself. How what? Like what kind of, person you have to be, what kind of identity you have to adopt in order to achieve an outcome, like a specific outcome, right?

Like in order to make money, I have to be, I have to be the kind of person who does X, Y, Z. Do you see that a lot in your practice too?

[00:11:22] Carly Anna Walker: I see that all the time in my practice. Yeah, absolutely. That there's very rigid ideas about, oh, that person is really successful and they have done it this way, therefore I must also do it that way. Yeah, and it creates a lot of issues because you know when there's a values conflict, when that person. Is doing it in a way that conflicts with your values or when that person is doing it in a way that conflicts with your strengths or, you know, what your skills are or just simply how you wanna do business, that becomes a problem.

And the way that I coach business owners is very much from the lens of like, you get to do business your way. Sure, there are gonna be things that you will need to learn and things that you will need to do, but there is always a way to do them that fits who you are and who you want to be. And that best version of yourself.

[00:12:08] Meg: Yeah, and I think, I mean this is kind of the world I occupy too, just not with with business owners and entrepreneurs, is this world of seeing. Seeing what you don't have, seeing what you want and that space between what you want and where you currently are, that's change, right? The mechanism, getting from where you are to where you want to be.

Right? And in my work, as I, you know, support and coach women through major life changes and career changes, no one comes to me with I, you know, and, a desire to. Work on an identity shift, right? Like that's not, no, that's not the lang, that's what's happening. That, that's not the language we use, right?

Like this is something like, oh, you know, I used to really love my job, but it doesn't seem to fit me anymore. Or big one is, new moms will come to me and they'll say, oh my gosh, the things that were so crucially important to me a year ago do not matter at all to me anymore. Another one is, that I hear a lot is, you know, I'm really unhappy with the way I am living my life right now, but I just, I don't know how to make it feel better.

Right. And I think the unifying thread among kind of all of these, situations, I guess is that. I think a lot of people tend to think that they can't change or haven't been able to change, or haven't been able to achieve an outcome that they want because of the logistics or the context of their situation.

[00:13:37] Carly Anna Walker: Yep.

[00:13:37] Meg: Actually, when they feel like something is off in their lives, one of the biggest barriers is them clinging to kind of an outgrown identity.

[00:13:46] Carly Anna Walker: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

[00:13:48] Meg: So why, in your opinion, is our ability to kind of make and sustain meaningful change? So inextricably linked to our ability to update and change our self-concept at the same time?

[00:14:04] Carly Anna Walker: Can you say that again? Why are they so inextricably linked?

[00:14:08] Meg: Yeah, so why, why is the ability to have a flexible self-concept to, to in, you know, have the self in context so crucial to successful change?

[00:14:21] Carly Anna Walker: Oh God. Okay. Well I think that there are two parts to this, right? Like the first part is like what you are going to need to do to create that change, right? And so when we see ourselves as someone who is not capable of that or you know that outcomes for people who are not like me, I see this one around money a lot. Or like around Yeah. Successful successes in business. When people kind of say, I have this financial goal, but they don't actually see themselves as someone who is capable of having that money, is, responsible with that kind of money. They don't see that outcome as being, Possible for their current self-concept.

So there's like those beliefs that are kind of interplaying or stopping them from being able to take as much action as they really want to be able to take, because it's kind of like, well, I'm not that person, so how could I possibly even get there? It's kind of like it's written off in their mind before they've even started.

And then I think the other piece of it is actually just the quality of our experience as we move towards it. So if we're seeing ourselves as someone who, for whom that is not possible, we are just gonna experience so much more resistance along the way versus if we go, okay, so what if we start to see the outcome as actually not the point?

[00:15:46] Meg: Hmm.

[00:15:47] Carly Anna Walker: What if we don't see this goal as the point? What if we go, okay, this desire that I have is just simply the motivation for me to grow as a human and for me to grow as a human. That means looking at where do I have limiting ideas about who I am? Where do I have limiting ideas about what's possible for me?

Where do I have limiting ideas about? What people like me can create in their lives. And what if the outcome is actually just the motivation for you to look at all of those stories that are creating conflict in you, creating this sense of like, I can't do it. I'm not good enough, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

As a way for us to start looking at those stories, not as truth, but as just ideas that we've absorbed. This is the way that I see my growth in business now. 'cause you, you kind of get to a place in, in life where you are quite content and quite happy because you've been on this pathway for such a long time.

You have the things that you once wanted, but as humans we're designed to evolve. I am now seeing all of these desires that I have right now. It's just, they're just motivation for me to keep growing as a human being, for me to keep seeing where I'm still limiting myself, where I could be liberating myself from these beliefs and where I could be just growing as a human.

So I think it's, yes, it's about. Giving us the tools, identity is one of the tools that we can help to get to that destination. But I think we can also see it as like, it's actually just a tool for us to increase the quality of our life as well. 'cause for as long as we are tied to those old limiting ideas about who we are, we're gonna struggle, we're gonna really fight ourselves on, that's gonna be very frustrating and, and quite annoying.

[00:17:32] Meg: Yeah, as someone who has, I mean, I don't think you can get through the human experience and not have limiting beliefs and not have these, you know, internalized, structures and, and thoughts about who we are and who we can be, but. I, in working with clients, I find that there are so many more instances of people not really realizing that these stories are getting in the way.

And, and another thing I see pretty often, and I'm curious, your experience is that I see a lot of waiting for external permission to change on, on more of a, an identity level. Right? Sometimes this can come out as like fear of judgment from other people, or maybe it's like, you know, contradicting some pretty deep social conditioning.

Right. you know, I had a client the other day, she's like, oh, I could never do this thing. I'm just not the kind of person who would start my own business, quit, quit my job and travel the world, you know, insert anything here. so I'm just, I'm curious, does that kind of square with your experience as well?

[00:18:42] Carly Anna Walker: The waiting for permission thing. Yeah. Oh, totally. Like, I mean, I think one of the really cool things in the personal development world is that you realize that like no one is going to give you permission for anything. No one is gonna turn up in your doorstep and be like. It's time for you to have blah, blah, blah.

Like it is time for this to be handed to you. Like if you really do want something, you have to decide to create it yourself. And I think that moment of realizing that no one's coming to give you permission, and the literal only person that can give you permission is yourself. Like for your client who you know.

Who says, you know, she can't do this. She's not the kind of person who would do that. I love to play devil's advocate with those people and just be like, okay, so don't do it. Then take it off the list. Take it out of your dreams. Take it off your vision board. Stop telling yourself you need to create it.

Because then the next thing that happens is like, they go, but I want it. It's like, okay, great. Well then it is time to create it. Like if you want it, you want it for a reason, and the only person who can tell you that you can truly go after that is you. You, it may not be easy, but you are the only person who can really give yourself permission to start.

[00:19:54] Meg: Mm-hmm. Yeah. What do you think is. What are, what do you think are some of the contributing factors to why we so crave this kind of external validation or external permission before we engage in any sort of meaningful change?

[00:20:13] Carly Anna Walker: I think it could be different for everybody. I think as humans we tend to like to think that there is a plan.

[00:20:22] Meg: Hmm. Interesting.

[00:20:25] Carly Anna Walker: like, and you see this in like searching through spirituality and is there a plan? Is this fate? Is this destiny? Is this where I'm supposed to go? And whatever flavor that kind of shows up.

For a lot of people, we kind of just think like, this is, this is what I'm supposed to do in this life. Well, this is my lot in life. Again, it kind of goes back to that identity of like, this is what someone like me is supposed to experience. And I, I see it a lot and I think really the only, again, the only person who can really allow you to do that is you.

I think that whether there is this thing called fate or destiny, like we're probably never gonna find out if that's actually real or not in this lifetime and. The only person who can really create that is you Anyway. And so I think, like, I like to think about this from the other perspective. Like what if someone told you, actually no, it's not your fate to have that thing that you really want.

What would you do with that piece of information? Because for me

[00:21:30] Meg: I would, I would get pissed about it and I would fight.

[00:21:33] Carly Anna Walker: exactly. Yeah. So I kind of think it's fun to play with these ideas. 'cause then it's like, well if, if someone told you you couldn't have that, what would you do? Because really at this point in time, the only person telling you that you can't have it is you.

And so you're gonna get mad at yourself for doing that and actually try and prove that wrong. Like sometimes that proving energy can be quite fun to play with. I've forgotten what your original question was, but yeah, I really, I do think that we have to stop waiting for permission and we have to stop telling ourselves that it's, you know, happening for us or it's never gonna happen for us.

And actually just decide. 'cause again, that's agency right.

[00:22:09] Meg: Yeah. And that is, that is definitely something that we'll get into here in a sec. but kind of dovetailing with what you were just saying about, you know, oh, is this fate, is this meant for a person like me? Is this the, is this the path? And, and I think that trips us up. A lot because we feel like there is some like mystical right path that we are going to stumble upon or like we'll know it when we see it or we'll feel it when we, when we get it.

And really there is nothing but what you decide. You decide whether it's right for you for right now, and that's it. That's the, that's the end of like, you can, you can stop looking for the mystical right path because you could stumble upon any of 1500 different paths. And the only difference between them is the one that you choose, right?

It's your choice and it's your agency. So,I, I do want to get into this. Conversation about agency, but I'd like to kind of set the scene a little bit first for our listeners. So in our conversation so far, we've really been kind of talking about the elements at play with change that occurs when people are either trying to change something or they know they just, they know something needs to change for their kind of best self.

But there's kind of another kind of change that I wanna talk about here as well. And call it involuntary change

[00:23:32] Carly Anna Walker: Mm-hmm.

[00:23:32] Meg: you know, it's the change is happening to you. And this is what I call the instability zone of change because that's exactly what's going on. It feels super unstable. Change really represents a threat to your status quo.

Your safety, security, there's no predictability. Right?And in the United States right now, we are experiencing a very chaotic, very tumultuous aftermath of major reduction in federal workforce. And I want to talk about this directly here because many of my listeners are in this world, and also because this is the world that I came from, right?

I spent nearly a decade as a federal contractor doing research and evaluation work and. I'm sure it's like this with a lot of other mission driven, occupations as well. But in this arena, there a large percentage of. Identities are based on the work and they're based on the mission and building impact and legacy through their work.

Right? And as a result in this, of this kind of reduction in force, people whose entire working lives have been. Decades of research agendas, things like that are just gone over rooted like uprooted and overnight they're just gone. Right? So psychologically what happens in a case like this when a pers like the foundation of a person's identity is just sort of evaporates overnight.

[00:25:07] Carly Anna Walker: Mm. Okay. Well I think I'm gonna approach this all with such compassion. I think the first thing to just like call on there is like. The foundation of your identity hasn't been taken away overnight because your work was never the foundation of your identity. That was just your perception. I'm gonna talk a little bit more about that, but I think the first thing, whenever you go through something huge that you know happens in your life, whether it be something professional or something in your personal life, the first thing you have to do is actually just feel it. Because there is going to be things like grief. Regret and fear and sadness and a whole lot of emotions that come with that. And when we try and move forward in any area of our lives, when we're experiencing all of that, and we are in the midst of that, that can just be so much harder for ourselves. And I'm not saying that you've gotta wait for all of that to be gone before you can move forward.

But in those first days and weeks where that massive change has come and taken place, you have to be able to give yourself space to feel that. Because for a lot of people, it's not just a job. It's not just something that paid the bills. It's something that was really meaningful, that dedicated their entire life to, and of course, that's going to hurt, especially when there's no clear pathway forward to do something like that.

Again, right. If the situation has been removed from, you know, what's possible in front of you, how do you know how you're ever gonna be able to go through? So there's lots of questions that come up, right? So the emotional processing is like something that is so important, and that's where if you have access to it or the ability to access things like therapy or coaching or support.

Whether it's like off-boarding, you know, that some co that some businesses provide and things like that. Like take it and use it because that's the kind of support that you need as a human before you can even really clarify where you're gonna go next. And then the second piece, which is kind of what I said earlier, is like.

When it feels like your identity has been, or when it feels like everything that you are and everything that you've worked for was tied up with that one thing, you have to realize that that's actually not true. That one thing was actually a creation of everything that you were, everything that you care about, everything that you value, everything that you have as strengths, that was just that manifestation at that point in time of how those things came together.

And so that means that if you still have those values, those strengths, those desires, those skill sets. There is another opportunity that you will either open up or that you will be able to create for yourself. And that may not be immediately clear, but with like, this energy has to go somewhere, and it's in these moments where we have massive shifts in workforce, that massive innovation also follows, right?

So like all of those things that you have built as, skill sets, they don't just. Go nowhere. there's a great, woman that I know called JU Julie, and she has a substack called Raw Materials and she's, yeah, she's great. She specifically works in the area of people building portfolio careers. So people who, you know, have come from corporate and they know now that they wanna, you know, take.

Charge of their career and they wanna build a portfolio, you know, consulting and maybe coaching and maybe like sitting on a board and maybe a fractional role and whatever, right? Whether they've been thrust in that position or whether they have chosen to take that pathway. She's saying that we all have these raw materials that you can then reshape into something else.

And so that's the skills piece. That's the values piece, that's the strengths piece. But the identity piece is remembering that you are who you want to be. Just because that context is gone doesn't mean that you have lost your identity. It just means that that context that was guiding that identity is no longer there and in the void you get to decide what that now is, which may not feel like it, but it is a massive opportunity because how often do we get the opportunity to.

Redesign who we wanna be and where we wanna go. You had this experience when you decided to move out of your role and into your current business. It's just that it was by choice, not by. You know, you being chucked into it, which is the same as me, right? So I think it's, it's like emotional acceptance of course.

And then realizing actually pragmatically, that there are so many things that you have that are gonna lend themselves to something massively innovative in the future. And that's really exciting for a lot of people. Really, really exciting.

[00:30:17] Meg: I love hearing you say not only, not only give people hope who are in this situation, that really it is. You know, and, and it, I have a, a coaching container called the Federal Impact Container. That is, that was created just for this, right? It is for people who find themselves somehow downstream of the reduction in forest.

Right? And one of the very first things that we do is we literally name what ended. What actually ended here? Okay, so yes, your role ended your position within, you know, this federal, agency, whatever it ha happens to be. But your skills didn't go anywhere. Your network didn't go anywhere. Your values didn't go anywhere.

All these things that you mentioned, that those are, those are the core parts of your identity. They just, they don't change overnight. And you, you can take this as an opportunity of course, to recalibrate and I think that's a really exciting opportunity, as you mentioned. But I loved hearing you say that kind of on a larger scale, this is a massive opportunity for just recalibrating how we do things, right, as more of a on a society level.

And I just, I love that because here in the US we are grappling for hope wherever we can get it, you know?but you know, we've been kind of talking a, around it a little bit, this role of, of agency in kind of crafting your identity. So if you were to kind of advise somebody who is in this situation, how would you tell them to go about kind of seizing this opportunity to recreate or recalibrate, I guess their. Their identity that used to be So about this other thing you mentioned, have to feel the impact of what happened. We have to honor that. We have to feel it. but then what, then what do we do?

[00:32:20] Carly Anna Walker: Well, I think it comes back to one of my favorite tools is values. I think that they are just one of the most grounding forces that we have available to us. Knowing what is important to us, knowing what priorities we have in our life around who we want to be as an individual. And what we want to experience and impact.

So like coming back to what do you value in a professional sense, but also in a personal sense, what is important to you? That's one of the first guiding pieces because that's how we can use that as decision making criteria, you know, with, with those values in mind. What's important to you in the next role that you go after, or if you are going to start your own business or consultancy or whatever it is.

What are those things that are the guiding parameters that are gonna really give you grounding into what you want to create? 

So for example, a lot of these people, it sounds like they're very impact minded. Yeah. So if impact is really important to these people, then that has got to be a decision making factor in that.

Right? If maybe they go, actually, in this stage of my life, I would love to experience more freedom. I'm gonna need a role that gives me more flexibility and more freedom. Or maybe that is the moment where I go, Hmm, I've had this idea for a business or for a consultancy practice, or for a freelancing or fractional role that I have had for such a long time.

Maybe now it's time for me to go after it. Our values and our desires are always clues about where we can and should go next. And so I would always, I would always take that as your first like foundation of what, of what to focus on. And then I think it, I think it can come back to like, what is, what is the shift or change that you want to have?

What is the legacy that you want to leave? I'm assuming that these people, other people that have been in their business for, sorry, in their career for a couple of decades, they may be halfway through their career. They might be looking at, you know, sort of 10, 20, maybe 30 years left in the workforce.

What do you wanna be able to look back and say that you contributed to? What? Meaning do you wanna look back and know that you made? What do you want people to be, you know, saying, oh my gosh, like, thank God you were a part of that. Like this was the role that you played for me, or, we wouldn't have this new system or this new way of doing things if it weren't for you.

That's where innovation comes from. 'cause innovation is about creating things that don't already exist.

[00:35:03] Meg: Mm-hmm.

[00:35:04] Carly Anna Walker: And so if we can start thinking about what problems do we wanna solve, what impact do we wanna have, what legacy do we wanna leave? There's such bigger questions than what job am I gonna have that maybe we'll pay the bills?

Like there's such different questions to answer and some people might be okay, just having a job paying the bills, but it doesn't sound like these are the people who are okay with that.does that answer your question?

[00:35:28] Meg: Yeah, and I think it's a really good point about what you want to, right? So there are those people who are like, no, look, whatever job or role I have next, it has to have meaning to me because that is who I am. That's what I want. Then there are those people who are taking this opportunity and be like, you know what, I just wanna bag groceries at Trader Joe's and fricking putts around in my garden.

And that is fantastic. Absolutely. Go for it. Right? Like, but it's, it's a difference in what you want. And I think both really require a really, a lot of cor like courage and bravery to be able to. Stand firm in your own values that may be really, really different from a lot of other people, from your peer, peer group, you know, from the world at large.

Right.and to, to stand firm in what you actually want for yourself. And I think that's, that's a hugely powerful realization that some, you know, some people haven't had that realization yet, but in working, you know, with a coach or with a therapist, like you can come to that. I think that realization.

[00:36:40] Carly Anna Walker: I think that you've made a really good point there. Like sometimes it is actually just about going, you know, I don't want there to be, you know, I don't want 60 hours of my week to be dedicated to like making an impact all the time. Maybe I actually do want to just have a bit of space where. My job doesn't have a lot of meaning for a moment because then I can recoup and I can actually remember what makes meaning for me, and not everyone's gonna be in the financial position to be able to do that, but I think if you do have the possibility where you can, then sometimes that space is actually really good.

Then forcing and rushing into the next thing just because you need the money.

[00:37:22] Meg: Mm-hmm. And that brings us full circle too, but I'm not the kind of person who bags groceries at Trader Joe's. Right. You know? And so that, that's kind of where we have to really take a good stock of, of where we are and what we want, and who we want to be in the next chapter of our lives. Right. Do what you gotta do, survive.

That's, that's first order of business always. But then. can we thrive and how can we use what we now know about identity to help us as a tool to get there? So,

[00:37:55] Carly Anna Walker: Absolutely.

[00:37:57] Meg: I, I have absolutely loved this conversation and I think it's going to be so juicy for our listeners, but I do have a couple of rapid fire questions for you

[00:38:08] Carly Anna Walker: Oh,

[00:38:08] Meg: you go.

[00:38:10] Carly Anna Walker: okay.

[00:38:10] Meg: so there's just a few, but I want you to just kind of top of the head no thinking, no overthinking allowed. So, Carly, what legacy are you leaving?

[00:38:21] Carly Anna Walker: The freedom to choose.

[00:38:23] Meg: Ooh, so good. Love it. What is your biggest identity shift to date?

[00:38:30] Carly Anna Walker: oh God. oh, I don't even know if I've thought about it in that way. Probably the one from therapist to coach. I would say From struggling. From struggling, like from struggle being the norm to, okay, what if that's maybe not the norm? Maybe, maybe I could experience something a little bit less than struggle.

I think that's probably it.

[00:38:52] Meg: Good. Okay. What's one thing you are extremely excited about that you're working on or with or looking forward to?

[00:39:02] Carly Anna Walker: Oh, I have one personally. My husband and I are, like planning a trip that we wanna take to go to like Morocco and Spain and Portugal. So that's personally what I'm like looking forward to. And professionally, I am writing my first book right now.

[00:39:19] Meg: So exciting.

[00:39:21] Carly Anna Walker: So I'm really looking forward to publishing that because that whole process is like so clarifying, like, yeah, really, really, really cool.

[00:39:29] Meg: You, you recently started a substack that I'm obsessed with. So you are an excellent writer and I cannot wait for this book to come out. but yeah, there is something about that writing process that really helps you, helps you like kind of get rid of all the garbage and the fluff that doesn't need to

[00:39:46] Carly Anna Walker: Absolutely.

[00:39:46] Meg: Yeah. Yeah. so if you had to instruct or if you had someone, Let me rephrase that. What is one thing you want listeners to take away from this episode?

[00:40:02] Carly Anna Walker: You are gonna be okay.

[00:40:04] Meg: Oh, good

[00:40:06] Carly Anna Walker: You are gonna be more than, okay. There's like so much more waiting for you on the, on the other side of deciding that you are worth more.

[00:40:15] Meg: Oh, that's so beautiful. Okay, final question.what is the best book you've read this year?

[00:40:21] Carly Anna Walker: I knew it was gonna be a better book. I knew it.so I have been down this major rabbit hole this year. I'm a science girl. You know, I'm a science girl. Obsessed with science, but there's always been this part of me that's been very drawn to understanding intuition and consciousness and, for lack of a better word, magic things that don't seem to have an explanation.

Like how, how are they explainable? And I found this, great researcher called Dean Radden. Have I talked to you about this? Have we have we have, I have you heard me talk about this

[00:41:01] Meg: personally, but I've heard your podcast and you've gotten Yeah. Interested in this lately. Yep.

[00:41:06] Carly Anna Walker: yeah. He is just so incredible. He's a researcher, he's a parapsychology researcher, and he researches things like pre sentience, which is essentially knowing that something's about to happen before it happens.

things like telepathy, things like just things that people have reported for a long time, and now science is like. Let's see, like what's going on here. so he's got two books. One of them's called The Science of Magic and one of them's called Real Magic. And I've read both of those this year and they were excellent.

[00:41:42] Meg: Awesome. Well, I'm putting those on my to read list. I too have been fascinated with this kind of DU dual, like we live in both worlds, right? Like we live in this world where science is a thing. It is a real thing, and it is very important to me that this is. An anchoring part of my practice, but at the same time, there's this other part that is very much as real and they're like, they're both real.

And how we bridge that gap and how science is beginning to understand, you know, especially like I. There's a lot of like indigenous tradition that that kind of held this to be true. And it we're just now kind of, science is really kind of in its infancy, broadly speaking. So I'm really excited to see where this goes.

So I'm, I'm excited to hear you, who is just as much into the science as I am that you're, you're getting down in this rabbit hole, so I'll check those out.

[00:42:38] Carly Anna Walker: yeah.

[00:42:39] Meg: Awesome. So Carly, thank you so much for chatting with me today. It's been so great to see you. So great to chat and I know our audience is going to get so much out of this episode, but I will put everything in the show notes, of course, for people who are more into reading stuff than listening.

But in case we do have any auditory learners in the audience, where can they find you?

[00:43:02] Carly Anna Walker: Auditory learners. I have my own podcast as well, so you can find that. I'll give you the link as well, but it's called Fortune Fulfilled.and that's where I do hangout. Yeah.

[00:43:12] Meg: Awesome. Wonderful. So thank you so much Carly and everybody. Check out Carly's body of work. She is absolutely fantastic. One of my favorite people to follow and to learn from. So thank you again and I'll see you next time on Change Ology podcast.