Ep 212: Embracing Possibility in 2025

It's about having the clarity , self-confidence and unstoppable belief to go after and get everything you want . If you'll come with me , I'll show you how Well . Hello , friends . I hope you had an amazing week and I hope you had an amazing Christmas .

Wherever you're celebrating , I hope it was with family , friends , loved ones , and I hope you spent the time doing the things that you love .

So we are about to head into the start of another year and I wanted to do this week's episode on possibility Because by the time we get to mid career or midlife , I think a lot of us have settled in and when we look at the start of a year , even if we're excited about the possibilities of a year and things like that , a lot of us limit ourselves to the

things that we've done in our past , to the possibilities that look possible from our current frame of reference , and we lose the ability that I think a lot of us had when we were just getting out of college or just starting our career , where we were looking ahead and we were thinking of our whole life as a blank slate and that anything was possible .

We can give ourselves the gift of possibility . We can give ourselves the gift of possibility broad possibility at any stage of our life , because that is really a gift when , no matter what our age is , we can look into our future and think of it in the broadest possible sense and believe that anything is possible for ourselves . And it is so .

Enjoy this episode on possibility . Back when I was in school , I always loved September . I loved the start of a new school year , and now that I'm an adult and not in school , I feel the same way about January . So this is a time when , honestly , if our life is a book , the book is full of empty pages and we get 365 pages to write on .

And the reason I wanted to do this today is because , on this podcast , I focus on those of us in midlife and I define that as the period of time between 40 and 60 ish , and what I'm about to say applies to everyone .

But there's a lot of things that go on for us at midlife and one of them is I feel like we try to be realistic , and there's nothing wrong with that . I'm a practical Midwest girl myself . When it comes to creating the life that we all dream of . I think it's really important to allow ourselves to dream without talking ourselves out of it .

So this podcast today is about possibilities .

So I'm going to take you through six things that I want you to keep in mind when you look at the year ahead , and to allow yourself to dream a little bit and to look at the world , maybe more like you did earlier on in your life , when we were in school or just getting out of school and starting our career and our adult life .

We all had to create the life , and so we allowed ourselves , I think , at that stage of life , to dream bigger , more fully , and we didn't get mired down on what was realistic , because we were just trying to figure out what we were capable of , you know .

So we had to throw ourselves out there and go for it , but by the time we've built our life , it's that societal checklist that I've talked about several times in the podcast , the one that runs from zero to 40 . There's all these things that we need to go do in order to build our life , and by the time we get 40-ish , most of us , we have a life .

Whether we're fully satisfied with it or not is a different question . We've got the life . Usually , we've got the career of some sort , we've got whatever family we wanted , usually , and we have our set of possessions and our set of things , and we've got our life .

And that's the thing that happens in midlife is that we start to look at our possibilities from the construct of where we are today , and so what I wanted to offer you today was , just for the duration of this episode , allow yourself to set all of that aside , all of the things you're telling yourself about what you can actually realistically do now , based on

everything that's happened to you , based on all the decisions you've made , based on where you are . I want you to set all of that aside , and , as long as this episode lasts , set all of that aside and as long as this episode lasts , allow yourself to dream a little bit and to look at your world and your life and your possibilities more like .

Maybe you looked at it 20 years ago or 30 years ago . I'm going to talk about six things that are important for you to keep in mind , and I'm going to do it in a slightly different way . I'm going to do it through the filter of inspirational quotes and I'm going to pepper that in with some perspectives that I wanted to share , related uniquely to midlife .

So I'm going to ground all of the six things in quotes . I thought it'd be very inspirational because you wouldn't just be hearing about the cognitive behavioral therapy approach and the things that I typically talk about .

You would be hearing from other people , many of whom you will recognize and just allow yourself to be inspired by these high achievers and maybe think about the ways that these things could apply to your next 365 days , because the future is yours to do with as you wish .

So , with all of that said , let's go ahead and dive in , and I'm going to start this by a quote from Dale Carnegie , who says we all have possibilities we don't even know about . We can do things we don't even dream we can do . And that's Dale Carnegie .

So I'm going to start it off there and I want to go into the first thing that I wanted to talk about , which I think could apply to people at any age , but it's most notably present for those of us over the age of 40 . Because by the time we get here , we've made some decisions and we've experienced some disappointments .

So if you're going to think about your life as anything is still possible for yourself , you're going to have to let go of past mistakes . So that's number one .

And I want to start this one by talking about a quote from someone named Sean Brady , and it says there is always tension between the possibilities we aspire to and our wounded memories and past mistakes . So I think that is true and I guess what I want to say about this one is I

get it . By the time we get to midlife , we have all had our share of ups and downs , of highs and lows . Some of them happened to us or were served up to us that weren't our choice , and some of them were decisions that we made . And I think sometimes that's a tougher pill to swallow At least it has been for me .

And what I want to say about this one is , if you're holding on to unfortunate things that have happened and we all develop stories around those things we make , those unfortunate things mean something about us , about our choices , about what is possible for us , or we sometimes construct this really big story about all of the unfortunate things that have happened for

us , or we sometimes can construct this really big story about all of the unfortunate things that have happened to us and we stay grounded in that . And when we stay grounded in that , we are living in our past . We are not living into the things that we might want to create for ourselves in the future .

So when I talk about letting go of past mistakes , it's really important and it doesn't mean that you have to let go of the lessons that you learned from that , because those are very valuable things .

But what I'm saying is don't talk yourself out of new , exciting things Because you tell yourself that it is impossible because of all the bad things that have happened to you in your life to date .

Life is always going to be a series of highs and lows , a mix of the things we want and the things we don't want , and it's super important to remind yourself as often as possible , as often as is necessary when you're in midlife , to just let it go , because if you don't , that is always going to take off the table exciting new possibilities that you could

create if you weren't so mired in the things that happened to you in the past that maybe brought you to here , especially if here is not a place that you want to be .

So I know it's easier said than done , but to some extent it is just about forgiveness of yourself , of others , and it's about an acceptance that you made the decisions you made or the things that happened to you , and that , instead of focusing on the wounds that those delivered , instead look for the things that you learned , because that creates a bag of very

helpful tools that you can take into your future . So I'm not saying forget about it all or pretend it didn't happen , because that's not realistic .

The stuff that happened in your past , both the things that you decided to do and the things that were delivered to you , maybe in an unwelcoming way they happened and you just have to accept it and stay very focused on okay , but now what ?

And don't live in those wounds every day , because if you do , it sucks your energy , it affects your mindset and you stop looking at life as a series of unscripted days that you get to fill in ways that are meaningful to you and instead we stay in this steady hum of enduring our life instead of creating our life .

So that is what I wanted to talk to you about in number one , and I'm going to leave number one with a quote from Carl Jung , who says I am not what happened to me . I am what I choose to become . That is very powerful . So , number one let go of past mistakes .

Number two is don't let the level of difficulty get in your way when it comes to possibilities . So I want to start this one with a quote from Earl Nightingale , who says never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish . The time will pass anyway .

And for this one I want to share a personal experience , and it's a conversation that I had with my mother back when I was in my mid-twenties , and if you're new to the podcast , I'll go ahead and share this briefly . If you've been listening since the beginning or for a while , you probably already know this . But I have a very untraditional path .

I marched to my own drummer and I have pursued my life in a nonlinear and very unexpected way .

So for those who know my whole path , I think almost every one of them are very surprised by where I am today , and sometimes I will say , when I stop and look back on my own life , I'm like , wow , like five-year-old Carla even 18-year-old Carla or 22-year-old Carla would be shocked at where I am now , but I still do . Look at it .

I haven't even really started yet , but here's what I want to say about this one level of difficulty , because I do think this is something we tell ourselves in midlife Ah , this is going to take too long , this is going to be way too hard , it's going to take too long and too much effort , and I have too much life going on to allow me to tackle that .

I want to talk about something that happened for me way back when I was always a good student , but I never . I hate to say it now , but it's very true . I never really applied myself . I got A's and B's , like mostly B's , some A's , and I never studied . I was far more interested in school , in cheerleading and my extracurricular activities .

I was very involved in things and I always wanted to do well in school . I never cracked the books because there was too much life happening and there was too much going on . And I think , coupled with that , my parents gave me many good things , values they're wonderful people , but for them .

My parents gave me many good things , values they're wonderful people , but for them a college education and a career path and stuff were not necessarily at the top of the list . And so for me , I'm a very creative person and I've ended up in a corporate career that's very creative . But when I got out of high school , I only went to one year of college .

I just found it boring . I wasn't into it , I didn't want to do it and I'd always been really interested in hairstyling and hair and I decided to quit college and I did and I did many cool things with that . I got to study at Vidal Sassoon in London . I specialized in hair color .

I got to meet a number of really cool people and my clients were very cool , inspirational people .

I would say that is one of the big catalysts for why I ended up where I did is that a lot of my clients were very successful entrepreneurs , doctors , attorneys and by being close to those people because you do get very close to your clients when you're a hairstylist I learned things about how they look at the world and that created for me the life that I

have today and it was the beginning of it and it inspired me to go back to school and finish . It was something I always thought when I quit , I thought , oh , I can just go back someday . But going back is something most people don't usually do .

And I remember a conversation that I had with my mother , which directly ties to the quote that I shared from Earl Nightingale the time will pass anyway . I had a conversation with my mother . I'd been out of school and working as a hairstylist for probably three years four years maybe and I remember telling my mom hey , I think I want to go back to school .

So I wasn't real sure what I wanted to do , but I had three more years of college to get through and I was supporting myself . So it wasn't about moving back in with my mom and dad . This is about oh , this is something I'm going to have to do myself , pay for myself and find the time to do while I'm working full time .

And I was talking to my mom about it and I said I do the math and I don't know if I go part time , I could be 28 or 29 . And my mom said something that enabled the whole thing , because if she had said something different , enabled the whole thing . Because if she had said something different , I do believe I might not have made the decision I made .

She said you're going to be 28 anyway . Do you want to be 28 with a degree or 28 without a degree ? And I will tell you that practical wisdom is something my mom was known for and I am forever grateful that she said that to me , because I said you're right , I want to be 28 with a degree .

And so for me , I just wrapped my head around okay , I'm going to get creative about financing .

And this is going to be a very busy four years for me , because I am going to be working full time and probably going to school and carrying a fairly heavy load Like this is not necessarily going to be working full time and probably going to school and carrying a fairly heavy load Like this is not necessarily going to be easy , but it's going to be super fun

. And if you fast forward 25 years or 30 years , I am making more money than I imagined I would ever be capable of making , and I have done things and met people and gone places and had experiences that , honestly , I couldn't have even dreamed about when I had that conversation with my mother .

So I'm sharing all of that because it's easy to forget and it's really easy to talk ourselves out of the things we want to go do at any age , but especially as we get older , because we think what is the point ? Like I know people who want to go and get a second degree . I am still thinking about going back and getting a graduate degree .

I want one in positive psychology from UPenn . I have been thinking about it and I haven't done it because I'm trying to figure out how important it is to me . I don't want it so that I can credential up or what other people will think . I want it for myself .

I'm just trying to figure out how bad do I want it , because it is going to be something that requires a lot of my time and money . So I'm saying all of this because it's really easy to forget , and I want you to remember that life is going to pass anyway .

It's what Earl Nightingale said never give up on a dream because of the time it will take to accomplish it . The time is going to pass anyway . So it's what my mother said too . If you're 50 and want to do something that you know is going to take a ton of time , maybe it's like doing what I'm doing standing up a business while you're working .

There's only so much time you have right , the time's going to pass anyway . Do you want , in that five or 10 years , to be the person who owns a successful business , one that can allow you to pivot out of your career and maybe up-level your income in some really impressive ways , or do you just want to be the person who talks yourself out of it ?

And in that 10 years , instead of building a business , you did nothing with that dream . Is that what you want for yourself ? Because that's the decision you're making . This is not about I'm too old .

This is about what you're telling yourself it's not too late , and it doesn't matter how old you are , it doesn't matter how long it's going to take , it doesn't matter what you can accomplish by the end of the year . I do not believe in limiting yourself to what's possible within a set period of time .

I think the big dreams come from saying this is what I want and I'm doing it , and it doesn't matter how long it takes , I'm doing it . That's when we really get going .

And for this one , I wanted to end with another quote which is perfect for what we were talking about , and it's from someone named Azim Premji Sorry if I mispronounced that . And they say if people are not laughing at your goals , your goals are too small .

Very true , and something that a lot of us don't allow ourselves to do when we get to midlife , because we don't want people to say we're a dreamer . We don't want people to say that's impossible or laugh at us behind our back . It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks , it matters what you think .

And that leads us to number three you don't have to build your possibilities from where you are today . So this one is another big one .

At midlife and I want to start it with a quote from Bernd Heinrich I think is how you say his name and he says we gauge what we think is possible by what we know from experience A lot of us think about our possibilities based on where we are today .

So when we set goals , a lot of us set goals from okay , well , I'm here , I weigh this much weight and I want to lose this much weight , or I'm making this much money and I want to make this much money . We set our goals or we dream our dreams based on today , and that's fine . You can do that .

Today is a really nice gauge of measurement , because we are definitely where we are today right but what I'm trying to tell you is you don't have to limit what's possible based on what's always been or based on what you've experienced . You can create an entirely different world for yourself . It's what I was talking about on myself when I went back to school .

I didn't say at that time that I want to be vice president of brand strategy for entertainment services company . I had no idea that something like that was even possible and I definitely never thought I could ever at that point in my life , earn even a hundred thousand dollars a year , let alone multiple times that right .

Sometimes I allow myself to look with wonder at the life I've created . I didn't look to my past to create that because I didn't know anyone who had done that . I just said I want to get a degree and I let that be the starting point and the launchpad for everything that's come after that .

And so for me , when I look at my business , I'm doing the same thing , because now I'm trying something entirely new . I'm back where I was in my mid to late 20s with the school thing . It's like I'm doing this from scratch . I'm doing it myself with no help . I don't yet have a big staff and most everything . I have to teach myself and figure it out .

All of the tech , all of the stuff yes , I've spent my whole career doing brand and market and I understand the fundamentals of it , but in corporate , I have staff that does that . I don't have to do all of the emails and work in those tech platforms and build a website myself . I had to do all of that .

So what I'm telling you is don't limit what you want based on what's always been . I don't care how old you are . If you're 65 and getting ready to retire but you don't really want to just travel , or if you want something different from yourself , other than the traditional retirement that we think of , like just taking it easy or volunteering or whatever .

If you want to make it your next act , then do it . It doesn't matter what anyone says and it doesn't matter how long it takes , and it doesn't matter what you did with your corporate career for 30 years . Just remove yourself from all of the stuff that's been and look into the future and say what do I want ?

And don't allow any of the tethering from the past to limit you . You don't have to build from where you are . You can create something entirely different just because you decide to do it .

And I know that can sound crazy and I know it can sound unrealistic and like a dreamer , but I've done it and I am in the process of doing it again and in my opinion , that is the only way to live . Go for it , it doesn't matter . It doesn't mean you have to blow up your life .

This is about small , incremental change that you do day in and day out , that , over time , leads you to an entirely different future . And think of how that is going to inspire everyone who knows you now . So you do not have to build from where you are . You can create something entirely new for yourself .

I've done it , I'm in the process of doing it again and you can do the same thing . So I'm going to end number three with a quote that is from John Scully and he says the future belongs to those who see possibilities before they become obvious . That is a powerful quote .

Number four is you must cultivate a powerful mindset , and this quote is from Buddha and it says the mind is everything , what you think you become .

So we talk about this a lot on the podcast , but you know this is about , especially at midlife , staying open and to stop talking yourself out of things , to stop limiting your possibilities and what are other people going to think ? And all of the mindset drama that comes up for us when we start to dream big . It can generate a lot of fear .

It can generate a lot of emotions that make us uncomfortable . We worry what other people are going to think , we worry about trying it and failing , and then other people judge us for that and I'm here to tell you you just got to set it all aside .

And when you think about your possibilities for the future and you feel those thoughts or old beliefs coming up that tell you it's too late , I can't do it , I waited too long , I don't have the right knowledge , you just have to set it aside . It's everything we talk about on this podcast .

So go back to any of the episodes where I'm talking about self-doubt or fear of failure or imposter syndrome or all of that stuff . I've got episodes on all of it . Spend some time going through it , because I go into those things at depth , so I'm not going to do it here .

I'm going to keep this one short , but I am going to say that anything that you allow yourself to pencil in as being a possibility for yourself that you haven't done before , you're going to have to contend with thoughts that tell you it's not possible . And you are the one in charge of your mind .

You decide what you want to think and by choosing what you think , you are , by default , choosing what's possible for yourself . So if you want to go do something big and new , you're going to have to allow yourself the space to believe that's possible .

So if you struggle in this area with self-doubt , imposter syndrome , fear , failure , any of that , go back and listen to any of the episodes I've done . There's a lot there and I think you'll find them helpful .

And I'm going to close this section with a quote from Amy Poehler , who says try to keep your mind open to possibilities and your mouth closed on matters you don't know about . Limit your always and nevers . That is words of wisdom from a very funny comedian , amy Poehler .

So , number five this is about allowing yourself to dream , and I think it's something that we can limit ourselves on when we get to a certain age . Like I said , I feel like dreamers usually live in their 20s .

We start to get into adult life in our 30s and 40s and beyond and we start to tell ourselves , well , that would be nice , it's too late , it starts to get into mindset stuff . But I want to start this one with a quote from Gloria Steinem , who says without leaps of imagination or dreaming , we lose the excitement of possibilities .

We lose the excitement of possibilities . Dreaming , after all , is a form of planning . Gloria Steinem , we need those leaps of imagination so that we can keep the excitement in our lives . Possibility is about excitement . We think about things that are possible for us .

That's the emotion that usually comes up is this feeling of could I actually do that or what would that be like ? How wonderful would that be ? And I feel like how sad if , just because we turned a certain age , we don't allow ourselves more than a fleeting thought about what might be possible .

Allow yourself to dream , and I would say your dreams are no one's business . You can share them if you want to , if you have trusted people .

But too often we can find ourselves surrounded by people who might be envious or who might be judgmental , or maybe who might just want to protect you and want you to stay safe , and so we don't want the little bud of a dream to before it has a chance to blossom , to be killed by the things other people might say , or even if they're trying to help us .

I think sometimes not only allow yourself to dream , but don't share that dream until you have a little traction . That's my advice to you . Do what you want and what feels right to you , but I just don't think it's anyone's business . Do what you want to do , but I just don't think it's anyone's business .

Do what you want to do , and it's your life , this is yours to create this whole year 365 unwritten pages , and you get to fill it , and no one gets to tell you how to do that , unless you let them .

So allow yourself the excitement of dreaming a new dream and thinking of a new possibility for yourself , because , like Gloria Steinem said , it is a form of planning . We're never going to get there if we don't first think that there is even possible . So we're not going to just arrive at this magical place because some unseen force is guiding us there .

It's up to us . We have free will , we have agency over our lives and we , if we're going to achieve big things , new things , things we've never done before , we have to first decide what that even is going to be right . And that's how you got here , believe it or not .

Once upon a time , you were just graduating from high school or college and you weren't sure what was possible for you . So what got you here are all of the thoughts and the actions that you had leading up to this place .

So if you want something new , you have to allow yourself the luxury of having another dream , and it doesn't matter how impossible it might seem or how foolish it might seem to anyone else . What matters is what you think .

So I'm going to leave this section with a quote from someone named Coco Goff , who says always dream big and don't let anyone limit your dreams , because the possibilities are endless . That is a beautiful quote and number six , the last one , is on self-belief and the importance of believing in yourself .

No matter where you are , no matter how many things you've tried and failed at , no matter how impossible or pointless it might seem , if you're going to allow yourself to believe that something new is possible for yourself In your future , you're going to have to believe in yourself . And sometimes the self-belief is helpful if it's grounded in a servant's heart .

And for that I'm going to share a quote from Nicki Minaj , who says I want to show little girls that the possibilities are endless , to not only do it for myself , but to show them they can do whatever they set their mind . To Nicki Minaj , who is doing great things in the world of music and entertainment .

So I feel like this is a good one , and if we find it hard with wanting to go after something new , we find it hard to do it from a place of just believing in yourself . Sometimes it's easier to do it through the lens of what is it going to show those around me ? What will it show my children ? What will it show my coworkers ?

What will it show my family ? What will it show my friends ? What kind of an inspiration could I be to other people because I allowed myself to go after it and to eventually get it ?

That perspective will often help overcome a self-doubt , because you're taking it out of your own fears and you're setting your possibility or your new thing you want to go do in a broader context , in a context that is of service to others . Sometimes , when I think about my stuff in that way , it allows me to just say , oh okay , this isn't just about me .

I'm trying to do this to either help other people or , if I actually do achieve it , what lesson does that deliver to others who might be watching and how might that inspire them to go do their things ?

That's a really helpful way to think about possibility and it can help you overcome a lot of self-doubt and uncertainty and fear by putting it in the context of being an inspiration to others , like Nicki Minaj said .

And it's a beautiful thing , because we can also tell ourselves that it's selfish to go after something new , that we're too self-focused or that we're too old for that kind of a thing and that our life now has to be about something different . And I'm here to say no , it doesn't .

If you've got children , if you've got grandchildren , and you dream a new dream , something totally different , that you want to go do over the next year , five years , 10 years , however big it is because the bigger the dream sometimes , the longer it takes to go get it Imagine others that are close to you watching that and thinking about their own life and what's

possible for themselves . That's huge . Or , like me , if you're starting this business , I've started this business because I thought what's the point of going through all of the things I've gone through and overcoming all the things I have overcome to get here . If here is just in service of me .

So my whole hope is that people start to see something new for themselves . That's 100% why I started this business . That and the fact that I just really enjoy business , I enjoy learning , I enjoy all of that .

It's a source of joy in my life , and so when I started thinking about it , this was the logical business for me to start , because to go from hairstylist , barely scraping by at times , to a multi six figure year incomeer Doing brand strategy I didn't even know what that was when I was going back to school .

My life has taken me in a very interesting journey , and I believe that journey is only getting started .

That's only one part of my journey , and the next part will be an entrepreneurial journey and probably an author's journey , because I've written a couple books and I got away from it five years ago as my career got a little crazy , and I'm getting back into it now and that , too , is a source of joy .

It's not about making millions of dollars or becoming a New York Times bestseller . I may or may not do that , but I will write books that are fun for me books that are meaningful and books that bring perspective and or joy to someone's life . That is my whole thing , and it's tied to the quote that Nicki Minaj said .

I want to show little girls that they can do anything they set their mind to . She wants to be an example of what's possible , and that's a wonderful thing . And I'll end this section with a quote from someone that is unknown . I did not get the author on this one , but I like it . It says don't listen to negative influences .

Believe in yourself and show others what you can do . Only you can find your potential . That is a truth . It doesn't matter what anyone thinks you're capable of . All that matters is what you think you are capable of and that you give yourself the grace and the space to not only dream it but to go after it , free of judgment from yourself or anyone else .

So I want to close this episode with the same quote that we started . It is a beautiful quote from Dale Carnegie . We all have possibilities we don't even know about . We can do things we don't even dream we can do . That is true for me and that is 100% true for you .

And it doesn't matter where you are , where you're starting from how much has gone on , how impossible that new little germ of a dream might seem . I invite you to allow yourself to believe that whatever is inside of you , whatever you're thinking about , that it's there for a reason , and give yourself the grace and the gift of going after it .

It doesn't matter if you accomplish it within the course of the next year . The year isn't a cliff . Go after it , and if this becomes a multi-year journey , so be it . Allow yourself to go for it , because that is the greatest gift you can give yourself at midlife , because , instead of closing down or allowing yourself to coast from here , it reinvigorates you .

It re-inspires you and even if you've already achieved great things , or if you haven't achieved the things you want in five or 10 years , if you give yourself permission to go after it , you can look back at today as the starting point for this amazing new future and possibility that you've built for yourself , and think of the lesson and the inspiration that's going

to give to all of those people around you . Just be careful about who you share that new dream with . While it's still the germ of an idea , let it take shape . Let it gain a little traction , because there will probably be people in your orbit who may not be so comfortable , and they don't have to know about it yet .

Make it your own secret dream , if you need to . And that leads me to the last thing I want to say to you , which is I hope that this year is everything that you want it to be , and then some , because that is what you deserve . So with that I will leave you till next time . Make it a great week . My friends , do you have a life coach ?

If not , I'd be so honored to be your coach . I've created a virtual coaching program and monthly membership called Next Level . Inside we take the material you hear on this podcast , study it and then apply it . Join me at the purposefulcareercom backslash next level . Join me and together we'll make your career in life everything you dream of . We'll see you there .