Corporate America is Making You Numb (& Other Thoughts You've Been Avoiding)

Corporate America Is Making You Numb (And Other Thoughts You've Been Avoiding)

You clicked on this for a reason — and it's probably because that title hit a little too close to home.

In this first episode, Ash gets right into it: the slow numbness that creeps in when you've been grinding in a career that no longer fits, the way we gaslight ourselves out of our own dreams before Monday is even over, and why "you should be grateful" might be the most damaging thing we tell ourselves.

This one is for the long-term dreamer who's been sitting on that notes app idea since 2020. The one who knows they need to make a move but keeps waiting for it to make logical sense first. Ash isn't speaking from the other side of the hard season — she's in it too.

It's time to stop playing small. The keys are already in your hand.

In this episode:

• Why corporate exhaustion hits different post-COVID
• The real reason we gaslight ourselves out of our dreams
• Why your community either fuels or limits your next chapter
• Why the business, ministry, or dream you're building starts with you being okay first

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Now What Are We Doing? is for anyone navigating adulthood when life doesn't go exactly as planned. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello, it's super nice to meet you. Welcome to my podcast. I know you don't know me and I don't know you, and hopefully we will get to know each other a lot more. I'm sure you clicked on this podcast episode because the title intrigued you. Corporate America is making you numb and other thoughts you've been avoiding. And I think there's no better way than to jump right into it. I have been juggling this

Sunday Scaries and Numbness

SPEAKER_00 0:25

thought for a while, years and years, and I think the weight of COVID was the first wave that kind of exasperated those thoughts, having a different workflow, having a different capacity, a different expectation within the workplace as it pertains to working hours and what's really expected of me. And I think even over the last few years, it's become even more exasperated in this current economy with a lot of challenges, and despite what part of the political side that you lean to, I think we've all felt it. Working in the tech and marketing space, we've all felt the impending doom, the anxiety of a potential layoff. And that is not a good way to go to bed at night. It's really weighty during the holidays. The time of the year where you're supposed to be the most joyful is often coming back to the time of the year where you feel the most weight. What I'm here to tell you is that there is no quick fix to the situation. There's no, and there's no way to really quickly rewind it to how things were 10 years ago. The encouragement I'm gonna give you is probably what you don't want to hear, which is it's time to step out on faith. It's time to take that leap, that thought that's been in your notes app for five years, and literally some of y'all can check the date, hasn't been visited since November 14th, 2020. It's time to act on it. When you get to a place where you are so unhappy, whether it's because of your job or a relationship, and you are out of solutions, and I think this is the part to be highlighted, right? When the thought of jumping ship to a new team isn't a solve. When you know in your gut, and I think we have to trust our gut here, isn't a solve, it's time to bet on yourself. There's a quote from Maya Angelo, and to be honest, I never really clicked to me until probably this year. And it's your greatest fear isn't that you're inadequate, your greatest fear is that you are more powerful than you can comprehend. And I think if you're like me, you've been in the workforce 10, 11 years, especially in the same line of work. A lot of this is pseudo-humility. We have to have, especially women, women of color, in order to make it in the corporate, there has to be some level of pseudo-humility there so that you don't make someone else mad,

Burnout Signs and Denial

SPEAKER_00 3:17

so that you don't step on toes. In juxtaposition, when it's time to take that leap of faith, you have to have the opposite. You have to have so much overconfidence that people think that you're crazy. And I'm telling you, the time is now for the overconfidence. And that might mean you may make some people uncomfortable in the transition. And that's okay because right now it's about getting your mind right for where God is taking you. It's about getting your mind right for that next leap of faith. We can't play small anymore. Why? So we could have another five, 10 years of unhappiness when we've already been given the keys. Okay. We've already have the intellect, we already have the know-how. And if we don't have the know-how in the world of ChatGPT and Reddit and Corsia and all these different things, there's a way to get the know-how. I think we have to be real with ourselves and we have to honor ourselves and honor our dreams by stepping out. And it doesn't have to be perfect. And this is coming from a type A baddie, okay? Because I get it. I get that you want all the ducks in the row. I get that you don't want to step out until it makes logical sense. But the same company you're working for probably had to face the same reality. Maybe they didn't want to step out until it made sense and they did. And look at them. Look how many elite employees they have. Thousands. Look how much you've learned from organizations like that. How much better? How much more can you do with the know-how that you know? So let's get into a couple of the challenges I feel like we often face when it comes to we know what we need to do. We know we need to make that leap, right? Whether it's breaking away from corporate or starting

Layoffs and Constant Dread

SPEAKER_00 5:17

our own business or even leaving a toxic friendship or relationship or whatever that case may be. The first part of that is acknowledging that what you feel on the inside is valid. There's a lot of discourse online about how others gaslight us, but I think the real discourse needs to be about how we gaslight ourselves. We gaslight ourselves an immense amount. If we were really to document this and say, hey, I had a dream on Monday, by Monday night, a lot of us have already gaslit ourselves out of that dream. Okay. Stop gaslighting yourself. When you take that step to stop gaslighting yourself, that is the first fix to not becoming numb anymore. Your feelings don't matter, so suck it up. This isn't a big deal. These are some of the thoughts that play around in our head or sometimes are even told to us in a roundabout way. You should be grateful for this opportunity. You know people would kill for this. Meanwhile, it's killing you. It's killing you because it's not aligned with who you are. It's not aligned with the gifts and the talents that you know exists in you. And you see sparks of it, right? Maybe on a day off you have a super creative day. You create something you're proud of. Maybe in a meeting, you have an idea and you're able to draft up, you know, an

Identity and Little You

SPEAKER_00 7:00

amazing idea, amazing concept. And it's not really in your typical wheelhouse, but people are amazed and you're amazed at how well you've done. All those little steps point to who you really are and what you really should be doing. But we ignore it, we become numb for a check. I'm not degrading the ignoring for a check because I do think there are seasons and periods where that's important. I think there are seasons and periods where ignoring certain things for a check is important. Maybe you did it for a season because you had to get out of debt. Maybe you needed to build up your safety net. Maybe you had an unexpected expense. Maybe you needed it for a season because you really needed the healthcare. But what I am speaking to you about is the long-term dreamer. I want to make sure you don't get so lost in a world of routine where you forget the biggest blessing is actually when you decide to leave the routine. The biggest blessing might be when you bet on yourself. When you say, you know what, enough self-help books, enough Oprah talks. I've got to make this out for myself. The second thing is, are you surrounding yourself with like-minded individuals? As cliche as it is, you are the company you keep. Birds of a feather flock together. There wouldn't be so many cliche terminology if something didn't track, right? These people aren't just making up these sayings. There has to be time and time where this proves to be true, and we're not the exception. This year has been super challenging for me. I've had a wedding, I've got promoted, but more than that, I feel like I've found myself, and a large part of that is I've actually had room to listen to the inner me because of the people that I've chosen to surround myself with. People, specifically women, because I'm a true champion of women. I've chosen to surround myself with women who have the same goal, who have the same mission, who experience some of the same challenges, but also do not pity themselves. And I think that part is equally crucial. It's okay to have a bad day, it's okay to have a bad week, but you cannot be both the victor and the victim. I choose for my life to be the victor. It doesn't mean that I don't acknowledge past pain, but again, all of this is in the context of where I'm headed, where I'm choosing to push through. And I

The Slow Drain: Burnout, Big Dreams, and Why You Keep Waiting

SPEAKER_00 10:01

can't, I can't continue to sulk for years and years and years and expect to reap the harvest. Reaping the harvest is actually a verb. You're out there in the field, you've done the work, okay? And so now it's time to reap what you have sown. All of that comes to pass because you have put in the work. And the same thing is true with maybe emotional letdown, trauma, things that might be holding you back from a future of progress in the area that you want to see. Maybe right now your work is making sure all of the trauma in your past is in the proper context so that it stops being a blockade for your future. And that takes work and that's honorable work too. That's just as honorable because that's taking care of yourself. Which brings me to my last point here. The business, the ministry, whatever it is that you're launching, isn't just another project. If you're not new to corporate America, you know it's project after project, task after task. And all they really care about is how quickly it can be done and does the data make sense? At least that's in my world, right? Does the data make sense and how quickly it can be done? When it comes to this next chapter of your life, if you're not okay, the business, the ministry, whatever it is that is placed in your heart will not be okay. There's a direct parallel in these next few months, in this next season, to how you're doing internally to how your business might be doing. And I'm not saying there are people who have great businesses and inside they aren't a mess. I'm not saying that, but what

Fear of Success and Change

SPEAKER_00 12:03

I'm saying is we want to make sure we do things as right as possible. We want to make sure we can go to sleep at night peacefully. We want to make sure that we're putting our all into what we've been given. And the best way to do that is not to only take care of the technical things, not to only make sure you have the right podcast, Mike. It's bigger than all that because where you're going is bigger than where you've been. I hope that this episode, this introductory episode, gave you a bit of insight as to my personality, my focus for these podcast episodes. My main goal here is to hopefully have a community of women who care for each other, who are strong and passionate, and are go-getters, but are also real. Okay. I feel like there's a huge wealth of knowledge across us that just really needs to be shared. And I really hope that this podcast can lead the way for that. I know you're listening to this podcast, and some of you are like, okay, I'm ready. Let's go get them. And some of you are listening to this podcast like, I hear what you're saying, Ash, but I'm still a little bit lost. I get that. Rome wasn't built in a day. This was meant to be something in your toolbox. It's just the seed. Let the seed do its work in you. Keep leaning in to additional seeds. Keep making progress. 1% better every day. If you walk away from this podcast with a realization of wow, I can't feel numb anymore, or she's right, I need to feel my feelings. Mission accomplished for me. And honestly, mission accomplished for you too. Give yourself grace. You deserve everything good coming to you. Joy and peace is what you deserve in this next season. I know you've been through it. Many of us

Pseudo Humility & Maya Angelou

SPEAKER_00 14:26

have, but I promise you the best is yet to come. Until next time.