66. Being the Heroine of Your Own Career
I was recently listening to an episode of Majo Molfino’s podcast with Gail Carriger, and I learned about a concept called The Heroine’s Journey.
The Heroine’s Journey is actually a storytelling framework, but I found it to be a very powerful metaphor for designing a fantastic, satisfying career.
You may have already heard of The Hero’s Journey, which is a story framework that’s very common in Western culture.
In the Hero’s Journey, the hero separates from society to go on an adventure or quest where they eventually fight some kind of enemy.
The hero is all about individualism and they are at their strongest when they are on their own.
But in The Heroine’s Journey, success is not about going it alone.
In fact, it’s the opposite.
Strength and triumph arrive via community, collaboration, and connection.
The heroine is at their strongest when they are surrounded by a group of people and using that network to help them achieve their goals.
The concept of The Heroine’s Journey is a really interesting thing to think about when it comes to building a career you truly love.
Part of why this concept is so interesting to me is because sometimes, thought work and coaching can feel more like The Hero’s Journey.
If it’s your thoughts about work that are making it stressful, then you need to change those thoughts, and you may feel tempted to battle them alone.
But that’s not the only way to do things.
You might be thinking, “okay, interesting literary ideas, but how does this apply to my career?”
Great question.
Personally, I want to feel connected in my career.
Even if I can create an amazing experience for myself with my own coaching tools, I don’t want the outcome to be just me by myself.
I want to have people I trust that I collaborate with, who are part of my work. I want to be part of a connected group with other human beings.
If you want that too, you can use the concept of The Heroine’s Journey as a framework to help you create connection and community in your career.
Coaching and thought work can be used to build any life you want.
If you want to be part of a community and build a life that has deep, rich, connection, you can do that, and understanding the framework of the heroine can help you get there.
In this episode, I’m talking all about The Heroine’s Journey.
Find out how it applies to your career and your life and why this concept can be used to create more connection, collaboration, community, and a sense of belonging - in your career and in your life!
If you want to supercharge your capacity to create a life that blows your mind, I have some one-on-one coaching slots opening up soon. Send me an email and let's talk about it or click here to schedule a call with me and we’ll see if we’re a good fit to start working together!
If there are topics y’all want me to talk about on the podcast, feel free to write in and let me know by clicking here! I’d love to hear from you!
I have a super fun announcement. This July, I’m launching my group coaching program Satisfied as F*ck. It’s one of the coolest things I’ve ever designed in my life, so if you want to come together and be part of a community, build relationships, and figure things out so your life can feel satisfied as f*ck, keep checking back here for updates.
WHAT YOU’LL LEARN FROM THIS EPISODE:
The reason I love group coaching so much.
Why so many people believe asking for help is a sign of weakness and why it doesn’t have to be.
How to define success for yourself.
A pattern I see a lot in people who are interested in coaching.
The differences between the hero’s journey and the heroine’s journey.
Why so many people think compromise is a bad thing, but why I think differently.
How strength and success can look very different to different people.
LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE:
FEATURED ON THE SHOW:
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Feel free to ask me any questions over on Instagram!
The Heroine Podcast: The Heroine's Journey with Gail Carriger
Soulless by Gail Carriger
Break the Good Girl Myth by Majo Molfino
The Heroine’s Journey by Gail Carriger
FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
This week we’re talking about being the heroine of your own career.
You are listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It, the podcast for ambitious, high-achieving women who are ready to stop feeling stressed about work and kiss burnout goodbye forever. Whether you’re starting a business or staying in your day job, this show will give you the coaching and guidance you need to start loving your work today. Here’s your host, Career Coach, Kori Linn.
Hey y’all, happy Wednesday. I have a topic that I’m so excited to talk to you about today. And the funny thing is I’ve actually already tried to record this podcast at least one time.
And last time I tried I didn’t really like the way it was going, and I was just like, “I need to think about these topics more.” And so I just turned the recording off. But here I am and I’m going to try again for you because I think this is a really interesting thing to think and talk about when it comes to building a career you truly love.
Okay, so the concept I want to talk about is the heroine’s journey, and this is a literary concept. And I learned about this because I was listening to a podcast episode of the Heroine podcast, and that podcast is by Majo Molfino. And she was interviewing Gail Carriger, who is an author who has written a bunch of books I actually really enjoyed. I read them several years ago which is why I’ve never mentioned them in my little impromptu book reviews.
But specifically there’s a book called Soulless, and then the whole series, I think there’s maybe three or five. I think it’s five. Anyways, I really enjoyed that whole series, but it has been years since I’ve read them. But if you’re into steam punk, adventure, thriller with supernatural creatures including werewolves and vampires, I would invite you to go check that series out.
But let’s now turn back to the main topic now that our impromptu book review is complete. So I was listening to this podcast interview, and first of all, if you don’t know Majo Molfino, she’s great. I’ve listened to a few of her podcast episodes, and I’ve read most of her book, Break The Good Girl Myth. It’s really good, I just sometimes put books down and then take a while to finish them. It’s not like I stopped reading it on purpose.
And from what I had read I liked it so much that I’ve been buying it for all my clients. So it’s a really powerful book. So I guess we’re not done with impromptu book review because Break The Good Girl Myth is amazing, and I would recommend getting a copy.
It was really impactful to me and it’s interesting because when I had read it I had already studied so much of what she talks about and like deprogramming the socialization that women receive. But I really like the way she frames it. And she breaks it into specific good girl myths and what they look like, and what their internalized lesson is, and how they show up for people. And then gives specific things for you to do about each of them. And I just think it’s a really cool way to frame.
Yeah, so I’ve been listening to her podcast and this episode about the heroine’s journey was really impactful for me. So much so that I then went and got Gail Carriger’s book of the same topic, and probably the same name. Because I wanted to know more about this.
And if you’re interested in what I have to say today, step one, I would go listen to that podcast. But you could also read the whole book. I will say the book is really written more from the point of view of a writer talking to other writers. So talking about how to create this journey in your own work.
I, as many of y’all know, also have a background in creative writing so I’m interested in it from like every angle. I’m interested in it from the angle of coaching and thought work. But I’m also interested in it from the angle of writing because while I haven’t been working on any fiction lately, that’s something that I probably will still do at some point in my life.
Okay, so much preamble today. So basically, the concept is that a heroine’s journey is different than a hero’s journey. And in a heroine’s journey strength looks different and victory looks different, and success looks different. But we, at least I, live in the United States of America and this is a culture here in which the hero’s journey is very strong. It’s very common in books and movies and it’s praised a lot. It’s glorified.
And the hero’s journey really celebrates a single hero against the world, against the “bad guys.” And I’m putting that in quotes because who the good guys are and who the bad guys are really depends on who’s telling the story. And I don’t just believe that there are any people who are the bad guys. I think that people are complex. Anyways, that’s another podcast.
But the hero’s journey is really about the hero alone conquering whatever the thing is. And then a lot from what I’m learning from Gail Carriger, a lot of the hero’s journey is also about by doing that, by taking that task on, the hero also becomes separate from the rest of society. They become separate from community.
And one of the points that’s really important is that being a hero, or a heroine is more about the pattern of the story. It’s not about whether the character identifies as male or female or non-binary, or two-spirit, or anything else. It’s about how is the story told and what are the different beats that the story is hitting on?
And Gail Carriger has examples where a hero is a woman character, and a heroine is a boy character. Actually, the example she uses for the heroine is Harry Potter, which I thought was really cool and interesting.
So, there are other things, like in the hero’s journey the hero chooses to go away form society to go do the task. There is a whole thing, if you dig into it, where they’re called then they deny the call. But then they’re called again and then eventually they go.
Whereas the heroine’s journey, that’s often not what happens. The heroine, the way that Gail Carriger talks about it is like it’s involuntary, like something sort of forces her hand. Something is taking away from her, and it usually has to do with her family, so either her family of origin or her found family.
Okay, I’m a little bit in the weeds here and y’all might be like, “Wait, what the fuck is Kori talking about? How does this have anything to do with my career?” But stay with me, okay? It’s going to get somewhere really good and juicy, I promise.
So to recap, the hero’s journey is all about individualism. It’s about the hero individually separating form society to go overcome whatever the villain thing is. The heroine’s journey is about connection. It’s about community, it’s about collaboration, it’s about compromise.
And in the hero’s journey the hero goes alone and anyone else who shows up is probably either a distraction or they’re going to get sacrificed. Or something it going to happen so that the hero has to do the battle alone. And the hero is at their most strong when they’re alone.
Whereas the heroine, from this literary concept, the heroine is at her strongest, and I’m going to call her her now but they, them, whoever. The heroine is at her strongest when she has a strong group of people with her. So it could be family, it could be friends, it could some other kind of cohort that she’s connected to. So strength looks really different in a heroine’s journey than it does in a hero’s journey.
Again, the hero is alone facing the thing individually. And that’s how their strength, and success, and victory is represented. The heroine is connected and she’s more like – The metaphor that Gail Carriger uses in the book is she’s like a general who has all these resources at her disposal.
And she understands how to implement them, and she understands that she doesn’t have to personally be everything to accomplish whatever the thing is that she’s trying to accomplish. So for the heroine, she understands her own limits and she understands other people’s strengths and she can deploy and implement other people as part of her team.
And if you think about the example I mentioned earlier, it was Harry Potter, you can see that in the books and movies that Harry Potter has all these resources. All these people who are helping him and he’s very rarely facing things alone. And when he does face things alone his dead family shows up. So it’s like he isn’t alone even when he is, versus the hero being it’s all about that individualism.
And I think part of why this concept is something I’ve become, I guess we could just call it obsessed with, in the last few months since I found out about it is because I think that sometimes thought work and coaching can seem more like that hero’s journey.
That individualism of like, oh, if it's my thoughts about this job that are making my life so hard, then I need to go change those thoughts. And when I change those thoughts, I go do battle with my thoughts alone. And then I come back when I overcome this, and I have this experience.
But then something I see people struggle with a lot too, is they're really into coaching but then like no one else understands coaching. So they're trying to incorporate this new concept into their lives and struggling with how to do it in a way that doesn't remove them from connection.
So the hero, again, gets removed from connection, gets removed from society because their whole thing is that they're so special, they no longer can fit in. Whereas that's not the outcome for the heroine.
So, if you like the hero's journey and that's what you want for your life, you can totally implement thought work and coaching in that way. And you're allowed to do that, there's nothing wrong with the hero. There's nothing wrong with the hero's journey.
For me personally, though, that's not exciting. That's not what I want my life and career to be like. I want to be connected. I want to have people I trust that I collaborate with, that I connect with, and who are part of my journey. So to me learning about the heroine’s journey just like clicked this puzzle piece into place of like, oh, I don't want it to be just me. And the interesting thing is, I think that's why I love group coaching so much.
So, one-on-one coaching and group coaching both have a lot of value to offer. But one of the things that I really found about group coaching was that watching these other people that I was in the coaching cohort with as a client, as a peer, watching them get coached was so impactful to me.
Because I could see over and over and over again, “Oh wow, they're having the same thought patterns I have. But I love them, and I think they're amazing. And I don't have all these critical thoughts about them, the way I have all these critical thoughts about myself.” So it was really impactful, and it allowed me to really metabolize and absorb some of the coaching on a very deep level.
And it was really interesting too, because I would notice someone else would get coached on something that on the surface absolutely had nothing to do with my life. Like I don't have children, someone else would get coached on something with their kids. But my brain would be like, “Oh, this applies to me in this other way.”
And sometimes, like direct coaching is wonderful and it is really impactful and helpful. And that's most of what I do in a one-on-one setting, and I got directed coaching to me also in the group setting. But sometimes hearing the coaching at a slant, sideways, directed at someone else with their specific details in it instead of mine, sometimes that coaching impacted me just as much as my own coaching.
Sometimes it impacted me even more, it was so much more absorbable because it wasn't directed at me. And that might sound a little weird. But that's an experience I've had again and again. And I've heard other people talk about having that experience too, in a group coaching container.
I mean, it's kind of just like sometimes we watch a movie, and something happens to a character in the movie, and it impacts us. And it helps us absorb some kind of new information about ourselves, even though it didn't happen to us directly. I think, actually humans, since we're a social species, it kind of makes sense that our brains do this.
All of that being said, I wanted to come here today and talk to y'all about this because I think, first of all, again, in American culture and in many cultures in other areas as well, there's so much emphasis put on rugged individualism, and doing things yourself, and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps.
Which doesn't take into account, first of all, so many things and structural inequities, structural oppression, and the way that certain people are targeted and don't have as many resources because of belonging to certain identities that are currently, and have previously been, marginalized by our government, let's just say. But I think it also places so much emphasis just on individualism versus being part of a collective. Being part of a group and not having to fucking do everything yourself.
So I want to be clear because I think this could be misunderstood. And I just like being really explicit, it's one of my things. I like to just really get in there and delineate what I'm saying and what I'm not. I do think coaching helps us really see our personal accountability in a way that can be uncomfortable, but is incredibly empowering.
And seeing where, “Oh fuck, the way I'm looking at this is making it much more difficult for me, I think I would like to change that.” That's amazing. And it's a part of coaching I believe firmly in, and think is incredibly useful to everyone. But what I personally want for my life is to be part of a connected group with other human beings.
And so realizing that there's, first of all, kind of an interesting blueprint for this in a literary way. And also that I can use this tool that in some ways is very individualistic, to create connection and to support that connection, I think is so amazing.
So you may be thinking like, “Okay, these are interesting literary ideas, Kori. And this is kind of a ramble about thought work in general. But how does this apply to my career?” Okay, that's a great question, if that's your question.
Here's how I think it applies to your career. I think it applies to your career in that while you're going to take the coaching insights and tools I use and apply them to yourself inside your own head, and have a better work experience because of that. You're also going to take, if you want to, the coaching insights and tools and apply them to these interconnected relationships.
So sometimes what people are doing is they're using coaching to just change their thoughts about their boss, or change their thoughts about their significant other, or change their thoughts about their kids. That's super useful, that can be helpful.
But sometimes it's like also thinking about like, “Oh, I don't have a connected group of people that I feel really comfortable collaborating with or navigating through life with like.” I think about it sometimes like a board of directors, but like for us as a person. Or I read books where like people have these like super tight besties, and they text about everything, and they really help each other navigate through and tackle situations.
And I would feel so much like craving and desire for that. And I actually do have friends like that, but it also highlighted for me that that was something I cared about that was deeply important to me. And so sometimes with coaching, I think we're like, “Oh, personal responsibility, my thoughts create my feelings. So if I want a feeling, I just create that feeling by doing this new thought. And then nothing has to change in the outside world.”
That's a pattern I see a lot, right? We’re like, “Oh, if I want to feel that way, I'll just create it for myself.” Nothing wrong with that. But realizing like, “Oh, if I want to feel that way, I'm going to create that for myself. And I'm still going to go create that connection that I'm craving.” I'm still going to create this really tight friend group. I'm still going to create this more connected relationship with my boss, or with my direct report, or with my children, or with my significant other, and I can use coaching to do that.
So yes, coaching brings so much of our power back to ourselves, and that's delicious. Especially because I personally am really committed to using coaching with people who have been taught to disempower themselves with their own thoughts, right?
Who've been taught to internalize the oppression that exists for them in the outside world through thought patterns. And then they don't even realize that they're doing that to themselves, because the thought patterns feel like they're theirs and not something that was someone else's idea that they've now just sort of uploaded or adopted to their own brain.
So, so much of this really is, for me, about getting that personal power back and about that personal accountability. And I think that's really an essential piece for feeling like you're in charge of your life, and feeling like you're in charge of your emotions, and feeling like you have agency and authority. I just don't think it stops there.
And I think a lot of people are kind of scared to go there because it sounds lonely, and it sounds isolated. And I think to many people it sounds like that hero's journey. It's like we all love the hero, but does the hero love being the hero? Because a lot of times it doesn't seem like they're having a very fun time, right?
They have to save the whole fucking world and at the end, then they're just separated from everybody. They don't get to have a community, they don't belong with anyone. Often their love interest dies or goes away somehow, you know, often in a plot device kind of format.
But it doesn't sound fun. I don't want that life. I want to be individually powerful, and I believe that I am. But I don't want this experience where that means I don't get to have friends and a community and depend on other people. Doesn't sound fun. Doesn't sound like the life I want to build.
And if coaching and thought work can be used to build any kind of fucking life I want, and I believe they can, then I want to build a life that has really, really deep rich connection. And I want to be more like the heroine in the heroine’s journey where being empowered doesn't mean it has to be me alone being empowered against all odds and against the big baddie villain character.
I want it to be more like being in community and connection with all these amazing people. And yes, understanding that my feelings are my responsibility, and that it's my job to direct my life and figure out where I want it to go and make it go there. And that I have all these resources who love me and want to help me do that.
So something else I want to point out too, is in the hero's journey, asking for help is a sign of weakness. In the heroine’s journey, asking for help is a sign of strength. Because these journeys are so different and they emphasize different things, and their messages are different, and their lessons are different.
And I think that's so important because I see so many people in my life and in my coaching practice who don't want to fucking ask for help. Who think asking for help is a sign of weakness. And who think having connections or wanting external validation is a sign of weakness.
Now, I definitely think it's good to be able to internally validate. We don't want to be addicted to external validation and that's the only place we get it from. But I also think there's something to be said for creating a community of people and finding belonging in it. And creating our own belonging because, again, our emotional state really does come down to us. But that doesn't mean it only has to involve us or that it can't involve other people.
So what I'm pitching to you, basically, is that even though thought work and coaching is an inside job, and it really is about you understanding the patterns you've absorbed from culture, your family, your peers, who fucking ever, where fucking ever. It's about understanding those and seeing the impacts those are having on your life.
And then deciding if we want to edit them and reorient those patterns in a different direction. It's not so that you just have to be stoically alone in your power, and so powerful that you're disconnected from everyone else. And it actually can be used to create more connection, more of a sense of belonging, more community, more collaboration, and even more compromise.
It's interesting because one of the things in the hero's journey is at the end of the hero's journey, the hero wins. That's the ending, they win. Sometimes they win and destroy themselves in the process, that's like a self-sacrificing hero. Sometimes they win and make it through, but they like never really reintegrate with society.
And if you're thinking of a hero who does, it's not that those don't exist, because not every book or movie follows this structure 100%. These are kind of like conceptual frameworks for storytelling more than anything else. But they’re conceptual frameworks for storytelling that are so absorbed into our culture that they are also a little bit like thought patterns. So I think it's interesting to examine them that way too.
Okay, but what does the end look like in a heroine’s journey? Interestingly, the end in a heroine’s journey, according to Gail Carriger, often involves compromise. And it doesn't involve, necessarily, a lot of times heroine’s journeys don't involve revenge and they don't involve annihilating anything else. Because the heroine’s journey is so much more about me, and you and the hero's journey is so much more about me versus you. The heroines journey resolves in compromise.
And I think so many of us think compromise is a bad thing. We’re like, “Oh, if I had to compromise, that means I didn't get what I want.” And sometimes people are even like, “If I had to compromise, it means I got taken advantage of or I'm being disrespected.”
And listen, you can say no to any offered compromise you want to. So this is not at all about accepting whatever is offered to you. You know, I'm not about that shit right here. But I think what it is about is like reorienting ourselves to what do I want success to mean in my life? What do I want success to mean in my career.
Do I want it to mean always getting exactly what I want? You're allowed to think that if you want to, but I think especially if you've been socialized as a woman or with any kind of marginalized identity, that might feel like subversively powerful and delicious to you. And you can fucking have at it, I'm here for you.
But I realized that for me, I wanted to reorient how I think about even compromise, and how I think about success, and how I think about winning, because I want to have a me and you life. I want to have a heroine’s journey life where I'm creating belonging and I'm creating connection.
And I'm using this rewiring of my brain, yes, to create the life and career I want. To create this coaching practice, to create my relationship with my significant other, to create really amazing friendships in Sacramento. And I'm doing all of that.
But even listen to that, this is all about connection, right? Friendships, connection to my significant other, and my business is totally oriented to connection, right? Me connecting to and with my clients, and helping them navigate their brains, dismantle internalized bullshit that’s fucking things up for them, and rebuild something beautiful and wonderful so they can have the lives they want.
So it's funny, actually, it took me this long to really put that together. But I do think sometimes along this path of the last three and a half years, I have felt that like hero alone, and I have been seeking someone who can understand what I'm going through and someone who wants to have connection with me.
And I think this is why a lot of people belong to affinity groups or groups where if you're an entrepreneur you're with other entrepreneurs, if you're a working mom you're with other working moms. It's because I think a lot of us feel so alone and don't fucking want to.
But again, our culture really, I think, emphasizes that too, and emphasizes going it alone and doing it alone. And power being something that you have alone and then you take care of everything on your own. Versus this heroine’s journey idea that power can be something that is ours, and is also something we build with community. And that when we build power with community, we can build something bigger than our constituent parts.
So I'm really excited about this idea, and I wanted to just bring it to y'all and offer it to you so you can just think about it. You can just think like, do I want a hero's journey career? Do I want a hero's journey life? Do I want a heroine’s journey career? Do I want a heroine’s journey life? Do I want some pieces of each? What does that look like for me?
But I think really breaking it down in this podcast about these little individual parts of each journey and the way that each journey views things like asking for help or views things like wanting to be in connection with other people is really useful just for helping you pick apart what do you want?
What do you want your career to be? What do you want success to be in your career? And is the way you're doing your career lined up with what you're discovering you want? Because for a lot of us, it's not. When we think about it consciously we're like, “I want X.” But our brain is running all those socialized programs and it's like, “I'm creating Y.”
So seeing this can really help you be like, “Ah, I think it's time to redefine some terms. I think it's time to make some new choices and build something different. If I want something different, I can build something different. I can have the life I want. And it doesn't have to look the way that culture has told me that success looks like.”
In the context of this podcast, it doesn't have to look like being alone. It doesn't have to look like being uniquely powerful. It can look like being in community and being in connection and not having to know all the answers. And not having to be good at everything because you belong to a larger whole and helping them and letting them help you in a way where we do still, I think, take responsibility for our individual selves as well. It's not about like shucking that off entirely. It's just about seeing that that can exist within a community.
And that brings me to a super fun announcement. So I've been thinking so much about community when I've been talking this concept over with myself in my head. And I've been thinking so much about the power of group coaching programs that I was like, you know fucking what? I'm going to launch a group coaching program.
And I'm going to do it this summer, so it's going to open in July. And it's going to be called Satisfied As Fuck because that's what I want for y'all. I want y'all to have lives and careers, where you feel satisfied as fuck and just juicy deliciousness. And let's be clear, this doesn't mean everything always goes according to plan.
It doesn't mean your life feels like a peachy fantasy wonderland. Because as we talk about all the time on the podcast, life is 50/50. But I think it means figuring things out for you so your life can feel satisfying as fuck even while you're working through things, and setting things up, and moving things forward and navigating being a human. Which in this world, I think does involve a lot of negative emotion as well. And I am just so completely jacked to deliver this program.
I think it's one of the coolest fucking things I've ever designed in my entire life. And I think it's going to offer something to you that while I love one-on-one and I think one-on-one is such a wonderful container for growth, I think it's going to be so powerful for y'all to come together in a group coaching container and to have that experience I was talking about before of really allowing yourselves to absorb coaching, not just one to one directly, but in this community format and to build relationships.
And I have relationships from the group coaching program I did. I graduated from it over three years ago, and I started it over three and a half years ago. I have relationships now that are like super tight relationships with wonderful human beings, and that's how I met them.
And that's what I want for y'all. I want to coach your face off, but I also want to create a community for you where you can build relationships with other wonderful people, probably mostly women. I'm not going to say exclusively women, but I think mostly it's going to be women and people with marginalized identities who are going to want to come be in this group.
And I'm so excited for the connections you're going to make and for the lifelong friendships and other relationships you’re going to build. And for the things you're going to be able to offer each other and for the things you're going to learn from watching someone else get coached on something that doesn't even apply to you, but that will fucking blow your mind and change your entire life.
So I am going to put together a wait list for that. So look for that forthcoming. I'm so excited to offer this to y'all, I just can't even explain how fucking cool it is.
Oh, and for those of y'all who are like, group coaching sounds amazing, but I'm a little bit scared. I'm doing something that wasn't available in the program I did. It's going to be group coaching calls but I'm also going to have some individual one-on-one calls because I think both methodologies are really powerful.
And I know personally what it's like to have something I want coached on, but I don't want it in front of a group. So I think both can be incredibly valuable. So I'm going to give you both because I like to give you everything you could possibly need to build that satisfied as fuck life and that satisfied as fuck career. And I'm so, so, so excited to be on this journey with you.
All right y'all, have a great week and I will talk to you soon. Bye.
Thank you for listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It. We'll have another episode for you next week. And in the meantime, if you're feeling super fired up, head on over to korilinn.com for more guidance and resources.
You are listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It, the podcast for ambitious, high-achieving women who are ready to stop feeling stressed about work and kiss burnout goodbye forever. Whether you’re starting a business or staying in your day job, this show will give you the coaching and guidance you need to start loving your work today. Here’s your host, Career Coach, Kori Linn.
Hey y’all, happy Wednesday. I have a topic that I’m so excited to talk to you about today. And the funny thing is I’ve actually already tried to record this podcast at least one time.
And last time I tried I didn’t really like the way it was going, and I was just like, “I need to think about these topics more.” And so I just turned the recording off. But here I am and I’m going to try again for you because I think this is a really interesting thing to think and talk about when it comes to building a career you truly love.
Okay, so the concept I want to talk about is the heroine’s journey, and this is a literary concept. And I learned about this because I was listening to a podcast episode of the Heroine podcast, and that podcast is by Majo Molfino. And she was interviewing Gail Carriger, who is an author who has written a bunch of books I actually really enjoyed. I read them several years ago which is why I’ve never mentioned them in my little impromptu book reviews.
But specifically there’s a book called Soulless, and then the whole series, I think there’s maybe three or five. I think it’s five. Anyways, I really enjoyed that whole series, but it has been years since I’ve read them. But if you’re into steam punk, adventure, thriller with supernatural creatures including werewolves and vampires, I would invite you to go check that series out.
But let’s now turn back to the main topic now that our impromptu book review is complete. So I was listening to this podcast interview, and first of all, if you don’t know Majo Molfino, she’s great. I’ve listened to a few of her podcast episodes, and I’ve read most of her book, Break The Good Girl Myth. It’s really good, I just sometimes put books down and then take a while to finish them. It’s not like I stopped reading it on purpose.
And from what I had read I liked it so much that I’ve been buying it for all my clients. So it’s a really powerful book. So I guess we’re not done with impromptu book review because Break The Good Girl Myth is amazing, and I would recommend getting a copy.
It was really impactful to me and it’s interesting because when I had read it I had already studied so much of what she talks about and like deprogramming the socialization that women receive. But I really like the way she frames it. And she breaks it into specific good girl myths and what they look like, and what their internalized lesson is, and how they show up for people. And then gives specific things for you to do about each of them. And I just think it’s a really cool way to frame.
Yeah, so I’ve been listening to her podcast and this episode about the heroine’s journey was really impactful for me. So much so that I then went and got Gail Carriger’s book of the same topic, and probably the same name. Because I wanted to know more about this.
And if you’re interested in what I have to say today, step one, I would go listen to that podcast. But you could also read the whole book. I will say the book is really written more from the point of view of a writer talking to other writers. So talking about how to create this journey in your own work.
I, as many of y’all know, also have a background in creative writing so I’m interested in it from like every angle. I’m interested in it from the angle of coaching and thought work. But I’m also interested in it from the angle of writing because while I haven’t been working on any fiction lately, that’s something that I probably will still do at some point in my life.
Okay, so much preamble today. So basically, the concept is that a heroine’s journey is different than a hero’s journey. And in a heroine’s journey strength looks different and victory looks different, and success looks different. But we, at least I, live in the United States of America and this is a culture here in which the hero’s journey is very strong. It’s very common in books and movies and it’s praised a lot. It’s glorified.
And the hero’s journey really celebrates a single hero against the world, against the “bad guys.” And I’m putting that in quotes because who the good guys are and who the bad guys are really depends on who’s telling the story. And I don’t just believe that there are any people who are the bad guys. I think that people are complex. Anyways, that’s another podcast.
But the hero’s journey is really about the hero alone conquering whatever the thing is. And then a lot from what I’m learning from Gail Carriger, a lot of the hero’s journey is also about by doing that, by taking that task on, the hero also becomes separate from the rest of society. They become separate from community.
And one of the points that’s really important is that being a hero, or a heroine is more about the pattern of the story. It’s not about whether the character identifies as male or female or non-binary, or two-spirit, or anything else. It’s about how is the story told and what are the different beats that the story is hitting on?
And Gail Carriger has examples where a hero is a woman character, and a heroine is a boy character. Actually, the example she uses for the heroine is Harry Potter, which I thought was really cool and interesting.
So, there are other things, like in the hero’s journey the hero chooses to go away form society to go do the task. There is a whole thing, if you dig into it, where they’re called then they deny the call. But then they’re called again and then eventually they go.
Whereas the heroine’s journey, that’s often not what happens. The heroine, the way that Gail Carriger talks about it is like it’s involuntary, like something sort of forces her hand. Something is taking away from her, and it usually has to do with her family, so either her family of origin or her found family.
Okay, I’m a little bit in the weeds here and y’all might be like, “Wait, what the fuck is Kori talking about? How does this have anything to do with my career?” But stay with me, okay? It’s going to get somewhere really good and juicy, I promise.
So to recap, the hero’s journey is all about individualism. It’s about the hero individually separating form society to go overcome whatever the villain thing is. The heroine’s journey is about connection. It’s about community, it’s about collaboration, it’s about compromise.
And in the hero’s journey the hero goes alone and anyone else who shows up is probably either a distraction or they’re going to get sacrificed. Or something it going to happen so that the hero has to do the battle alone. And the hero is at their most strong when they’re alone.
Whereas the heroine, from this literary concept, the heroine is at her strongest, and I’m going to call her her now but they, them, whoever. The heroine is at her strongest when she has a strong group of people with her. So it could be family, it could be friends, it could some other kind of cohort that she’s connected to. So strength looks really different in a heroine’s journey than it does in a hero’s journey.
Again, the hero is alone facing the thing individually. And that’s how their strength, and success, and victory is represented. The heroine is connected and she’s more like – The metaphor that Gail Carriger uses in the book is she’s like a general who has all these resources at her disposal.
And she understands how to implement them, and she understands that she doesn’t have to personally be everything to accomplish whatever the thing is that she’s trying to accomplish. So for the heroine, she understands her own limits and she understands other people’s strengths and she can deploy and implement other people as part of her team.
And if you think about the example I mentioned earlier, it was Harry Potter, you can see that in the books and movies that Harry Potter has all these resources. All these people who are helping him and he’s very rarely facing things alone. And when he does face things alone his dead family shows up. So it’s like he isn’t alone even when he is, versus the hero being it’s all about that individualism.
And I think part of why this concept is something I’ve become, I guess we could just call it obsessed with, in the last few months since I found out about it is because I think that sometimes thought work and coaching can seem more like that hero’s journey.
That individualism of like, oh, if it's my thoughts about this job that are making my life so hard, then I need to go change those thoughts. And when I change those thoughts, I go do battle with my thoughts alone. And then I come back when I overcome this, and I have this experience.
But then something I see people struggle with a lot too, is they're really into coaching but then like no one else understands coaching. So they're trying to incorporate this new concept into their lives and struggling with how to do it in a way that doesn't remove them from connection.
So the hero, again, gets removed from connection, gets removed from society because their whole thing is that they're so special, they no longer can fit in. Whereas that's not the outcome for the heroine.
So, if you like the hero's journey and that's what you want for your life, you can totally implement thought work and coaching in that way. And you're allowed to do that, there's nothing wrong with the hero. There's nothing wrong with the hero's journey.
For me personally, though, that's not exciting. That's not what I want my life and career to be like. I want to be connected. I want to have people I trust that I collaborate with, that I connect with, and who are part of my journey. So to me learning about the heroine’s journey just like clicked this puzzle piece into place of like, oh, I don't want it to be just me. And the interesting thing is, I think that's why I love group coaching so much.
So, one-on-one coaching and group coaching both have a lot of value to offer. But one of the things that I really found about group coaching was that watching these other people that I was in the coaching cohort with as a client, as a peer, watching them get coached was so impactful to me.
Because I could see over and over and over again, “Oh wow, they're having the same thought patterns I have. But I love them, and I think they're amazing. And I don't have all these critical thoughts about them, the way I have all these critical thoughts about myself.” So it was really impactful, and it allowed me to really metabolize and absorb some of the coaching on a very deep level.
And it was really interesting too, because I would notice someone else would get coached on something that on the surface absolutely had nothing to do with my life. Like I don't have children, someone else would get coached on something with their kids. But my brain would be like, “Oh, this applies to me in this other way.”
And sometimes, like direct coaching is wonderful and it is really impactful and helpful. And that's most of what I do in a one-on-one setting, and I got directed coaching to me also in the group setting. But sometimes hearing the coaching at a slant, sideways, directed at someone else with their specific details in it instead of mine, sometimes that coaching impacted me just as much as my own coaching.
Sometimes it impacted me even more, it was so much more absorbable because it wasn't directed at me. And that might sound a little weird. But that's an experience I've had again and again. And I've heard other people talk about having that experience too, in a group coaching container.
I mean, it's kind of just like sometimes we watch a movie, and something happens to a character in the movie, and it impacts us. And it helps us absorb some kind of new information about ourselves, even though it didn't happen to us directly. I think, actually humans, since we're a social species, it kind of makes sense that our brains do this.
All of that being said, I wanted to come here today and talk to y'all about this because I think, first of all, again, in American culture and in many cultures in other areas as well, there's so much emphasis put on rugged individualism, and doing things yourself, and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps.
Which doesn't take into account, first of all, so many things and structural inequities, structural oppression, and the way that certain people are targeted and don't have as many resources because of belonging to certain identities that are currently, and have previously been, marginalized by our government, let's just say. But I think it also places so much emphasis just on individualism versus being part of a collective. Being part of a group and not having to fucking do everything yourself.
So I want to be clear because I think this could be misunderstood. And I just like being really explicit, it's one of my things. I like to just really get in there and delineate what I'm saying and what I'm not. I do think coaching helps us really see our personal accountability in a way that can be uncomfortable, but is incredibly empowering.
And seeing where, “Oh fuck, the way I'm looking at this is making it much more difficult for me, I think I would like to change that.” That's amazing. And it's a part of coaching I believe firmly in, and think is incredibly useful to everyone. But what I personally want for my life is to be part of a connected group with other human beings.
And so realizing that there's, first of all, kind of an interesting blueprint for this in a literary way. And also that I can use this tool that in some ways is very individualistic, to create connection and to support that connection, I think is so amazing.
So you may be thinking like, “Okay, these are interesting literary ideas, Kori. And this is kind of a ramble about thought work in general. But how does this apply to my career?” Okay, that's a great question, if that's your question.
Here's how I think it applies to your career. I think it applies to your career in that while you're going to take the coaching insights and tools I use and apply them to yourself inside your own head, and have a better work experience because of that. You're also going to take, if you want to, the coaching insights and tools and apply them to these interconnected relationships.
So sometimes what people are doing is they're using coaching to just change their thoughts about their boss, or change their thoughts about their significant other, or change their thoughts about their kids. That's super useful, that can be helpful.
But sometimes it's like also thinking about like, “Oh, I don't have a connected group of people that I feel really comfortable collaborating with or navigating through life with like.” I think about it sometimes like a board of directors, but like for us as a person. Or I read books where like people have these like super tight besties, and they text about everything, and they really help each other navigate through and tackle situations.
And I would feel so much like craving and desire for that. And I actually do have friends like that, but it also highlighted for me that that was something I cared about that was deeply important to me. And so sometimes with coaching, I think we're like, “Oh, personal responsibility, my thoughts create my feelings. So if I want a feeling, I just create that feeling by doing this new thought. And then nothing has to change in the outside world.”
That's a pattern I see a lot, right? We’re like, “Oh, if I want to feel that way, I'll just create it for myself.” Nothing wrong with that. But realizing like, “Oh, if I want to feel that way, I'm going to create that for myself. And I'm still going to go create that connection that I'm craving.” I'm still going to create this really tight friend group. I'm still going to create this more connected relationship with my boss, or with my direct report, or with my children, or with my significant other, and I can use coaching to do that.
So yes, coaching brings so much of our power back to ourselves, and that's delicious. Especially because I personally am really committed to using coaching with people who have been taught to disempower themselves with their own thoughts, right?
Who've been taught to internalize the oppression that exists for them in the outside world through thought patterns. And then they don't even realize that they're doing that to themselves, because the thought patterns feel like they're theirs and not something that was someone else's idea that they've now just sort of uploaded or adopted to their own brain.
So, so much of this really is, for me, about getting that personal power back and about that personal accountability. And I think that's really an essential piece for feeling like you're in charge of your life, and feeling like you're in charge of your emotions, and feeling like you have agency and authority. I just don't think it stops there.
And I think a lot of people are kind of scared to go there because it sounds lonely, and it sounds isolated. And I think to many people it sounds like that hero's journey. It's like we all love the hero, but does the hero love being the hero? Because a lot of times it doesn't seem like they're having a very fun time, right?
They have to save the whole fucking world and at the end, then they're just separated from everybody. They don't get to have a community, they don't belong with anyone. Often their love interest dies or goes away somehow, you know, often in a plot device kind of format.
But it doesn't sound fun. I don't want that life. I want to be individually powerful, and I believe that I am. But I don't want this experience where that means I don't get to have friends and a community and depend on other people. Doesn't sound fun. Doesn't sound like the life I want to build.
And if coaching and thought work can be used to build any kind of fucking life I want, and I believe they can, then I want to build a life that has really, really deep rich connection. And I want to be more like the heroine in the heroine’s journey where being empowered doesn't mean it has to be me alone being empowered against all odds and against the big baddie villain character.
I want it to be more like being in community and connection with all these amazing people. And yes, understanding that my feelings are my responsibility, and that it's my job to direct my life and figure out where I want it to go and make it go there. And that I have all these resources who love me and want to help me do that.
So something else I want to point out too, is in the hero's journey, asking for help is a sign of weakness. In the heroine’s journey, asking for help is a sign of strength. Because these journeys are so different and they emphasize different things, and their messages are different, and their lessons are different.
And I think that's so important because I see so many people in my life and in my coaching practice who don't want to fucking ask for help. Who think asking for help is a sign of weakness. And who think having connections or wanting external validation is a sign of weakness.
Now, I definitely think it's good to be able to internally validate. We don't want to be addicted to external validation and that's the only place we get it from. But I also think there's something to be said for creating a community of people and finding belonging in it. And creating our own belonging because, again, our emotional state really does come down to us. But that doesn't mean it only has to involve us or that it can't involve other people.
So what I'm pitching to you, basically, is that even though thought work and coaching is an inside job, and it really is about you understanding the patterns you've absorbed from culture, your family, your peers, who fucking ever, where fucking ever. It's about understanding those and seeing the impacts those are having on your life.
And then deciding if we want to edit them and reorient those patterns in a different direction. It's not so that you just have to be stoically alone in your power, and so powerful that you're disconnected from everyone else. And it actually can be used to create more connection, more of a sense of belonging, more community, more collaboration, and even more compromise.
It's interesting because one of the things in the hero's journey is at the end of the hero's journey, the hero wins. That's the ending, they win. Sometimes they win and destroy themselves in the process, that's like a self-sacrificing hero. Sometimes they win and make it through, but they like never really reintegrate with society.
And if you're thinking of a hero who does, it's not that those don't exist, because not every book or movie follows this structure 100%. These are kind of like conceptual frameworks for storytelling more than anything else. But they’re conceptual frameworks for storytelling that are so absorbed into our culture that they are also a little bit like thought patterns. So I think it's interesting to examine them that way too.
Okay, but what does the end look like in a heroine’s journey? Interestingly, the end in a heroine’s journey, according to Gail Carriger, often involves compromise. And it doesn't involve, necessarily, a lot of times heroine’s journeys don't involve revenge and they don't involve annihilating anything else. Because the heroine’s journey is so much more about me, and you and the hero's journey is so much more about me versus you. The heroines journey resolves in compromise.
And I think so many of us think compromise is a bad thing. We’re like, “Oh, if I had to compromise, that means I didn't get what I want.” And sometimes people are even like, “If I had to compromise, it means I got taken advantage of or I'm being disrespected.”
And listen, you can say no to any offered compromise you want to. So this is not at all about accepting whatever is offered to you. You know, I'm not about that shit right here. But I think what it is about is like reorienting ourselves to what do I want success to mean in my life? What do I want success to mean in my career.
Do I want it to mean always getting exactly what I want? You're allowed to think that if you want to, but I think especially if you've been socialized as a woman or with any kind of marginalized identity, that might feel like subversively powerful and delicious to you. And you can fucking have at it, I'm here for you.
But I realized that for me, I wanted to reorient how I think about even compromise, and how I think about success, and how I think about winning, because I want to have a me and you life. I want to have a heroine’s journey life where I'm creating belonging and I'm creating connection.
And I'm using this rewiring of my brain, yes, to create the life and career I want. To create this coaching practice, to create my relationship with my significant other, to create really amazing friendships in Sacramento. And I'm doing all of that.
But even listen to that, this is all about connection, right? Friendships, connection to my significant other, and my business is totally oriented to connection, right? Me connecting to and with my clients, and helping them navigate their brains, dismantle internalized bullshit that’s fucking things up for them, and rebuild something beautiful and wonderful so they can have the lives they want.
So it's funny, actually, it took me this long to really put that together. But I do think sometimes along this path of the last three and a half years, I have felt that like hero alone, and I have been seeking someone who can understand what I'm going through and someone who wants to have connection with me.
And I think this is why a lot of people belong to affinity groups or groups where if you're an entrepreneur you're with other entrepreneurs, if you're a working mom you're with other working moms. It's because I think a lot of us feel so alone and don't fucking want to.
But again, our culture really, I think, emphasizes that too, and emphasizes going it alone and doing it alone. And power being something that you have alone and then you take care of everything on your own. Versus this heroine’s journey idea that power can be something that is ours, and is also something we build with community. And that when we build power with community, we can build something bigger than our constituent parts.
So I'm really excited about this idea, and I wanted to just bring it to y'all and offer it to you so you can just think about it. You can just think like, do I want a hero's journey career? Do I want a hero's journey life? Do I want a heroine’s journey career? Do I want a heroine’s journey life? Do I want some pieces of each? What does that look like for me?
But I think really breaking it down in this podcast about these little individual parts of each journey and the way that each journey views things like asking for help or views things like wanting to be in connection with other people is really useful just for helping you pick apart what do you want?
What do you want your career to be? What do you want success to be in your career? And is the way you're doing your career lined up with what you're discovering you want? Because for a lot of us, it's not. When we think about it consciously we're like, “I want X.” But our brain is running all those socialized programs and it's like, “I'm creating Y.”
So seeing this can really help you be like, “Ah, I think it's time to redefine some terms. I think it's time to make some new choices and build something different. If I want something different, I can build something different. I can have the life I want. And it doesn't have to look the way that culture has told me that success looks like.”
In the context of this podcast, it doesn't have to look like being alone. It doesn't have to look like being uniquely powerful. It can look like being in community and being in connection and not having to know all the answers. And not having to be good at everything because you belong to a larger whole and helping them and letting them help you in a way where we do still, I think, take responsibility for our individual selves as well. It's not about like shucking that off entirely. It's just about seeing that that can exist within a community.
And that brings me to a super fun announcement. So I've been thinking so much about community when I've been talking this concept over with myself in my head. And I've been thinking so much about the power of group coaching programs that I was like, you know fucking what? I'm going to launch a group coaching program.
And I'm going to do it this summer, so it's going to open in July. And it's going to be called Satisfied As Fuck because that's what I want for y'all. I want y'all to have lives and careers, where you feel satisfied as fuck and just juicy deliciousness. And let's be clear, this doesn't mean everything always goes according to plan.
It doesn't mean your life feels like a peachy fantasy wonderland. Because as we talk about all the time on the podcast, life is 50/50. But I think it means figuring things out for you so your life can feel satisfying as fuck even while you're working through things, and setting things up, and moving things forward and navigating being a human. Which in this world, I think does involve a lot of negative emotion as well. And I am just so completely jacked to deliver this program.
I think it's one of the coolest fucking things I've ever designed in my entire life. And I think it's going to offer something to you that while I love one-on-one and I think one-on-one is such a wonderful container for growth, I think it's going to be so powerful for y'all to come together in a group coaching container and to have that experience I was talking about before of really allowing yourselves to absorb coaching, not just one to one directly, but in this community format and to build relationships.
And I have relationships from the group coaching program I did. I graduated from it over three years ago, and I started it over three and a half years ago. I have relationships now that are like super tight relationships with wonderful human beings, and that's how I met them.
And that's what I want for y'all. I want to coach your face off, but I also want to create a community for you where you can build relationships with other wonderful people, probably mostly women. I'm not going to say exclusively women, but I think mostly it's going to be women and people with marginalized identities who are going to want to come be in this group.
And I'm so excited for the connections you're going to make and for the lifelong friendships and other relationships you’re going to build. And for the things you're going to be able to offer each other and for the things you're going to learn from watching someone else get coached on something that doesn't even apply to you, but that will fucking blow your mind and change your entire life.
So I am going to put together a wait list for that. So look for that forthcoming. I'm so excited to offer this to y'all, I just can't even explain how fucking cool it is.
Oh, and for those of y'all who are like, group coaching sounds amazing, but I'm a little bit scared. I'm doing something that wasn't available in the program I did. It's going to be group coaching calls but I'm also going to have some individual one-on-one calls because I think both methodologies are really powerful.
And I know personally what it's like to have something I want coached on, but I don't want it in front of a group. So I think both can be incredibly valuable. So I'm going to give you both because I like to give you everything you could possibly need to build that satisfied as fuck life and that satisfied as fuck career. And I'm so, so, so excited to be on this journey with you.
All right y'all, have a great week and I will talk to you soon. Bye.
Thank you for listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It. We'll have another episode for you next week. And in the meantime, if you're feeling super fired up, head on over to korilinn.com for more guidance and resources.
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